Pete Hegseth, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Defense

Angelos Kaskanis
Credit: CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Greece (Brussels Morning) Pete Hegseth was raised in Minnesota and enrolled at Princeton University in 1999, where he played basketball, studied politics, and contributed to The Princeton Tory, the university’s conservative newspaper. He graduated in 2003, completing both his degree and the Army ROTC program. Hegseth then joined the Minnesota National Guard before transitioning to the Army National Guard, where he attained the rank of major and earned several military honors, including two Bronze Stars.

In 2012, Hegseth ran as a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota but withdrew before the party’s primary. He became a Fox News contributor in 2014 and was named cohost of Fox & Friends Weekend in 2017. After Donald Trump secured a second term as president in 2024, he nominated Hegseth for the position of U.S. Secretary of Defense.

Hegseth has been a vocal critic of the military leadership, accusing generals and other officials of being overly focused on “woke” policies such as diversity and equity, which he claims have undermined military strength. He has also advocated for pardons of soldiers convicted of war crimes. Hegseth has detailed his views in several books, including The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free (2024).

Leading Pentagon

Pete Hegseth has attracted lots of attention by opening many social and operational subjects from day 1. Perhaps this is his way of approaching it, because according to his political views, the woke agenda has no place in the Army, which has “sacrificed” funds and capital on the matter.

The fact is that he wants the Army to be a war machine that will shape into “US Pride/Patriotism” and then to his indefinite voting pool. His view is not so different from his predecessors, from the opposite point of view, who wanted a social and inclusive army that includes all human capital and again is a voting pool for Democrats. The way was lost by the time the Pentagon has become a battlefield of political debate. 

During his campaign, Donald Trump emphasized a distinction between “fighting generals” and “woke generals,” pledging to dismiss the latter. In a recent interview on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast, Pete Hegseth outlined an approach that could signal troubling times for senior Pentagon officials.

Hegseth stated, “First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” referring to Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. He added that any general, admiral, or leader involved in diversity, equity, and inclusion programs or what he described as “woke stuff” should also be removed.

Pete Hegseth has outlined three primary goals as head of the Department of Defense: restoring the warrior ethos within the Pentagon and across the military to rebuild trust, address recruitment and retention challenges, and enhance readiness, emphasizing that unity and shared purpose are the military’s true strengths.

He also aims to rebuild military capabilities by revitalizing the defense industrial base, reforming the acquisition process to avoid delays, modernizing the nuclear triad, and rapidly deploying emerging technologies. Additionally, Hegseth prioritizes reestablishing deterrence by defending the homeland, collaborating with allies to counter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific, and responsibly ending ongoing wars to reallocate resources toward larger threats, emphasizing the importance of real, tangible deterrence over reputation.

Social Life

Mr. Hegseth has a very interesting personal life, which includes accusations of abusive behaviour and according to New Yorker a case about rape. Before becoming a full-time Fox News host in 2017, Pete Hegseth’s track record raises concerns about his qualifications to lead the world’s largest and most powerful military.

Documents and accounts from former colleagues suggest that Hegseth was compelled to resign from his leadership roles at two nonprofit advocacy groups, Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America, due to serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual misconduct, and other personal indiscretions. When questioned about a specific sexual assault allegation, Hegseth stated that he had been fully exonerated.

The matter was thoroughly investigated, and I was completely cleared. That’s all I have to say on the subject,

he told reporters.

Additionally, Pete Hegseth’s former sister-in-law provided an affidavit to the Senate Armed Services Committee accusing him of being “abusive” toward his second ex-wife, Samantha Hegseth.

Danielle Hegseth, who was married to Pete Hegseth’s brother from 2011 to 2019, claimed in the affidavit that Samantha had expressed fears for her safety and had even created a code word to signal if she needed help escaping from her husband.

While Danielle did not specify the type of abuse and stated she had not personally witnessed any physical or sexual abuse by Hegseth, she noted receiving a text with the code word from Samantha sometime in 2015 or 2016. The affidavit also accused Hegseth of excessive alcohol consumption, citing multiple family gatherings where he abused alcohol and two public instances of heavy drinking in 2013.

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Brussels Morning is a daily online newspaper based in Belgium. BM publishes unique and independent coverage on international and European affairs. With a Europe-wide perspective, BM covers policies and politics of the EU, significant Member State developments, and looks at the international agenda with a European perspective.
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Dr. Angelos Kaskanis is Brussels Morning Political Advisor/Editor. His field of research is Security Studies and the impact of International Terrorism in Southeastern Europe and the Caucasus. He has participated in/co-organized several workshops in more than 20 countries that focus on Religious Extremism, Radicalization, Safety, and Security in Southeastern Europe, European Identity, and Greco-Turkish Relations.In the past he has worked on several projects with the Hellenic Parliament, MPSOTC Kilkis, NATO's Public Diplomacy Division, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Awards of academic excellence include scholarship from the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation. He speaks Greek, English, Russian, German, and Turkish.
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