Who is Pete Hegseth? The Trump official in the firing line
The 44-year-old scraped the US military's top job, only getting in on the vice president's 51-50 tie-breaking vote in Senate. But why is he considered so controversial?
Wednesday 23 April 2025 07:38, UK
War veteran and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth is Donald Trump's defence secretary.
The 44-year-old has the US military's top job. He only just secured the Pentagon post, with vice president JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote - marking just the second time in history a vice president has broken a tie for a cabinet nominee.
Donald Trump has faced backlash over Mr Hegseth's appointment from the outset, but calls for him to sack the defence secretary have got even louder since he was linked to two group chats about sensitive military operations.
But who is Mr Hegseth and why has he proved to be such a controversial figure?
Who is Pete Hegseth?
He is a veteran of the Army National Guard who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and before his appointment by Mr Trump, was a popular conservative media personality.
After graduating from Princeton University in 2003, Mr Hegseth was commissioned as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard, serving overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as at Guantanamo Bay.
He was formerly head of the Concerned Veterans for America, a group backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, and also unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in Minnesota in 2012.
He later became co-host of the Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends Weekend programme, contributing to the network for a decade.
He developed a friendship with Mr Trump through the businessman-turned-politician's regular appearances on the show.
Mr Hegseth has also written several books, some for Fox's publishing imprint, including The War On Warriors.
Mr Trump complimented that book when announcing Mr Hegseth's nomination, noting its "nine weeks on the New York Times best-sellers list, including two weeks at NUMBER ONE".
According to his Fox News bio, he has a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
With no experience in senior military or national security, his critics have argued he is not qualified for the defence secretary role.
Controversial military takes
In his most recent book - The War On Warriors: Behind The Betrayal Of The Men Who Keep Us Free - Mr Hegseth mocked and misgendered transgender servicemembers and said the military was turning off recruits.
He wrote: "America's white sons and daughters are walking away, and who can blame them?"
Despite writing about "sons and daughters" in the US army, he has also questioned the role of women in combat.
In an interview on The Shawn Ryan Show podcast last year, he said: "Everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat means casualties are worse.
"I'm straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles - it hasn't made us more effective, hasn't made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated."
He argued that by opening combat slots to women, "we've changed the standards in putting them there, which means you've changed the capability of that unit".
All combat roles were opened to women for the first time in US history in 2016, and they have to pass the same tests as men to serve.
Mr Hegseth has also defended service members accused of war crimes, urging Mr Trump on his show in 2019 to pardon many of them.
His efforts were successful, with Mr Trump that year pardoning a former US Army commando set to stand trial for the killing of a suspected Afghan bomb-maker and a former Army lieutenant convicted of murder for ordering his men to fire upon three Afghans, killing two.
He also ordered a promotion for a decorated Navy SEAL convicted of posing with a dead Islamic State captive in Iraq.
Sexual assault allegations from 2017
A police report released in November detailed how Mr Hegseth was accused of sexual assault in 2017 - but was never charged.
Before the report was released, Mr Hegseth confirmed he had paid an undisclosed amount as part of a settlement with his accuser.
The police documents detailing the allegations were then released following a request by US journalists under a local public records act.
They showed that a woman told police she was sexually assaulted by Mr Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a hotel room and refused to let her leave.
The report said the unidentified woman, referred to as "Jane Doe", met Mr Hegseth in 2017 at a hotel where he was speaking in Monterey, California.
He told police at the time the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing, according to the report released by the Monterey Police Department.
His lawyer, Timothy Palatore, said in a statement that the police report confirmed the incident was fully investigated and police found the allegations "to be false, which is why no charges were filed".
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Other allegations before his appointment
Critics of Mr Hegseth also pointed to claims of excessive drinking, financial mismanagement and improper behaviour before his appointment as defence secretary.
An article in the New Yorker magazine reported the allegations led to him quitting leadership roles in two non-profit organisations for military veterans.
It suggested that whistleblowers claimed a drunken Mr Hegseth had to be held back from joining strippers on stage in a Louisiana club and, in an Ohio bar in 2014, chanted "Kill all Muslims, kill all Muslims."
Separately, the New York Times published a 2018 email from Mr Hegseth's mother to him in which she calls him an abuser of women and tells him to "take an honest look at yourself".
When later asked about the email, she withdrew the remarks and said she had sent her son a follow-up email to apologise.
Sky News questioned Mr Hegseth on the allegations in December, but he refused to respond.
Why did Trump hire him?
The president had Mr Hegseth on his radar for some time.
He reportedly considered him to run the Department of Veterans Affairs when he was forming his first cabinet in 2016, and again considered him when he ousted David Shulkin from the job in 2018.
Many of Mr Hegseth's views align with Mr Trump's.
Like the president, he espouses a traditional view of masculinity, writing that men are innately drawn to fight, compete and prove their strength.
Also like Mr Trump, he has been sharply critical of NATO allies who he says are not spending enough on defence, calling them "self-righteous and impotent nations asking us to honour outdated and one-sided defence arrangements they no longer live up to".
Naming him as his choice for defence secretary, Mr Trump described him as "tough, smart and a true believer in America First... our military will be great again, and America will never back down".
Speaking in December, as many were calling Mr Hegseth's personal and professional past into question, Mr Trump said it "looks like Pete is doing well now", acknowledging people were "a little bit concerned" over him.
He said he had "confidence" in him and he was "a very smart guy".
"I've known him through Fox and I've known him for a long time. He's a military guy."
Confirmation a close call
Mr Hegseth is the most divisive candidate to clinch the US military's top job, getting in on the vice president's 51-50 tie-breaking vote.
For comparison, former president Joe Biden's defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, was confirmed by a 93-2 vote in 2021, and Jim Mattis, Mr Trump's first defence secretary in his last administration, was confirmed by a 98-1 vote in 2017.
The only other time in history a tie-breaking vote was needed was 2017, when then vice president Mike Pence was called in to break a tie to confirm Mr Trump's previous pick of Betsy DeVos as education secretary.
Three Republican senators - Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky - joined Democrats to oppose Mr Hegseth's nomination.
During the confirmation hearing, which was disrupted by three protesters, Mr Hegseth was accused of lacking the competence for the job.
Hours before the vote, Democrat after Democrat took to the Senate floor to object.
Senator Chris Murphy said during the debate there were few Trump nominees as "dangerously and woefully unqualified as Hegseth".
But most Senate Republicans fell into line to defend Mr Hegseth.
Senate majority leader John Thune said Mr Hegseth would "bring a warrior's perspective" to the post thanks to his military experience.
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the armed services committee, however, said in a statement he would watch the new defence secretary "like a hawk" and "demand accountability".
Trump fires top US military officers
The president and his defence secretary carried out an unprecedented purge of top military figures in the Pentagon in February, sacking America's most senior commander and five other admirals and generals.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Charles 'CQ' Brown - America's highest-ranking general and only the second black general to serve as chairman - was fired with immediate effect.
Mr Hegseth had questioned whether General Brown would have got the job if he were not black.
The president also replaced the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service, and the Air Force vice chief of staff.
He also removed the judge advocates general for the Army, Navy and Air Force, critical positions that ensure enforcement of military justice.
War group chat with journalist puts Hegseth in hot water
Mr Hegseth and other top US officials have come under fire after a journalist was accidentally added to a group chat where they discussed plans to conduct airstrikes on Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis.
Editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, was added to the "Houthi PC small group" on Signal on Thursday 13 March, and said he subsequently saw Mr Hegseth share plans about the strikes about two hours before they hit.
The journalist wrote in an article for The Atlantic that Mr Hegseth posted operational details of the plan, including weapon packages, targets and timing, in the group chat - which included vice president JD Vance and other officials.
In the same group, Mr Hegseth joined JD Vance in criticising Europe.
According to The Atlantic, the vice president expressed displeasure over how the attack on Houthis would benefit Europe, writing: "I just hate bailing Europe out again."
Mr Hegseth replied: "VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC."
He added he felt it was necessary to still go ahead with the attack, writing: "I feel like now is as good a time as any."
The defence secretary initially told reporters no one had texted war plans, and Mr Trump said the texting of sensitive plans was "the only glitch in two months" and a non-issue.
It was national security adviser Mike Waltz who added Mr Goldberg to the chat.
After The Atlantic shared details of the chat, he said: "I take full responsibility...I built the group."
But it didn't quieten calls for Mr Hegseth to be removed from his post, with many criticising the decision to discuss war plans via the publicly available encrypted app Signal instead of on secure government channels typically used for sensitive discussions.
In early April, acting inspector general Steven Stebbins said he would be reviewing the defence secretary and other defence officials' use of Signal.
Second war group chat with wife and brother
Matters were seemingly made worse for Mr Hegseth when he was linked to a second group chat on Signal, again understood to have contained details of military operations in Yemen.
The second group, initially reported by The New York Times, included about a dozen people.
It revealed details of the schedule of the airstrikes, according to the Reuters news agency.
Two sources with knowledge of the matter told Sky News' US partner network NBC News that Mr Hegseth's wife Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, and his brother Phil, who is a Department of Homeland Security liaison and senior adviser, were on the group.
They said his legal adviser Tim Parlatore was also among the 13 people in the group.
Mr Trump has continued to defend Mr Hegseth.
"Pete's doing a great job. Everybody's happy with him," he said after the group chat reports.
Asked if he remained confident in Mr Hegseth, the president replied: "Oh totally."
"Ask the Houthis how he's doing," he added.
The White House also denied a report that it had started searching for a new defence secretary.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the National Public Radio story on the search was not true and the president "stands strongly" behind Mr Hegseth.
The White House has consistently defended Mr Hegseth and Mr Trump dismissed the original leak as "something that can happen".
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Democratic politicians have repeatedly called for Mr Hegseth to step down.
"We keep learning how Pete Hegseth put lives at risk," Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said in a post on X.
"But [Donald] Trump is still too weak to fire him. Pete Hegseth must be fired."