US president-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that he was picking Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be his secretary of defence, an unexpected move that would place a television presenter in charge of America's vast military with an annual budget approaching $1 trillion.
Mr Hegseth, 44, is an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. His nomination must be confirmed by the Senate, which Republicans will control after Mr Trump is sworn in on January 20.
“Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First,” Mr Trump said in a statement. “With Pete at the helm, America's enemies are on notice – Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down.”
Mr Hegseth, who won two Bronze Stars for his deployments overseas, has railed against what conservatives decry as a “woke” Pentagon that they say is more concerned about attracting diverse recruits than it is on war fighting. He has said he left the Army in 2021 after being deemed an extremist by an Army that didn't want him any more.
“The feeling was mutual – I didn't want this Army any more either,” Mr Hegseth said in his book The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.
Mr Trump during his first term banned transgender soldiers and frequently blindsided the Pentagon with late-night tweets announcing major policy changes. Anxiety is growing in some quarters of the Defence Department that Mr Trump during his second term will target officers and civilian employees who are perceived to be either too “woke” or disloyal to the president-elect.
“At a basic level, do we really want only the woke 'diverse' recruits that the Biden administration is curating to be the ones with the guns and the guidons?” Mr Hegseth wrote.
Fox News said Mr Hegseth's last day at the conservative news channel was on Tuesday.
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“His insights and analysis especially about the military resonated deeply with our viewers and made the programme the major success that it is today. We are extremely proud of his work at Fox News and wish him the best of luck in Washington,” a Fox spokesperson said in a statement.
Mr Hegseth has criticised the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General CQ Brown, for “pursuing the radical positions of left-wing politicians.” The general is 13 months into a four-year term, putting the former fighter pilot and Mr Hegseth on a potential collision course.
Trump's former US generals and defence secretaries are among his fiercest critics, with some declaring him unfit for office. His former chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine general, has claimed the president-elect was a fascist and that he had said Adolf Hitler did “some good things”.
Mr Trump's former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, also reportedly resisted some of his boss's orders. Mr Trump has suggested he could be executed for treason.
America's vast Department of Defence comprises more than 1.3 million active duty service members, 750,000 civilian personnel, and more than 811,000 National Guard and Reserve service members. Its annual budget is nudging $900 billion and it has about 750 bases in at least 80 countries globally.
