‘The least qualified nominee in American history’: Why Trump picked Fox News host Pete Hegseth for defense

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. open image in gallery Fox News host Pete Hegseth, pictured interviewing Donald Trump in 2017, was nominated to be his defense secretary in his 2025 administration Hegseths’s nomination is “the most hilariously predictably stupid thing” that Trump could do, according to former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger, a former lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard. It’s just our institutions don’t have to incentivize that in places where traditionally — not traditionally — over human history, men in those positions are more capable.” open image in gallery Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff CQ Brown, left, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin attend a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11 The man who could be overseeing roughly 40,000 service members stationed in the Middle East has also espoused anti-Muslim views on Fox News and in his books In the Arena, The War on Warriors and American Crusade, in which he compared modern-day “American Crusaders” to Christians who “pushed back the Muslim hordes” in the 12th century. Hegseth also supported Trump’s demands for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.” On Fox News and in his books, Hegseth has repeatedly raised alarms about “Muslims’ birth rates” and the number of Muslim elected officials in the US. Just like the Christian crusaders who pushed back the Muslim hordes in the twelfth century, American Crusaders will need to muster the same courage against Islamists today.” Trump's new defense secretary says woman should not have combat roles In The War on Warriors, Hegseth also echoes Trump’s “enemy from within” remarks by labeling political and ideological opponents “domestic enemies,” and has suggested deploying military to US cities, in which he describes police having to navigate “indigenous populations of street addicts and operate under a bizarre set of rules of engagement that effectively cede the territory to the enemy.” He depicts America’s military corrupted by an ideologically opposed invading force and calls for a “frontal assault” to “reclaim” it — what The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War author Jeff Sharlet says sounds like a clarion call.