Pete Hegseth itnerviews Donald Trump in 2017.
Weekend Fox Information host Pete Hegseth has already been an exceedingly controversial alternative as Donald Trump’s choose for his Secretary of Protection. Hegseth and the Trump camp have spent latest days pushing again towards two simultaneous controversies: allegations that Hegseth has “extremist” tattoos, as some critics have charged, and information damaged by Self-importance Honest on Thursday that Hegseth was beforehand investigated by police in California over a sexual misconduct declare. Hegseth has denied the allegations and no fees have been ever filed towards him.
Hegseth is a veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Currently, media scrutiny has targeted on his tattoos, one in every of which depicts a Jerusalem cross, a Christian image first popularized in the course of the Crusades, and one which reads “Deus Vult” (“God wills it” in Latin), which refers to divine windfall. A slogan for Catholics in the course of the First Campaign, this phrase has extra not too long ago been chanted by white supremacists and co-opted by the far proper.
Hegseth confirmed in a November interview with a podcaster that he was one in every of 12 Nationwide Guard members faraway from working at Joe Biden’s inauguration after vetting by the FBI and U.S. navy, including: “I used to be deemed an extremist due to a tattoo by my Nationwide Guard unit in Washington, D.C., and my orders have been revoked to protect the Biden inauguration.” A fellow Nationwide Guardsmen, DeRicko Gaither, confirmed to CBS that he’d reported Hegseth as being a attainable “insider menace” as a result of Deus Vult tattoo.
The opposite controversy is recent: journalist Gabriel Sherman reported on Thursday that Hegseth was investigated by Monterey Park police in 2017 over an allegation of sexual misconduct. He was not arrested or charged with a criminal offense.
Reasonably than denying that the investigation came about, Trump marketing campaign spokesperson (and future Trump administration communications director) Steven Cheung advised Sherman in an announcement that Hegseth “has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no fees have been filed. We look ahead to his affirmation as United States Secretary of Protection so he can get began on Day One to Make America Protected and Nice Once more.”
On X, Hegseth has retweeted posts expressing help for him, together with one which reads, “The very fact Pete was banned from obligation for expressing his Christian beliefs is precisely why he must be SECDEF.” Vice presidential nominee JD Vance referred to as the Related Press’ protection of the controversy “disgusting anti-Christian bigotry,” writing, “They’re attacking Pete Hegseth for having a Christian motto tattooed on his arm.”
Hegseth agreed, reposting the tweet and including, “Amen @JDVance. Anti-Christian bigotry within the media on full show. They’ll goal me—I don’t give a rattling—however this kind of focusing on of Christians, conservatives, patriots and on a regular basis People will cease on DAY ONE at DJT’s DoD.”
Hegseth hasn’t responded publicly to Self-importance Honest’s story in regards to the sexual misconduct investigation; Sherman reported that Trump’s attorneys and Susie Wiles, Trump’s incoming chief of workers, each spoke to him about it on Thursday.
In his time on Fox Information, Hegseth has devoted air time to railing towards “woke” insurance policies he claims are harming navy readiness, additionally the topic of a ebook he revealed in June titled The Battle on Warriors. Hegseth mentioned in a podcast look with Ben Shapiro that ladies shouldn’t serve in fight roles, including that “males in these positions are extra succesful.” (He additionally went mildly viral in 2019 for saying on Fox and Pals that he “hasn’t washed [his] arms for ten years,” joking—at the very least we predict—that “germs usually are not an actual factor, I can’t see them.”)
Hegseth additionally has deep connections with the so-called TheoBros, a set of ultra-conservative and very on-line millennial Christian males who comply with an Idaho pastor named Douglas Wilson. A few of Wilson’s followers consider that the US ought to, as Mom Jones’ Kiera Butler has written, “be topic to Biblical regulation.”