
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Defense Secretary, takes his seat as he arrives for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. (Saul Loeb – AFP / Getty Images)
WESTERN JOURNAL | Published January 15, 2025
Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth fired off a strong statement of his goals for America’s fighting forces in the opening statement that marked the beginning of his Senate confirmation hearings.
President-elect Donald Trump reached beyond the military’s leadership ranks to tap Hegseth, a veteran and former Fox News host. The pick has been controversial, both for Hegseth’s background and allegations about his personal life.
Hegseth began by noting, “All glory — regardless of the outcome — belongs to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His grace and mercy abounds each day. May His will be done.”
Hegseth set the stage, “Two months ago, 77 million Americans gave President Trump a powerful mandate for change, to put America First — at home and abroad.”
“When President Trump chose me for this position, the primary charge he gave me was to bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense. He, like me, wants a Pentagon laser focused on lethality, meritocracy, war fighting, accountability, and readiness,” he said.
“One, restore the Warrior Ethos to the Pentagon and throughout our fighting force; in doing so, we will reestablish trust in our military, addressing the recruiting crisis, the retention crisis, and readiness crisis in our ranks.”
The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose — not our differences,” he said.
Hegeseth said, he would “rebuild our military, always matching threats to capabilities.”
Hegseth said, he would focus on “reviving our defense industrial base, reforming the acquisition process (no more ‘Valley of Death’ for new defense companies), modernizing our nuclear triad, ensuring the Pentagon can pass an audit, and rapidly fielding emerging technologies.”
In promising to “reestablish deterrence,” Hegsteh said, “First and foremost, we will defend our homeland — our borders and our skies.”
“Second, we will work with our partners and allies to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific from the communist Chinese. And finally, we will responsibly end wars to ensure that we prioritize our resources to reorient to larger threats. We can no longer count on ‘reputational deterrence.’ We need real deterrence.”
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SOURCE: www.westernjournal.com
RELATED: Pete Hegseth vows to restore military’s ‘warrior ethos,’ hits back at criticism over credentials at confirmation hearing
Donald Trump tapped Pete Hegseth (left) to be defense secretary.Facebook / Pete Hegseth
THE NEW YORK POST | Published January 15, 2025
Pete Hegseth, the Army combat vet that President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to be defense secretary, passionately advocated for his appointment, declaring that it was time to “give someone with dust on his boots the helm” of the US military during his confirmation hearing Tuesday.
Hegseth, 44, vowed to “restore the warrior ethos to the Pentagon” and responded to criticism over his credentials — while admitting he is an unorthodox pick to head the Defense Department.
“When President Trump chose me for this position, the primary charge he gave me was—to bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense,” he said in his opening remarks. “He, like me, wants a Pentagon laser focused on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness. That’s it. That is my job.”
At least three hecklers interrupted the Pentagon pick during his opening statement, with one accusing Trump’s pick of being a “misogynist,” in apparent reference to his past comments against women serving in combat roles.
Hegseth also pledged to rebuild the US military — while still ensuring the Defense Department can pass its annual audit, which it hasn’t for at least seven years — and return to a policy of “real deterrence.”
“First and foremost, we will defend our homeland — our borders and our skies. Second, we will work with our partners and allies to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific from the communist Chinese,” he explained. “Finally, we will responsibly end wars to ensure we can prioritize our resources—and reorient to larger threats.”
Hegseth will use his opening statement to hit back at criticism over his credentials.Bettmann Archive
“And in pursuing these America First national security goals, we will remain patriotically a-political and stridently constitutional,” he added. “Unlike the current administration, politics should play no part in military matters. We are not Republicans; we are not Democrats—we are American warriors.”
Hegseth was an Army ROTC cadet at Princeton University in the early 2000s and later deployed as an officer to combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan during his more than decade-long service in the military.
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SOURCE: www.nypost.com
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