Pete Hegseth

Peter Brian Hegseth (born June 6, 1980) is an American television presenter, author, and Army National Guard officer who is to be the nominee for United States Secretary of Defense in Donald Trump's second cabinet. A political commentator for Fox News since 2014 and co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend from 2017 to 2014, he was previously the executive director of Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America.

Hegseth has been active in conservative and Republican politics since his undergraduate at Princeton University. In 2016, he emerged as a strong supporter and ally of Donald Trump's presidential candidacy and served as an occasional advisor to Trump throughout the latter's first term as president. He reportedly persuaded Trump to pardon three American soldiers accused or convicted of war crimes related to the shooting of non-combatants in Iraq. Hegseth, who was a platoon leader at Guantanamo Bay during his military service, defended the treatment of inmates detained there.

Hegseth was considered to lead the United States Department of Veterans Affairs in the first Trump administration, prior to the selection of David Shulkin in 2017. In November 2024, President-elect Trump announced that he intends to nominate Hegseth for Secretary of Defense.

Early life and education

Hegseth was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and raised in nearby Forest Lake. He attended Forest Lake Area High School, where he graduated in 1999 as the valedictorian. Hagseth played football and basketball.

Hegseth went on to receive his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in politics at Princeton University in 2003. While there, he wrote for the Princeton Tory and played basketball for the Tigers under coach John Thompson III. Their team made the NCAA tournament in 2001. They were knocked out in the first round by North Carolina, then captained by Brendan Haywood.

In 2013, he received a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Hegseth is of Norwegian descent on both sides of the family.

Military career

Following graduation from Princeton in 2003, Hegseth joined Bear Stearns as an equity capital markets analyst and was also commissioned as an infantry officer in the Minnesota National Guard. In 2004 his unit was called to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, where he served as an infantry platoon leader with the Minnesota Army National Guard. His unit was under the operational control of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment 101st Airborne Division. He was awarded the Army Commendation Medal. Shortly after returning from Cuba, Hegseth volunteered to serve in Baghdad and Samarra, where he held the position of infantry platoon leader and, later in Samarra, as Civil–Military Operations Officer. During his time in Iraq, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, Combat Infantryman Badge, and a second Army Commendation Medal.

He returned to active duty in 2012 as a captain. He deployed to Afghanistan with the Minnesota Army National Guard and acted as a senior counterinsurgency instructor at the Counterinsurgency Training Center in Kabul.

Conservative activism

Upon return from Iraq, Hegseth worked briefly at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. According to his LinkedIn page, Hegseth left the conservative think tank in 2007 to work as executive director at Vets For Freedom. His role included responding to the Federal Election Commission as "treasurer" of the organization. He worked at Vets for Freedom until 2012. The organization advocated a greater troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2012, Hegseth formed the political action committee MN PAC. An APM Reports analysis found that while Hegseth ran the MN PAC political action committee, one-third of its $15,000 in funds were spent on Christmas parties for families and friends. Campaign finance laws in Minnesota do not prohibit such spending. Less than half of the PAC's resources were spent on candidates, and as of March 2018, the PAC had closed its account with the state board.

Hegseth was the executive director for Concerned Veterans for America, an advocacy group funded by the Koch brothers. The group advocated greater privatization of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). According to his LinkedIn page, he left the group in 2015.

While Hegseth was its chief executive, Concerned Veterans for America hired his brother Philip to work for the non-profit and paid him $108,000 according to tax records from 2016 and 2017. Asked about it, Hegseth's lawyer said that Philip, a May 2015 university graduate, was qualified for the media relations job, and noted there is no prohibition against private entities hiring family members.

Hegseth spoke at the 2018 Arutz Sheva conference in Jerusalem, where he stated "there's no reason why the miracle of the re-establishment of the Temple on the Temple Mount is not possible."

Senate campaign

In 2012, Hegseth ran for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota. He withdrew from the race after the May 2012 convention, before the Republican primary election in August, both events in which Kurt Bills won the nomination.

Punditry

During the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Hegseth initially backed Marco Rubio, then Ted Cruz, and ultimately Donald Trump. Since then, Hegseth has emerged as a strong Trump supporter. As a Fox News personality, he frequently criticized the media and Democrats. He criticized Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. Hegseth has appeared on Fox News Channel, as well as on CNN and MSNBC.

Hegseth joined Fox News as a contributor in 2014. In December 2018, Hegseth co-hosted Fox News Channel's All-American New Year with Fox Business Network's Kennedy, during which a pre-recorded telephone interview between him and President Trump was broadcast. He has been a regular guest on Unfiltered with Dan Bongino since 2021.

On June 14, 2015, Hegseth accidentally hit a West Point drummer with an axe while filming a live TV segment in honor of Flag Day. The drummer said that he sustained "only minor injuries." The New York Daily News reported that in a later segment, the drummer was "seen cheerfully speaking on camera as if the accident never took place."

In May 2018, Hegseth mocked The New York Times for ostensibly not covering a story about the capture of five ISIS leaders, referring to the paper as the "failing New York Times" even though the paper had already filed a report on the story.

In May 2019, it was reported that Trump was considering pardoning several US military service members who had been charged with war crimes, including a veteran set to stand trial for shooting indiscriminately at civilians, hitting a girl and an elderly man, as well as fatally stabbing a captured teenage Islamic State (ISIS) member while he was receiving medical treatment. The Daily Beast and CNN later reported that Hegseth had sought to convince Trump to pardon these individuals for months. At the same time, Hegseth was discussing these cases on Fox News without disclosing that he had advised Trump to pardon them. In November 2019, Trump pardoned three service members accused or convicted of war crimes. Shortly before Trump announced his decision, Hegseth suggested that Trump was about to take "imminent action" in the cases.

In August 2019, he lamented that "young kids voting" are worried about the adverse effects of climate change. Hegseth also criticized universities for teaching students about "environmentalism and radical environmentalism" rather than a "real threat" such as Islamic extremism.

In January 2020, Hegseth expressed strong support for President Trump's decision to kill Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. He also called on Trump to bomb the Iranian homeland, including cultural sites if they were storing weapons.

In February 2020, amid the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Hegseth said that Democrats were "rooting for coronavirus to spread. They're rooting for it to grow. They're rooting for the problem to get worse." Hegseth suggested the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was made up by Democrats to help them in the 2022 midterm elections, saying "Count on a variant about every October, every two years."

In June 2022, on a Fox & Friends Weekend segment, Hegseth crossed out Harvard on his diploma, writing in "Critical Theory" and then marking "RETURN TO SENDER" across the central body as a protest of Harvard and other such universities. "People will say 'this is just a stunt, you still have a degree' and that's fine. I went, I got the degree, I walked to the classes and all that, but I hope this is a statement that as conservatives and patriots, if we love this country, we can't keep sending our kids and elevating them to universities that are poisoning their mind. I may have survived it, but a lot of kids go there and buy into 'critical theory university,' and that's how we get future leaders, Supreme Court Justices, Senators, others, who see America as an evil place. And Harvard is a factory for that kind of thinking" he said. Hegseth then declared his intention to return the diploma to Harvard.

Secretary of Defense

In November 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he intends to nominate Hegseth to serve as the next Secretary of Defense. Hegseth's deal with Fox News ended that month in order for him to take the position.

Questions about Hegseth's qualifications have been raised by Democrats, Republicans, and those close to President-elect Trump, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski saying, "Wow," and numerous defense officials saying, "Everyone is simply shocked."

Personal life

Hegseth and his first wife, Meredith Schwarz, divorced in 2009. He married his second wife, Samantha Deering, in 2010; they have three children.

In August 2017, while still married to Deering, Hegseth had a daughter with Fox executive producer Jennifer Rauchet, with whom he was having an extramarital relationship. He and Deering divorced in August 2017. Hegseth and Rauchet, who has three young children from her first marriage, married in August 2019.

Books

Hegseth wrote the foreword to the 2017 book The Case Against the Establishment (ISBN 978-1-6826-1474-7) by Nick Adams and Dave Erickson His books include:

• Hegseth, Pete (2016). In the Arena. Threshold Editions. ISBN 978-1-4767-4934-1.
• Hegseth, Pete (2020). American Crusade. Center Street. ISBN 978-1-5460-9874-4.
• Hegseth, Pete (2022). Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation. Broadside Books. ISBN 978-0-06-321504-7.
• Hegseth, Pete (2024). The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free. Broadside Books. ISBN 978-0-0633-8942-7.

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