Justin Klawans
President-elect Donald Trump has been busy selecting potential Cabinet nominees, and there is perhaps no more consequential choice than the person he has nominated to run the Defense Department, Pete Hegseth. Trump has pledged to undertake a vast yet controversial overhaul of the federal government, and the Defense Department is no exception. This has some ranking members at the Pentagon worried about the next phase of America's defense policy with Hegseth as defense secretary.
Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and Army National Guard veteran, was close to Trump during his first term and emerged as a strong loyalist to the former (and now future) president. But his selection as defense secretary reportedly caught even Trump's closest allies off guard, and many are calling Hegseth unqualified for the job; It "appears that one of the main criteria that's being used is, how well do people defend Donald Trump on television?" Eric Edelman, the Pentagon's top policy official in the Bush administration, said to Politico. And a defense industry lobbyist offered another assessment to Politico, asking, "Who the fuck is this guy?" Hegseth has also been accused of sexual assault; he has denied these allegations but admitted to paying his accuser.
With Hegseth at the helm, he could determine how American military spending, defense policy and foreign policy are determined for the foreseeable future — or even whether soldiers are deployed on American streets.
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