Pete Hegseth

Andrea Austria / Media Matters

Trump picked Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense. Here's some of what he's said on the air.

Written by Isabella Corrao, Helena Hind & Jane Lee

Research contributions from Media Matters Staff

Published

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, making it abundantly clear that this will be round two of the revolving door between Fox News and Trump’s administration.

During his tenure as a Fox host, Hegseth endorsed a “preemptive strike” against North Korea, voiced support for American soldiers committing war crimes, smeared veterans applying for government benefits as “dependent,” said January 6 rioters “love freedom,” and repeatedly railed against a supposedly “woke” military.

Hegseth demonstrated his influence over Trump in 2019 by aggressively lobbying — both on-air and privately — for Trump to intercede in the cases of various accused or convicted war criminals, resulting in multiple pardons and the removal of former U.S. Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer.

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  • Hegseth has a record on foreign policy and national security of advocating for aggressive military action and championing war crimes

    • Hegseth: “There's merit in a preemptive strike” against North Korea. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/11/17]
    • Hegseth defended Blackwater contractors convicted of killing Iraqi civilians: “They're making tough calls on the battlefield.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 8/11/19]
    • Hegseth dismissed a whistleblower’s account of Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “One man’s whistleblower is another man’s political leaker who has an agenda.” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 9/26/19]
    • In opposition to then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Hegseth repeatedly advocated that Trump intervene and pardon convicted war criminals. Trump ultimately followed Hegseth’s urging. [Media Matters, 11/8/19, 11/15/19]
    • Months after then-President Trump withdrew support from Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, Hegseth declared that America can still work with allies “like the Kurds.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/3/20]
    • Hegseth suggested targeting Iran's energy production sites: “Do they want their economic sites, their military sites, political sites and/or cultural sites targeted? How about their oil and gas?” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 1/6/20]
    • Hegseth said he supports America committing war crimes: “I don't care about Iranian cultural sites.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/6/20]
    • Hegseth called for massive strikes against Iran to take out infrastructure and possibly cultural sites. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/8/20]
    • Hegseth: Democrats and the media “are the agents of Russia. Not Donald Trump.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/21/20]
    • Hegseth attacked the International Criminal Court: “These international bodies can turn and can turn against you.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/6/20]
    • Hegseth on reports of a lack of White House response to Russian bounties for killing U.S. troops: “You can make a decision to do nothing too.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 6/28/20]
    • Hegseth suggested that former President Barack Obama played a role in instigating the war in Ukraine. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 8/26/23]
    • Hegseth suggested that “signals have been sent” to Iran by the Biden and Obama administrations that it can fund terrorism. “You see our administration working very hard to say, ‘Oh the $6 billion, it’s not in their bank account yet.’ There may be technicalities about that. As you pointed out, it’s all fungible. But you also have the Obama administration giving away cash to the Iranians, multiple times. And then you got the easing of sanctions and lightening of the restrictions against Iran under the Biden administration,” Hegseth said. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 10/8/23]

  • Hegseth has advocated against veterans' benefits

    • Hegseth, along with co-host Brian Kilmeade, criticized American veterans who apply for all the government benefits they qualify for, calling them “dependent.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/5/19]
    • Hegseth called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) a “mindless moron” after she resisted calls to privatize the Department of Veterans Affairs: “She is a moron — I'm going to say it. No, especially on this issue, she is a mindless moron who knows nothing of this topic.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/23/19]
    • Hegseth worked with the for-profit college industry against protections for student veterans. [Media Matters, 6/26/19]

  • Hegseth has complained that the military is too “woke” and focused on diversity

    • Hegseth said that “we've seen the woke ideology make its way into the military” and that it’s unfortunate that “so many of our Pentagon brass have … bought into these ideas.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 3/28/21]
    • Hegseth claimed that “instead of training, our leaders are focused on turning our troops woke.” A chyron during this segment read “Air Force implements a woke ‘safe space.’” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 4/19/22]
    • Hegseth chastised the Army for recognizing Pride Month when the agency’s birthday is also in June. “It's sort of the perfect end state of what the left would like,” said Hegseth. “You are an individual automaton that we will celebrate.” [The Daily Wire, The Ben Shapiro Show, 6/2/24]
    • Hegseth: “The Pentagon likes to say our diversity is our strength. What a bunch of garbage.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/3/24]
    • Hegseth argued that “DEI” in the “woke” military makes it “less equipped to fight the wars it needs to fight.” Hegseth commented, “It's one thing to have DEI inside your corporation or inside your university; it’s a whole other thing to have it inside the 101st Airborne.” [Fox News, The Five, 6/3/24]
    • Hegseth said the military needs “a new commander in chief that’s going to get rid of all of this CRT, DEI nonsense, all the gender nonsense.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 6/4/24]
    • Hegseth complained about “a generation of guys” in the military “who have been filtered out for multiple reasons because of political ideologies at the top,” including “genderism, DEI, CRT, whatever it is.” [Fox News, Gutfeld!, 6/14/24]
    • Hegseth claimed that “patriots” don't want to serve. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/7/24]

  • Hegseth has railed at the idea of women in combat

    • Hegseth claimed the military was at “a crisis moment” because of “social justice prerogatives” in the military such as “women in combat.” [FlashPoint via Victory Channel’s YouTube page, 6/4/24] 
    • Hegseth promoted his new book by denigrating women in the military: “The book is not just about me — it's the social justice, politically correct issues being pushed from Obama and Biden appointees that generals are allowed to happen, from women in combat lowering standards, to CRT and DEI, to trans in the military.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 6/5/24]
    • Hegseth complained that Obama’s secretary of the Navy had dismissed a Marine Corps study “that proved women should not be in combat units.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 6/7/24]
    • Hegseth: “I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.” Hegseth then suggested institutions not “incentivize” women in “places where traditionally — not traditionally, over human history — men in those positions are more capable.” [Shawn Ryan Show, 11/10/24]

  • Hegseth has supported nativist immigration policy and attacked migrants

    • Hegseth defended separation of immigrant children from parents because the kids get food and “soccer and video games.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 6/17/18]
    • Hegseth: Border patrol work is “much like being in combat sometimes.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/22/19]
    • Hegseth: “Who's been dehumanized? It's been the ICE agents and the Border Patrol agents.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/19/19]
    • Hegseth dismissed concerns about crying children left without parents by ICE raids. “The left will always call them ‘raids,'” he said. “They [ICE] say, ‘Hey these are just worksite enforcement.'” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/12/19]
    • Hegseth defended Trump's “public charge” rule restricting legal immigration for those who might use public benefits as a “common sense measure.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/13/19; NPR, 8/12/19]
    • Hegseth: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is what “unchecked illegal immigration and massive waves of refugees look like without assimilation.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 5/4/21]
    • Hegseth attacked pregnant migrants: “Anchor babies will soon be here to keep them in the U.S.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 9/21/21]
    • After Fox correspondent Bill Melugin said there have been migrants entering the U.S. from countries he “had to Google” because he’d “never heard of them before” and reported that “the Chinese numbers, they’re up over 900% right now,” Hegseth mused that “it’s almost like we don’t have a country.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 3/26/23]
    • Hegseth promoted a hoax about homeless veterans being displaced to make room for asylum-seekers. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 5/13/23; AP News, 5/19/23]
    • Hegseth claimed an expanded humanitarian parole program is a “secret program that’s flying illegal immigrants into our country where they just skip the border.” Hegseth continued, “We hop the border for them. … What are the implications of this? How much do they vet them in the home country?” [Fox News, The Story with Martha MacCallum, 3/5/24; FactCheck.org, 3/14/24]
    • Hegseth complained that the federal government is “distracted” at the border because the focus has been on “mostly peaceful protesters on January 6.” [Fox News, One Nation with Brian Kilmeade, 3/16/24]
    • Hegseth likened Trump’s plan for mass deportations to President Dwight Eisenhower’s removal of millions of immigrants in the 1950s, noting that “it was very controversial because some of them were here legally.” “That’ll be the challenge in this one [Trump’s deportation plan] too. Because people will say, ‘Well they claimed asylum, so they have a legal claim,’” Hegseth said, adding, “They’re going to have to be real tough to deal with this illegality.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 3/17/24]
    • Hegseth said, “When you import the Third World, you get Third World hierarchy, values, and chaos.” He continued, “Your quality of life is going down. You feel less safe. Your resources are being drained. ... But don't speak up about that. If you do, you're the racist.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 10/11/24]

  • Hegseth supported voter suppression and January 6 insurrectionists and refused to admit Trump lost the 2020 election

    • Hegseth: “Republicans will keep losing” if they don’t make it more difficult to vote. [Fox News, Hannity, 11/13/20] 
    • Hegseth thanked a former congressional candidate for “keeping up the fight” to get mail-in ballots thrown out. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/29/20] 
    • Hegseth defended the January 6 insurrectionists: “They love freedom.” Hegseth continued, “You don't have to believe the election was stolen to know that the system has begun to undercut people who love our country.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/7/21] 
    • When pressed by guest James Talarico to admit that Trump lost the 2020 election, Hegseth demurred: “I’m not – don’t really feel any obligation to answer anything.” [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 7/13/21] 
    • Five days after the 2022 election, Hegseth cast doubt on why ballots were still being counted in Arizona, mentioned that then-Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs “is in charge of the elections there,” and said, “We don’t know whether people are cheating or not.” Hegseth lamented the rate of ballot counting in Arizona, stating, “You want to see a threat to democracy? It’s what we’re watching in Arizona right now.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 11/13/22]

  • Hegseth has made virulent anti-Muslim remarks

    • In a segment about Hamtramck, Michigan, which has a Muslim majority, Hegseth pushed fears about the “assimilation” and “integration” of Muslims. [Media Matters, 2/3/16]
    • Hegseth criticized former Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges for giving her state of the city address at a mosque. He stated: “This is the left doing everything they can to fall over themselves to fawn over a new community.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 5/17/17]
    • Hegseth said France is experiencing “a slow motion 9/11” and a “demographic invasion” because “Muslims are having 2.6 kids, whereas French-born folks are having 1.6 kids.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 5/13/18]
    • Hegseth: Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) “has a Hamas agenda.” [Fox News, Hannity, 7/29/19] 
    • In response to U.S. troop withdrawal, Hegseth called Afghans “illiterate poppy farmers." [Fox News, Fox News Primetime, 7/14/21] 
    • In his 2020 book, Hegseth complained about “Muslims’ birth rates” and praised “crusaders who pushed back the Muslim hordes.” [Media Matters, 11/12/24]
    • Hegseth supported far-right conspiracy theorist and anti-Muslim bigot Laura Loomer’s failed 2020 congressional campaign. [Media Matters, 11/12/24]

  • Hegseth has mocked the threats from climate change

    • Hegseth urged Trump to “take credit for solving global warming” because of cold temperatures from a “bomb cyclone.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 1/7/18] 
    • Hegseth: “Democrats are more obsessed with climate change” than talking “about the problem of radical Islam.” Hegseth made the comments during one of Fox's “straight news” programs, claiming Democrats are “obsessed with climate change as a religion. They refuse to talk about the problem of radical Islam. And as a result it's infiltrating institutions.” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 3/20/19]
    • Hegseth said addressing climate change is the left's “religion” and “they want to fight the weather.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/13/19]
    • Hegseth claimed that climate activists want to “fight the weather.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/22/21]
    • Hegseth suggested that climate activists attempting to mitigate climate change are “wanting to play God.” Hegseth said: “This goes back to people wanting to play God. Climate has happened for thousands and thousands of years.” [Media Matters, 12/11/23]
    • Hegseth mocked reports of record-breaking heat and blamed media for “hyping climate insanity.” “One thing the mindless left loves to magically discover every year, it’s that summer is hot,” he said. [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 7/7/23]

  • Miscellaneous

    • Hegseth: Democrats skipping the AIPAC convention “are at some level anti-Israel or maybe antisemitic.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 3/22/19]
    • Hegseth blamed “gun-free zones” for deaths in the El Paso, Texas, mass shooting. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/5/19]
    • Hegseth donated to a candidate who killed someone in a drunk driving crash. [Media Matters, 5/31/22]
    • Hegseth blamed crime on a “culture of criminality” that he said arose after the protests over George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police in 2020, and he lamented that it will take “a very long time to rebuild the perception or the morale of” law enforcement. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 8/28/22]
    • Hegseth praised vigilantism against crime. “Who is there to protect us? There are some cases that take on a life of their own. They become emblematic of a situation in the city. Marine veteran Daniel Penny is precisely that.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 5/21/23]
    • Hegseth participated in a smear campaign against a Pentagon official in charge of mitigating white supremacy. [Media Matters, 5/25/23]
    • Hegseth falsely claimed Kamala Harris wants to “get rid of red meat.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 7/27/24; Yahoo! News, 8/1/24]