Pete Hegseth
Who is Pete Hegseth?
What experience did Pete Hegseth have before becoming the U.S. secretary of defense?
Why was Pete Hegseth’s confirmation as the U.S. secretary of defense controversial?
What major controversies has Pete Hegseth faced during his tenure as the U.S. secretary of defense?
What was Pete Hegseth’s involvement in the U.S. war against Iran?
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Pete Hegseth is the polarizing U.S. secretary of defense (2025– ) in the second administration of Republican Pres. Donald Trump. When he was nominated for the position by Trump in 2024, many, including some within his own party, questioned whether he had the experience to lead the 2.8 million people who serve in the U.S. military. Much of what Hegseth brings to his role—including his bullish commitment to restoring “warrior culture”—is the result of a philosophical evolution of the idealistic young man who volunteered for the National Guard and served in Iraq and Afghanistan, who went on to become a Fox News pundit and presidential favorite, and who was ultimately chosen to oversee the American military.
Early life
- In full: Peter Brian Hegseth
- Born: June 6, 1980, Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
- Education: Princeton University (B.A. in politics, 2003); Harvard University (master’s degree in public policy, 2013)
- Best known for: Being secretary of defense in the second administration of Donald Trump
- Family: Married Meredith Schwarz (2004–09); married Samantha Deering (2010–18); married Jennifer Rauchet (2019– ). Has three sons with Deering: Gunner, Peter Boone, and Rex. Has a daughter with Rauchet, Gwendolyn, and is the stepfather to Rauchet’s three children.
- Quotation: “I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘our diversity is our strength.’ ”
Hegseth grew up in Minnesota, the oldest son of Brian and Penelope (Penny) Hegseth. He has two younger brothers, Phil and Nathaniel. In 1999 he enrolled at Princeton University, where he played basketball, studied politics, and was the editor in chief and publisher of The Princeton Tory, the school’s conservative publication. One editorial he cowrote for the Tory stirred campus debate by declaring that “the homosexual lifestyle is abnormal and immoral.” His intention at the Tory, he wrote, was to “defend the pillars of Western civilization against the distractions of diversity.” He would put those positions into practice more than two decades later as secretary of defense.
While at Princeton, Hegseth joined the Army ROTC program just months before the September 11 terror attacks in 2001. His conservative belief system extended to military campaigns; in 2003 he wrote that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was proof that “conservative ideas have worked, do work, and will continue to work.” He would later change his position on military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Military service
After graduation Hegseth went to work at the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns. But in 2004, as a member of the National Guard, he was deployed to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he oversaw a platoon responsible for setting up security to detain suspected terrorists. His time at Guantánamo helped shape some of his early thinking about military leadership. He was lauded by those who served with him as a hardworking commander and “a great soldier, a great leader,” but he was frustrated by the mission, particularly the Supreme Court-mandated legal protections afforded to detainees. He later said of Guantánamo, “It could have been a great place to expeditiously interrogate, try, and, you know, execute, because we are in a war.”
After 11 months he returned to Wall Street, but in 2005 he again volunteered to serve, this time in Iraq as part of the 101st Airborne Division. This was Hegseth’s first time in combat. He has described an incident in which a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) hit a vehicle he was riding in. If the RPG had exploded, he would have been “dead as a doornail,” Hegseth said during a 2021 appearance on The Will Cain Podcast. He admitted to being haunted by what he saw in combat and having “a form of definitely post-traumatic stress” that he eased with alcohol. Despite the chaos within Iraq at the time, Hegseth displayed admirable restraint and leadership. In a 2024 New York Times article, a fellow soldier reported that Hegseth repeatedly entered dangerous situations ahead of younger soldiers whose mistakes could have led to disaster. In a 2009 panel discussion at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, Hegseth explained the benefit of caution in terms of a cost-benefit analysis: “Even if you kill five bad guys, but you kill two innocents, you’ve set yourself back more than you’ve moved forward.” Hegseth was awarded two Bronze Stars for his service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2006 he returned to New York, where, like many service members before him, he struggled to fit into the civilian world after seeing combat. He told Reserve & National Guard Magazine, “I went from being in a combat zone to being in an apartment in Manhattan.…I didn’t do much and I drank a lot trying to process what I had been through while dealing with a civilian world that frankly just didn’t seem to care.” He served one more tour, this time in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012, teaching Afghans about counterinsurgency. The mission was meant to provide stability to the Afghan government as U.S. forces began leaving the country. The Pete Hegseth who had gone into his time in Iraq deeply committed to the mission set forth by Pres. George W. Bush returned disillusioned. By 2024 he was decrying U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying, “The trust there that our political leaders or our generals would have our best interests in mind is totally broken.”
In between tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he began working with a nonprofit veterans group, Vets for Freedom, which he was affiliated with from 2006 to 2012. During his time as its executive director, the group spent more on events and advertising than it brought in. He ultimately left the organization, which folded.
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He returned to Minnesota in 2012 for a short-lived run for the U.S. Senate, dropping out before the Republican primary. From 2013 to 2016 he served as president of another veterans nonprofit, Concerned Veterans for America. He was removed from the organization in 2016 amid allegations of financial and personal impropriety, but by then he had already transitioned to the role that would catch the attention of Donald Trump: contributor and ultimately cohost on Fox News.
Fox & Friends Weekend
In 2014 Hegseth became a contributor to Fox News, and in 2017 he was promoted to cohost of Fox & Friends Weekend. In that role Hegseth frequently spoke of his support for President Trump. He was briefly considered to run the Department of Veterans Affairs in the first Trump administration but was ultimately deemed too inexperienced for the role. After Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, Hegseth was one of the Fox hosts who promoted Trump’s unfounded claim of widespread voter fraud.
In 2021 Hegseth was removed from the National Guard group that was to provide security for Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration. The reported issue was his Jerusalem cross tattoo, which he said was simply a Christian symbol, but officials noted that it is also used by Christian nationalists. Another of his tattoos reads “Deus Vult” (Latin: “God wills it”), which was a battle cry during the Crusades and later appropriated by white supremacists. He also sports a tattoo on his forearm that says “We the People.” Hegseth left the National Guard in 2021.
Hegseth also endured personal scandal during his tenure with Fox. He admitted to having an affair with producer Jennifer Rauchet while still married to his second wife. Rauchet gave birth to their daughter in 2017, and the couple married in 2019. Hegseth’s colleagues at Fox also reported smelling alcohol on his breath as he came on set for the program or hearing him complain of being hungover. This, coupled with his earlier admissions about his drinking, became a source of controversy after Trump nominated him to be defense secretary. Hegseth continued to work at Fox until his nomination.
Defense secretary
Nomination and hearing
In 2024 Trump won a second presidential term, and he selected Hegseth as his nominee for defense secretary, a post that requires Senate confirmation. The selection proved controversial, with many citing Hegseth’s lack of experience managing large, complex organizations. The Department of Defense (DoD), with some three million employees, has been called the biggest government bureaucracy in the world.
Hegseth’s confirmation hearing was held by the Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2025, and it was highly contentious at times. Democrats questioned him about accusations of personal misconduct, including excessive drinking and infidelity. The New York Times published a 2018 email to Hegseth from his mother that said in part, “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say…get some help and take an honest look at yourself.” At the time of his confirmation, she said that her son had changed since she wrote the email and that she had apologized to him for writing it.
While denying some allegations, Hegseth stated, “I’m not a perfect person, but redemption is real. I have failed in things in my life, and thankfully I’m redeemed by my lord and savior Jesus.” Other controversial topics included women serving in combat. While Hegseth had previously spoken out against the policy, he said that “women will have access to ground combat roles.” Republican committee members largely expressed support for his nomination, and Sen. Eric Schmitt from Missouri suggested that his lack of experience was an asset, stating that Hegseth is “a breath of fresh air.”
Confirmation and early tenure, including Signal controversy
In the Senate confirmation vote on January 25, 2025, three Republicans voted against him: Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski. That resulted in a 50–50 tie, which was broken by Vice Pres. JD Vance. Hegseth took office several hours after the vote. In the following days he stated that he would end DEI initiatives in the department and that he was committed to stopping immigration at the southern border. In February 2025 Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to cut the defense budget by 8 percent for each of the next five years. The money was to be used for other initiatives, including a proposed Iron Dome, an air defense system.
Later that month he fired a number of top military officers, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as the Navy’s chief of naval operations, and Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to Hegseth, the moves were to allow for “new leadership that will focus our military on its core mission of deterring, fighting and winning wars.” But he had signaled the moves shortly after his nomination, when he went on the Shawn Ryan Show and said, “First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the joint chiefs.…Any general that was involved, general, admiral, or whatever, that was involved in any of that DEI woke shit has got to go.”
In 2025 Pres. Donald Trump issued an executive order that allowed for the Department of Defense to also be called the Department of War. While various officials use the alternate name, the official title remains the Department of Defense. Any changes would require congressional approval.
In March 2025 it was alleged that Hegseth had shared plans of impending military strikes on Yemen in a Signal group chat; the messaging app is not considered secure for classified communications. The accusations were made by Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic magazine, who had accidentally been added to the chat; it was unclear who included him. After Hegseth denied sharing classified information on Signal, The Atlantic released text messages in which the defense secretary noted the launch times for military jets that were to be used in the strikes on Houthi targets. In April 2025 The New York Times reported that Hegseth had shared the Yemen attack plans in another Signal chat, which included his wife, brother, and personal attorney, among others. A subsequent investigation by the DoD’s inspector general found that Hegseth had sent classified information on Signal and that he could have endangered U.S. troops. Hegseth, however, denied sharing classified material.
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Hegseth also made headlines in June 2025, during Pride Month, when he ordered a review of the names of vessels that commemorate civil rights figures. He also announced that the USNS Harvey Milk, honoring the gay rights icon and Navy veteran, was being renamed. The move was said to be part of Hegseth’s goal of restoring the “warrior culture” to the U.S. military. He has accused generals and other leaders of being “woke” and claimed that what he sees as their focus on diversity and equity has weakened the military. Hegseth outlined his various views in a series of books, including The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free (2024).
Boat strikes
On September 2, 2025, the U.S. military, under the direction of Hegseth, began conducting lethal strikes on small civilian boats operating in or near Venezuelan waters. The Trump administration justified the attacks by saying that the targeted vessels were being used for drug smuggling and terrorism. In November The Washington Post reported that the September 2 attack included a second strike that killed two survivors in the wreckage. The incident brought scrutiny to Hegseth’s orders and led legal experts to claim that a war crime had been committed. According to multiple news outlets, while Hegseth ordered the attack, he was not involved in the decision to launch a second strike. However, the admiral in charge of the operation had given the order so as to fulfill Hegseth’s alleged command to kill everyone. Some legal experts stated that Hegseth’s reported directive resulted in illegal extrajudicial killings and was thus a war crime. Hegseth distanced himself from the incident, saying that he had left the control room before the second strike was ordered.
Iran war
With the start of the U.S. war against Iran in February 2026, Hegseth again took center stage, initially giving regular briefings on the war alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine. His rhetoric closely aligned with Trump’s to promote what they said would be a quick, decisive American victory. He seemed determined to distance the Iran war, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, from the campaigns he was engaged in some two decades earlier. “This is not 2003. This is not endless nation building.…It’s not even close. Our generation of soldier will not let that happen again,” Hegseth said in a March briefing. While he called for a campaign of “maximum lethality” that echoed Trump’s message, he seemed to dismiss news reports of American casualties as part of a media campaign against the president: “When a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad.”
In April Trump and Hegseth announced a ceasefire to the war and declared victory, with Hegseth saying that “Epic Fury decimated Iran’s military and rendered it combat-ineffective for years to come.” But talks around the ceasefire collapsed, and the war dragged on. As the conflict became increasingly unpopular in the United States, largely because of its economic impact, Hegseth again found himself at the center of controversy. He faced questions from Congress about the cost of the war, amid reports of munitions shortages due to the intensity of the fighting. There were also media reports about the dire conditions aboard U.S. carriers, including the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose 5,000 sailors spent more than 250 days at sea, giving rise to questions about their physical and mental well-being. Hegseth said that the media “misrepresented” conditions on the ship. In September 2026 The Washington Post reported that the official Defense Department database of casualties failed to include at least four fatalities associated with the conflict. Hegseth took to social media to call the reporting “DISGUSTING and FAKE. A complete LIE.”
As a sign of Hegseth’s fraught political position, in September 2026 the House of Representatives adjourned early rather than vote on eight articles of impeachment—introduced by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie—against Hegseth. The charges in Massie’s document included Hegseth’s actions in Venezuela as well as Iran. But as Congress returned to Washington on November 9 – after Republicans lost control of both the House and the Senate in the 2026 midterms but before those new legislators are sworn in – Massie introduced the same articles of impeachment. They failed on a 211-204 vote. If Hegseth had been impeached, he would have been be the first defense secretary and only the third cabinet member to be impeached.
NBC News has reported that Hegseth is considering running for president in 2028. Hegseth denied such plans, although he did travel in August 2026 to Iowa, which will be the site of the first Republican presidential contest in 2028.
In October 2026, Hegseth again found himself at the center of controversy when he announced that the execution by firing squad of former U.S. Army Major Nidal M. Hasan, who killed 13 in 2009 in mass shooting at the Ford Hood army base in Texas, would be livestreamed, saying “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.” But the backlash to the idea was quick and bi-partisan with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Vice Pres. JD Vance saying they would not watch. Trump, who had originally signed off on the plan, reversed himself and dealt Hegseth a rare public rebuke when he said the execution, scheduled for December 3, 2026, would not be made available to the public.