The News
US President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Fox News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, a choice that has sparked surprise among some in Washington, with many officials expecting a more experienced appointee to lead a department that manages almost 3 million soldiers and civilian workers.
Hegseth, a decorated Army veteran, has been vocal in criticism of US military leaders over diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and has called on top officers to be fired. Mike Waltz, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, welcomed Hegseth’s appointment: “The Pentagon is in need of real reform, and they’re getting a leader who has the grit to make it happen,” he said.
The president-elect’s nominee for CIA director, John Ratcliffe, is also widely seen as a Trump loyalist. Trump described Ratcliffe as a “warrior for Truth and Honesty,” who exposed what Trump called “fake Russian collusion” accusations against his 2016 campaign.
SIGNALS
Hegseth could launch a clear out at the Pentagon
Hegseth has called for the purging of progressives from the Department of Defense, including removing generals he believes are too “woke.” “First of all you gotta fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” Hegseth recently said on a podcast, referring to Gen. CQ Brown, the military’s top officer. “Any general that was involved… in any of the DEI woke shit has got to go.” Trump’s transition team is considering a potential executive order that would create a “warrior board” to recommend removals of top officials to the president, according to The Wall Street Journal. Pentagon officials are anxious that Brown, who has spoken out about racial injustice in the military, will be forced out, Politico reported, although some officials suspect he could just be kept at an arms length from decision-making.
Intelligence community divided on Ratcliffe
The US intelligence community had feared Trump could choose to appoint people with a vendetta against the three-letter agencies. Yet Ratcliffe’s appointment has been met with cautious optimism by some intelligence officials, CNN reported. “As good as it was going to get,” one said, while another said that, “it could have been a lot worse.” However, a former senior FBI official suggested that Ratcliffe is “blindly loyal to Trump, not America.” During Ratcliffe’s time as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term in office, he went against CIA recommendations and declassified unverified information that Democrats believed was used to fuel political attacks against them. However, Ratcliffe also sided with the agency some times, denying other, similar requests.