Pete Hegseth, now the appointed Secretary of Defense, has faced immense questioning from the public, Congress, and the military about his qualifications for the position. His military experience is not insubstantial but is not on par with what is standard for a Secretary of Defense. Hegseth was a Major in the infantry of the Army National Guard and received a Bronze Star for his work in the special operations forces during the Iraq War in 2005. He also chose to be deployed to Afghanistan in 2014 to train Afghan troops there, which is his most recent military experience.
Hegseth was employed by Fox News as a political commentator from 2014-2025, and was in charge of two conservative veteran advocacy groups, Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America. Vets for Freedom was forced to combine with another advocacy group after Hegseth’s mismanagement left the organization in debt. He was pushed out of both organizations after allegations of sexual and personal misconduct, financial mismanagement, and repeated public intoxication at events, pointing to what seemed to be a serious drinking problem. Senators expressed concerns about these allegations during the hearings, such as Senator Richard Blumenthol, who told The New Yorker that “[m]uch as we might be sympathetic to people with continuing alcohol problems, they shouldn’t be at the top of our national-security structure[…]It’s dangerous. The Secretary of Defense is involved in every issue of national security.” Hegseth currently denies all allegations of a drinking problem, which is also not encouraging, as it does not indicate he sought professional help for his addiction or has the maturity necessary to recover from mistakes as a member of the federal government.
There has also been investigation in the nomination hearings into past financial mismanagement. According to The New Yorker, an email sent to Hegseth’s successor in the organization Concerned Veterans for America with the headline “Congratulations on Removing Pete Hegseth” alleged that he had “treated the organization funds like they were a personal expense account—for partying, drinking, and using CVA events as little more than opportunities to ‘hook up’ with women on the road.” These allegations are important, as the Department of Defense has the 4th largest budget of any federal department: at almost 900 Billion dollars, it is 14% of the government’s total budget. How can someone with a record of financial mismanagement be trusted to control that much money?
Beyond questions about his professional qualifications, there have been numerous allegations of abuse and rape against Hegseth. After he was nominated to be Secretary of Defense, it was discovered that Hegseth had paid a settlement to a woman who had accused him of rape in 2017. Hegseth’s own mother sent him an email in 2018 as he was going through the divorce of his second wife, calling him an “abuser of women”
The military has a history of high rates of sexual misconduct and rape, and strong stigma around reporting such crimes– only 1 in 4 people who are victims of assault in the military report the crime, and 62% of those who do report face retaliation. These instances of retaliation are almost never punished (whether they be discriminations in promotions, forced discharges, physical attacks, or social stigma). The risks of reporting such crimes often aren’t worth it, as a 2014 internal investigation by the department showed that just 5% of the cases investigated by the Department of Defense resulted in a conviction. There tend to be more cases of men experiencing assault than women, due to the fact that the armed forces are majority male– however, these numbers are disproportionate to the percentages of men and women in the armed forces, meaning that women are more likely to experience assault. Many methods for report assault have been investigated and proven nonviable for service members by organizations like Human Rights Watch. The military has been addressing the institutional issues it has surrounding the protection of abuse survivors, but still has work to do, and must also address the social culture that punishes those who report sexual violence. Having a man like Hegseth in charge of the military would be problematic in assault prevention and survivor protection initiatives, especially when one compares the organization to others like the Concerned Veterans for America that he previously led, as there was a similar culture of stigmatizing speaking out against sexual abuse and other infractions.
Hegseth previously convinced Trump to pardon three soldiers convicted of war crimes against unarmed Iraqi men. He has expressed dissatisfaction about troops having to follow certain limitations of the Geneva Convention when opponents do not– sending conflicting messages to service members, and suggesting something dangerous about what rules the military actually has to follow when in combat. Right wing newspapers like the National Review have called his qualifications into question, and allege that his willingness to pay off the woman who accused him of sexual assault shows that he would be susceptible to blackmail. A legitimate accusation of sexual assault is not blackmail. However, the fact that the National Review would publish such an article speaks volumes about the diversion of Trump’s appointees from what used to be mainstream republicanism.
Hegseth is just part of a noticeable pattern of Trump’s appointees for public office, where loyalism has proven more decisive in gaining political power than qualifications for the job. As noted by the New York Times, he was “a dedicated supporter of Mr. Trump during his first campaign.” Apparently, showing unwavering support for Trump is more important than public support, even as Trump claims to be better for the American people than the Democratic Party.
Hegseth has, like Trump, called into question the necessity of DEI programs and the standings of high ranking members of the military, suggesting that General Charles C.Q. Brown is only the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he is black (holding this position makes him the military advisor to the president, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council, and the secretary of defense). He has also called women “unfit for combat.” It is clear that diversity in the military is under threat with Pete Hegseth in charge.
Trump has been alleging that a rejection of any of his nominees would be on a partisan basis. But there is a precedent for rejecting nominees with allegations like Hegseth’s, as Senator John Tower, the nominee for the position of Secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush, was rejected by the Senate over similar concerns about alcohol abuse and sexual misconduct.
It is difficult to follow everything that the new administration is doing to reshape the federal government, and understandable to fall behind on the news. But silence is complacency, and allowing figures like Hegseth to be in charge of huge sections of the federal government cannot be normalized.