WHAT THE HEGSETH NOMINATION MEANS. On Tuesday evening, President-elect Donald Trump shook up Washington by announcing that he would nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense. “Pete is a graduate of Princeton University and has a graduate degree from Harvard University,” Trump said in the announcement. “He is an Army combat veteran who did tours in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan. For his actions on the battlefield, he was decorated with two Bronze Stars.” During his years as co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend, Hegseth has focused extensively on military and veterans affairs. This year, he wrote a bestselling book, War on Warriors, in which he decried the new woke military.*

“The military has long been a place for turning mere boys into fighting men not just by teaching them honor and sacrifice but by channeling daring, building strength, and accumulating skills,” Hegseth wrote. “The so-called elites directing the military today aren’t just lowering standards and focusing on the wrong enemy; they are overtly working to rid the military of this specific (essential) type of young patriot. They believe power is bad, merit is unfair, ideology is more important than industriousness, white people are yesterday, and safety! is better than risk-taking.”