President-elect Donald Trump this week hit Pete Hegseth to be his defense secretary — even though the Fox News host criticized Trump for his foreign policy and military stance before Trump was elected to his first term.
during Trump’s 2016 campaignHegseth, appearing as a political commentator on Fox News, called it Trump’s “difficulty” with foreign policy.
“As for Donald Trump, he’s changing his stance, and I think, frankly, he’s fallen into the leftist narrative. And he’s done it over and over again.” said Hegseth. “He’s been going back and forth. He’s been good at a lot of things domestically. But internationally, I don’t know where Donald Trump is.”
The comments came when Hegseth was pressed in an interview by then-Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, after she left Fox News. approve Trump’s 2024 candidacy – about Trump’s “apparent reversal” of his stance on the war in Afghanistan.
“It’s unacceptable. I think it shows a depth in our understanding of that region,” Hegseth said, referring to Trump’s comments that the U.S. could remain in the region indefinitely. “That’s not clarity, that’s not leadership; that’s back and forth on really critical issues.”
A former Army major who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and as a guard at Guantanamo, Hegseth has been one of Trump’s biggest allies on cable news ever since. He previously ran two veterans’ organizations before transitioning to a full-time position at Fox News.
After initial criticism, Hegseth aligned himself with Trump in the 2016 general election and has remained one of his most enthusiastic supporters on television.
President Donald Trump appears with Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth during a Wounded Warrior Project Soldier Ride event in the East Room of the White House on April 6, 2017.
Andrew Harnik/AP, FILE
Trump and Hegseth have had a close relationship in recent years, with Hegseth interviewing Trump several times and reportedly speaking with Trump during commercial breaks on the Fox-anchored show. & Friends Weekends.
In an ironic twist, Hegseth criticized Trump in 2015 for saying some of his military advice in an interview while watching TV news.
“You wouldn’t want a top presidential candidate to get all his military advice from watching ‘Meet the Press,'” Hegseth said in an interview on Fox News. “There’s a lot more nuance and there’s a lot more detail … At the end of the day, foreign policy and national security aren’t about TV shows. It’s a complex web of relationships and I think he’ll want (his campaign) to report on those kinds of issues. he had.”
While appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in August 2015, moderator Chuck Todd asked Trump who he talked to for military advice.
“Well, I watch the shows. I mean, I watch a lot of really great — you know, when you watch your show and all the other shows and you have the generals and … you have certain people that you like,” Trump replied, according to a transcript. .
Since then, Hegseth has taken a sharp turn to become an ardent Trump ally and advocate.
“People outside these walls … don’t understand the support that conservatives and libertarians have for Donald Trump,” Hegseth said in a clip he posted of himself at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference.
Hegseth previously said he endorsed other candidates for president early in the 2016 race.
“I had different candidates that I believed in at the beginning of the process, and I criticized the initial things that (Trump) had to say,” Hegseth told a Jewish newspaper in 2016. “I still don’t like some of his rhetoric.”
