Pete Hegseth, who is the 29th United States secretary of defense, has been described as a Christian nationalist, a Christian patriot, and an ultraconservative. In his 2020 book, American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free, Hegseth said he believes there are "irreconcilable differences between the Left and the Right in America leading to perpetual conflict that cannot be resolved through the political process". He furthermore called for an "American crusade", which he described as "a holy war for the righteous cause of human freedom". Hegseth characterizes "Americanism" in being opposition to forces like feminism, globalism, Marxism and progressivism and says either "Americanism" will prevail or "death" will. In a May 2024 interview where he talked about education, Hegseth emphasized that the U.S. is a constitutional republic, "Democracy, democracy, defend the democracy. Do you know what our founders did not want us to be? A democracy." Hegseth has explicitly rejected democracy in his book, equating it to a leftist demand; he has also expressed support for election-rigging through gerrymandering to "screw Democrats".
Hegseth predicted that if Democrats won the 2020 election, there would be a "national divorce", that the military and the police "will be forced to make a choice", and that "there will be some form of civil war". He also said that conservatives must "mock, humiliate, intimidate, and crush our leftist opponents" and to "attack first" to deal with a left he equates with "sedition". His book "lays out the strategy we must employ in order to defeat America's internal enemies". Hegseth has described progressives and Democrats as "enemies" of freedom, the U.S. Constitution, and America. Hegseth has said that victory for America includes the end of globalism, socialism, secularism, environmentalism, Islamism, genderism and leftism, the last of which he refers to as a "false religion" and "specter" that views non-believers as "infidels". He has announced his support for American nationalism. Hegseth believes Americans must build a border wall, raise tariffs, learn English and "fight back".
Domestic policy
COVID-19 In February 2020, amid the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Hegseth said that Democrats were "rooting for coronavirus to spread. They're rooting for it to grow. They're rooting for the problem to get worse." The next month, Hegseth urged healthy people to get the virus to build immunity. In May 2020, during an appearance with Tucker Carlson he defended calling the SARS-CoV-2 the "Wuhan virus, Chinese virus, maybe even the 'Kung Flu.' A little off-color, but funny and you know, we still live in a free country the last time I checked." Hegseth suggested the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was made up by Democrats to help them in the 2022 midterm elections, saying, "Count on a variant about every October, every two years."
Education In August 2019, he lamented that "young kids voting" are worried about the adverse effects of climate change. Hegseth also criticized universities for teaching students about "environmentalism and radical environmentalism" rather than a "real threat" such as Islamic extremism.
In June 2022, on a Fox & Friends Weekend segment, Hegseth crossed out Harvard on his diploma, writing in "Critical Theory" and then marking "Return to Sender" across the central body as a protest of Harvard and other such universities. "People will say 'this is just a stunt, you still have a degree' and that's fine. I went, I got the degree, I walked to the classes and all that, but I hope this is a statement that as conservatives and patriots, if we love this country, we can't keep sending our kids and elevating them to universities that are poisoning their mind. I may have survived it, but a lot of kids go there and buy into 'critical theory university,' and that's how we get future leaders, Supreme Court Justices, Senators, others, who see America as an evil place. And Harvard is a factory for that kind of thinking" he said. Hegseth then declared his intention to return the diploma to Harvard.
In 2024, at podcasts with Joshua Haymes, Hegseth criticized public schools for implementing an "egalitarian, dystopian LGBT nightmare". In regards to public schools, he said "The phrase we use in the military is ‘the X’. If you’re standing on the X in an ambush, you’re dead. That means the enemy’s guns are pointed at you. We are all on the X right now, our kids are on the X in government schools." He continues by saying children in school are " accosted and assaulted on a daily basis with evil ideologies that are corrupting their mind, that are corrupting their affections and leaving them incapable of seeking the kind of wisdom that’s required". He proposes an "insurgency" or "guerrilla war" in response, and calls on those who seek to wage an insurgency against public education to emulate Taliban's tactics, saying "Delegitimizing your enemy is a huge part of insurgency, to use the Afghanistan example, that’s what the Taliban did for two decades." He says to delegitimize public education, its opponents could say "these schools fail everybody. No one learns anything in them" and that they are "indoctrination camps. They’re transing your kids". He also supports installing cameras in classrooms.
Immigration and border security
Hegseth supports strengthening border security by constructing a border wall at the Mexico–United States border.
Health care Hegseth supports Social Security reform, including cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. He supports raising the retirement age and reducing benefits for high-income Americans. During his 2012 campaign for US Senate, he stated; "Pete Hegseth is ideologically dedicated to privatizing Social Security."
January 6 Capitol attack Hegseth has falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. As a co-host on Fox and Friends making that statement, he was referred to in the 2021 court case Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network as a person responsible for the slander against the voting machine company.US Dominion, Inc. v. Fox News Network, LLC, 293 A. 3d 1002 - Del: Superior Court 2023,
Line 389 of the document He defended the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, calling them patriots who had been "re-awoken to the reality of what the left has done" to the country. He has defended January 6 figure Jacob Chansley in particular. Days after the attack, Hegseth appeared on a podcast hosted by Newt Gingrich, where he downplayed the violence during the attack, and also spread conspiracy theories alleging the attack was instigated by Antifa.
Foreign policy
Hegseth has been sharply critical of America's NATO allies, writing, "Outdated, outgunned, invaded, and impotent. Why should America, the European 'emergency contact number' for the past century, listen to self-righteous and impotent nations asking us to honor outdated and one-sided defense arrangements they no longer live up to?" and "Maybe if NATO countries actually ponied up for their own defensebut they don't. They just yell about the rules while gutting their militaries and yelling at America for help." In American Crusade, he said "NATO is not an alliance; it’s a defense arrangement for Europe, paid for and underwritten by the United States" and called on it to be "scrapped and remade in order for freedom to be truly defended". He criticized Turkey's membership of NATO, saying Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan "openly dreams of restoring the Ottoman empire" and is "an Islamist with Islamist visions for the Middle East".
He criticized US funding for the United Nations in American Crusade, calling it "a fully globalist organization that aggressively advances an anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-freedom agenda. Here’s one set of rules for the United States and Israel, another for everyone else." In 2022, he said the Russian invasion of Ukraine "pales in comparison" to "wokeness" and crime. In March 2022, he called Russian president Vladimir Putin a war criminal. He said: "What's at stake is repelling an authoritarian who basically is saying 'I want the Soviet Union back, I want Ukraine back, I want Kyiv back. He has also voiced criticism of US military aid to Ukraine.
Hegseth has called Iran's government an "evil regime". In January 2020, Hegseth expressed strong support for Trump's decision to kill Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. He also called on Trump to bomb the Iranian homeland, including cultural sites if they were storing weapons. In May 2020, Hegseth said the "communist Chinese" wanted to "end our civilization". Hegseth later said China was creating a military "specifically dedicated to defeating the United States of America".
Hegseth was a supporter of the Iraq War and expressed his support for the Iraq War troop surge in a 2006 op-ed.
Israel In a 2016 interview Hegseth referred to Israel as "God's chosen people". Hegseth spoke at the 2018 Arutz Sheva conference in Jerusalem, where he stated "there's no reason why the miracle of the re-establishment of the Temple on the Temple Mount is not possible." Speaking at the National Council of Young Israel gala in New York City the same year, he said "Zionism and Americanism are the front lines of Western civilization and freedom in our world today." He opposed the two-state solution and supported Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank. Hegseth has stated that Israel and other international allies can help America defeat its "domestic enemies" which he describes as leftists, progressives, and Democrats. In American Crusade, he compared his support for Israel to the Crusades, saying "We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians a thousand years ago, we must. We need an American crusade." He also states that "if you love those, learn to love the state of Israel".
During Hegseth's tenure as defense secretary, he called Israel a "model ally for the region" on a phone conversation with Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz.
Muslim world
In his 2016 memoir, In the Arena, Hegseth wrote that he related to an online image of an Islamic State fighter, saying the soldier is "fighting for something greater than himself. He is fighting for his God" and continuing by saying "I recognize that fighter, even though I’ve never met him. I am drawn to him because I relate to him, I deplore what he stands for, what he does and how he does it. He is a soldier of hate, subjugation and sheer evil. But I understand his passions."
In American Crusade, Hegseth says Islam "is not a religion of peace, and it never has been" and claims "all modern Muslim countries are either formal or de facto no-go zones for practicing Christians and Jews". He said Islam was "almost entirely captured and leveraged by Islamists." He claimed Islamists planned to demographically, culturally and politically "conquer" Europe and America, allying with secularism to crush "our nation's Judeo-Christian institutions". He said Islamists planned to "seed the West with as many Muslims as possible" and "thanks to their very high birth rates relative to native populations and their strategically insular culturethe sons and daughters of those migrants and refugees multiply in greater numbers than do native citizens." He pointed out the elections of Muslim officials in the United Kingdom and the increase of the Muslim population in Europe to say that the United States would follow the same path without an intervention. Hegseth has stated that the end of the US military would allow "Islamists" to "wipe America and Israel off the map". Hegseth has faced allegations of chanting "kill all Muslims" at a work event at a bar. He has voiced support for the Crusades.
Controversial Comparison at Shangri-La Dialogue