Pete Hegseth: An Anti-Muslim, Christian Nationalist “Crusader” in the Pentagon?

In His Own Words:

• “Marxists are our enemies… Busy killing Islamists in shithole countries – and then betrayed by our leaders – our warriors have every reason to let America’s dynasty fade away. Leftists stole a lot from us, but we won’t let them take this. Time for round two – we won’t miss this war.”
  • War on Warriors, June 2024

• “Islam is not a religion of peace, and it never has been”
  • American Crusade, 2020

• “… all modern Muslim countries are either formal or de facto no-go zones for practicing Christians and Jews.”
  • Ibid. 

• “Our present moment is much like the 11th Century. We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians one thousand years ago, we must.” 
  • Ibid. 

• “Arm yourself — metaphorically, intellectually, physically. Our fight is not with guns. Yet.”
  • Ibid. 

• “… any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever that was involved in any of the DEI woke shit, it’s got to go.”
  • Hegseth on the Shawn Ryan Show, November 7, 2024

• “It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated. … We’ve all served with women, and they’re great … but our institutions don’t have to incentivize that in places where, traditionally — not traditionally, over human history — men in those positions are more capable.”
  • Ibid. 

• “Minnesota changed its flag, scrapping history and heritage. You know what it looks a lot like? The flag of Somalia. Keep voting in Marxists and they’ll tear down your statues, replace your flag, and conquer you. This is a token of what’s taken grip of my former home state.”
  • Youtube, May 16, 2024

• “At what point does the paper deem a ‘relationship’ unfit for publication? What if we ‘loved’ our sister and wanted to marry her? Or maybe two women at the same time? A 13-year-old? The family dog?”
  • The Princeton Tory, 2002

• “More and more parents are ushering their kids to public schools at the tender age of three or four, expecting them to not only learn arithmetic, but also right from wrong. Unfortunately, atheist public schools, long stripped of any redemptive moral value, have outlawed God and related discussions of moral absolutes.”
  • Ibid. 

• “President Trump has stemmed the tide of secularism, at least for now. He unabashedly supports faith and fights back against the secular currents long at work in American society. Merry Christmas! He has emboldened Christians, including pastors, to be more involved in politics and our culture. He has inspired Crusaders! But can he reverse the overarching trend of secularism?”
  • American Crusade, 2020

• “So the reality of life reinforced that the bigotry we saw on the outside should not be tolerated inside the military. And the military did a great job doing that. But now we’re pushing boundaries and lots of different levels that are different than that because men and women are different because being transgendered in the military causes complications and differences.”
  • November 7, 2024

• “Yet here we are today, resegregating our military yet again. In the name of weeding out any hints of racism (mostly fabricated) and to force so-called inclusion, the American military has become race-, sex-, and “extremism”-obsessed. The push for military diversity has moved beyond the traditional goals of equality of opportunity and into the realm of racially, sexually, and politically based outcomes. We have resegregated ourselves, one box check and one PowerPoint presentation at a time.”
  • The War on Warriors, June 2024

Military Service and Right-Wing Activism

Hegseth began his career in the U.S. Army National Guard in 2003 and was deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan throughout his eleven years in service, leaving in 2014. When not deployed, he worked at various financial institutions and right-wing think tanks including as an equity markets analyst from 2004 to 2006 for Bear Stearns before the firm collapsed in 2008. He also briefly worked at two highly-partisan conservative think tanks: the Manhattan Institute in 2007 and the Center of the American Experiment starting in 2011. 

In 2007, he left the Manhattan Institute to become the executive director of Vets for Freedom, an organization that advocated for a greater troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. From 2012 to 2015, he led the Concerned Veterans for America as CEO, which advocated for the privatization of Veterans Affairs and was financed by the Koch brothers.

In 2012, he ran for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota but dropped out of the race before the Republican Party primary. Around the same time, he set up the MN PAC which aimed at supporting “conservative candidates in contested races,” however, investigative reports have shown that less than half of the funds were spent on candidates, and a third of the total funds were spent on two Christmas parties and reimbursements to Hegseth.

His photogenic appearances in the media led Republican Party officials and employees at Fox News to begin to take notice of him. In 2014, he became a political commentator for FOX News, and from 2017 to 2024, was the weekend co-host of the show Fox & Friends. In this role, he was one of the fiercest supporters of Donald Trump and would routinely attack the media and democrats. 

Hegseth rejoined the National Guard in 2019 after serving five years in the Individual Ready Reserve. Beyond having served as an U.S. Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan in the Army National Guard, Hegseth does not have much experience, if any, that would make him a desired candidate to lead the country’s military. 

A Christian Nationalist “Crusader” Against Muslims and the Secular State

Hegseth rejoined the Army National Guard in 2019 and was one of the twelve National Guard members who were removed from attending Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021 due to him having a tattoo which higher ups “deemed extremist” and he was referred to as an “insider threat.” It was later revealed that the tattoos include one of a Jerusalem Cross, the words “Deus Vult,” Latin for “God Wills It,” as well as a “Chrism.” Another tattoo includes a sword contained within a cross, believed to be a reference to the Bible passage Matthew 10:34, which reads: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” While several of these symbols are common in Church settings, the Jerusalem Cross and “Deus Vult” are also commonly found in Christian Nationalist circles, as they signify support for Christian “crusades” against perceived enemies of the faith. The phrase has been co-opted by some extremists in the past. “Deus Vult” appeared in the racist manifestos of the Allen, Texas, shooter and Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011 in Norway. 

In Hegseth’s case, it seems clear that his views lean toward Christian Nationalism. In Hegseth’s 2020 book American Crusade, his anti-Muslim views were apparent. He wrote that [Islam] “is not a religion of peace, and it never has been,” and claimed that “all modern Muslim countries are either formal or de facto no-go zones for practicing Christians and Jews.” He goes on to falsely say that Islam has been “almost entirely captured and leveraged by Islamists,” and that Islamists account for 25 percent of the global Muslim population and have a mission to “conquer” Europe and America through demographics and to make the rest of the world submit to their religion or be killed. 

Testifying to his belief in white supremacist “great replacement” themes, he clarifies that Muslims are allying themselves with secular politicians and groups in order to achieve demographic supremacy, and their “very high birth rates relative to native populations and their strategically insular culture” are an advantage in this “mission.” He laments the fact that 26 Muslim candidates won elected office in November 2019, and that “Muhammad is now a top ten boys’ name in America.” 

Despite Hegseth’s claims, the total Muslim population in the U.S. is only estimated to be about one percent of the population, and there is no evidence that there is a large radicalized Muslim population in the United States. 

Hegseth understands this “invasion” and destruction of the “traditional Christian fabric” through the lens of his radical Christian Nationalist worldview. He likens this current-day change of demographics to the crusades of the Middle Ages, when Catholic armies in Europe led military campaigns against Muslim armies in Judea and other parts of the Middle East. He writes, “Our present moment is much like the 11th Century. We don’t want to fight, but, like our fellow Christians one thousand years ago, we must.” He goes on to say, “Arm yourself — metaphorically, intellectually, physically. Our fight is not with guns. Yet.”

In one particularly racist episode of him hosting Fox & Friends, Hegseth and the hosts lamented the state of Minnesota’s choice of a new state flag, falsely claiming that it was inspired by the country Somalia. “Keep voting in Marxists and they’ll tear down your statues, replace your flag, and conquer you” is what Hegseth wrote in the description for the video segment on Youtube.

His answer to America’s problems? He states that in the event of an election victory by the Democratic Party, there will be a “national divorce,” or “some form of civil war,” in which the “military and police … will be forced to make a choice.” In American Crusade, he writes that the American right must “attack first,”and “mock, humiliate, intimidate, and crush our leftist opponents” which he refers to as “America’s internal enemies.”

Ties to Christian Nationalists Pushing Theocracy

Hegseth has known ties to Doug Wilson’s Christian Nationalist Christ Church, with around 900 members, in Moscow, Idaho, through his repeated appearances on the podcast of Toby Sumpter and Gabriel Rench, both members of this church. Wilson is a pastor who has publicly advocated for theocracy and made statements justifying slavery. Rench has argued that “Christians need to unabashedly reclaim the public square in Jesus name,” and wrote a book called Christian Nationalism is Inevitable (that’s good news!). He regularly writes anti-LGBTQ+ messages on social media, once saying for example, that “the problem with calling the LGBT+ movement groomers, is that they don’t know what a groomer is anymore…because they are all groomers.” In early 2024, Rench hosted the antisemitic streamer Jarrin Jackson on his podcast. Beyond appearing on Rench’s podcast, The Guardian has reported that Hegseth is an actual member of a Tennessee congregation that is a part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) affiliated with Christ Church.

These Christian Nationalist beliefs have also spilled over into other policy issues. For over 20 years, Hegseth has advocated for public schooling based on Christian principles. In The Princeton Tory in 2002, he wrote,  “More and more parents are ushering their kids to public schools at the tender age of three or four, expecting them to not only learn arithmetic, but also right from wrong. Unfortunately, atheist public schools, long stripped of any redemptive moral value, have outlawed God and related discussions of moral absolutes.” 

Hegseth’s beliefs on this issue have not changed, and he continued to advocate for the creation of “classical christian schools” on Rench’s podcast on November 18, 2024. Again, these schools are not referred to in terms of their education or religious value, but instead as “bootcamps,” an “educational insurgency,” and an “underground army” that can be used for political purposes in the future.

Department of Defence Purges

Hegseth is believed to be a part of the plan to “shake up” the Department of Defense and purge the department of “woke” generals. Trump mentioned going after “woke” generals in the military while on the campaign trail, and his transition team is allegedly drawing up a list of military officers to be fired which could potentially include members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is likely to include Mark Milley, Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is quoted in Bob Woodward’s book War as calling Trump “fascist to the core.” 

In his 2024 book, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, Hegseth wrote that “lots of people need to be fired,” including Air Force General C.Q. Brown, for whom he had the following to say, “Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt – which on its face seems unfair to C.Q. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn’t really much matter.” 

For Hegseth, this is partly to do with what he perceives as “DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives in the military that he believes weaken our forces. He has stated that “any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever that was involved in any of the DEI woke shit, it’s got to go.”

Another initiative that Hegseth has proposed includes banning women in the military from serving in combat positions. He justifies this by saying that: “It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated. … We’ve all served with women, and they’re great … but our institutions don’t have to incentivize that in places where, traditionally — not traditionally, over human history — men in those positions are more capable.”

He has also said the same about trans people, once baselessly claiming that “being transgendered [sic] in the military causes complications and differences,” and called for having trans people in the military banned.

Another apparent criticism that Hegseth has regarding the military are their procedures to remove political extremists from the ranks. Following the decision to remove him from the Biden inauguration, Hegseth’s 2024 book The War on Warriors mentions extremism in the military 24 times, and disregarding it with a sleight of hand each time. He is quoted as saying, “Average Americans are smart, and see all the warning signs—the ism “days” … the rainbow “flags” … the forced “firsts” … the fake “extremism” … and the sheer failures. What do young people—and families—across America see that politicians and generals cannot? Or do our generals see the changes and accept them? The former is troubling; the latter is treasonous.” 

Far-right Lobbying Efforts

Beyond his controversial views on the military, Hegseth has also called for the privatization of significant agencies serving students and veterans. He was the Career Education Colleges and Universities’ (CECU) high-profile advocate for for-profit colleges and called for a reversal of legislation which closed the “90-10 rule,” meaning that no more than 90 percent of a for-profit college’s revenue can come from federal aid. This rule stipulated that GI Bill stipends did not count as federal aid, which allowed more students to enroll with federal loans, incentivizing predatory practices to attract veterans, that Hegseth sought to bring back. 

He has also called for the privatization of the Veterans Affairs. When justifying to Trump why “all the veterans groups hate” him, Hegseth replied that “because outside-the-box thinking of, say, providing private choice for veterans is a threat, complete threat to the ecosystem around the government bureaucracy and the VA and the veterans groups.”

Also acting in his role as the CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, he lobbied Trump in 2019 to pardon soldiers convicted of war crimes. Trump would later go on to pardon two service members, Army Major Matthew Golsteyn and First Lieutenant Clint Lorance, and restore the rank of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, and thank Hegseth on Twitter after the fact.

Personal Scandals

Hegseth’s private life is also filled with scandal and improprieties. This is especially telling given his repeated advocacy for “traditional family values.” Hegseth has emphasized, for example, the need to reduce the number of divorces, and in the 2016 edition of his book In the Arena, he called for a policy aimed at “strengthening families and creating good citizens by preventing divorce of parents with kids.” Hegseth, who has been through two divorces, both of which occurred after Hegseth had affairs with other women, including one case where he had a child with a Fox News producer, later changed the text of the 2017 version of his book to simply advocate for “preventing wanton divorce.”

Reporting in The Washington Post also alleges that he sexually assaulted a then-30-year-old woman working as a staffer for a conservative group in Monterey, California, after drinking at a hotel bar in October 2017. The incident was described as “a rape” by a memo sent to the transition team by a friend of the accuser. 

Hegseth’s lawyer later stated that Hegseth agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to the woman to sign a nondisclosure agreement after she threatened legal action for fear of having his contract terminated by Fox News. His lawyer describes their encounter as consensual and law enforcement declined to pursue charges at the time of the incident.