Trump’s Successor to Four-Star General Lloyd Austin: 44-Year-Old ‘Anti-Wake’ Veteran and Former FOX Host Pete Hegseth

America’s next defense secretary could also be completely different from any the country has ever seen.

On Tuesday, just in the future after Veterans Day, President-elect Donald Trump chosen 44-year-old Pete Hegseth, a former FOX News commentator and former Army Ranger, to lead one of the crucial powerful military forces on the earth.

Hegseth will succeed Secretary General Lloyd Austin III, the nation’s first Black Secretary of Defense, a historic 2021 selection by President Joe Biden.

Austin, 71, is a four-star general with 41 years of service within the Army. He earned the Silver Star for his leadership within the Iraq War and later, as commander of the United States Armed Forces, oversaw all combat operations in Iraq in addition to military operations in Afghanistan within the 2010s.

Hegseth, a Trump loyalist who previously influenced the previous president to pardon a bunch of military men accused of war crimes, has been outspoken against women serving in combat and critical of what he calls a “woke” military.

“Any general, any admiral, anyone, with ties to DEI or ‘woke’ must go,” Hegseth was quoted as saying on the show latest podcast.

Hegseth can also be a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, universities often criticized by conservatives as bastions of the “liberal elite.” He first served within the Minnesota National Guard, working in finance. A yr later, he was sent to Guantanamo Bay as an infantry platoon leader.

After the Baghdad tour, Hegseth entered politics, forming a conservative group called Vets For Freedom and becoming a television commentator.

Richard Brookshire, Army and National Guard veteran and CEO Black Veterans Projectrespectfully acknowledged Hegseth’s service, which incorporates earning the Bronze Star Medal. However, Brookshire questions the balance between Hegseth’s experience and the seniority required for the position.

Brookshire also noted that DEI efforts, often maligned by conservatives like Hegseth, have played a key role in ensuring that qualified candidates like Secretary Austin are usually not missed.

“I attended the White House Veterans Breakfast the other day, and meeting in person with Secretary Austin and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made me reflect on how they got to their positions – not because they didn’t do a great job, because they absolutely did, but through concerted recruiting efforts in the Black community that began in the 1970s.” Brookshire said. “There has been a commitment to provide pathways that did not previously exist, and now there is an attempt to dismantle those efforts through affirmative action.”

Bakari Sellers, a CNN political analyst, echoed the concerns of many Americans about Trump’s recent cabinet selections, but Hegseth particularly.

“People argue about DEI and the lack of qualifications, then rave about Pete Hegseth being put in charge of the most powerful military in the world,” Sells wrote on Twitter. “Watching mediocrity rewarded is a hallmark of the Trump administration.”

The Department of Defense oversees a budget of roughly $842 billion– says the department’s website.

Brookshire expressed concern that with President-elect Donald Trump and a possible defense secretary so hostile to diversity efforts, legitimate issues resembling racial disparities in veterans’ disability compensation will proceed to omitted.

For Black veterans, it could actually be life-changing.

“Sometimes my biggest concern is that the civil rights ecosystem is just not being attentive to the military-industrial complex. And so far as I can see, the veteran ecosystem doesn’t care about black veterans. So nobody is actually going to fill that support gap, Brookshire said.

Hegseth will need to be confirmed by the Senate before he officially replaces Austin as Secretary of Defense.