Published: 8:33am, 13 Nov 2024Updated: 8:35am, 13 Nov 2024
US President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he is nominating Fox News host and US Army veteran Pete Hegseth to serve as his defence secretary.
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Hegseth deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and unsuccessfully ran for Senate in Minnesota in 2012 before joining Fox News.
“With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice – Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,” Trump said in a statement. “Nobody fights harder for the Troops, and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our ‘Peace through Strength’ policy.”
Hegseth, 44, is a co-host of Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends Weekend and has been a contributor with the network since 2014, where he developed a friendship with Trump, who made regular appearances on the show. He is also the author of The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.
Earlier Trump said he had picked John Ratcliffe, a close ally who was director of national intelligence at the end of his first term, to serve as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
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Ratcliffe served as the nation’s top spy from late May 2020 until Trump left office in January 2021.