Pete Hegseth has been nominated as Secretary of Defense by President Trump. And, it didn’t take long for the Democrats and media to respond by proclaiming that he’s not qualified.

https://twitter.com/kleavittnh/status/1856488940347203850

Pete Hegseth isn’t qualified because he’s “only” a Fox News Host. 

A Fox & Friends weekend co-host is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense.

I lead the Senate military personnel panel. All three of my brothers served in uniform. I respect every one of our servicemembers.

Donald Trump’s pick will make us less safe and must be rejected. https://t.co/6ADUJSm8x6

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) November 13, 2024

Shaddup Lizzie.

Pete Hegseth isn’t qualified because he was “only” a soldier. 

But Mr. Hegseth is likely to run into opposition from senior military officials and perhaps lawmakers who have served in the military for his embrace of narratives by troops who ran afoul of military justice rules. A former Pentagon official from Mr. Trump’s first term questioned Mr. Hegseth’s lack of experience — other than serving in the military — and raised concerns about his ability to win Senate confirmation, even with a Republican majority in the chamber.

Oh, so he only served in the military but since he didn’t attain the rank of general, his qualifications are sub par. Got it. 

Because of those two things, he doesn’t have the experience or the leadership! As Politico puts it, since he doesn’t have that vaunted DC Swamp experience, nor has spent any time at the Pentagon, he’s not qualified to be Sec Def. 

https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1856676554983759895

Except for the fact that he IS qualified to be Secretary of Defense precisely because of his experience as a soldier and his advocacy for veterans. 

This is a guy who, as Army Infantry saw actual combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. He wasn’t a FOBBIT, he was boots on the ground, and he sure as hell didn’t run from the fight like Tim Walz did!

He directly experienced the consequences and results of the orders passed down by the Pentagon generals. He saw how the ever changing Rules of Engagement, many of which were more political and politically correct, would put our soldiers in danger. Unlike Liz Cheney, who advocates for more war run by political correctness, Pete Hegseth KNOWS what it is like to be on the battlefield with weapons pointed AT you. 

In 2019, Mr. Hegseth lobbied heavily on behalf of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a member of the Navy SEALs who was acquitted of serious war crimes in Iraq. Mr. Trump reversed a demotion ordered as punishment, then fired the Navy secretary, whom Mr. Hegseth had aggressively criticized.

Mr. Hegseth defended Chief Gallagher on Fox News and spoke to Mr. Trump several times about the case. “From the beginning, this was overzealous prosecutors who were not giving the benefit of the doubt to the trigger-pullers,” he said.

Mr. Hegseth’s book, the New York Times best-seller “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” was published in June. “Our ‘elites’ are like the feckless drug-addled businessmen at Nakatomi Plaza, looking down on Bruce Willis’s John McClane in ‘Die Hard,’” Mr. Hegseth wrote in the book. “But there will come a day when they realize they need John McClane — that in fact their ability to live in peace and prosperity has always depended on guys like him being honorable, powerful and deadly.”

Over the last four years, very good people have left the military because of the Biden Administration’s push towards DEI and the woke agenda as a whole. There’s a leadership vacuum from the top down BECAUSE of the current Administration’s policies. Furthermore, recruiting numbers are in the toilet because of A. the current DOD leadership and B. because of the outrageous Afghanistan debacle that left hundreds of our soldiers wounded, and thirteen heroes killed in action. But the opinions of the veterans don’t matter here.

Democrats are whining that Pete Hegseth isn’t qualified, yet they’ve continued to prop up Lloyd Austin, who went AWOL last Christmas to have major surgery, leaving even his immediate staff in the dark. Yet Austin is still Sec Def and faced zero consequences for his actions. Any other member of the military would’ve been chaptered out immediately. 

The current military leadership has been all in, as mentioned above, on following DEI and allowing transgenders to serve. Which does not create a battle ready force. Furthermore, our current military has been heavily invested in targeting those they deem as extremists. And even Pete Hegseth was caught up in that idiocy.

Interesting. Couple of years ago, I had a scoop which the Pentagon later confirmed that Twelve U.S. National Guard members were removed from securing then President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration after vetting. Turns out one of them was @PeteHegseth https://t.co/0lSzyOjzzm pic.twitter.com/QcQQmtUJJ1

— Jim LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) November 7, 2024

Our current military leadership is full of knaves and fools, who wouldn’t know an extremist if one walked up and bopped them upside the head.

Hegseth added that when writing his book “he reached out to somebody in the unit who could confirm with 99.9 percent certainty, because he was in the meetings and on the emails, nope someone inside the D.C. Guard trolled your social media, found a tattoo, used it an excuse to call you a white nationalist, an extremist, and you were specifically by name orders revoked to guard the inauguration because you were considered a potential threat.”

We have a leadership vacuum at the Department of Defense. And there is a lack of confidence in the readiness of our military, precisely because of the Biden Administration. 

“He's got 20 years in service. Afghanistan, Iraq. Two bronze stars. Princeton, Harvard. Yeah, he's on TV, but so are the rest of us.”

Scott Jennings just cooks them. Carl Bernstein’s face is priceless.

pic.twitter.com/YBlsUCKtVr

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) November 13, 2024

There are Democrats whining about generals getting canned after Trump is inaugurated. You know what? I’m fine with a good house cleaning and getting the ship reoriented to battle readiness instead of woke DEI crap. 

And if it takes someone who was “only” a soldier and just a Fox News media hack, I’m all for Pete Hegseth getting the nod as Sec Def. I know a lot of other soldiers who are on board with this as well. 

Feature Photo Credit: Pete Hegseth at TPUSA 2020 by Gage Skidmore via Flickr, cropped and modified