Pete Hegseth hosts FOX News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” All-American Summer Concert Series outside the Fox News Channel Studios on May 31, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON – “Going sideways” is how Fox News host and National Guard veteran Pete Hegseth, announced last night as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, recently mentioned the state of the Pentagon.

The choice of Hegseth, who does not have extensive experience in the defense or foreign policy sectors, caught many off guard, prompting a slew of questions about how he might approach the job of overseeing the military and its budget of more than $800 billion.

Although many questions remain, Hegseth recently filmed an episode of the Shawn Ryan Show that came out just five days ago. While promoting his new book, “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” he offered a glimpse into the possible priorities at the Pentagon’s top civilian post.

Here are five key takeaways, in the future Pentagon chief’s own words.

Top Generals Fired Over ‘Woke Shit’

One of Hegseth’s main points of contention, spread throughout the interview and seemingly the focus of his book, revolves around military “woke shit” such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. One solution? A firefight that begins with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General CQ Brown, who has three years left in his term.

“First of all, you have to fire the chairman (of the) Joint Chiefs, and… obviously you’re going to appoint a new secretary of defense. But every general that was involved – general, admiral, whatever –… in the woke things of DEI needs to go,” he said. “Or you’re going to go to war, and that’s it, that’s the only litmus test we care about.”

“You need to remove DEI and CRT (critical race theory) from military academies,” Hegseth added. “You don’t train young officers to be baptized in this kind of thinking.”

Notably, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the Trump administration is considering creating an administration that would fire a number of three- and four-star generals seen as over-invested in DEI issues, while both Politico and the Washington Post have raised the possibility that Brown would be removed from his position as America’s top uniformed officer.

Women in battle? It’s complicated

When asked if he liked women in battle, Hegseth quickly said, “No.” However, his position seemed to become more nuanced as the interview progressed. Female pilots? They have his support. But women in more “labor-intensive” jobs do not.

“I like female soldiers who make great contributions,” Hegseth said. “Because everything about men and women serving together complicates the situation, and complications in combat mean the casualties are worse.

‘SEALs, Rangers, Green Berets, you know, MARSOC (Navy Special Operations), infantry battalions, armor, artillery… I’m talking about something (where) strength is a differentiating factor, he added later. “Pilots? Give me a female pilot all day. I have no problem with that.”

Only since early 2016 have women been allowed to serve in all military capacities. However, they must meet the same physical requirements as their counterparts.

More broadly, Hegseth came up with the idea that the military has moved too far from its traditional recruiting base.

“There are not enough lesbians in San Francisco to crew the 82nd Airborne,” he said. “And in catering to that, they lost the guys from Tennessee, Kentucky and Oklahoma, the traditional guys who did it because they wanted to, they loved their country, or they wanted the adventure, or they, you know, they wanted trying it. hard stuff, or they need an outpouring from their community, whatever it is, if I want to do the woke bullshit, I can go to the local community college or local university.

Bring back the southern names

In 2023, the Pentagon renamed nine bases that had paid tribute Confederate generals. During his campaign, Trump promised to swiReset all the names and Hegseth appearsI agreed with that plan and called it a mistake by former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley.

“Suddenly, after George Floyd… after he dismantled the police, it became fashionable to insinuate that the military ranks are infested with racists, that it’s all these under-the-radar white nationalists, that the tattoos are waiting to pop up , and ultimately on the recruiting side, what you’ve done is you’ve Bud Lighted yourself.

However, reversing the names may not be so simple as Congress may have a role to play.

When should you use the military?

Hegseth said that for the past six years he has been a ‘restore” neoconservative who now looks down on the ‘foolishness’ of US military interventions around the world. In almost every case, he claimed, this was the case “created something worse.”

In retrospect, he added, that laundry list includes two places he served: Iraq and Afghanistan. And while Hegseth did not use the podcast to broadcast how he would reform military operations around the world, nor will it be advice on counterinsurgency operations.

“The Pentagon’s hubris is that they now want to tell other countries how to fight the insurgency based on what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. ‘Are you kidding me? So you really haven’t learned anything.”

And any idea of ​​sending American troops to Ukraine would be a stretch for him.

“The trust there that our political leaders or our generals have our best interests at heart has been completely shattered. Totally devastated,” Hegseth said. “I fully recognize that, and the last thing I want is for my son to be sent to the Donbas to defend eastern Ukraine.”

Ukraine and Putin

Discussing the war in Ukraine – which Hegseth described as “Putin’s give me back the war” – he expressed skepticism about the idea that support for Kiev is necessary to prevent Russia from moving into NATO territory.

“I have friends who probably agree with us on most things. They say, if you don’t stop them in Ukraine, he’ll go all the way to Poland,” Hegseth said. “I don’t think he – I mean, maybe in a perfect world where he had unlimited possibilities and he could crown himself king of Europe, he would (invade somewhere else). I think he probably knows enough to know that this probably won’t happen. much further in Ukraine. And I don’t think he’s a suicidal maniac determined to bring about Armageddon through nuclear warfare.

“So if Ukraine could defend itself against that big one, but I don’t want the American intervention to penetrate deep into Europe and give Putin the feeling that he is so on his heels that he has to do that, because early on he was on talking about nuclear weapons.”

However, his views on Ukraine may be more nuanced than the interview suggests. According to the Kyiv Post, Hegseth has in the past criticized the Biden administration for being slow to arm Ukraine, and in 2022 described Putin as a “war criminal.”