For Pentagon chief, Trump taps Fox News host who said US must ‘stand by strong ally’ Israel

US President-elect Donald Trump says that he is nominating Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary.

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 says 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 has been an advocate of Israel in his coverage, which over the past year has included the series “Battle in the Holy Land: Israel at War” about the ongoing Gaza war sparked by Hamas’s terror onslaught on October 7, 2023, and an interview with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“This is not some mystical land that can be dismissed,” Hegseth said in a 2016 interview with the Jewish Press when asked about seeing biblical and historical sites in Israel. “It’s the story of God’s chosen people. That story didn’t end in 1776 or in 1948 or with the founding of the UN. All of these things still resonate and matter today.”

He also said at the time that he had never met a Jew until going to college.

“My parents come from a small town in Minnesota where I grew up as a Baptist. I never met a Jewish person until I went to college. When I did, the first thing I said to him was, ‘I read about you in the Bible!’ It was from there and beyond that I gained a true understanding of Jews. Growing up an evangelical, I obviously had an enormous amount of respect and understanding of the historical resonance of Abraham and religions and how they’re intertwined.”

“I have come to really appreciate the Jewish heritage and the Jewish state. I understand how geopolitically we are linked and how critical it is that we stand by such a strong ally.”