Who is Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to run the Pentagon?

The next US secretary of defence could be a 44-year-old outsider who was previously a Fox News weekend host

Pete Hegseth arrives for a meeting with Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, on Capitol Hill in Washington on January 8. Bloomberg

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to run the Pentagon will come under the spotlight on Tuesday, as senators grill the former Fox News host about his past behaviour and whether it should disqualify him from the US military's top job.

Pete Hegseth has emerged as one of Mr Trump's most contentious choices and whether he is confirmed will show how much influence the incoming president has over his senior Republican lawmakers.

Mr Hegseth, 44, has in recent weeks visited senators on Capitol Hill in a bid to assuage concerns over negative headlines that accompanied his nomination, including that he was the subject of a 2017 sexual assault allegation that did not result in any charges and in which he denies any wrongdoing.

He has also faced accusations of excessive drinking and financial mismanagement at veterans' organisations he ran. Mr Hegseth's mother wrote in an email to her son in 2018, obtained by The New York Times, that he had routinely mistreated women for years.

Ms Hegseth last month appeared on Fox News to say she had quickly retracted the note and had been emotional when she wrote it.

He has also drawn criticism for comments he has made about military rules of engagement, including in Iraq, and for his advocacy of convicted war criminals. In his 2024 book, The War on Warriors, he argued that US forces should not be subject to the Geneva Conventions because America often faces insurgent enemies who ignore the rules of combat.

During Mr Trump's first term, Mr Hegseth lobbied him to pardon war criminals. The then-president went on to do so for two former servicemen who had been convicted of killing civilians in Afghanistan.

Allison Jaslow, chief executive of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which lobbies for 425,000 veterans, said Mr Hegseth's advocacy for war criminals and disdain for the international rules of war should disqualify him for the post.

"Somebody who thinks that war crimes seemingly are OK, I think, is not somebody that we want leading the Department of Defence," Ms Jaslow told The National.

Mr Hegseth has said the military prosecution of some troops was akin to “throwing warriors under the bus".

In a letter to Mr Hegseth last week, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is on the Senate armed services committee that is hosting Tuesday's hearing, said she was “deeply concerned by the many ways in which your past behaviour and rhetoric indicates that you are unfit to lead the Department of Defence".

She accused him of “gross mismanagement” after he had to step down from the two non-profit veteran advocacy groups he ran and she questioned his use of alcohol. Ten former and current Fox employees told NBC News they were concerned about the amount of alcohol Mr Hegseth drank.

“We cannot have a Secretary of Defence, charged with making essential and critical national security decisions involving life and death, who is also struggling with alcohol abuse,” Ms Warren wrote.

She raised concerns about previous comments Mr Hegseth has made about the role of women in the military, saying they should not fight on the front lines. In The War on Warriors, Mr Hegseth wrote: “Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially not in combat units.”

US soldiers look out over hillsides in Nerkh district of Afghanistan's Wardak province in 2019. AFP

Mr Hegseth has also criticised the Pentagon for allowing transgender personnel to service in uniform.

But views like this are among the main reasons Mr Trump nominated the telegenic former TV personality in the first place. Mr Trump banned transgender personnel from serving during his first term and is reportedly writing an executive order to kick the approximately 15,000 transgender personnel out of the military during his second.

“To get wokeness out of our military and restore the unquestioned strength and fighting spirit of the American armed forces, I have appointed Pete Hegseth to be our next secretary of defence,” Mr Trump said last month.

In a statement, Mr Trump's communications director Steven Cheung said Mr Hegseth “is an incredibly tough and smart candidate that will fight to put America First.

“With Pete as our secretary of defence, America’s enemies are on notice and our military will be great again.”

Proponents also point to Mr Hegseth's military service. The Harvard- and Princeton-educated combat veteran and former major served in Iraq and Afghanistan and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Mr Hegseth has the support of some veterans' groups that say his past behaviour is less important than appointing a defence secretary who can increase the military's recruitment rates and improve its readiness to fight. The Army, Navy and Air Force all missed recruitment goals in the fiscal year 2023-2024.

“If Pete can fix what many see as a recruiting crisis, I think that will be a big win for him,” one of Mr Hegseth's former colleagues told The National.

The US Defence Department has a budget of nearly $850 billion and employs almost 3.4 million personnel, comprising more than 2.5 million troops and nearly 900,000 civilians.