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Trump’s Defense Nominee Admits He Was ‘Deemed an Extremist’ by the Military
Pete Hegseth, the host of the weekend edition of “Fox & Friends,” is President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Secretary of Defense—one of the most powerful positions not only in the country but also in the world. Critics, and even some Republican U.S. Senators, are shocked by the choice, with some pointing to what they see as his lack of qualifications and his apparent far-right Christian nationalist ties, as causes for concern.
The London-based nonprofit, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), issued a statement on “Hegseth’s associations with Christian nationalist movements,” and warned of his “ties to extreme Christian theologies … [that] have raised alarms about the direction of Trump’s potential administration.”
The current U.S. Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, is a retired four-star U.S. Army General. He has served as commander of United States Central Command (CENTCOM), Army Vice Chief of Staff, Commander of United States Forces – Iraq, and Director of the Joint Staff. He is a decorated soldier, awarded for valor and distinguished service. Austin graduated from West Point in 1975 and served in the U.S. Armed Forces until his retirement in 2016.
Hegseth has served in the Minnesota Army National Guard since 2003. He holds the rank of Major, has received several awards, and has served at Guantánamo Bay, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
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One day before Joe Biden was sworn into office as America’s 46th President, The Associated Press reported, “Twelve U.S. National Guard members have been removed from securing President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration after vetting by the FBI, including two who made extremist statements in posts or texts about the … event, Pentagon officials said.”
“Two other U.S. officials told The Associated Press that all 12 were found to have ties with right-wing militia groups or posted extremist views online,” the report noted. “The officials told the AP they had all been removed because of ‘security liabilities.’”
Jim LaPorta, an award-winning journalist who shared the byline on the AP story, is now a verification producer with CBS News Confirmed. He served two tours in Afghanistan and often writes about the U.S. Military and military veterans.
Last week, well before the SecDef nomination, LaPorta posted video of Hegseth to the social media site X and wrote: “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.”
In the video, Hegseth at least partially confirms why he was removed from Biden’s inauguration duty.
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
“I was deemed an extremist because of a tattoo, by my National Guard unit in Washington, D.C. And my orders were revoked to guard the Biden inauguration,” Hegseth says in the video. “Jerusalem Cross tattoo, which is just a Christian symbol … got me disinvited.”
Religion scholar Matthew D. Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, & Jewish Studies, says Hegseth’s tattoo is not just a Christian symbol.
“Hegseth’s a prominent Fox News personality & veterans advocate, but he also has strong ties to the Christian far right,” Taylor writes at the start of a lengthy thread, posting a photo of Hegseth with his tattoos exposed — and he notes that there are not one but two` Christian tattoos.
Yesterday Trump announced he’s nominating Pete Hegseth as his Secretary of Defense.
Hegseth’s a prominent Fox News personality & veterans advocate, but he also has strong ties to the Christian far right that I’ve not seen fully exposed yet.
Here’s a thread w/ receipts… 1/ pic.twitter.com/FdnhMZx4nx
— Matthew D. Taylor (@TaylorMatthewD) November 13, 2024
“Hegseth has 2 Crusader tattoos: a Jerusalem Cross, the symbol of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem on his chest,” which he showed in the video, “& ‘Deus Vult’ the Crusaders’ theological cri de coeur (‘God wills it’) on his bicep. ‘Deus Vult’ means God mandated Crusaders’ violence,” Taylor writes.
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He also points to a Newsweek article focusing on Hegseth being removed from the Biden inauguration. It also delves into his cross tattoo.
“In recent years some right-wing nationalist groups have adopted Crusader imagery, including depictions of Templar Knights and the Crusader slogan Deus vult, Latin for ‘God wills it.'”
At The Bulwark, Annika Brockschmidt and Thomas Lecaque on Thursday report: “Donald Trump’s potential secretary of defense hasn’t been straightforward about the violent symbolism of his ink.”
They explain there are many tattoos, which they say are “a veritable checklist of today’s Christian nationalist folklore.”
Brockschmidt and Lecaque write from experience. Brockschmidt’s bio reads: “Journalist, author and trained historian writing about right-wing reactionary movements in the US and Europe, with a focus on the Religious Right and White Christian nationalism.” And Lecaque’s says he is “an associate professor of history at Grand View University, studies religious violence and apocalypticism.”
“Hegseth insinuates that he was discriminated against for having this ‘religious’ image on his body,” they write. “But the symbol is not only religious: It has always carried a political valence. The Jerusalem Cross was used as the emblem of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from the late thirteenth century onwards. You may have seen it in Ridley Scott’s The Kingdom of Heaven (2005). It has made its way into a variety of contemporary far-right Templar myths. All this is left unmentioned by Hegseth.”
“And it’s far from the only ideologically charged tattoo on Trump’s SecDef nominee,” they add. “Hegseth’s right arm is covered from top to bottom, and most of the images draw from Revolution-era propaganda primarily associated nowadays with the ‘Patriot’ rhetoric of militia movements and QAnon. Three of these are clearly visible in the cover photo for one of his books, American Crusade: (1) the year 1775 in Roman numerals, (2) ‘We the People’ in a stylized colonial script, and (3) an American flag with a modified M-4 superimposed over the lower bars.”
“He also has Ben Franklin’s famous ‘Join or Die’ cartoon—the chopped-up snake representing the fate of the non-unified colonies—on the underside of his forearm. On his shoulder he has the insignia of the 187th Infantry Regiment in which he served; his elbow is decorated with a circle of stars and the crook of his arm features a pair of crossed muskets.”
They add that Hegseth also has “tattoos that have made the work of historians of the Crusades depressingly relevant to contemporary politics again: a sword embedded in a cross on Hegseth’s inner forearm—it represents Matthew 10:34, the verse wherein Christ says, ‘I have not come to bring peace, but a sword’—and, most disturbing of all, a gothic inscription on his bicep: ‘Deus Vult.'”
They offer a deeper explanation of the “Deus Vultures” tattoo.
“‘Deus Vult’ has never been interpreted as a call for spiritual combat—for reflection and prayer. It has always been understood as a call for violent action, for blood. This interpretation remains consistent in its widespread adoption by the Christian far right around the world, including by some who marched on the Capitol on January 6th, and one who perpetrated shocking white supremacist violence against Muslims in New Zealand.”
They say Hegseth’s tattoos provide “a veritable checklist of today’s Christian nationalist folklore. Among many who espouse a union of church and state, gun tattoos such as Hegseth’s amount to a kind of spiritual kitsch, a younger and more radical generation’s version of putting a framed print of Albrecht Dürer’s study of praying hands on the dining room wall. The iconography of weaponry is ubiquitous: Hegseth has used his Instagram profile to advertise silencers, ammunition, and soaps shaped like grenades.”
Watch the video above or at this link.
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A Wall Street Journal opinion columnist is blasting President Donald Trump’s policies and remarks, warning that the affordability issue “could sink” his presidency.
Trump is underwater on his handling of inflation, and will deliver a speech in Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening that the White House says will be “a positive economic, a focused speech, where he talks about all that he and his team has done to provide bigger paychecks and lower prices for the American people.”
But columnist William A. Galston says “there’s a problem: Mr. Trump isn’t buying it. He has denounced the focus on affordability as a Democratic ‘con job,’ a ‘scam’ and a ‘hoax.'”
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“Starting the day I take the oath of office,” Trump told voters last year on the campaign trail, “I will rapidly drive prices down, and we will make America affordable again.”
Galston noted: “The American people were listening, and they expect Mr. Trump to honor his promises. Right now, they couldn’t be blamed for thinking he isn’t even trying.”
And he blasted the president for ignoring the situation.
“’The reason I don’t want to talk about affordability is because everybody knows it is far less expensive under Trump than it was under sleepy Joe Biden,’ he said at a recent White House event. In other words: Keep moving, folks, nothing to see here.”
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Galston noted that economist Stephen Moore, an outside Trump adviser, “says that the president’s low standing on the affordability issue is a ‘messaging problem.’ It isn’t; it’s a reality problem.”
Americans know the problem when they see that some items “are especially unaffordable,” Galston added.
He pointed out that the cost of shelter — rents and mortgage — are up 3.6% over the past year.
Home insurance premiums, he said, are expected to rise 8%. Electricity is up 11% since January, the month Trump took office.
By “rescinding duties on some agricultural goods last month, including beef, bananas and coffee, Mr. Trump tacitly conceded that tariffs put upward pressure on prices,” Galston wrote, adding that removing those tariffs is not enough.
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Image via Reuters
About 200 former attorneys and staff from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice are warning of the “near destruction of DOJ’s once-revered crown jewel,” and what they call Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “demand” for “loyalty to the President, not the Constitution or the American people.”
“For decades, the non-partisan work of the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) has protected all Americans—especially the most vulnerable—from unfair treatment and unequal opportunities,” they write in a letter dated Tuesday. They added that “after witnessing this Administration destroy much of our work, we made the heartbreaking decision to leave—along with hundreds of colleagues, including about 75 percent of attorneys.”
Bloomberg Law reported on Tuesday that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division will now focus only on “intentional discrimination,” and not “policies that may appear neutral but disproportionately affect racial minorities and other protected classes.”
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In their letter, the former attorneys and staff specifically state that they left the Civil Rights Division “because this Administration turned the Division’s core mission upside down, largely abandoning its duty to protect civil rights,” and that it “achieved this goal by discarding much of the Division’s most impactful work.”
The group blasted Attorney General Bondi, who, they said, “issued a series of memos that subverted the Division’s mission in favor of President Trump’s political agenda.”
“One stood out: it insinuated that DOJ attorneys were Trump’s personal lawyers, an assertion that struck at the heart of the agency’s independence. Bondi’s demand to us was obvious: loyalty to the President, not the Constitution or the American people.”
In another scathing section, they charged that Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon “focused her efforts on ‘driving [the Civil Rights Division] in the opposite direction’ of its longstanding purpose.”
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They allege she issued mission statements “that included fighting diversity initiatives instead of race-based discrimination, investigating baseless allegations of voter fraud rather than protecting the right to vote, and dropping any mention of the Fair Housing Act, a landmark 1968 law that protects Americans from landlords’ racial discrimination and sexual harassment.”
And they charge that the administration “demanded that we find facts to fit the Administration’s predetermined outcomes.”
“Having no use for the expertise of career staff, the Administration launched a coordinated effort to drive us out,” they wrote. “The campaign to purge staff culminated in Dhillon encouraging everyone to resign after a period of paid leave while threatening layoffs if enough staff did not accept.”
Christine Stoneman, one of the letter’s signatories, told Bloomberg Law, “It is a sad commentary that in this anniversary of the Civil Rights Division, the Trump administration has chosen to eliminate a regulation that, for nearly 60 years has helped root out illegal race and national origin discrimination by recipients of federal funds.”
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Image via Reuters
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor blasted loosened campaign finance rules during oral arguments in a case that would allow political parties to receive even more donations.
Calling it “the most consequential campaign finance-related dispute” since Citizens United, Axios explained that “the justices will decide whether to eliminate a federal law that limits the amount of money big-money party committees can spend in direct coordination with favored candidates.”
Appearing skeptical that the Court should rule in his favor, Justice Sotomayor walked Noel Francisco, the attorney for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, through some top donors to both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates while warning about the appearance of quid pro quo.
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“Your answer is suggesting to me that every time we interfere with the congressional design, we make matters worse,” Justice Sotomayor said. “You’re telling us that Citizens United and McCutcheon ended up, yes, in amplifying the voice of corporations, but diminishing another voice, that of the party.”
“Now, you want to now tinker some more and try to raise the voice of one party,” she explained. “Our tinkering causes more harm than it does good.”
Disagreeing, Francisco replied, “Your Honor, I personally never think free speech makes things worse. I think it virtually always makes it better.”
Without mentioning any donors’ names, Justice Sotomayor then said that “in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton set up a joint victory fund with the DNC, 32 state parties, which allowed a single donor to give up to $356,000.”
“In 2024, Donald Trump’s campaign launched a joint fundraising operation with his own leadership PAC, the RNC, and 40 State Republican Party committees, that saw donations of up to $814,600,” she said, noting, “I’m not picking on Donald Trump.”
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“Joe Biden’s victory fund, together with the DNC and the party committees of all 50 states, um, raised up to $1.3 billion,” the justice added.
She warned that “once we take off this coordinated expenditure limit, then what’s left? What’s left is nothing. No control whatsoever.”
Francisco disagreed again.
“You mean to suggest,” Justice Sotomayor replied, “that the fact that one major donor to the current president, the most major donor to the current president, got a very lucrative job immediately upon election from the new administration, does not give the appearance of quid pro quo?”
“Your Honor,” Francisco responded, “I’m not 100% sure about the example that you’re looking at, but if I am familiar, if I think I know what you’re talking about, I have a hard time thinking that his salary that he drew from the federal government was an effective quid pro quo bribery, which may be why nobody has even remotely suggested that.”
Sotomayor warned, “Maybe not the salary, but certainly, the lucrative government contracts might be.”
Justice Sotomayor: “You mean to suggest that the fact that one major donor to the current president, the most major donor to the president, got a very lucrative job immediately upon election from the new administration, does not give the appearance of quid pro quo?” pic.twitter.com/rgpXFz9QAz
— CSPAN (@cspan) December 9, 2025
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Image: Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States, Steve Petteway via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
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