Eliot Wilson Eliot Wilson

What can we expect from Trump’s defence pick?

Pete Hegseth arrives at Trump Tower in 2016 (Photo: Getty)

As President-elect Donald Trump’s nominations to executive positions gradually emerge, it is difficult to know what to expect next. Elon Musk is set to run the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’. Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who organised a drugs awareness campaign under the slogan, ‘Meth. We’re on it’ and wrote in her autobiography of shooting dead her badly behaved wire-haired pointer puppy, is tapped for Secretary of Homeland Security.

Trump’s choice for the critical role of Secretary of Defence is typically atypical. Pete Hegseth, a 44-year-old Minnesotan educated at Princeton and Harvard, is a presenter and commentator for Fox News. He has also worked for two conservative political advocacy groups, Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America, and began his professional career with a fleeting stint as an equity capital markets analyst at Bear Stearns in the early 2000s. In Washington terms, however, he has no executive or legislative experience.

Britain’s best politics newsletters

You get two free articles each week when you sign up to The Spectator’s emails.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Written by
Eliot Wilson

Eliot Wilson was a clerk in the House of Commons 2005-16, including on the Defence Committee. He is a member of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Topics in this article

Comments

Join the debate, free for a month

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first month free.

Already a subscriber? Log in