Pete Hegseth was considered to lead the United States Department of Veterans Affairs in the Trump administration, but in January 2017, David Shulkin was selected instead.
30 Facts About Pete Hegseth
2.
Pete Hegseth has been active in conservative and Republican politics since his days as an undergraduate at Princeton University.
3.
Pete Hegseth reportedly persuaded Trump to pardon three American soldiers accused or convicted of war crimes related to the shooting of non-combatants in Iraq.
4.
Pete Hegseth, who was a platoon leader at Guantanamo Bay during his military service, defended the treatment of inmates detained there.
5.
Pete Hegseth was born on June 6,1980, in Forest Lake, Minnesota.
6.
Pete Hegseth attended Forest Lake Area High School and received his Bachelor of Arts at Princeton University in 2003.
7.
At Princeton, Pete Hegseth was the publisher of The Princeton Tory, a conservative student-run publication.
8.
Pete Hegseth's unit was under the operational control of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment 101st Airborne Division.
9.
Pete Hegseth returned to active duty in 2012 as a captain.
10.
Pete Hegseth was deployed to Afghanistan with the Minnesota Army National Guard and acted as a senior counterinsurgency instructor at the Counterinsurgency Training Center in Kabul.
11.
Pete Hegseth has been awarded two Bronze Stars for his service overseas.
12.
Pete Hegseth's role included responding to the Federal Election Commission as "treasurer" of the organization.
13.
Pete Hegseth formed the political action committee MN PAC in 2012.
14.
Pete Hegseth was the executive director for Concerned Veterans for America, an advocacy group funded by the Koch brothers.
15.
Pete Hegseth ran for the Republican nomination for the US Senate seat in Minnesota in 2012.
16.
Pete Hegseth withdrew from the race after the May 2012 convention, before the Republican primary election in August, both events in which Kurt Bills won the nomination.
17.
An APM Reports analysis found that while Pete Hegseth ran the MN PAC political action committee, one third of its $15,000 in funds were spent on Christmas parties for families and friends.
18.
Pete Hegseth criticized Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
19.
Pete Hegseth has appeared on Fox News Channel, as well as on CNN and MSNBC.
20.
In December 2018, Pete Hegseth co-hosted Fox News Channel's All-American New Year with Fox Business Network's Kennedy, during which a pre-recorded telephone interview between him and President Trump was broadcast.
21.
Pete Hegseth has been a regular guest on Unfiltered with Dan Bongino since 2021.
22.
Pete Hegseth then declared his intention to return the diploma to Harvard.
23.
On June 14,2015, Pete Hegseth accidentally hit a West Point drummer with an axe while filming a live TV segment in honor of Flag Day.
24.
The Daily Beast and CNN later reported that Pete Hegseth had for months sought to convince Trump to pardon these individuals.
25.
Shortly before Trump announced his decision, Pete Hegseth suggested that Trump was about to take "imminent action" in the cases.
26.
In July 2019, Pete Hegseth said that one of the Muslim members of Congress, Rashida Tlaib, had a "Hamas agenda".
27.
Pete Hegseth criticized universities for teaching students about "environmentalism and radical environmentalism" rather than a "real threat" such as Islamic extremism.
28.
In January 2020, Pete Hegseth expressed strong support for President Trump's decision to kill Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.
29.
Pete Hegseth called on Trump to bomb the Iranian homeland, including cultural sites in Iran if they were storing weapons.
30.
Pete Hegseth married his second wife, Samantha Deering, in 2010; they have three children.