Peter Brian Hegseth is an Iraq War veteran and former alcoholic with a rape allegation, a crusader’s mentality (and crusader’s tattoos), and a genuine disdain for women and fat people. He has written multiple books arguing that the Pentagon, of all places, is too “woke,” and is apathetic towards war crimes and human rights violations—potentially committing some of his own this year. And his own mother described him as an “abuser of women” who “belittles, lies, cheats, [and] sleeps around.” With a résumé like this, it’s only fitting that he serves as President Trump’s defense secretary.
Hegseth’s year began more tumultuously than perhaps any of Trump’s Cabinet picks. While he was ultimately successful in getting the role, his January confirmation involved intense scrutiny regarding the sexual assault and workplace misconduct allegations against him and his extremist views on war, DEI, and Muslims.
One whistleblower report detailed his raucous time as president of the Koch Brothers–backed Concerned Veterans of America, a three-year span in which he was allegedly often intoxicated while on the job, even getting so drunk that he needed to be carried out of the organization’s events. “A Fox News contributor, with the rank of captain (at the time) in the National Guard, and the CEO of a veterans’ organization … was in a strip club trying to dance with strippers,” the whistleblower wrote.
Hegseth stepped down as CVA president in 2016, and the very next year was accused of rape by a woman identified as “Jane Doe,” who told police that the then–Fox News anchor assaulted her at a Republican women’s conference. Hegseth eventually settled the case for $50,000.
Hegesth’s confirmation process shed even more light on his backwards, far-right views. Just a week before his nomination, Hegseth was on the Shawn Ryan Show, where he stated, “I’m straight up just saying, we should not have women in combat roles.”
“It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated,” he explained. “Our institutions don’t have to incentivize that in places where traditionally—not traditionally, over history—men in those positions are more capable.”
This gender essentialism is a weathervane for the rest of Hegseth’s ultraconservative views. In his 2024 book The War on Warriors, Hegseth painted the military as anti-white and suffering from a “long-term infection of radical left wing social justice policies.” He argued that “affirmative action posts have skyrocketed, with ‘firsts’ being the most important factor in filling new commanders. We will not stop until trans-lesbian Black females run everything!”
This cloud of chaos surrounding Hegseth’s prior life—the deep misogyny, the alcoholism and infidelity, the obsession with the “warrior ethos”—has all been transferred seamlessly into his current position as defense secretary.
The first major post-confirmation indication that Hegseth was a poor choice to lead the Pentagon was the now-infamous Signalgate scandal, in which the secretary used the private messaging app to plan a bombing on the Houthis in Yemen. Just two months into his tenure, the alarming breach of security was brought to light when the group of Trump officials inadvertently added The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat. But Hegseth maintained that he did nothing wrong, stating that the chats only contained “non-specific general details which I determined, in my sole discretion, were either not classified, or that I could safely declassify.”
This was false, as an investigation from the Pentagon’s office of the inspector general—which Hegseth did not cooperate with—found that he endangered troops by sending “sensitive, nonpublic, operational information that he determined did not require classification over the Signal chat on his personal cell phone.” One of the messages Hegseth sent literally read, “THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP.”
His tenure has also featured a general lack of respect for military leaders. In February, Hegseth fired top lawyers at the Defense Department in an effort to create even less oversight over the Trump administration’s decisions. “Ultimately, we want lawyers who give sound constitutional advice and don’t exist to attempt to be roadblocks to anything,” he explained.
In September, he forced military leaders around the globe to drop what they were doing to come to Virginia to listen to him rant about the “warrior ethos.” He urged them to adopt a “FAFO” mentality regarding diplomacy, and railed specifically against “fat troops.”
“It all starts with physical fitness and appearance. If the secretary of war can do regular hard P.T. [physical training], so can every member of our joint force,” Hegseth told the room, using the new title Trump gave him by bypassing Congress. “It’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon, and leading commands around the country and the world. It’s a bad look. It is bad, and it’s not who we are.”
The next month, Hegseth filled his new press corps with sycophants and yes-men masquerading as journalists from the likes of ultraconservative organizations like Turning Point USA, while forcing other longtime Pentagon Press Corps members to either sign what was virtually a loyalty pledge or be muzzled. Dozens of journalists walked out, and Hegseth was later sued for First Amendment violations.
Most recently, Hegseth has been embroiled in controversy surrounding the administration’s unilateral and extrajudicial “drug boat” bombings in the Caribbean Sea. The first strike in particular—which occurred in September—involved the Hegseth-led team bombing a boat full of men, killing all but two. The Defense Department then bombed the men a second time while they were clinging desperately to the remnants of their destroyed boat.
Hegseth initially denied that this second strike happened, then claimed that he was actually only in the decision room for the first one, shifting all of the blame for the potential war crime onto Admiral Frank Bradley, his second in command in the mission. Hegseth implied the two men could have contacted allies, an argument that was quickly debunked by Democratic lawmakers who viewed the footage and were left horrified.
Hegseth’s first year has been marked by scandal, internal paranoia, and wanton disregard for basic human rights or diplomacy. And the worst part: He’s only just getting started. For as much violent, malevolent incompetence Hegseth has displayed, he’s only 45 years old. If 2025 is of any evidence—and if he can actually keep it together—Secretary Hegseth could be a leading force for evil in a post-Trump MAGAverse.
