President-elect Donald Trump is considering replacing the controversial Pete Hegseth as head of the Pentagon with his one-time rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in 2024, the sources said. This was revealed by multiple people familiar with the discussions. told the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday..
The move comes as Hegseth, a 44-year-old Army veteran and former Fox News personality, faces increasing scrutiny over allegations of sexual misconduct and financial mismanagement.
The defense secretary post requires Senate confirmation, and Mr. Hegseth faces an increasingly difficult battle to win support from Republicans concerned about his past.
According to NBC News, as many as six Senate Republicans are reluctant to confirm Hegseth to the top Pentagon post.
DeSantis, a former Navy judge and solicitor general, was on the short list of candidates for defense secretary presented to Trump by transition officials before Hegseth took over, the paper said.
The list was recently removed and presented to President Trump again as allegations about Mr. Hegseth, which some senators described as “disturbing,” continued to surface.
Officials who spoke to the newspaper warned that Mr. Trump, 78, could choose someone else to replace Mr. Hegseth if his nomination fails.
But the paper said the idea of being named secretary of defense had been presented to DeSantis, 46, in recent days.
The president-elect and Florida's governor attended a memorial service for slain police officers together in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Tuesday.
Like Hegseth and Trump, DeSantis has been a vocal critic of “woke” Pentagon policies.
During his presidential primary campaign, Mr. DeSantis proposed eliminating the Pentagon's diversity initiative and cutting military programs focused on climate change.
“Our mantra as commander in chief on January 20, 2025, is very simple: Get the job done,” DeSantis said on the campaign trail in South Carolina last year. He accused it of “wokeism.”
“We must also ensure order and discipline in military installations,” the Sunshine Governor added. “Things like drag shows should not be allowed on military bases.”
As president, DeSantis also plans to rescind the Biden-Harris administration's policy that allows transgender service members to serve in the military as their preferred gender, and to reinstate service members discharged for refusing to take the coronavirus vaccine. showed.
Meanwhile, Mr. Hegseth is on Capitol Hill this week pleading for support for his nomination and meeting with several Republican senators to discuss his vision for the Pentagon.
Days after being selected as defense secretary, reports surfaced that Hegseth was facing sexual assault charges in Monterey County, California, in 2017.
Ms Hegseth was not charged, and her lawyer claims the allegations were “false”.
Earlier this week, The New Yorker reported that a former employee of the nonprofit veterans advocacy groups Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America, which Hegseth led from 2007 to 2016, He detailed even more alarming allegations made against Trump's election by members of the White House.
Two former employees, emails and a 2015 whistleblower document allege that Mr. Hegseth became “completely displeased” at the event and even watched as male members of senior management sexually harassed female employees. The report said that this indicates that he was asked to resign from the organization because he turned a blind eye. Exit.
The former Fox News host allegedly went to a strip club in Louisiana in November 2014 and was so drunk that he “attempted to get on stage and dance with the strippers,” leading to a female co-worker kicking him when a security guard kicked him. “I had to get him down” before he could be carried away, he said. they went out.
The report also claimed that Hegseth became drunk during a CVA tour to Ohio in May 2015 and began yelling, “Kill all Muslims!” Kill all Muslims! ”
An email purportedly sent to Mr. Hegseth's successor at CVA, obtained by The New Yorker, said that the Pentagon selection was “like a personal spending account, where he used the organization's funds, including partying, drinking, and using CVA events.” “It is being treated as such.'' Have sex with women on the street. ”
The newspaper has reached out to DeSantis and the Trump transition team for comment.
