Who is US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth? — BBC Americast

[0:00] We need to talk about Pete Hegseth, America's Secretary of War, as he styles himself. He is now [0:05] a hugely important person when it comes to the prosecution of the war in Iran. Who is he? What [0:12] does he believe? And how unusual is he when you look at previous American Secretaries of Defence? [0:19] Welcome to AmeriCast and to my conversation with Eric Schmidt, who is the National Security [0:24] Correspondent of the New York Times, a job he's done since 1990. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. [0:34] Let's begin with who Pete Hegseth is as a person, because he's not like a normal, if I could use [0:42] that word in inverted commas, he's not a normal Defence Secretary, is he? And he wouldn't claim to be. [0:47] No, he's not at all. And I think he would take pride in saying he's not. In fact, when his name [0:51] was first announced, I think we were all scrambling to Google his name. It was kind of had an [0:56] echo when I heard a name. And I, oh, yeah, he's the Fox News Sunday host. And I'm going, but that [1:02] can't be the guy they picked to be Defence Secretary. And as it turns out, of course, he has a military [1:07] record. He did serve in Afghanistan and in Iraq as a kind of a mid-grade officer with the National [1:14] Guard. He's from Minnesota. But that hardly, in normal times, qualifies you to be a Defence Secretary. [1:21] Typically, that's somebody, a senior statesman. If you think of a Don Rumsfeld kind of character [1:27] who served in Congress as a White House Chief of Staff. Maybe he was a retired general like Jim [1:34] Mattis or Lloyd Austin, somebody with some credentials. And I think the main credential here [1:40] was that President Trump had seen and liked him on his performances on Fox News. And that was the [1:49] voice that he wanted over at the Pentagon. So how does he organise things? Because he obviously does [1:55] not have, he simply doesn't have the experience in bureaucracies that it might take to make that [2:01] work. Does he, has he separated himself off as a kind of leader, totemic figure at the top of it, [2:08] and let other people do the kind of grunt work, as it were, but the important work of organisational [2:14] things or what? Yeah, typically the Defence Secretary in the American system is, is kind of at the top [2:21] and picks one or two or three main issues to really focus on. Obviously, they work very closely with the [2:27] President and the rest of the Cabinet. But he leaves the day to day workings of the Pentagon and kind of [2:32] the inner grits of that to a Deputy Defence Secretary and all the kind of higher level civilian aides. And of [2:40] course, then the military runs quite a bit of it as well. So he picks a good Secretary will typically [2:46] pick one or two folk items to focus on. And Hegseth, when he came in, made it very clear that his first [2:54] and foremost objection was going after DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, he felt and he had written about [3:00] this in previous books and in podcasts and on his Fox News programs, he felt that the United States [3:07] military had gone woke, you know, it had basically bent over backwards to accommodate minorities to [3:14] accommodate women, and that the military that he enlisted in, you know, after sometime after 9-11, [3:21] really to go after enemies of the country had really gone soft. And so what he was trying and [3:27] what he's talked about repeatedly in his writings, and certainly after he came in as President, excuse me, [3:33] as Secretary, was to inject more lethality and combat effectiveness in inside the United States [3:40] military, and that we'd gotten bogged down in these wars, the ones the same ones that he'd fought in, [3:45] in Afghanistan and Iraq. And we had to get away from that mindset and really start thinking [3:50] more broadly to future type threats, whether they be in Russia or China, or as this administration now is [3:58] focused on the Western Hemisphere and defending the homeland, and also of new technology. So I think [4:03] those are kind of some of the big issues that he took on right away. Would a fair-minded person say [4:09] he's had any success in them? Well, I mean, it depends on your point of view. Again, one of the first [4:15] things he did was sack the sitting vice, sitting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an African-American [4:21] named C.Q. Brown, a fighter pilot who had tremendous wartime fighting credentials. And yet, I think [4:28] Hegseth has basically insinuated that he only got his job because he was black. He has systematically [4:34] gone through the senior ranks of all the military services and fired some two dozen top generals and [4:40] admirals. He just recently fired the Army Chief of Staff, Randy George, and that marked the last of the [4:47] service chiefs, the heads of the various branches of the military services in the U.S. military, that he [4:54] has fired and now is basically putting his own people in. So he is trying to remake the United States [5:01] military and what he feels is a more, with people that he believes are going to be more focused on [5:09] taking the fight to the enemy, whoever that may be, whether it's drug traffickers on the southwest [5:14] border or the United States, or in the most recent case, against the country of Iran. [5:19] And of course, if he gets criticism, he is very, very tetchy. Well, in fact, [5:23] more than tetchy, isn't he? He's actually kicked people out of the Pentagon. Explain [5:27] the relationship, the Hegseth relationship with those people in the press who ask [5:34] reasonable questions of what he's doing. Yeah, he doesn't like that. He doesn't like tough [5:39] questions. I think his view of a good journalist is somebody who's going to basically echo [5:43] whatever the party line is coming out of the Pentagon or the White House. [5:47] We wrote a lot about his shortfalls, his multiple marriages, his drinking problems, [5:53] his failed businesses. And so it wasn't a pretty sight. And he barely got through the approval process. [6:00] And I think he kind of took that, brought that grudge with him into the building. And rather than [6:06] trying to work with the media, obviously there's always going to be tensions with the media, [6:10] he immediately sought to restrict our access and ultimately last fall confronted us with the [6:16] option if we wanted to keep the access to the Pentagon that we've had for many, many years, [6:22] we would essentially have to sign a loyalty oath. That is, we could only publish information that had [6:27] been pre-approved by the Pentagon. And of course, with the First Amendment, such as it is here in the [6:32] U.S., there was no way we were going to do that. And we walked out. The New York Times has sued [6:37] the Pentagon over this policy in the midst of litigation to try and get access back into the [6:42] Pentagon, which is a very important part of our daily job, but we've essentially overcome that. [6:48] But it's a very combative relationship, even more so than I think pretty much any other secretary [6:53] I've covered in 35 years. These news conferences we've seen during the Iran war are rare, [7:00] and they hadn't really happened at all up until the war. Defense secretaries like other cabinet [7:07] members and the president typically travel with the media. He only takes kind of a selected, [7:13] hand-picked view from a conservative press that he feels will kind of ask safe questions and again, [7:19] echo kind of his view of the world and his view of operations. So no, he doesn't like to be challenged, [7:26] and it's been tricky to kind of get him on the record in confronting him with these things. [7:30] When you say the most aggressive ever, I mean, thinking back to Donald Rumsfeld, [7:36] and people might remember the briefings which were televised during the Iraq war. People of a [7:44] certain age will remember them. And I certainly remember occasionally being in the room. And frankly, [7:48] it was terrifying, because he was on great form. And he's acerbic, isn't he, [7:53] Rumsfeld, and really capable of kind of putting down individuals? And he often did that. But you're [8:00] saying Hegseth is more than that? Well, the thing with Rumsfeld was, [8:05] you're exactly right. He was acerbic, he was combative, but he was a wrestler in college, [8:11] and what he liked was confrontation. And if you were prepared, and if you had your ducks in a row, [8:17] and you were well informed, and you were willing to push back, he respected that. He liked that. He [8:22] liked the jousting. He liked that. He wasn't afraid of it. He was supremely confident. Pete [8:27] Hegseth is not confident. He doesn't have a whole lot of inner self-confidence. He projects like he [8:32] does. But if I think he did, he would be willing to take us on. So the difference between Hegseth [8:37] and Rumsfeld is huge in that regard. And then Rumsfeld would take on any comers. And if you made [8:42] your point, it was rare, but every once in a while, he would acknowledge, you know, maybe you've, [8:47] maybe you've got something there, Schmidt. I don't think you're right most of the time, but every once in a [8:51] while, whereas Hegseth doesn't even, you know, entertain that as an option. [8:55] And just to underline, if you're not in the Pentagon, the Pentagon is a huge building, [9:00] people will know the building, but the hugeness of it, actually, I don't think is always completely [9:07] obvious when you just see pictures of it from the outside, this kind of extraordinary mass of [9:12] corridors and offices. And the crucial point, Eric, is you can sort of roam about, can you? If you're, [9:18] if you're based in there and allowed in there and credentialed to be there, [9:22] you can talk to people in corridors and glean interesting pieces of information all day. [9:29] That's exactly right. It is. It's in a very unusual place to report on in Washington. It's up until [9:36] recently, it was the largest office building in the world. It has about 20,000 people who work there [9:42] day in, day out. And you're right. As long as you're credentialed, which means going through a [9:47] background check and being vetted, you could pretty much go anywhere you wanted in the building. And [9:51] you would bump up to bump into people. I remember running into Secretary Jim Mattis. He picked up his [9:57] own dry cleaning and you could walk back to his office with him. It would be off the record, but [10:02] you could clean a tidbit or two. And you were always running into generals or top officials just in the, [10:08] in the hallway and you would have, you know, you could confirm things with them or run things by [10:13] them. And so it was very important just to, you know, be there and pick up things like that. And [10:18] right now that's what we're missing. Secretary Hegseth, for whatever reason, believes that the media is [10:23] essentially a security risk and he is treating us as such. Whereas, and again, the decades that I've [10:28] covered the building, there's never been any kind of breach of security. We take our jobs very seriously. [10:34] Most of the Pentagon correspondents working there have been there for years, if not decades. [10:39] And it's a, it's a very important job. You know, we take it very seriously. [10:43] We were talking earlier about his relationship with God and specifically how that affects the [10:48] Pentagon, but also more widely, actually, the kind of broader right. There was this extraordinary [10:54] story. I think it was the Free Press, wasn't it? Reporting a few days ago that they'd actually called in [11:01] the Vatican's ambassador to Washington DC to complain about the Pope, which takes Hegseth and [11:10] and his people into a very new place. Yes. I mean, this is, this is a secretary [11:16] who wears his religion very much on his sleeve. He has introduced regular prayer briefings, [11:23] prayer meetings in the Pentagon, which have been going on for years, but he publicizes them and [11:27] actively encourages people to do that. Look, there's nothing wrong with being religious and [11:32] observing your faith. But I think what Hegseth does is he really puts it out there. And we even [11:37] saw it during the press conference the other day, when he's talking about the rescue of the downed [11:42] airmen, when he was essentially comparing, you know, the search, which starts on Friday, [11:47] Good Friday, as he underscored, extends into Saturday. And then the pilot is actually, you know, [11:53] rescued early Sunday morning, and he underscores early Easter Sunday morning. So he's making this [11:58] almost direct comparison to the resurrection. And he, I think it's becoming more and more apparent in [12:04] his, his comments, he believes God is looking over American troops, God is making, you know, is, you [12:12] know, is willing the Americans to victory. There's almost this kind of crusade like, you know, tone to [12:19] some of his comments. And of course, he's been criticized in question about some of the tattoos [12:23] that he wears, some of which are, you know, associated with the hard Christian nationalist [12:29] right here in this country. But I think to a lot of Brits, the audience this podcast is around the [12:34] world, and plenty of people listening now will not be British, or indeed, quite a few of them will [12:38] actually be US citizens. But for Brits, it's always been fascinating to us, the degree of religiosity [12:45] that's sort of acceptable at the top of American society. And you think back to George W. Bush and [12:50] Tony Blair and their relationship. I remember Tony Blair being asked here by my former wonderfully [12:57] esteemed colleague, Jeremy Paxman, whether he prayed with George W. Bush before they sent troops to Iraq. [13:06] And that the question was deeply a discomforting for Tony Blair and for his people who just sort of [13:13] dismissed as if we don't do religion, we don't want to go down those roads. [13:16] Does the fact that George Bush and you are both Christians make it easier for you to view [13:22] these conflicts in terms of good and evil? I don't think so, no. I think that whether you're a [13:27] Christian or not a Christian, you can try and perceive what is good and what is evil. [13:31] You don't pray together, for example? No, we don't pray together, Jeremy, no. [13:36] But actually, if you think back to the George W. Bush administration, although Rumsfeld [13:42] wasn't big on religious belief and certainly religiosity, you think back to the Bush White [13:49] House. They, of course, were, weren't they, Eric? The place hummed to the sound of prayer at various [13:55] stages. So it's not... I suppose the point I'm making or the question I'm asking is how unusual [14:00] is it in the American system to have someone who is so openly and constantly committed to [14:08] his religious faith and wants to talk about it? Well, I think it is unusual, particularly [14:14] for a defense secretary in this sense. And it's usually a defense secretary is somebody [14:18] who both tries to stay as nonpartisan as possible, but it certainly would keep religion out. I think [14:23] this also came up during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, when, of course, the whole question of [14:30] was there discrimination against Muslims? Were we fighting a holy war? That kind of thing. And, [14:35] you know, I think you had military people come out very quickly. In fact, you had the President Bush [14:40] at the time come out very quickly and say, this is not a war against Muslims at all. It's Islamic. [14:46] But you have people in this administration, I think, who demonize Islam and looking at that. And [14:52] I think we're seeing this certainly with Republican members of Congress. The Islamophobia is quite [14:57] striking right now. And there's not much that the senior officials in the White House are doing to [15:03] chant that down. And a Catholic phobia as well, if that's a word, which is really striking and [15:08] interesting. We were talking earlier on about the sense among some Catholics that he really, [15:15] it's not just that they called in the Pope's representative and dressed him down, which [15:19] apparently they did, but also it's not just the Pope who upsets them. It's almost Catholicism as a thing. [15:24] Well, and it's odd because obviously you have the Vice President, J.D. Vance, who's converted and [15:30] has had his own kind of scrapes with the Pope over talking about religious interpretation. [15:36] So it's an unusual thing to have this kind of injected into areas where, certainly with the [15:43] Defence Secretary, you think he's going to be speaking more about military policy or operations [15:48] or maybe personnel issues. And suddenly to have such a focus on religion is quite unusual. [15:54] What's he going to do in the future, do you think? What does he want to do? [15:57] Is this a kind of job where he fades away at the end of it or goes back to Fox News or what? [16:05] Well, you know, there's a lot of speculation out there. Pete Hexeth is 45. He turns 46 in June. He's [16:11] a young guy, obviously quite telegenic, well-spoken, and from people I talk to in political circles, [16:18] quite ambitious. And I think there's a lot of rumours. You know, he lives in Tennessee, [16:23] outside of Nashville, that he would like to run for office, particularly there. But there are even [16:28] echoes that he might like to run for President someday. I mean, using this as a stepping stone [16:32] toward that. I don't think maybe, you know, in the next cycle, but perhaps following on. But it's, [16:37] but it's interesting to see what kind of following he would have, particularly on the conservative [16:42] right who, you know, believe in what he's talking about as somebody who can kind of, who's very [16:48] closely aligned with the military, although really doesn't have as much say in military operations. [16:53] I mean, obviously, his defense secretary, he'll sign off and approve on these. But he's not, say, [16:58] a Lloyd Austin or Jim Mattis, who are former four-star generals who could really get in the weeds on [17:03] both operational and strategic issues. He leaves that to the senior uniform guys like General Cain to do. [17:10] But I think he could use this as a stepping stone, particularly if he continues to have successful [17:15] operations. That's why the Iran war is so crucial right now and why he's framed it, as he did [17:21] yesterday in his press conference with General Cain, basically saying America is winning. We've won [17:27] this war. We've defeated the Iranian military. And they go on to tick off all these statistics. And yet [17:33] we see with our own eyes how Iran is still able to fire off missiles and drones. They still control the [17:39] Strait of Hormuz. So while they may be battered militarily, they still have quite a lot of fight [17:46] left in them. And many of the political and strategic goals that the president has set out have not been [17:51] met. Yeah. It's interesting that, isn't it? Because you see again and again, the stats that the Pentagon [17:57] come up with and that Pete Hegseth talks about X number of launchers have been destroyed, this [18:04] proportion of the capability of the Navy and the Air Force of the Iranian state, etc., etc. But what you [18:13] don't hear so much is how much they've still got left or the sense that the Pentagon must have behind [18:19] the scenes, I mean, maybe you do know the answer to this area, is what the Pentagon's assessment is [18:25] of how powerful Iran still is in military terms at the at least pause that we've achieved so far in [18:32] this war. Well, in fact, we wrote an article last week with a colleague of mine where we basically said, [18:38] according to internal Pentagon estimates, that the Iranians still have as much as 50% of their missile [18:45] stocks. They still have about 50% of their drones, their one-way attack drones in storage. Now, much [18:51] of their ability to rebuild and build new drones and new missiles has been destroyed, as has much of [18:57] their much of their Navy. But still, they have a lot of capability. What we also reported was a lot of [19:03] these missile silos that the American bombers have hit, the Iranians have been able to go and basically [19:08] dig them out again and reuse them. You don't hear much of that from the from Pete Hegseth. And the other [19:14] thing that's interesting is kind of watching him is he kind of revels in the glory of combat and the [19:19] glory of of death. And listening to him talk yesterday about how the military was ready to [19:26] execute on the on the president's threat to basically bomb, you know, the country of Iran into into [19:34] extinction. You know, these very dramatic threats, these existential threats that the president made. [19:40] And for all accounts, Pete Hegseth was all behind that. You could when I talked to senior military [19:45] officers, they said, No, no, we're not. We're not going nearly that far. All the targets we have [19:49] on our list have all been cleared, you know, as lawful targets. But but Hegseth is a great cheerleader. [19:55] And one of the criticisms is that he is basically sugarcoated a lot of the analysis that goes to the [20:01] president, and that the president's not getting some of these statistics we just thought we just [20:05] discussed about what Iran has left in its inventory. What the president sees are basically [20:11] every morning, he gets a two, two and a half minute montage of a lot of targets being blown [20:16] up by various bombs and missiles. But what he's not being told, at least not in a forceful way is what, [20:22] even though it's military weekend, no question about that, Iran still has a lot of capability left, [20:27] as they demonstrate last week, when they shot down, you know, one American fighter plane with two pilots, [20:33] and shot down another that was looking for them. So it's that's that's kind of the situation where [20:38] we have now, Eric, I don't want to get you into more trouble with him. But before we finish, can [20:43] we talk a bit about his wife? Because you mentioned his his political ambitions, and, you know, more [20:49] generally, the kind of person he is and the impact that he's tried to have. Is it fair to say that a [20:58] fair bit of that seems to come from her? Certainly with the the the inner circle people that I talked [21:05] to, from Hexeth talk about Jennifer, his wife, his third wife, now is one of the most influential [21:12] advisors that he has kind of both spiritually, personally, and professionally. I think, you know, [21:17] he is, she is very important in supporting him, obviously, as as most wives are, for their for their [21:25] husbands. But she has been in particularly early on, you saw her showing up in important meetings, [21:30] even kind of like one with some NATO advisors early on. So she plays a very important role behind [21:37] the scenes for the Secretary. I think he she's, she's really his rock. Okay, I'm gonna let you go. [21:43] Eric Schmidt, a national security correspondent for The New York Times, who has been doing that job for [21:48] many a long year. Real pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for sparing us the time. [21:52] Thanks for having me on.