PETE Hegseth, a former National Guard officer who went from Fox News co-host to leading the world’s most powerful military, is fighting to keep his job less than two years into his tenure as Pentagon chief.
The 46-year-old has survived a series of controversies as defence secretary, but many resurfaced in the articles of impeachment introduced on Monday by Thomas Massie, a Republican opponent of President Donald Trump who wants to remove Hegseth from office.
Hegseth said he was ready to defend his record.
“I couldn’t be more proud of what our president has done, the decisions that he’s made, the courageous calls that he’s made, the bold nature of our… military leadership, the skill and courage of the troops on the ground,” he said.
Hegseth, 46, has sought to transform the War Department — as Trump has unofficially renamed the Defence Department.
Deploying a combative and aggressive style, he has relentlessly targeted diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the Pentagon and has fought to kick transgender troops out of the military and to bar others from joining.
“We are no longer the ‘woke’ department, or the weak department,” said Hegseth in characteristically colourful remarks to troops earlier this year.
“No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals.
“Just warriors — just tough, ready, committed troops.”
Several of the articles of impeachment relate to the Iran war, accusing Hegseth of violating the War Powers Resolution, which requires congressional consultation on and oversight of United States military interventions.
Hegseth is a vehement defender of the grinding, open-ended and widely unpopular conflict, which he has described as a “courageous and historic effort”.
The Iran conflict was the fifth major international US military intervention under Hegseth, but unlike the first four, the war against Teheran has been neither quick nor bloodless from the American side, and has also wreaked economic havoc around the globe.
Heavily-tattooed Hegseth is a former infantry officer who spent more than 18 years in the National Guard and served in combat, deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan, and he often posts social media clips of himself working out with troops.
But he had no experience heading a large organisation before leading the Pentagon.
He came under fire during his confirmation process over alleged financial mismanagement at veterans’ non-profits where he previously worked, as well as reports of excessive drinking and allegations of sexually assaulting a woman in California.
A few months after he took office, the Atlantic magazine revealed that its editor-in-chief was inadvertently included in a Signal chat in which Hegseth and other officials discussed imminent strikes on Yemen, with the Pentagon chief sending messages on the timing of the operation hours before it began.
Strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have also been a source of controversy, especially an attack last year that left survivors who were killed in a follow-up strike.
Massie branded those attacks “extrajudicial killings” and said Hegseth “chilled independent
legal review within the Defence Department”.
In another contentious move under Hegseth, a number of senior military personnel, including the top-ranking general Charles “CQ” Brown, have been fired, often with little or no public explanation.
Hegseth has insisted that Trump is simply choosing the leaders he wants, but Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns about politicisation of the traditionally neutral US military.
The defence chief, in a December 2025 speech, said the Pentagon “will not be distracted by democracy-building interventionism, undefined wars, regime change, climate change, woke moralising and feckless nation building”.
“We will deter war. We will advance our interests. We will defend our people. Peace is our goal,” he told the Reagan National Defence Forum.
But in January, US forces
seized Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife in a shock raid in the capital Caracas.
Less than two months later, the US and Israel launched their war against Iran, a conflict that has since spread to countries around the Middle East.
Critics say the Iran war is the kind of military campaign Hegseth repeatedly denounced, but is now pursuing.
The writer is from AFP