Don't expect military to welcome Pete Hegseth with open arms: national security expert

The jury is still out on whether Fox News weekend host Pete Hegseth will be approved to head the Department of Defense, but a professor emeritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College doesn't expect he'll get far with the military.

Speaking to MSNBC on Monday, The Atlantic's Tom Nichols said Hegseth "is not going to be as welcome in the military as people think it might be."

He said that the enlisted and officer corps "understand their duty" and "they understand their constitutional oath."

Also read: 'It's offensive': Multiple senators object to Trump's plan to usher in Pete Hegseth

Those in the armed forces "care about the people standing next to them," Nichols continued. "So, you know, this kind of trollery of taking somebody — and I think this is what Trump is doing. Trolling the public — of taking someone with has no qualifications, can't really look after the 3 million people in the DOD."

He said that this is in addition to the idea of Hegseth representing the United States in Beijing or Moscow.

"One of the things that folks in the military care about is that their people are looked after by the chain of command going all the way to the top," Nichols pointed out. "Pete Hegseth, whatever his intentions, even if they are good intentions and not all of them I think are, but even if he wanted to, he doesn't have the experience or the ability to do that kind of a job, and I think there would be some concern about that."

With a more experienced appointee, Nichols said that it would send a message that "what matters most in every government department, including justice and defense and the intelligence community worry about the most, is that loyalty matters more than competence, loyalty to Donald Trump matters more than competence, and it matters more than loyalty to the constitution. And that's the message Trump's been trying to send."

Hegseth faces intense scrutiny over an allegation of sexual assault from a Republican women's event in 2017. Hegseth was never charged but reportedly gave her an undisclosed amount of money and asked her to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

Hegseth's lawyer said he paid the woman out of fears he would be fired from Fox News. Trump's transition team was reportedly blindsided by the scandal.

Senators told Raw Story they would like a full FBI background check and Senate hearing for Hegseth. Trump has said he'd consider pushing his nominees through using recess appointments.

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