Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to serve as secretary of defense, is expected to emphasize his experience as a combat veteran when he testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday morning, according to a copy of his prepared remarks reviewed by The New York Times.
“When President Trump chose me for this position, the primary charge he gave me was to bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense,” Mr. Hegseth planned to say, describing himself as “a change agent” whose “only special interest is the warfighter.”
Mr. Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran who ran veterans nonprofits and worked as a television host for Fox News, has significantly less leadership experience than most recent defense secretaries. Some senators have raised concerns that his relative lack of experience could be a liability, should he be in charge of a department with more than three million civilian and uniformed employees and a budget of more than $800 billon.
But Mr. Hegseth is expected to dismiss those concerns outright.
“As President Trump also told me, we’ve repeatedly placed people atop the Pentagon with supposedly ‘the right credentials’ — whether they are retired generals, academics, or defense contractor executives — and where has it gotten us?” his prepared comments read. “He believes, and I humbly agree, that it’s time to give someone with dust on his boots the helm.”
But Mr. Hegseth, who retired at the rank of major and served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and was a platoon leader at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is also expected to express a willingness to listen to advisers.
“I know what I don’t know,” he is expected to say, adding that his success as a leader “has always been setting a clear vision, hiring people smarter and more capable than me, empowering them to succeed, holding everyone accountable, and driving toward clear metrics.”
Mr. Hegseth’s prepared remarks also describe his combat experience in detail, saying how he had dodged improvised explosive devices, “heard bullets whiz by,” “pulled out dead bodies” and “knelt before a battlefield cross.”
“This is not academic for me; this is my life,” his prepared remarks say. “I led then, and I will lead now.”
According to his prepared remarks, Mr. Hegseth is expected to pledge “to be patriotically apolitical” if confirmed to lead the Pentagon, while accusing the Biden administration of not upholding the same standard.
He also will offer a clear signal that under his stewardship, the Pentagon would not prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion policies, programs that have also been targeted by Republican lawmakers.
“Unlike the current administration, politics should play no part in military matters,” Mr. Hegseth’s prepared comments say, adding: “Our standards will be high, and they will be equal (not equitable, that is a very different word).”
Mr. Hegseth has been criticized for previously stating that he did not believe women should occupy combat roles in the military — a position that especially rankled Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa and the Senate’s first female combat veteran. Ms. Ernst, a member of the committee that will hear his testimony on Tuesday, said in a statement last month that Mr. Hegseth had pledged to her to appoint a senior official to “uphold the roles and values of our servicemen and women — based on quality and standards, not quotas.”
