Trump’s defense pick Pete Hegseth threatens ‘educational insurgency’ in schools

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick to be secretary of defense, has called for an “educational insurgency” to take over American schools in an appearance on a right-wing podcast.

During a CrossPolitic discussion about religiously affiliated schools, Hegseth explained his idea for a system of “classical Christian schools” to provide “recruits” for an underground army that could eventually launch an “educational insurgency”.

Host Toby Sumpter said: “I think we need to be thinking in terms of these classical Christian schools are boot camps for winning back America.”

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“That’s what the crop of these classical Christian schools are gonna do in a generation,” Hegseth agreed. “Policy answers like school choice, while they’re great, that’s phase two stuff later on once the foothold has been taken, once the recruits have graduated boot camp.”

“We call it a tactical retreat,” Hegseth continued. “We draw out in the last part of the book what an educational insurgency would look like — because I was a counterinsurgency instructor in Afghanistan — and kind of the phases that Mao [Zedong] wrote about.

“We’re in the middle of phase one right now, which is effectively a tactical retreat where you regroup, consolidate, and reorganize. And as you do so, you build your army underground with the opportunity later on of taking offensive operations in an overt way.”

He added to laughter: “Obviously, all of this is metaphorical and all that good stuff.”

Right Wing Watch first reported that the nominee to be defense secretary was a guest on the show on Monday to discuss his 2022 book Battle for the American Mind. The podcast comes after claims two of Hegseth’s tattoos are associated with far-right extremism, though he dismissed the accusations as “anti-Christian bigotry”.

The veteran and Fox News weekend anchor has been dogged by controversy since a police report emerged regarding allegations of sexual assault against a woman at a conservative event in California in 2017. Hegseth says the encounter was consensual.

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The allegations make him one of a number of Trump’s prospective candidates to be accused of sexual misbehaviour, including former attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz.

Gaetz stepped back from consideration amid reports that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl, an allegation he forcefully denies.

Hegseth’s probability of being confirmed appears to have dipped significantly since Gaetz’s departure.