Age, Biography, and Wiki
Pete Hegseth, born on June 6, 1980, is a well-known figure in American politics and media. He is widely recognized for his roles as a former Fox News host and his current position as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. Hegseth's early life and education laid the foundation for his future career. He graduated from Princeton University with a B.A. in Public Policy and later earned an M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School.
| Occupation | Basketball Players |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 6 June 1980 |
| Age | 45 Years |
| Birth Place | Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Gemini |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Although specific details about Pete Hegseth's height and weight are not widely documented, he is often seen as a physically fit individual, likely due to his military background.
| Height | |
| Weight | |
| Body Measurements | |
| Eye Color | |
| Hair Color |
Dating & Relationship Status
Pete Hegseth is married to Jennifer Rauchet, formerly a Fox News producer. The couple tied the knot in 2019. Hegseth also has three children from his previous marriage to Samantha Deering and one daughter with Jennifer Rauchet.
Hegseth appeared before the Senate Committee on Armed Services on January 14. He positioned himself as a "warrior" while denying the allegations and his previous claims that women should not serve in combat roles. Hegseth was criticized by Democrats over his allegations of sexual misconduct, financial mismanagement, and alcohol issues. Rhode Island senator Jack Reed, the committee's ranking member, noted that Hegseth had used the term "jagoff" in his book The War on Warriors (2024) to derogatorily refer to a Judge Advocate General officer who reprimanded him on the use of rocket-propelled grenades. He did not answer a question from Virginia senator Tim Kaine on whether or not sexual assault, drinking, or infidelity were disqualifying. The Committee on Armed Services voted to advance his nomination 14–13 along party lines on January 20, after Trump was inaugurated. Hegseth's former sister-in-law, Danielle, sent an affidavit to senators alleging that he was abusive to his second wife, Samantha, and that he had an alcohol issue. Hegseth denied having a drinking problem and pledged not to drink if confirmed.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Hegseth had brought his wife to two meetings with foreign defense officials in which sensitive information was discussed, one meeting in February, at Brussels, with NATO officials, and the other in March, at the Pentagon, with British Defense Secretary John Healey. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported in March that Hegseth's brother, Phil, was listed by the Trump administration as a senior adviser to Hegseth, accompanying Hegseth to meetings, including in Congress, and on official foreign trips. Phil, who previously worked in podcasting and media relations, was confirmed by Hegseth's office to be working in the Pentagon as a Department of Homeland Security liaison to the Department of Defense. That month, The Washington Post detailed a memorandum written by Hegseth orienting the department towards deterring a potential invasion of Taiwan and supporting homeland defense by "assuming risk" in Europe. The document contained passages that were identical to those present in Project 2025.
In April, the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General announced an inquiry into Hegseth's disclosure of classified information in the Signal chat. That month, The New York Times reported that Hegseth had shared details on the attack in a second Signal chat with his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. At the White House Easter Egg Roll, Hegseth suggested that the revelations were a coordinated smear campaign. John Ullyot, the former spokesman for the Department of Defense, wrote in a Politico Magazine opinion piece hours later that the department was in a "full-blown meltdown" and warned that Hegseth was at risk of losing his position.
In 2004, Hegseth married Meredith Schwarz, a graduate of Forest Lake Area High School, at the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Minnesota; they were voted "most likely to marry" by their graduating class. Meredith filed for divorce in December 2008 after Hegseth admitted to five affairs; he had been dating Samantha Deering, whom he had met at Vets for Freedom. Hegseth married Deering, with whom he has three children, in 2010; they filed for divorce in 2017. In 2019, Hegseth married Jennifer Rauchet, a producer on Fox & Friends, at Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck in New Jersey, in an event attended by the Trump family.
In November 2024, The New York Times obtained an email from Hegseth's mother, Penny, from April 2018, accusing her son of having mistreated women for years. After the Times's reporting, Penny told the paper that she had "immediately apologized in a separate email" and that her words were written "in anger, with emotion". She defended her son on Fox News, saying he was "redeemed, forgiven, changed." In January 2025, NBC News reported that Samantha's sister Danielle had sent an affidavit to senators alleging that he had made his wife concerned for her safety, with Samantha said to have once hid in a closet and to have formed an escape plan that was once used. Hegseth's lawyer Parlatore dismissed the allegations.
In In the Arena (2016), Hegseth described his Christian faith as initially "more out of diligent habit than deep conviction". Following the September 11 attacks, he developed a hatred for Islamic terrorism, and "he found himself repelled by the campus chapel's 'gospel of moral relativism,' and disparaged his fellow students for focusing on peace and 'mutual understanding' rather than 'condemnations of Islamic terrorism'". He told Nashville Christian Family that he experienced a religious transformation in 2018 after he and his wife, Jennifer, began attending the Colts Neck Community Church in New Jersey. Seeking to send their children to Jonathan Edwards Classical Academy, a Christian school, the Hegseths moved to Nashville, Tennessee, three years later. There, they joined the Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a church in the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Meredith Schwarz (m. 2004-2009) Samantha Deering (m. 2010-2017) Jennifer Rauchet (m. 2019) |
| Sibling | |
| Children |
Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Pete Hegseth's net worth is estimated to be around $6 million, according to some sources, while others place it between $3 million and $4 million. His earnings are primarily derived from his time as a Fox News host, where he reportedly earned between $6 million and $9 million between 2023 and 2024. Additionally, he has earned significant income from public speaking engagements and book royalties. For instance, he earned $900,000 from speaking engagements and between $100,001 and $1 million from book royalties.
Career, Business, and Investments
Hegseth's career is diverse, spanning roles in the military, media, and government:
- Military Career: Hegseth served in the Army National Guard and participated in several active-duty deployments.
- Media Career: He was a co-host on Fox News's "Fox & Friends Weekend" before becoming the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
- Author: Hegseth has written several books, including "The War on Warriors" and "Battle for the American Mind," which have contributed to his net worth through royalties.
- Current Role: As of January 2025, Hegseth assumed the role of U.S. Secretary of Defense.
In November 2024, President-elect Trump named Hegseth as his nominee for secretary of defense. A Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing for Hegseth was held days before Trump's second inauguration. He faced allegations of sexual misconduct, financial mismanagement, and alcohol issues leading up to his committee confirmation. Hegseth was confirmed by the Senate that month, with Vice President JD Vance casting a tie-breaking vote, the second time in U.S. history that a Cabinet nominee's confirmation was decided by a vice president after Betsy DeVos in 2017, during the first Trump administration. He is the second-youngest person to serve as secretary of defense, after Donald Rumsfeld, and the first Minnesotan to serve in the position.
Hegseth is of Norwegian descent. He was the first child of Brian and Penelope "Penny" Hegseth. Brian was a basketball coach for high schools across Minnesota before retiring in 2019, while Penny is an executive business coach who has taught with the Minnesota Excellence in Public Service (MEPS) Series, a fellowship and leadership program for Republican and center-right women. Hegseth was raised in Forest Lake, Minnesota, and attended Forest Lake Area High School. He graduated in 1999 as valedictorian and was later inducted into the hall of fame. He played for the school's football team and was a point guard on the basketball team, earning school records in career and single-season three-point shots and single-season three-point shooting percentage. Hegseth was twice named all-conference and earned all-state honors as a senior.
At Fox News, Hegseth was the subject of multiple lawsuits. In June 2015, he threw an axe during a Flag Day event in New York City, accidentally hitting a drummer from the United States Military Academy. Video of the incident was widely circulated online. The drummer, Jeff Prosperie, alleged that he had suffered "severe and serious personal injuries to his mind and body" and "permanent effects of pain, disability, disfigurement and loss of body function." Prosperie filed a lawsuit against Hegseth three years later; the suit was resolved in an unspecified way in 2019. In Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News Network (2023), Dominion Voting Systems included a segment of Fox & Friends Weekend featuring Hegseth with co-hosts Will Cain and Rachel Campos-Duffy, in which they did not reject claims by Rudy Giuliani of election fraud being facilitated by the company's voting machines.
In February 2025, Hegseth ordered officials within the Department of Defense to reduce funding on most initiatives and began a purge from within the department, firing three top judge advocate generals and Lisa Franchetti, the chief of naval operations. Hegseth stated that "we want lawyers who give sound constitutional advice" rather than "roadblocks to anything". In March, he ordered U.S. Cyber Command to halt offensive operations against Russia, in an apparent effort to encourage Russian president Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the Russo-Ukrainian War. Also that month, the Defense Department cancelled 91 of its research studies, including those on climate change impacts and social trends, while Hegseth later stated that the Defense Department "does not do climate change crap." Separately, the Trump administration instructed Hegseth to "immediately" present "credible military options to ensure fair and unfettered US military and commercial access to the Panama Canal".
Hegseth initially supported Florida senator Marco Rubio in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, but later began to favor Texas senator Ted Cruz and finally Donald Trump. He defended Trump's policies in his first term, including his interactions with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, the 2020–2021 U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the assassination of Qasem Soleimani. While on Fox News in 2016, Hegseth was highly critical of Hillary Clinton due to her email controversy, where he indicated that "recklessness in handling information" would normally lead to job firings and criminal prosecution, while risking foreign governments gaining access to the information and damage to relationships with allied countries.
In a Yale Political Union speech in October 2008, Hegseth disagreed with "Don't ask, don't tell", the United States's position on homosexuality in the military, but noted that "Radical Islam is a far greater threat." In a podcast interview with Shawn Ryan in November 2024, Hegseth stated that women should not serve in combat roles.
Social Network
While specific details about his social media presence are not extensively documented, Pete Hegseth is likely active on platforms where he can engage with his audience and share updates about his work and views.
Hegseth left Concerned Veterans for America in January 2016 after issues regarding his mismanagement and alcoholism. In December, President-elect Donald Trump considered Hegseth for secretary of veterans affairs, but he faced opposition from veterans groups who viewed Hegseth's support for allowing all veterans to choose private doctors as untenable; Paul Rieckhoff, the executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said that selecting Hegseth would "be war" and "a radical departure" for the department. Trump later chose David Shulkin, with The Washington Post noting Hegseth's lack of experience in operating a large organization. Hegseth told podcaster Shawn Ryan that Trump found him too young to assume the position. After Shulkin fell out of favor with the Trump administration in March 2018, Hegseth positioned himself as a potential candidate, though Trump later selected Robert Wilkie after consulting Hegseth and financier Isaac Perlmutter.
Hegseth's opinions expressed on Fox & Friends influenced Trump's policymaking in his first term. In October 2018, as a migrant caravan began traveling to the United States, Trump claimed that "unknown Middle Easterners" had infiltrated the caravan. Trump apparently cited a comment that Hegseth had made on Fox & Friends, though Hegseth noted that he had not verified his statement for accuracy. Hegseth himself apparently had based his claim on a statement Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales had made on capturing one hundred ISIS fighters in the country. In negotiations to avert a federal government shutdown, Democrats neared a deal until Hegseth urged Trump not to support a deal that did not include US$5 billion for his border wall. Trump repeated claims that Hegseth had made correlating video games with mass shootings after two mass shootings in El Paso and in Dayton in August 2019. Hegseth claimed that he had spoken to Trump on pardoning war criminals Clint Lorance and Mathew L. Golsteyn, as well as reversing the demotion of Eddie Gallagher.
On November 12, 2024, U.S. president-elect Donald Trump named Hegseth as his nominee for secretary of defense, after Arkansas senator Tom Cotton announced he would not serve as secretary. He subsequently ended his contract with Fox News. The selection of Hegseth was seen as a sign that Trump sought to appoint a loyalist to lead the Department of Defense, and his relative lack of experience surprised officials within the department. According to Vanity Fair, Trump's transition team became aware the following day of a sexual assault allegation involving Hegseth that occurred in Monterey, California, seven years prior; The Washington Post reported that senior officials on the team were surprised by the allegation and reconsidered his nomination. Despite the allegation, Trump defended Hegseth and several Republican senators indicated that they would support him. His nomination was threatened by an article from Jane Mayer in The New Yorker detailing alleged financial mismanagement and alcohol issues while leading his veterans' groups, while an NBC News article reported that his drinking habits concerned his colleagues at Fox News; The New York Times reported in December that Trump had begun to consider Florida governor Ron DeSantis as an alternative.
In a call to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day after being sworn in, Hegseth said that the United States was "fully committed" to the security of Israel. Hegseth revoked the security clearance and detail of Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and chief of staff of the Army who later became a critic of Trump, and ordered an inspector general inquiry into Milley's tenure as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the inspector general of the Department of Defense, Robert Storch, was removed from his position when Trump dismissed several inspectors general. According to The Washington Post, the Department of Defense Education Activity began removing certain books on immigration and sexuality.
Hegseth visited the Mexico–United States border with Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, in El Paso, Texas, in February, where he stated that the federal government intended to gain complete "operational control of the southern border". He renamed Fort Liberty to Fort Bragg, its original name honoring the Confederate general Braxton Bragg. The military base was now renamed for Roland L. Bragg, a soldier who served in World War II. In a meeting before the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at NATO headquarters, he opposed NATO membership for Ukraine and said that returning Ukraine's borders prior to the annexation of Crimea by Russia was "unrealistic". The Department of Defense invited Jack Posobiec, an alt-right political activist to accompany Hegseth, according to The Washington Post. Hegseth moderated his comments the following day, stating that it would be possible for Ukraine to join NATO given Trump's discretion.
According to The Washington Post, Hegseth had Signal installed on his computer to circumvent cellular communication issues and to communicate with other Trump officials easier. CNN later reported that Ricky Buria, a former aide to secretary of defense Lloyd Austin, had set up Signal on Hegseth's computer. According to the Associated Press, the computer was on an unsecured internet line that was not using one of the Department of Defense's IP addresses.
In an interview with the National Review in March 2012, Hegseth advocated for premium support in Medicare and removing fee-for-service. He opposed a contraception mandate and described the Keystone Pipeline as a dichotomy between "jobs and an environmental-impact study", and that he was "always going to side with jobs." On Fox & Friends in 2019, Hegseth described climate change as an attempt at government control. In March 2025, he canceled climate change studies and decried the phenomenon as "crap" on social media. That month, he sought to eliminate climate planning from the Department of Defense but included an exception for extreme weather preparation.
In November 2024, Vanity Fair reported that Hegseth had allegedly sexually assaulted a woman at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa on Del Monte Golf Course in Monterey, California, in October 2017, when he was scheduled to speak at the California Federation of Republican Women convention. According to the Monterey Police Department, Hegseth was investigated in connection with two incidents of sexual assault that occurred shortly before midnight and 7 a.m. the following morning. He was not criminally charged. The Washington Post reported that Hegseth had paid the accuser as part of a non-disclosure agreement after she threatened litigative action in 2020. In addition, the paper obtained a memorandum provided to Donald Trump's presidential transition team by an associate of the accuser, a 30-year-old conservative group staffer, that alleged that Hegseth raped her. Hegseth's lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, later confirmed the reports, but said that the staffer was attempting to extort Hegseth, a purported "victim of blackmail and innocent collateral damage", during the #MeToo movement, risking his career. The Associated Press reported in January 2025 that Hegseth had paid her US$50000.
Education
Hegseth holds a Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy from Princeton University and a Master of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. His educational background has been instrumental in shaping his career in both public service and media.
Hegseth studied politics at Princeton University, where he published for The Princeton Tory, a conservative student newspaper. In 2003, he was commissioned as an infantry officer in the Minnesota Army National Guard, for which he served at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Hegseth worked for several organizations after leaving Iraq, including as an executive director at Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America. He became a contributor for Fox News in 2014. Hegseth served as an advisor to President Donald Trump after initially supporting his campaign in 2016. From 2017 to 2024, he was a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend. He has written several books, including American Crusade (2020) and The War on Warriors (2024).
In 1999, Hegseth enrolled at Princeton University, where he majored in politics. According to Reserve & National Guard Magazine, he chose Princeton over an offer from the United States Military Academy for Princeton's men's basketball program, the Tigers. Months before the September 11 attacks, Hegseth joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. He played for the Tigers, and was the publisher and later editor-in-chief of The Princeton Tory, a conservative newspaper. In April 2002, he declared that as publisher, he would "defend the pillars of Western civilization against the distractions of diversity". The editors of The Princeton Tory criticized Halle Berry for accepting the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Monster's Ball (2001) "on behalf of an entire race", and The New York Times for announcing that it would print gay marriage announcements, arguing that it would justify publishing marriage announcements for incestuous, zoophilic, and pedophilic relationships. In October, the Tory published an editorial characterizing homosexuality as immoral. In response, the president of Princeton's student government, Nina Langsam, wrote a strongly worded email to The Princeton Tory's publisher, Brad Simmons, and Hegseth. Her email was published in the following issue. In May 2025, The Daily Princetonian accused Hegseth of having plagiarized portions of his senior thesis.
After graduating from Princeton in June 2003, Hegseth was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Army through the university's Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. He briefly worked as an equity-markets analyst at Bear Stearns. Hegseth completed his basic training at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, in 2004, and for eleven months, he was a Minnesota Army National Guardsman at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. There, he led a platoon of soldiers from the New Jersey Army National Guard guarding detainees. By July 2005, he had returned to Bear Stearns; shortly thereafter, he volunteered in the Iraq War as an infantry officer, where he received a Bronze Star Medal. Hegseth served in the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment in the 101st Airborne Division, led by Colonel Michael D. Steele. He began his tour in Baghdad before moving to Samarra, where he served as a civil affairs officer, working with the city council and forming an alliance with councilmember Asaad Ali Yaseen. Hegseth has described a near-death experience in Iraq in which a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle, but failed to detonate.
In 2011, Hegseth was commissioned into the Minnesota Army National Guard as a captain. He volunteered to teach at the Counterinsurgency Training Center in Kabul, Afghanistan, for eight months, during the withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan; he taught one of the final classes at the school. After completing his tour in 2014, he was promoted to major and enlisted in the Individual Ready Reserve. Through the reserve, he joined the District of Columbia Army National Guard in June 2019 as a traditional drilling service member, remaining in duty until March 2021. He was barred from serving on duty at the inauguration of Joe Biden after a guardsman flagged Hegseth as an "insider threat", noting a tattoo on his biceps of the words Deus vult. He left the Individual Ready Reserve in January 2024, stating in his book The War on Warriors (2024) that he resigned over the incident.
After returning to Minnesota in February 2012, Hegseth had decided to enter the Republican primary for the United States Senate election in Minnesota and had selected a campaign manager, Anne Neu Brindley. By April, his campaign had raised US$160000. Hegseth was defeated by Kurt Bills in the Republican convention in May, and he withdrew his nomination days later. He founded MN PAC to support similar candidates, though a third of the organization's funds were given to his friends and family. Hegseth began working for Concerned Veterans of America, a group funded by the Koch brothers, that year. The group criticized Obama for the 2014 Veterans Health Administration controversy. Hegseth enrolled in the Harvard Kennedy School in 2009, but completed just one semester; he graduated four years later with a degree in public policy. In 2022, to protest the offering of classes in critical race theory at Harvard University, he wrote "Return to sender" on his degree and reportedly sent it back to the university.
By June 2014, Hegseth had become a regular contributor to Fox News by the network's executive, Roger Ailes. In 2016, he was briefly a host on TheBlaze before regularly hosting Fox & Friends Weekend that year after Ailes's resignation, becoming an official co-host in January 2017. According to a Fox News executive in Hoax (2020), Jennifer Rauchet, a producer of Fox & Friends Weekend who would later marry him, "was favoring Pete with airtime" and "kept putting Pete on TV." Hegseth served as a temporary host for Laura Ingraham on The Ingraham Angle (2017–present) in an effort by the network to promote other staffers; the change occurred during the boycott of The Ingraham Angle following comments Ingraham had made about David Hogg, an activist and survivor of the Parkland high school shooting. He hosted All-American New Year (2018) with commentator Lisa Kennedy.
On January 24, Hegseth was confirmed by the Senate in a 51–50 vote. Every Republican senator, with the exception of Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Mitch McConnell, voted to confirm him, while every Democrat senator opposed his nomination, leading to a 50–50 vote. Vance cast a tie-breaking vote to confirm Hegseth. His confirmation was threatened by Senator Thom Tillis, who told Senate majority leader John Thune the day before that he would not vote for Hegseth on the basis of his sexual assault allegations. Persuaded by Vance, Tillis expressed support for Hegseth on X minutes before the vote. His confirmation was the second in U.S. history to be decided by a vice president, after Betsy DeVos's confirmation for secretary of education in 2017.
Hegseth opposed Operation Iron Triangle, a raid in August 2006 that resulted in the death of three Iraqi men, as "atrocities" to an audience at the University of Virginia. He has criticized the U.S. military for accusing soldiers of committing war crimes.
Records released by the Monterey Police Department later that month provided additional details on the incident. The accuser told police that she had confronted Hegseth, who informed her that he was a "nice guy", after he had acted "inappropriately" with women at the event. She recalled being in an undisclosed room with Hegseth, who allegedly took her phone and blocked the door, where he then allegedly raped her. The accuser said that "things got fuzzy" and told a nurse days later that she had believed she had been drugged. Hegseth told police that he had sought to ensure she was comfortable. Video surveillance footage showed Hegseth and the accuser walking, with her smiling. Two women who were interviewed by police stated that Hegseth had put his hand on their thighs and asked them to go to his hotel room, with one woman saying that she had asked the accuser to get him off of her. According to CNN, the accuser went to a hospital to report a sexual assault and obtained a rape kit test in the emergency room. The rape kit exam served as the impetus for the Monterey Police Department's investigation. Hegseth told police that he did have sex with the woman but that it was consensual. Monterey County district attorney Jeannine M. Pacioni declined to file charges in January 2018, saying that proof beyond a reasonable doubt was not established.
