• Trump campaign surrogates including Tulsi Gabbard and Vivek Ramaswamy also claimed that Trump would be a better option than Harris for “anti-war” voters. Gabbard, who signed as a Fox News contributor in 2022 and was recently announced as Trump’s pick as director of national intelligence, said in August that she was “confident that his first task will be to do the work to walk us back from the brink of war.” [Twitter/X, 8/27/24; The Guardian, 8/26/24; Los Angeles Times, 11/14/22; NBC News, 11/13/24]
• Right-wing media figures have insinuated that Trump was being prosecuted for his opposition to “the neocon war agenda” and because he “was the first president in 72 years with no new wars.” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, whose organization was later tapped to help the Trump campaign with voter turnout, added, “Tucker [Carlson] believes they hate Donald Trump largely because of his skepticism toward the war machine, and it’s hard to disagree with that.” [Newsweek, 6/13/23; Jacobin, 6/20/23; Real America’s Voice, The Charlie Kirk Show, 1/12/24; NPR, 10/24/24]
• Responding to a social media post calling to “keep all neocons and war hawks out of the Trump administration,” podcaster and presidential son Donald Trump Jr. replied, “I’m on it.” [Twitter/X, 11/10/24]

Hegseth has argued the U.S. should attack sovereign nations and escalate military action

• • In 2016, Hegseth declared, “You better believe I'm willing to be the world's sheriff,” adding, “We can't be war weary.” Hegseth: “And I don't want to be the world's policeman forever. But you better believe I'm willing to be the world's sheriff, and I'm willing to be the world's leader until there is somebody that's capable to do it, because there isn't anybody else.” [YouTube, 4/15/16]
  • In 2017, Hegseth declared that “there's merit in a preemptive strike” against North Korea. He said: “There's merit in a preemptive strike. But you got to do it right. You got to — It's got to be decisive. How comprehensive is that first strike capability? But history shows us that when you let dictators get the worst weapons in the world, they wield a ton of influence.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 8/11/17]
  • Hegseth wrote that “just like the Christian crusaders who pushed back the Muslim hordes in the twelfth century, American Crusaders will need to muster the same courage against Islamists today.” In his 2020 book American Crusade, Hegseth also warned about the “Muslims’ birth rates” in states like Michigan, New York, and Minnesota and said that “Islamism is the most dangerous threat to freedom in the world. It cannot be negotiated with, coexisted with, or understood; it must be exposed, marginalized, and crushed.” [Media Matters, 11/12/24]
  • Hegseth again endorsed the Crusades, saying, “Without warriors who are willing to fight in foreign lands, there would be no Europe, there would be no America, there would be nothing of today.” [Rumble, 7/26/21]
  • Hegseth lamented that American troops are not allowed to conduct “aggressive offensive operations” and “take out bad guys.” Hegseth: “I’m hearing from guys too overseas, they're not allowed to conduct aggressive offensive operations to secure their perimeter and take out bad guys to secure themselves. So they're sitting ducks in that context. And then they're sitting ducks on a geopolitical context because the mullahs in Tehran believe they have free range.” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/29/24]
  • Hegseth praised the 2020 assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and “speculated that Trump’s next target could be a ‘second general,’ or ‘how about their oil and gas?’” As The New Republic reported, in the immediate aftermath of the Soleimani strike, Hegseth became “not only one of Trump’s most slavish cheerleaders but also an influential adviser to the president.” [The New Republic, 1/31/20]

• Hegseth later suggested targeting Iran’s energy production sites. Hegseth rhetorically asked, “Do they want their economic sites, their military sites, political sites and/or cultural sites targeted? How about their oil and gas?” [Fox Business, Varney & Co., 1/6/20]
• Hegseth repeated this call on The Five, saying, “I don't care about Iranian cultural sites.” He added: “If they had the power, they would destroy every single one of our cultural sites and build a mosque on top of it.” [Fox News, The Five, 1/6/20]
• Hegseth again suggested the U.S. could strike Iran in “nuclear sites, energy sites, infrastructure sites” in order to “truly cripple the regime.” Hegseth: “It is oil refineries, oil infrastructure, it is key missile sites, its nuclear development sites, throw in some ports, key infrastructure, and you know what? Why not a Quds headquarters for good nature on top of it. … I'm telling you, nuclear sites, energy sites, infrastructure sites — if it comes to that, that's where it needs to go. That's how you truly cripple the regime.” [Fox News, Hannity, 1/7/20]
• Hegseth further pushed for massive strikes against Iran the next day, calling on Trump to set a clock before “we start taking out your energy production facilities.” Hegseth: “What better time than now to say, we're starting the clock, you've got a week, you've got X amount of time before we start taking out your energy production facilities. We take out key infrastructure.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/8/20]
• Hegseth said the killing of Soleimani “sent as powerful a signal as you can imagine” to Iran. In an interview with former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Hegseth said, “Qassem Soleimani, the Baghdad airport. I mean, that sent as powerful a signal as you can imagine.” He later claimed, “We saw those red lines in a previous administration before the Trump administration — when they were crossed and when you don't enforce them, you get more.” [Fox News, Hannity, 3/24/23]