The Fox Information host who President-elect Donald Trump simply introduced can be his nominee for secretary of protection was not allowed to work safety at President Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration, supposedly due to a tattoo that navy higher-ups believed may need been an extremist image.
In response to Pete Hegseth, the “Fox & Friends Weekend” host and potential future protection secretary, the tattoo was a big Jerusalem cross on his chest. The Jerusalem cross originated with the Christian Crusades practically a millennium in the past. As of late, it may be a easy marker of Christian beliefs ― or, in some settings, an emblem for the conquest and domination of Muslims or non-white minorities.
“I was deemed an extremist because of a tattoo ― by my National Guard unit in Washington, D.C.,” Hegseth mentioned on “The Shawn Ryan Show” podcast this summer time. “And my orders were revoked to guard the Biden inauguration. Jerusalem cross tattoo, it’s just a Christian symbol … [that] is what got me disinvited.”
In 2003, Hegseth was commissioned as an Military Nationwide Guard infantry officer. He served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, finally reaching the rank of main.
However Hegseth is a shocking decide to guide essentially the most huge navy paperwork in human historical past for a number of causes, together with his assertion that ladies mustn’t serve in fight roles; his profitable lobbying throughout the first Trump administration for pardons for convicted and alleged struggle criminals; his description of “a war on two fronts” ― one towards “radical Islamist ideology” and the opposite towards “home enemies,” specifically, “the Left”; his opposition to the supposed “infection” of left-wing insurance policies within the navy; and his assertion a number of years in the past that “the Iraq War is an example of what America got right when we got it right.”
In his 2020 e book “American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free,” Hegseth wrote, “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,” the liberal watchdog group Media Issues flagged Tuesday. In the identical e book, he echoed the white nationalist “Great Replacement” conspiracy concept, saying that ”American leftists insist on pursuing the exact same insurance policies that led to the cultural invasion in Europe” by “Islamists.”
“Muhammad is now a top ten boys’ name in America — what will it be in 2030?” Hegseth wrote.
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Relating to Biden’s inauguration, Hegseth advised Ryan that whereas engaged on his newest e book, he reached out to somebody in his unit “who could confirm [the story] with 99.9% certainty.” He mentioned that he was advised “someone inside the DC Guard trolled your social media, found a tattoo, used it as an excuse to call you a white nationalist, an extremist, and you were specifically, by name, orders revoked to guard the inauguration because you were considered a potential threat.”
“I joined the Army because I wanted to serve my country. Extremism attacked us on 9/11, and we went to war,” Hegseth wrote in his 2024 e book, “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” including: “And, in 2021, I was deemed an ‘extremist’ by that very same Army.”
Hegseth has pointed to the incident for example of “political” and “partisan” decision-making. He mentioned his tattoo is a “Christian tattoo” and never an “extremist” image.
“Ultimately, members of my unit in leadership deemed that I was an extremist or a white nationalist because of a tattoo I have, which is a religious tattoo,” he mentioned individually in a Fox Information interview. “It’s a Jerusalem cross. Everybody can look it up, but it was used as a premise to revoke my orders to guard the inauguration.”
Hegseth additionally has a tattoo that reads “Deus vult,” or “God wills it,” which he has confirmed to be a reference to the Crusades.
“I’ve got Deus Vult – God Wills It – which was the cry of the Crusaders, on my bicep,” he advised the sports activities information web site The Large Lead in 2020.
Imagery with the Jerusalem cross in addition to phrases reminiscent of “Deus vult” have lately grown extra widespread as stand-ins for signifiers of right-wing beliefs and generally far-right beliefs. For instance, Donald Trump Jr. as soon as modeled an assault rifle personalized with the Jerusalem cross and a picture of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton behind bars. In 2020, a Delaware man firebombed a Deliberate Parenthood facility after writing “Deus vult” on the constructing’s exterior. In 2023, a gunman who dedicated a mass capturing at a Dallas-area mall had each a “Deus vult” and a swastika tattoo, in addition to Nazi SS bolts and different markers of utmost beliefs.
Jim LaPorta, an investigative journalist who covers the navy, confirmed some elements of Hegseth’s inauguration story years in the past. A number of days after Biden’s inauguration, LaPorta and others reported in The Related Press that 12 Nationwide Guard members had been faraway from the inaugural safety plan “after vetting by the FBI.” LaPorta reported, “Two other U.S. officials told The Associated Press that all 12 were found to have ties with right-wing militia groups or posted extremist views online.” The story added that the people had been eliminated as a result of “security liabilities.”
Although two of the 12 affected service members had been despatched dwelling as a result of “inappropriate comments or texts related to the inauguration,” in response to the AP story, the opposite 10 had been for “other potential issues that may involve previous criminal behavior or other activities, but were not directly related to the inaugural event.”
“Couple of years ago, I had a scoop which the Pentagon later confirmed that Twelve U.S. National Guard members were removed from securing then President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration after vetting,” LaPorta wrote final week on X, previously Twitter. “Turns out one of them was @PeteHegseth”
The Pentagon mentioned on the time it wasn’t asking follow-up questions on anybody flagged by regulation enforcement ― it was simply eradicating them from the safety plan that day.
“If our law enforcement partners flag an individual based on their determination that they see something, and they pass it to us, we’re not even asking what the flag was, we’re just removing them,” Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman mentioned on the time.
Spokespeople for the Minnesota Military Nationwide Guard, with whom Hegseth deployed abroad, didn’t return HuffPost’s requests for remark, nor did representatives of the District of Columbia Military Nationwide Guard, which offered inauguration safety. Trump’s transition workforce and a audio system bureau that represents Hegseth additionally didn’t return requests for remark. A Pentagon spokesperson referred HuffPost to Military public affairs, which didn’t reply.
It’s attainable that Hegseth was the sufferer of overly broad vetting forward of Biden’s inauguration. Nevertheless, context is essential.
Ever for the reason that terrorist assaults on Sept. 11, 2001, Crusades imagery has grown extra widespread among the many far proper.
As Washington Submit columnist Ishaan Tharoor noticed in 2016, “‘Deus Vult’ — or ‘God wills it’ or ‘it is the will of God’ — has become a kind of far-right code word, a hashtag proliferated around alt-right social media and graffiti scrawled in public institutions.”
NPR reported in 2017 on historians’ anger over the appropriation of Crusaders’ crosses and different medieval imagery by white nationalists. Crusader imagery was seen on the August 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in addition to on the Jan. 6, 2021, assault by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
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“Deus vult” has additionally been used alongside swastikas and different racist imagery by mosque vandals. In response to KnowYourMeme.com, a web site that catalogs in style utilization on the Web, “The phrase can be seen as the Christian equivalent” of Allahu akbar, or God is nice.
