Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, once criticized him for his “superficiality” on foreign policy

President-elect Donald Trump this week named Pete Hegseth as his defense secretary — even though the Fox News host had already criticized Trump over his foreign policy and military stances before he was elected to his first term.

During Trump’s 2016 campaign, Hegseth appeared as a political commentator on Fox News and criticized what he described as Trump’s “superficiality” on foreign policy.

“As for Donald Trump, he’s in the process of changing his position and I think, frankly, he’s falling into the left’s narrative. And he did that over and over again,” Hegseth said. “He goes back and forth. He was good on many domestic issues. But internationally I don’t know where Donald Trump is.”

The comments came as Hegseth was pressed during an interview by then-Fox News host Megyn Kelly – who would later support Trump’s 2024 candidacy after leaving Fox News – about Trump’s “apparent reversal” of his position on the war in Afghanistan .

“This is unacceptable. I think it shows that his understanding of this region is superficial,” Hegseth said, referring to Trump’s comments that the US could stay in the region indefinitely. “That’s not clarity, that’s not leadership – that’s chatter on really critical issues.”

Hegseth, a former Army major who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and as a guard at Guantanamo Bay, has since become one of Trump’s most vocal allies on cable news. He previously led two veterans organizations before taking his full-time position at Fox News.

After his initial criticism, Hegseth joined Trump in the 2016 general election and continues to be one of his most enthusiastic supporters on television.

Trump and Hegseth have developed a close relationship in recent years, with Hegseth interviewing Trump several times and reportedly engaging with Trump during commercial breaks on the Fox show he hosts & Friends weekends.

In an ironic twist, Hegseth criticized Trump in 2015 for saying in an interview that he got some of his military advice from watching television news.

“You don’t want a senior presidential candidate to get all of their military advice from watching ‘Meet the Press,'” Hegseth said during an interview with Fox News. “There’s a lot more nuance and there’s a lot more detail… At the end of the day, foreign policy and national security are not about TV shows. It’s a complex set of relationships, and I think (his campaign) will want him to be informed about things like that.

During his appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in August 2015, Trump was asked by host Chuck Todd for military advice about who he was speaking to.

“Well, I watch the shows. I mean, I really see a lot of great things – you know, when you watch your show and all the other shows and you have the generals and… you have certain people that you like,” Trump replied, according to a transcript.

Since then, Hegseth has taken a sharp turn and become a fierce ally and defender of Trump.

“People outside these walls … they don’t understand the attachment that conservatives and freedom lovers have to Donald Trump,” Hegseth said in a clip he posted of him speaking at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference.

Hegseth previously said he supported other candidates for president early in the 2016 race.

“I had several candidates that I believed in at the beginning of the process and was critical of the first things (Trump) had to say,” Hegseth told a Jewish newspaper in 2016. “I still don’t like some of his rhetoric.”