Pete Hegseth on “In the Arena”

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Welcome to Secure Freedom Radio. This is Frank Gaffney, your host and guide for what I think of as an intelligence briefing on the war for the free world. A man whose intelligence and whose service in a variety of different capacities in that war for the free world has long impressed me is our first guest. He is Pete Hegseth. You have seen him, I’m quite certain, on FOX News where he is a very important contributor. Perhaps you have been reading his writings at places like foxnews.com, but also National Review and elsewhere. And I hope, if you haven’t yet, that you will be racing out to a bookstore or Amazon to get a copy of his new book, In the Arena: Good Citizens, a Great Republic, and How One Speech Can Reinvigorate America. Pete served with great distinction in the United States Army, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. He has been a leader of veterans since he got out, notably with Concerned Veterans for America and Vets for Freedom. He is a man I’m very proud to call a friend as well as a much admired colleague. And it’s always a delight to have him with us. Welcome back, Pete, and congratulations on In the Arena.

PETE HEGSETH:

Well, thank you very much, Frank. I appreciate it. It’s great to be on with you.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

So give us the short course on what In the Arena refers to as well as why it’s important that we all do our part to be playing in it.

PETE HEGSETH:

That’s right. Well, you certainly are and folks like you have been in the arena. You live in the arena, the arena of ideas for our American experiment and what it takes to preserve it. The title of the book itself, In the Arena, comes from a famous quote from Teddy Roosevelt in 1910. You’re probably familiar with it. It starts, it’s not the critic who counts, it’s the man who’s actually in the arena whose face is marred by blood and sweat and dust, who strives valiantly for worthy causes. And it goes on a little bit more than that. I carried that quote with me in Iraq and Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. It always motivated me to make sure I was doing everything I could to be in the arena, fighting for worthy causes, striving valiantly. And then when I got back from Afghanistan, I actually read the entire speech. And the entire speech is called “Citizenship in a Republic”, given by Roosevelt in 1910. And the book is not about me, nor is it about Roosevelt, necessarily. I mean, I’m a conservative. I come at Roosevelt with clear eyes about his descent into the founder of the progressive party and his bull moose candidacy and all of that. This is just about the speech. And the speech was sort of – it’s an un-PC speech before there even was PC. It lays out, there’s two very important aspects that I kind of pull out of it, one is the gritty values that are needed as citizens to perpetuate a republic. Who – what type of men and women do we need to be raising and perpetuating in this country in order to make sure our American experiment continues? And he goes into some detail with language that we need to hear more of today, not the soft, sort of bike helmet, fifth place trophy language, but the gritty, tough duty, honour language that we need more of today. And then he also talks about good patriots and, as you know, Teddy Roosevelt was always an advocate for American leadership in the world. And he talks about the need for us to reject the so-called citizens of the world. And instead be proud of America, unapologetic, and willing to stand for – stand for and win the fights that we undertake. So in my mind, those are two pretty important ingredients about making sure America stays strong and then, if America leads in the world, you know, that’s necessary for freedom to continue to flourish in the world, as you’re very well aware of. So rather than me just write a book about what I thought, I thought it was better to revive the historic speech that, just like most things in life, they are — we’re bringing back to life timeless truths. I tried to do that with Roosevelt’s speech.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Well, thank you for doing it, Pete Hegseth, because this really is such a bracing and remarkable contrast to what we have been seeing and hearing from Barack Obama throughout this presidency, as well as others like him. Let me talk to you about one piece of this first of the two important themes. Whether we still have it in us as citizens of this country in the sense of understanding how much is at stake and, in particular, how what we’re choosing to do or not do as citizens may really determine whether we have the strength, whether we have the fortitude, whether we have the perceived deterrent capabilities to prevent bad guys from taking advantage of us and to our great detriment at that.

PETE HEGSETH:

You’re exactly right. That’s why Roosevelt started with that in his speech and what I lead with in the book as well. Because the heroic virtues of the battlefield, of leadership on the world stage, you can’t sustain those over time without the more civic or homely or martial virtues here at home that we are failing to instil in the next generation. See, when I use the word citizenship, a lot of people today think of maybe voting or jury duty or protesting or marches. And those are all things that happened in republics and democracies. However, what Roosevelt was referring to was not those outward facing motions, but first how we hold our own as individuals. Are we willing to earn a living and not be dependent on the government, but instead provide for our family? Will we fight for causes that we believe in, either through the force of arms or in principle in our sphere of influence? Will we raise large, healthy, patriotic families? Roosevelt talks about demographics and either look at Western Europe today and, you know, statistics you’re very familiar with, what the most common new boy’s name in London being Muhammad. Who’s having kids and how many still matters in the world today, even if so many want to believe that we live in history. And then he also talks about character, character and faith. Free peoples can’t – you can’t govern yourselves in a free society unless people have inside some sort of a moral compass that they adhere to, as opposed to depending on Big Brother to establish and enforce a moral code. Those are all inward things that we can effect in our own sphere that make us good citizens in Roosevelt’s articulation that are sorely lacking today. Instead, we want to point at other people or other problems. And so, restoring that sense of citizenship, it comes through education, it’s families, it’s, you know, whether it’s home schooling or proper schooling or civic organisations or churches, we have to – but you have to understand why America is special and why she is exceptional in order to make the kind of unapologetic argument that it will take to reinvigorate it. So it’s an education process, top to bottom, but it really starts with the individual and making sure we’re effecting what we can where we are.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Pete Hegseth, just on this point, you used a term that is almost never spoken of these days, certainly outside of the United States military and especially in the context of what we should be instilling in our young people and expecting them to exhibit and that is a certain martial quality. That is to say, an understanding of and practice of, you know, well, the manly business, I guess, if you’d call it that, of defending us. And I really wonder sometimes whether we’ve kind of been weening out of the body politic the DNA, if you will, of, well, I think of at kind of a higher order a national security-mindedness. But when you get down to it at the individual level, it really is some of those qualities you’re talking about. Is it gone? And if it is lacking, beyond sort of the general point about education and family values and so on, what would you recommend be done to reinstil it?

PETE HEGSETH:

Sure. I don’t think it’s entirely gone. It lives in certain quarters of society geographically and temperamentally. You still got military families and lineages that instil it. You still have certain, you know, whether it’s Texas or other places where that ethos is still appreciated. It’s not entirely gone. But in many ways, we are turning our men into women and our women into men. And creating a space in which those values of strength and of honour and of decisive action and of courage are undervalued or seen as boisterous or too brutish for a refined society like ours. I mean, John Kerry also encapsulated it when he called, you know, action, military action, so 19^th Century. They sort of believe, they understand all of these things to be past us. What do we have to do? It’s real – civic education is critical. But I also, I don’t believe in universal national service cause I think it inevitably leads – first of all, I don’t think it’s constitutional, second of all, I think it inevitably leads to just government growth and a bunch of social justice causes. But I do argue for a more decisive selective service decision point where if you’re of the age, you know, about to be eighteen, nineteen, twenty, you’re confronted with a more robust series of choices. Maybe you sign up for something like a minuteman corps, which isn’t the full time military. I just – I know so many guys who are able-bodied, patriotic, would serve in a time of crisis if they were ever asked to, but they’re not involved at all. But you give them an opportunity to say, take an annual fitness test, something really triggers their thought.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

I want to pause for just a moment. We have to break. When we come back, I will talk more with Pete Hegseth about reinstilling in our country what we need to protect it, among other things, in a dangerous world, and the necessity for engagement to that end right after this.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Welcome back. Our guest is Pete Hegseth. We are having an extended conversation with him, I’m delighted to say, about his new book, In the Arena, as well as some of the insights that he’s gained from his time in service to our country in the United States Army and the service that he has been rendering ever since, including with organisations like Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America. Pete, thanks again for you time. Let me just ask you about one thing that you touched on a moment ago and that is improving our selective service system and there’s much talk at the moment, as you know, of drafting women in the event that we have to kick that thing into gear again. What are your thoughts on that, Pete?

PETE HEGSETH:

Well, it’s all part of a longstanding social engineering policy this administration has had from the very beginning. Much more worried about issues of equality or diversity in the military than they are about warfighting capability. I also don’t trust that they will maintain the standards and inevitably moving women into combat roles has – will inevitably erode to some level of erosion of standards. Because quotas take hold in all the things that you’re aware of. I think it’s a bad idea. I think it might – I know it was introduced almost to demonstrate what a bad idea it was. Now it could go to an actual, you know, it could actually become policy or pursued. I know this administration, a lot of times, you know, their perspectives, when taken to a logical conclusion, don’t look so pretty. And in this particular case, I don’t think there’s a lot of fathers and mothers who would be interested in daughters being drafted for the next world war were it ever, heaven forbid, come to that. So I don’t think it’s a good idea necessarily, but I also think it’s pretty hard to avoid once they’ve gone down all the trails they have already.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Our guest is Pete Hegseth. We’re talking about his new book, In the Arena. And Pete, when you described the two sort of pillars of Teddy Roosevelt’s famous speech which gave rise to that quote, you mentioned not only the importance of an engaged citizenry with a certain martial aspect and conviction about the extraordinary nature of this country, but also the importance of this country being engaged in the world as a force for good. Talk a bit about the latter, if you would.

PETE HEGSETH:

Yeah, that’s right. It’s important to have that conversation. Cause we’re in a moment, both on the left and on the right, where political leaders are wanting to pull us away from engagement with the world. And we’ve had difficult outcomes in difficult wars since 9-11 that have, you know, brought about appetites for retreat. And what I try to enforce in the book is that it is resolve that needs to be the lesson since 9-11 and not retreat. And I talk about the Iraq war, an issue that you and I were very intimately involved with, but ultimately we won the war there through the surge and overwhelmingly so against al-Qaeda in Iraq. And even Joe Biden in February of 2010 said Iraq would be an overwhelming success for that administration. And then they abandoned it and retreated, militarily and diplomatically, and you got the rise of ISIS through the vacuum and us not being willing to follow through and finish the job. So it litigates that over the course of a chapter and a half. Because I think that is important, lest we fall into this delusion that Iraq was an inevitable disaster no matter what. And Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya are very different combat zones also, but Roosevelt saw those same tendencies in his time. He warned against citizens of the world who he called utterly undesirable citizens of their own country. But who ultimately believed that some sort of one world perspective is capable of solving the problems of the world, when in reality, there are very different, violent ideologies facing us. And you either face up against them and show a willingness to prevail or slowly your freedoms will erode. And I think our, you know, the question we have to ask ourselves right now is, are we able to prevail, to do what is necessary? Because enemies lurk, as you know better than anyone else, around the globe today.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Yeah, slowly may not be the best adjective to describe how fast this takes place. It seems to be accelerating with each passing day. Pete Hegseth, let me just ask you about one of those ideologies. And I think, if I’m not mistaken, that Teddy Roosevelt warned about it rather explicitly in his time. Namely, this program that its adherents call shariah, an Islamic supremacist doctrine that you’ve confronted on battlefields around the world and notably at Guantanamo Bay, of course. What is your reading as you look, particularly as a man who hails from the great state of Minnesota, at what is happening not just on some distant land where those who seek to make shariah supreme are at work, but actually here in the United States as well, notably in Minneapolis, St. Paul?

PETE HEGSETH:

Yeah, one of the big three threats I list in the book is Islamism in either violent or political forms. And, you know, you look at Western Europe and the bombings that occurred most recently and those are indicative of societies where there was no – there was no assimilation followed by no allegiance. And it becomes a first generation then a second generation problem. And I live here in Minnesota. In Minneapolis, there’s a large Somali Muslim population. I just did a feature for FOX News channel where I went down to that area and interviewed a lot of Somali Minnesotans about, you know, what they see and what they see in the mosques there and there was some unfortunate and scary stuff. I mean, what you pretty much have – not universally, there’s good people down there, for sure, but in the first generation you don’t see a whole lot of assimilation. They did flee Somalia after the civil war in 1991 and they see a peaceful and better life here. But they’re not speaking English, they’re not really engaging with the outside community, even after fifteen years here in this country. And then it’s the second generation that is being raised with propaganda, with no necessary allegiance here because their parents aren’t engaged, but also not back home so the propaganda is powerful and the mosques, you got imams preaching radical Islam there and then there’s terror networks recruiting them. So you’ve got this hotbed where there is neither assimilation nor allegiance then therefore to the principles of America. Which have everything to do with what this country’s always stood for and nothing to do with, of course, the racism or bigotry that everyone would want to accuse us of, so it’s a perfect example of how vigilant we need to be. And how as a culture and as a society, as Americans who believe in our experiment, we have to be willing to confront those who won’t assimilate to the ideas of our country and show allegiance to them. Lest we find ourselves in a place where there’s a silent invasion of groups of people who have a very different view of the future that looks nothing like America, nothing like freedom.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Pete Hegseth, you have beautifully, sort of stitched together the two elements of Teddy Roosevelt’s famous speech in this particular crucible. You’ve got to have people who are willing to stand up for our country and we’ve got to be engaging those enemies, foreign and domestic as you swore to do, to safeguard our country against them. And I just want to ask you quickly about political Islam, as you put it. This piece that worries me, frankly, as much as the violent sort of jihad, is what the Muslim Brotherhood calls civilisation jihad. And it’s a kind of stealthy sort of counterpart to it. And you mentioned Europe. The infrastructure that made possible much of that jihadism of the violent kind is in mosques, is in community centres, cultural centres, so on. And in places like Minneapolis, we have them, I’m afraid, incubating as the next generation, if you will, of jihadists as well. Looking at this kind of as a national security practitioner as well as, you know, a citizen advocate, what would you recommend be done in a city like Minneapolis, St. Paul, to contend with this phenomenon?

PETE HEGSETH:

Yeah, it’s community centres, it’s cultural centres, you know, CAIR here in Minneapolis is adamant that there’s no radicalisation like they are everywhere else, serving as a Muslim Brotherhood front group. It’s here. I would, you know, it’s happening in our communities. I mean, you got – there was a, Blaine High School, here just down the road from us, there was a world celebration day where, you know, the Muslim call to prayer was given from the stage, which would never, of course, be afforded Christians or Jews or any other faith. You’ve got prayer, religious observations giving away at public schools here to Muslim students whose parents agitate adamantly for it, in ways that haven’t happened for Christians for decades because God has been removed from schools. So again, it comes down to a citizen individual duty level to call these things out. And do so with a heart for what America stands for, not out of hate for anybody else, but because we love what we have. And that we can’t allow it to fade away through a different sort of allegiance.

FRANK GAFFNEY:

Pete Hegseth, congratulations on your new book, In the Arena: Good Citizens, a Great Republic, and How One Speech Can Reinvigorate America. Keep up the good work, my friend. Come back to us again very soon. We’ll have more right after this.