From WNYC Studios, I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Wednesday, November 27.

Pete Hexeth, President-elect Trump's nominee for Defense Secretary has mostly been the source of controversy

because of his position that women should be removed from combat roles in the military,

and for the 2017 sexual assault allegation against him that resulted in a police report

and an out-of-court settlement with his accuser that included a non-disclosure agreement

as he was working as a public personality, a Fox News host. But there's more to the concerns about

Pete HECS fitness for the job that isn't getting as much press, and those are some of the things I want

to talk about. For the National Guard, Hexas was scheduled to be on duty for the Biden inauguration in 2021.

Did you know this?

But his superiors removed him because of concerns that he could be an insider threat.

He's acknowledged this.

One could not acknowledge that he was a threat, acknowledged

that he was removed over that concern. One cause for that concern was a tattoo that he has

that's often associated with white supremacist groups, a tattoo known as Deus Vault. Related, perhaps, perhaps. Hexeth wrote in one of his books that all the

diversity recruiting messages for the military made white kids feel like they're not wanted. He wrote,

quote, America's white sons and daughters are walking away from the military and who can blame them.

So true or not on the facts,

Hegseth sees diversity efforts as victimizing whites, not just trying to have the military seem welcoming and equitable to all Americans. Maybe in a confirmation hearing, the Senate will wind up

debating that. I actually looked that up this

morning, by the way, because I think these numbers are knowable facts. And according to the Defense

Department's own demographics report for 2022, which was the most recent year I could find, 22,

pretty recent, 69% of U.S. service members are white, 69%.

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