Not taking the hint from Americans’ waning trust in their work, the corporate media have decided to further tank their credibility by launching an anti-Christian info op against Trump’s Secretary of Defense nominee, Pete Hegseth.
The Associated Press (AP) kicked off the weekend-long vilification campaign Friday evening, publishing a hit piece centered on one of the Army veteran’s Christian tattoos. Authored by Tara Copp, Michelle Smith, and Jason Dearen, the article attempts to tie Hegseth to “white supremacist groups” by claiming his “Deus Vult” bicep tattoo — which is Latin for “God wills it” — is “associated” with such organizations.
The hit job cites a complaint made against Hegseth ahead of Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration, at which point he served as a member of the D.C. National Guard. After reportedly seeing photos of Hegseth’s tattoos on social media, a former D.C. Guard member sent an email to the physical security manager of Hegseth’s unit, who passed the concern along to the unit’s leadership, claiming that the “Deus Vult” tattoo is “associated with [white] Supremacist groups” and “falls along the lines of [an] Insider Threat.”
According to the AP, the original post came from Travis Akers, a then-Navy intelligence officer. Akers is a far-left activist who has celebrated the military “embrac[ing] the Black Lives Matter movement,” claimed there is “systemic racism” in the U.S. armed forces, and opposed efforts to keep pornographic materials out of school libraries.
Despite all the media hype, the AP’s hit piece isn’t “bombshell” news. Hegseth has previously spoken about how his orders to guard Biden’s inauguration were “revoked” after someone within the D.C. Guard falsely labeled him as an “extremist.” The former Fox News commentator apparently believed the incident was related to the Jerusalem cross tattoo on his chest.
Leftists and Never Trumpers have gone out of their way to vilify that tattoo, too.
Copp, Smith, and Dearen further attempted to tie Hegseth to the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol, and insinuated that his elevation to defense secretary could lead to an explosion of so-called “extremism” throughout the service.
“If Hegseth assumes office, it would mean that someone who has said it’s a sham that extremism is a problem in the military would oversee a sprawling department whose leadership reacted with alarm when people in tactical gear stormed up the U.S. Capitol steps on Jan. 6 in military-style stack formation,” they wrote.
After the AP article, The Washington Post and Newsweek quickly fell in lockstep, regurgitating the anti-Christian slander on their respective websites. The New York Times‘ editorial board picked up the idea that Hegseth’s tattoo “is popular among white supremacists.”
ABC News’ “Good Morning America” deployed the same disingenuous framing in its coverage of Hegseth’s nomination. The segment narrator highlighted an X post from the Army veteran slamming the media for its “targeting of Christians, conservatives, patriots and everyday Americans,” but complained that the post was “notably not disavowing the supremacists who have adopted the symbolism, though he has in the past.”
MSNBC allowed a guest to refer to Hegseth as someone who “is known to be a white supremacist.”
So, why are Hegseth’s Christian tattoos suddenly newsworthy? The guy has had them and been in the public sphere for years.
Of course, the answer has nothing to do with Hegseth’s tattoos. The ultimate goal is to manifest controversy around the Army veteran to scare enough GOP senators into tanking his nomination.
Much to leftists’ dismay, Hegseth has openly criticized the military’s embrace of neo-Marxist ideology, incessant military adventurism, and Democrats turning the service into a left-wing social experiment. He’s also pledged to gut the DEI rot destroying the armed forces and remove Pentagon officials who promote such orthodoxy.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
