RADICAL FAR LEFT, George Soros-funded Media Matters’ hit piece on Pete Hegseth proves he’s the perfect choice for Secretary of Defense

In light of former President Donald Trump’s statement that he plans to nominate Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be his Department of Defense secretary, Media Matters is republishing reporting and research from 2020 on Hegseth’s alleged anti-Muslim history. 

Media Matters Pete Hegseth is an anti-Muslim bigot who has warned followers about the Muslim birth rate in states like Michigan; criticized the election of Muslims to public office; and praised President Donald Trump’s call for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

Hegseth is a co-host of Fox & Friends’ weekend edition. He is an influential pro-Trump voice who has lobbied Trump to pardon people convicted of war crimes. Hegseth himself has endorsed committing war crimes.

Hegseth has pushed anti-Muslim rhetoric on Fox News. For instance:

• In a February 2016 segment about Hamtramck, Michigan, which has a Muslim majority, Hegseth pushed fears about the “assimilation” and “integration” of Muslims.

• In May 2017, Hegseth criticized then-Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges (D) for giving her State of the City address at a mosque. He stated: “This is the left doing everything they can to fall over themselves to fawn over a new community.”

• In May 2018, Hegseth said of France: “I hate to put it this way, but I think it’s true. They’ve got a slow-motion 9/11 happening in their borders in France. … Demography matters. Muslims are having 2.6 kids, whereas French-born folks are having 1.6 kids.”

Hegseth is also a supporter of then-Florida Republican congressional candidate Laura Loomer, who has described herself as a “proud Islamophobe,” has said that she didn’t “care” about the anti-Muslim mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, and has stated that she’s in favor of “more” migrant deaths. Hegseth has repeatedly defended Loomer; said that he hopes “she wins, and wins big!”; and posted a now-deleted tweet containing a donation link for her campaign.

Hegseth makes his anti-Muslim views clear in his book American Crusade, which was released in May 2020. In it, he wrote that “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”; warned about the “Muslims’ birth rates” in states like Michigan, New York, and Minnesota; and complained about the number of Muslim-Americans who have been elected to office across the U.S.

Here are several excerpts.

Hegseth warned about “Muslims’ birth rates” in states like Michigan and the number of Muslim candidates who have won political office across the U.S. 

Today, Europe is sort of waking up to the fact that it has been invaded again—culturally and demographically. According to the Pew Research Center, the Muslim population in Europe, excluding Turkey, was estimated at 30 million in 1990, at 44 million in 2010, and is expected to grow to 58 million by 2030. The number is growing while birth rates among native Europeans have all dropped. Many European countries would have declining populations if not for Muslim immigration. Combine these factors over time, and this is what you get: in 2019, the most popular name in England for newborn boys was Muhammad. 

Could the same thing happen in America? Of course. With enough leftism and enough time, anything is possible for Islamists. As I have reported on extensively at FOX News, certain cities in my home state of Minnesota have started to look much different thanks to overwhelming and intentional Muslim immigration. What started with good intentions (see: Somali Omar in chapter 1) and peaceful refugees eventually evolved into insular communities, internationally funded mosques, welfare fraud, culture clashes, and radicalization. Then, as Muslims’ birth rates have grown—alongside their political influence—local “tolerant” populations have made concessions. Critics are called racists, crimes are hidden from the public, and the European cycle has begun. Similar trends are happening in other states, including Michigan and New York. 

The unholy alliance between leftists and Islamists means that open borders, nonassimilation, the erosion of national allegiance, and toleration of the intolerable has left the door open for Islamists to establish a foothold in our country. In November 2019, twenty-six Muslim candidates won elected office in the United States. Muhammad is now a top ten boys’ name in America—what will it be in 2030?

Hegseth: “The ‘Islam = Peace’ narrative is a naive and cowardly worldview.” 

Most Americans, especially leftists, live with a romanticized Lawrence of Arabia view of Islam and Islamism. Islam is a “religion of peace” to be embraced by the tolerant West, they say. This mantra is pounded into our head in school and then repeated ad nauseam in the herd mentality culture and politically correct news media. The “Islam = Peace” narrative is a naive and cowardly worldview, because the alternative is confronting the reality of a threat that’s almost too scary to fathom. For most of America’s history, we’ve had the convenience and good fortune to shield ourselves from the impact of Islamism; it was on other continents, endangering other people, far from our shores. 

Then two towers fell in Manhattan, and an entire generation of Americans—including myself—went to war and got a front-row seat to the reality of Islamism.

Hegseth: “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.”

I fully understand the distinction between “peaceful” Muslims and Islamic extremist Muslims. But the peaceful ones are under siege. Next to the communist Chinese and their global ambitions, Islamic extremism is the most dangerous threat to freedom in the world. It cannot be negotiated with, coexisted with, or understood; it must be exposed, marginalized, and crushed.

Hegseth: “Islamic extremists—and even mainstream Muslims—use aggressive tactics to exploit American ‘tolerance’ as utter weakness in order to achieve accommodations.” 

I’m not talking about on the battlefield, I’m talking about in our classrooms, city councils, and social media. Simply put, their sheer insistence, the specter of violence, and their passionate beliefs lead many average citizens to retreat on demands for assimilation to American principles, a reality we have seen powerfully in Minnesota among a large Somali refugee population. Muslims insist, insist, and insist—making “others” feel as though they are under the gun or somehow wrong. “Bigots!” the leftists cry. For fear of public reprisal and cries of “intolerance” against anyone who questions their religious demands, most Americans simply cave in to a stubbornly insular Muslim community.

Hegseth complained that “we must not only tolerate Islam and Islamists—we must celebrate them, we are told.” 

Of course, elitists are the worst. Their think tanks and universities are riddled with so-called experts who tell the rest of us the lies, over and over again, that “Islam is a religion of peace” and “diversity is our strength.” The country of Qatar donates millions to powerful DC think tanks such as the Brookings Institution, funding “experts” who won’t dare cross their donors. Leftists impose speech codes, written and unwritten, about what can be said about Islam—and then dare the rest of us to defy the PC police. Any criticism of Islam is deemed “hate speech” (see: Canada and Europe), and they tie themselves in knots explaining away Islamist terrorism as rooted in economics, politics, and even climate change. Elitists are first apologists, and then enablers, of Islamic extremists.

Hegseth complained that “Islamic extremists happily exploit” the view that celebrates Muslim immigration “to flood the West with as many Muslims as possible.”  

Globalists tell us that borders don’t matter; that anyone, from anywhere, with any ideology, has an equal right to live in America, Europe, and the West. “These are peace-loving citizens of the world. Let them in,” they say. Not only do they balk at Muslim immigration bans or moratoriums, they celebrate Muslim immigration. Suddenly, years later—thanks to their very high birth rates relative to native populations and their strategically insular culture—the sons and daughters of those migrants and refugees multiply in greater numbers than do native citizens. Islamists, first peacefully and then militantly, expand their influence within this otherwise “peaceful” cycle. Name one modern European country that has opened its borders that has not seen this happen? Time’s up. The answer is: none.

Hegseth wrote that Trump was “right” to call for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

As usual, President Trump has been—and continues to be—willing to say and do the things most American political leaders would never have the guts to do. In December 2015, candidate Donald Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on!” He was right then and, once in office, tried to implement a more tailored ban from certain countries with large populations of Islamists. It was tied up in the courts until going into partial effect. With a win in the courts, he now plans to expand it. The result: it’s 2020, and half the country, more than half of elected officials, and almost everyone in the media still have no idea what the hell is going on. Except for President Trump, our leaders still don’t take the threat of Islamism seriously.

PETE HEGSETH’S ‘THE WAR ON WARRIORS’ EXAMINES HOW THE MILITARY WAS ‘MANIPULATED INTO GOING WOKE’ BY THE LEFT