He’s not got sufficient qualifications IMO, but there have been past defsecs with similar or worse creds. Senate is under dons thumb so I don’t doubt he will be confirmed.

Who's been worse?

@zax By results thus far Rumsfeld. By qualifications arguably also Rumsfeld in his first stint.

Pete hegseth is only one year older than Rumsfeld when he became secdef.. and according to Wikipedia that was a record Rumsfeld set that stands till today.

@parhizj The comparison with Rumsfeld in terms of qualifications seems a little misplaced. Rumsfeld had served several terms in Congress, had several different high-level positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He had a lot of legislative, executive, and foreign policy experience before he became SecDef.

@jb456 I did say arguably. How much of that experience was related to actual strategic/foreign policy though? (From skimming his background it was mostly domestic & economic policy?)

@parhizj Fair enough. In answer about how much of Rumsfeld's experience was strategic/foreign policy, seems like the two main things are being chief of staff, and then before that he was US representative to NATO. Seems like he was also somewhat active on foreign/defense policy in Congress.

@jb456 After thinking about it more, it does seem you are right. Pete is less qualified than even Rumsfeld was originally (those positions Rumsfeld held as chief of staff and nato rep amount to less than 3 years so it’s something but not a huge amount of experience, but maybe Rumsfeld’s time in congress taken together amounts to relatively more substantial experience serving on some relevant subcommittees).