President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Defense Department, Pete Hegseth, is facing a firestorm of backlash for voicing his belief that women should not serve in military combat roles. Although the media is largely united against him, opinions among combat veterans and military experts are more split. 

Will Thibeau, a former Army Ranger with multiple combat deployments, told Fox News Digital that he agrees with Hegseth wholeheartedly.

“I think soon-to-be Secretary Hegseth stated simple truths that 12 years ago were commonly understood and affirmed by the senior-most leaders in the Pentagon, the rank and file of the military and the culture at large, that war and in particular units that are made and forged to fight in war with no other purpose are units meant for men and men only,” he said.

“Biological sex and relationships between men and women is a reality that you can’t avoid,” he added. “And when you induce stress, physical uncertainty, physical proximity and unique scenarios to that biological reality, you get a fracture of what would have been a typical military team, or a military unit forged for warfighting.”

ARE PETE HEGSETH’S TATTOOS SYMBOLS OF ‘CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM’?

Hegseth, 44, is a former Fox News host and Army infantry officer who served two combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and an additional deployment to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Trump tapped Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, one of the most influential positions in his cabinet, on Nov. 13, just over a week after he won the election. The president-elect said of Hegseth that “nobody fights harder for the Troops” and “with Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice.”

However, Hegseth is facing a great deal of pushback from Democrats and the media, most especially for his comments on a Nov. 7 episode of the “Shawn Ryan Show” podcast in which he said, “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.”

Hegseth asserted that women serving in combat roles “hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal” and “has made fighting more complicated.”

PENTAGON BRACING FOR SWEEPING CHANGES AFTER TRUMP NOMINATES PETE HEGSETH FOR SECRETARY

Host Pete Hegseth during “FOX & Friends” at Fox News Channel Studios on May 27, 2022 in New York City.  (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)

He did not argue against women serving in the military or even in non-ground combat roles such as in the Air Force. Rather, he made the point that the U.S. military has been lowering its physical standards to allow more women to be eligible to serve in combat roles, something that he said increases the risk of combat complications and fatalities.

He said, “I love women service members who contribute amazingly,” but asserted that “everything about women serving together makes the situation more complicated and complication in combat means casualties are worse.”

He also criticized the upper echelons of military leadership for changing standards and prioritizing filling diversity quotas above combat effectiveness. He pointed to a 2015 study by the Marine Corps that found that integrated male-female units did “drastically worse” in terms of combat effectiveness than all-male units.

“Between bone density and lung capacity and muscle strength, men and women are just different,” he said. “So, I’m ok with if you maintain the standards just where they are for everybody, and if there’s some, you know, hard-charging female that meets that standard, great, cool, join the infantry battalion. But that is not what’s happened. What has happened is the standards have lowered.”

Pete Hegseth and Kayleigh McEnany will be part of Fox News’ Independence Day programming.  (Fox News)

Hegseth noted that he was not necessarily advocating for making the change right now, commenting; “Imagine the demagoguery in Washington, D.C., if you were actually making the case for, you know, ‘We should scale back women in combat.’”

“As the disclaimer for everybody out there,” he added, “we’ve all served with women and they’re great, it’s just our institutions don’t have to incentivize that in places where … over human history, men are more capable.”

Despite this, Ellen Haring, a retired Army colonel, told Fox News Digital that many women and men in the military are concerned about Hegseth becoming secretary and instituting these changes.

“Women who are in these combat jobs and many of them have been there for six, eight years now, are very energized and concerned about the idea that they might lose their jobs,” she said.

According to Haring, there are 2,500 women currently serving in ground combat roles in Army infantry, armor, field artillery branches as well as special forces. She also said that 152 women have earned Army Ranger tabs and there are currently ten women in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment.

She said that despite women making up only a quarter of all West Point Academy graduates they accounted for a third of all lieutenants slotted to armor combat units.

MILITARY SUICIDES WERE ON THE RISE LAST YEAR, DESPITE A MASSIVE INVESTMENT IN PREVENTION PROGRAMS

U.S. Army Fort Leonard Wood  (U.S. Army Fort Leonard Wood)

“There’s no indication that any of those units have been harmed by their presence,” she said. “So, Hegseth claims that adding women to these units is going to create a degree of complication and is somehow or another puts people at risk. That hasn’t happened at any unit that we’ve seen so far. So, I don’t know where he’s coming up with these notions.”

Beyond not harming units, Haring went on to say that women have helped to improve the professionalism of units, especially infantry units.

“Infantry units had a culture of hazing and kind of abuse of each other,” she said. “Their presence there has turned a spotlight on that kind of behavior and has actually eliminated a lot of it across the force. So, this kind of brutal behavior that infantry units engaged in amongst themselves is slowly being eradicated by the women’s presence.”

Similarly, Captain Micah Ables, an Army Infantry company commander, told Fox News Digital that women in his unit have improved the “team player” attitude of the company as well as broadened its capabilities when deployed.

U.S. Army Major General Laura J. Richardson, the first woman to serve as a deputy commander of a combat division, listens while seated behind Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley (L) during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the implementation of the decision to open all ground combat units to women on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 2, 2016.  (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)

Ables’ first deployment to Afghanistan was with an all-male unit, however, he later deployed with one of the first integrated companies in the infantry. He said that though there was some initial pushback and tension, the female soldiers in his unit quickly proved themselves as capable and the company adapted without too much issue.

He said that many of the women in his unit have proved to be some of the most physically and tactically capable leaders and soldiers under his command.

“Once I did take over the mixed-gender company, I didn’t really know what to expect,” he said. “But they dug in, and they did what they needed to do to be experts.”

X Soldiers giving feedback on autonomous equipment decontamination system  (U.S. Army)

On the other hand, Jessie Jane Duff, a retired female gunnery sergeant in the Marines, told Fox News Digital that allowing women to fill combat roles is a “lethal mistake.”

She also cited the study by the Marines that she said found that integrated units were only 60 percent as effective as all-male units and women were between 20 and 30 percent more prone to injury.

“From a biological level. We’re not equal,” she said. “With the lack of testosterone, women take a longer time to recover and rebuild muscle because they lack that testosterone. Whereas men who also get severely injured based upon the training have a higher rate of being able to come back into the combat unit and perform.”

“Why would you water down the effectiveness of our infantry units? You’re watering it down because you’re trying to reach a goal of equality,” she went on. “You can have the opportunity to pass, but you should not be accommodated because of your gender when a more qualified man could take that slot.”

US Marine Corps recruits take part in the traditional Eagle, Globe and Anchor medal ceremony. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images) (Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

Finally, Anna Simons, a retired professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, told Fox News Digital that it comes down to diversity versus similarity.

“Women have been in combat from the beginning of time,” she said. “They’ve defended their children, they’ve defended their property, they’ve defended husbands, they’ve fought valiantly, that’s absolutely true. But the issue isn’t women in combat. The issue is women in combat units, small groups of individuals where everybody needs to be essentially interchangeable and equally proficient at certain combat skills.”

“The whole point of combat is to wield violence and to be able to absorb violence,” she said. “So there has to be a sameness or similarity to people so that they become easily interchangeable when it comes to fundamental skills, shoot, move and communicate skills.”

“Everybody needs a baseline of that, and you want the baseline to be as high as possible,” she concluded. “That means that people need to be less similar rather than more diverse in their capabilities.”

The Massachusetts GOP (MassGOP) issued scathing remarks toward Democrats Gov. Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu after U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the arrests of three illegal immigrants on child rape charges.

Healey and Wu have both been vocal about their opposition to President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to conduct mass deportations of illegal immigrants once he returns to the Oval Office in January.

This month, Healey vowed that her state police will “absolutely not” cooperate with the expected mass deportation effort by the incoming Trump administration, warning that she will use “every tool in the toolbox” to “protect” residents in the blue state.

Wu also took a stance against Trump during an interview on Sunday, saying her city will not cooperate with the incoming administration’s looming mass deportation operation despite the region seeing a number of illegal immigrants with criminal charges getting released back onto the streets.

ICE ARRESTS 3 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IN MASS.: 2 CHARGED WITH CHILD RAPE, 1 CONVICTED OF SAME CRIME IN BRAZIL

Even after the two leaders made their positions on not working with Trump on immigration public, ICE on Wednesday announced the arrests of two illegal immigrants charged with forcibly raping children in Massachusetts and the arrest of a third individual who was convicted of raping a child in Brazil before fleeing to the U.S. and going into hiding after being caught and released at the U.S. border in 2022.

In a news release Thursday, MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale called the positions taken by Healey and Wu “appalling and disgusting” and accused them of prioritizing the appeasement of the most radical elements of their political base over the safety of residents.

“Parents across the Commonwealth are horrified that individuals charged with such serious crimes are allowed to roam free because local authorities refuse to work with ICE to remove these criminals from our streets,” Carnevale said. “Massachusetts residents have had enough. These harrowing incidents are becoming far too frequent. When our state’s top leaders go on television to proclaim that Massachusetts will protect illegal immigrants and refuse to cooperate with ICE, they send a dangerous message that invites more of this behavior into our communities. By doing so, they are complicit in the chaos that follows.”

DEM GOVERNOR THREATENS TO USE ‘EVERY TOOL’ TO FIGHT BACK AGAINST TRUMP-ERA DEPORTATIONS

(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/File)

“It’s time for Democrats to put politics aside and work with federal authorities to end this alarming pattern in Massachusetts,” she added.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Healey’s office said, “As part of immigration enforcement, the Governor believes individuals who commit violent crimes like those alleged here should be deported.”

Wu’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the matter.

The three suspects arrested by ICE were identified this week as 21-year-old Mynor Stiven De Paz-Munoz of Guatemala, 42-year-old Billy Erney Buitrago-Bustos of Colombia and 41-year-old Alexandre Romao De Oliveira of Brazil.

‘SANCTUARY’ CITY MAYOR VOWS SHE WILL DEFY TRUMP’S MASS DEPORTATION PUSH: ‘CAUSING WIDESPREAD FEAR’

Mynor Stiven De Paz-Munoz was arrested by ICE in Massachusetts after allegedly raping a child by force in February 2024. (ICE)

ICE said Wednesday that De Paz-Munoz entered the U.S. on Sept. 24, 2020, near Eagle Pass, Texas, before getting released by U.S. Border Patrol with a notice to appear before an immigration review judge.

He was later arrested in western Massachusetts by Great Barrington police on Feb. 29, 2024, for rape of a child by force, rape of a child, and indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older.

Despite ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Boston office lodging a detainer with the police department, De Paz-Munoz was released on bail. He has since been taken into custody.

Buitrago-Bustos was admitted into the U.S. on May 4, 2016, at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, though he failed to leave under the terms of his visa.

TRUMP CONFIRMS SUPPORT FOR MAJOR STEP IN MASS DEPORTATION PUSH TO ‘REVERSE THE BIDEN INVASION’

Alexandre Romao De Oliveira was arrested in Massachusetts. (ICE)

After his arrest in October 2023, ERO Boston lodged an immigration arrest with the Great Barrington Police Department. Later that month, Buitrago-Bustos was arraigned in Southern Berkshire District Court and held without bail. The charges were elevated to Berkshire County Superior Court on March 18, which honored the immigration detainer and released him into custody of ERO Boston on Nov. 15 after he posted bail.

Romao De Oliveira is a foreign fugitive convicted of raping a child in Brazil.

He was convicted in the First Criminal Court of Jaru, Rondônia, Brazil, on Feb. 10, 2022, and sentenced to serve 14 years behind bars.

But according to ICE, Romao De Oliveira fled Brazil before he could serve his sentence. On April 16, 2022, Romao De Oliveira entered the U.S. near Santa Teresa, New Mexico, without admission by an immigration official and was released from custody after being served a notice to appear before a DOJ immigration review judge.

(Alex Wong/Getty Images/File)

MassGOP spokesperson Logan Trupiano told Fox News Digital that State Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr and House Minority Leader Brad Jones have filed legislation to close loopholes created by a 2017 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Decision that barred state courts from cooperating with ICE detainers. As a result, the ruling facilitated the release of illegal immigrants accused of crimes on bail rather than honoring federal immigration detainers.

“Filed a month ago, this critical legislation addresses the public safety risks stemming from the decision,” Trupiano said. “We urge the Democratic supermajority in the legislature to put political posturing aside, prioritize public safety and pass this important measure.”

The immigration issues stretch across the U.S., and on Wednesday, House Republicans pressed Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for an answer about how the U.S. lost track of thousands of unaccounted migrant children. He was also asked about fumbling the vetting process that allegedly allowed some minors to be sent to gang members and sometimes even a strip club.

Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

I realize that South Carolina Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace is an attention-hungry partisan, trying to make a name for herself as a culture warrior by demonizing the first transgender woman to be elected to Congress.

And I understand that giving Mace’s proposal to ban transgender women from women’s bathrooms in the Capitol any oxygen is probably just what she wants.

But I also don’t think it’s wise to allow her fear-mongering and demonizing to go unanswered.

Earlier this month, voters in the state of Delaware did something momentous: They elected Democrat Sarah McBride, a transgender woman, to the House of Representatives. At 34, McBride, a member of the Delaware state Senate since 2021 and a former spokesperson for the national Human Rights Campaign, will be one of the youngest members in Congress. Focusing on healthcare, reproductive rights and economic issues, she beat her Republican opponent by a hefty 16 percentage points.

Since then, Mace and her colleague Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have been waging a petty war against McBride, aided and abetted by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who announced Wednesday that transgender people in the Capitol and House office buildings will be allowed to use only those bathrooms that correspond to the gender they were assigned at birth.

Also on Wednesday, Mace introduced a resolution that would ban trans women from using women’s bathrooms and locker rooms in federal buildings. Never mind that trans women have been using women’s bathrooms on Capitol Hill and in the White House and Pentagon for years without issues, according to writer and trans activist Charlotte Clymer.

“I have PTSD from the sexual abuse I have suffered at the hands of a man,” Mace told Scripps News. “And I will tell you just the idea of a man in a locker room watching me change clothes after a workout is a huge trigger and it’s not OK to make and force women to be vulnerable in private spaces.”

Of course, we all want to be safe in private and public spaces.

“But the logic and coherence there is somewhat lacking,” said Andrew Flores, an associate professor of government at American University. “According to the data analysis, there is not a systematic relationship between allowing trans people to use bathrooms according to their current gender and experiences of predation. The correlation is just not there.”

In 2018, Flores, who is also a distinguished visiting scholar at UCLA Law’s Williams Institute, and his colleagues studied crime rates before and after cities in Massachusetts outlawed gender discrimination in public accommodations, i.e. bathrooms and locker rooms. They compared the rates in those cities with Massachusetts cities that had passed no such protections.

“We found nothing,” he told me — no change in victimization rates for a crime that is already vanishingly rare. “At the end of the day, we were surprised by how many agencies had such trouble producing data for us because they couldn’t find it.”

A 2017 survey by CNN found similar results when it reached out to 20 law enforcement agencies in states with anti-discrimination policies covering gender identity. “None who answered reported any bathroom assaults after the policies took effect,” the network reported.

To assume that a trans woman is a sexual predator is not just outrageous and wrong, it’s the same sort of thinking that conflates homosexuality with pedophilia. Most child sex offenders identify as heterosexual or bisexual men.

Anyway, I don’t know what’s more perverse — the fixation some Republican women have on being watched in bathrooms and locker rooms, or the way they readily stand by their male colleagues in the GOP, even if they are found liable for sexually assaulting a woman in a department store dressing room and boast about grabbing women’s genitals, allegedly have sex with underage teenagers or pay settlements to women who have accused them of rape.

On Tuesday, Politico reported that in a private House GOP conference meeting, Greene “indicated that she’d fight a transgender woman if she tried to use a woman’s bathroom on the House side of the Capitol.”

This possibility certainly tracks with reality. As many people can guess, and research shows, transgender people are far more likely than cisgender people to be assaulted in public spaces as a result of their gender identity.

Still, those facts did not stop Greene from telling reporters last week that “America is fed up with the trans ideology being shoved into our face. Women have been the victims of this garbage for long enough.”

I would suggest that Greene and Mace are shoving “transgender ideology” into their own faces.

As McBride herself put it in a social media post, “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms. I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families. … Each of us were sent here because voters saw something in us that they value.”

And of course, Mace’s mean-spirited proposal has apparently caused a backlash. “Men that want to use women’s restrooms are threatening to kill me over this issue,” she told the cable network NewsNation.

Now she can pose as a martyr. The skeptic in me thinks she was hoping for that all along.

Bluesky: @rabcarian.bsky.social. Threads: @rabcarian