Why tattooed Fox News star Pete Hegseth is a genius pick for Trump’s Defense Secretary, writes JOSH HAMMER

Watch out for the complex Democrats-media freakouts!

Left-wing tears have been flowing vigorously since Trump shocked the world by winning every swing state in last Tuesday’s election.

But those tears turned to waterfalls after Trump tapped Army veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth to clean out the Augean stables of the bloated, woke Pentagon.

‘When I saw it [news of Hegseth’s nomination]”I thought the AP must have been hacked,” lamented former failed CNN anchor Don Lemon. ‘But Pete Hegseth? The morning, weekend host on Fox News? Come on.’

Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman said, “Being a military member does not mean you are qualified to run the Department of Defense and have access to our nuclear weapons.”

So says the man whose greatest credibility is that he is an heir to the Levi Strauss & Co fortune… and a TV pundit.

Now that you’ve brought it up, Congressman, let’s talk about those qualifications, shall we?

Hegseth received his Bachelor of Arts in politics from Princeton and a Masters of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

In 2003, after being commissioned into the Minnesota National Guard and then serving as a platoon leader at Guantanamo Bay, he volunteered for the U.S. Army infantry at the height of the Iraq War.

Hegseth completed tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan, earning two Bronze Stars.

After returning home, he became executive director of Concerned Veterans for America, a formidable conservative organization that (rightly) opposes reckless military shenanigans and advocates a restrained – one might say “America First” – approach to foreign policy.

He has also advocated for a long-overdue overhaul of the sclerotic Department of Veteran Affairs — an agency he would later lead during the Trump administration.

At 44, he is almost the age of many men and women now serving abroad or recovering from the wounds of war at home. And it is only someone from a younger generation, like Hegseth, who could reverse the bloodless drafts of our military.

Last year was the worst ever for recruitment – ​​with the Army, Navy and Air Force missing their targets by double digits.

Do you want more young men to join the military?

Ditch the assigned readings of Ibram And he’s right.

Hegseth’s attack on destructive progressive ideologies and the threat they pose to military readiness is powerful.

“My trust in this army has been irrevocably shattered,” he wrote in his bestseller “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” published earlier this year.

“The so-called elites who run the military today are not just lowering standards and targeting the wrong enemy – they believe that might is evil, merit is unfair. [and] white people are yesterday,” he said.

Many of his critics bristled Tuesday over Hegseth’s public views on women serving in combat roles.

While he supports women joining the military, he doesn’t think they should be given “physical, labor-intensive jobs.” According to him, this undermines military preparedness.

For many Americans, it is also just common sense.

“Every general, every admiral… who was involved in or woke up to diversity, equity and inclusion programs needs to go,” he told a podcaster last week. And, he emphasized, this includes the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Most importantly, Hegseth has demonstrated an understanding of Trump’s pragmatic approach to foreign policy — that America has overextended itself in too many proxy wars.

He has determined that communist China is, bar none, America’s most significant civilizational threat of the 21st century—and that Iran is a threatening player in the Middle East and Israel our best friend.

Perhaps the best for him? His appointment has triggered all the right people.

In a Politico article, an anonymous defense industry lobbyist—someone whose entire job is to extract billions of dollars from taxpayers—was quoted as asking the emotional question, “Who the hell is this guy?”

Indeed, Hegseth’s song is not in any of their rolodexes. And if that means less money coming out of the corporate fund for over-inflated defense companies like Northrop Grumman, then that seems like a boost to me.

At a time when America’s failed class of military generals is valorizing wokeism and far too often deploying our young fighters in invincible conflicts abroad, naming an “outsider” to the Pentagon bureaucracy deserves America’s enthusiastic support.

Yes, Hegseth’s biggest knock is that he doesn’t have much experience maneuvering around the bloated federal bureaucracy.

But such skills have failed to keep America – and its brave fighters – from becoming entangled in decades of unnecessary and futile conflict or from being humiliated in Afghanistan.

Maybe it’s time to try something different?

Josh Hammer is the syndicated host of “The Josh Hammer Show” and editor-in-chief at Newsweek.