When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth abruptly fired the Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, he elevated deputy secretary Hung Cao, whose failed runs for Congress were nurtured and backed by Christian nationalists, to be acting secretary.
When Phelan was fired, the New York Times noted that Phelan had a “contentious relationship” with Cao, who the paper described as “more aligned with Mr. Hegseth, especially on some of the social and cultural battles that have defined the defense secretary’s tenure.”
That’s not surprising. Before launching his run for Congress, Cao took candidate training from Kingdom in Politics, a political consulting firm that prepares “Kingdom-minded” leaders to run for public office. Kingdom in Politics is run by Aamon Ross, who managed the successful campaign of Oklahoma’s Christian nationalist Gov. Kevin Stitt.
During his campaign to represent Virginia in the U.S. Senate, Cao sat down for an interview with dominionist musician and MAGA activist Sean Feucht, where Cao said he was running to prevent Virginia from being overrun by witchcraft the way he said Monterey, California, has been.
It’s easy to understand why the “lethality”-obsessed Hegseth might have been attracted to Cao, who said during a debate, “What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them and ask for seconds. Those are young men and women that are going to win wars.” Cao, the Republican nominee, lost his 2024 Senate race to incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine by about 10 percentage points.
Hegseth reportedly fired Phelan for refusing Hegseth’s demand that he ignore a federal judge and punish Sen. Mark Kelly for making a video with other senators reminding members of the armed forces of their duty to ignore illegal orders. On Wednesday morning, Trump shared a social media post calling for Kelly to be locked up. Phelan was pushed out that same day.
Cao, a Navy veteran, has also faced questions over his claims about his service record, including his claim to have been “blown up” in combat and his telling an audience during a 2022 run for Congress that he was “100% disabled.”
