Donald Trump picks ‘China hawk’ John Ratcliffe as CIA director, taps Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defence secretary

President-elect Donald Trump has moved to secure his national security team, announcing on Tuesday his picks for key positions within his administration. Trump nominated Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host and Army veteran, as Secretary of Defense and selected former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to lead the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

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If confirmed by the Senate, Hegseth would inherit the top job during a series of global crises — ranging from Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ongoing attacks in the Middle East by Iranian proxies to push for a cease-fire between Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah and escalating worries about the growing alliance between Russia and North Korea, newswire AP reported.

Hegseth is also the author of “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free," published earlier this year, and has been outspoken about rooting out what he has called “woke-ness” in the military.

“With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice — Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,” Trump said in a statement. “Nobody fights harder for the Troops, and Pete will be a courageous and patriotic champion of our ‘Peace through Strength’ policy."

A former U.S. attorney for Texas and a member of the House of Representatives, John Ratcliffe was confirmed without any support from Senate Democrats. Ratcliffe was confirmed as the nation’s top intelligence official in May 2020, just eight months before Trump left office. 

Here are key facts about the Republican-chosen John Ratcliffe to head the US government's top intelligence agency:

Second Role in the Trump Administration

Ratcliffe's tenure as director of national intelligence (DNI) during the final months of Trump's first term gave him key experience in leading the U.S. intelligence community, especially during the critical period of the coronavirus pandemic, Associated Press reported.

His role as DNI also involved detecting and countering foreign interference in American politics—a responsibility that was particularly prominent in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. This experience positions him as a more conventional and experienced choice for the CIA director role, especially compared to other Trump loyalists who were speculated to be under consideration.

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One notable moment from Ratcliffe's tenure as DNI occurred just weeks before the 2020 election when he participated in a rare nighttime press conference. Ratcliffe and other officials publicly accused Iran of being behind a series of threatening emails aimed at intimidating U.S. voters. This announcement highlighted Ratcliffe's central role in addressing foreign election interference, a key aspect of his leadership in the intelligence community.

Also, while in that role, Ratcliffe faced criticism for declassifying Russian intelligence that purported to reveal information about Democrats during the 2016 election, even as he acknowledged it might not be true. Democrats decried the move as a partisan stunt that politicized intelligence.

A fierce loyalist in Congress

Ratcliffe was elected to Congress in 2014, but his visibility rose in 2019 as an ardent defender of Trump during the House’s first impeachment proceedings against him.

He was a member of Trump’s impeachment advisory team and strenuously questioned witnesses during the impeachment hearings.

“This is the thinnest, fastest and weakest impeachment our country has ever seen,” Ratcliffe said after the Democratic-controlled House voted to impeach Trump over a phone call he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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When former special counsel Robert Mueller appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to testify about his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Ratcliffe was one of the more ardent Republican interrogators, forcefully questioning the prosecutor and blasting the report he produced.

China hawk

Ratcliffe has repeatedly sounded the alarm about China, calling the country the top threat to US interests and the rest of the free world.

That view places him in good company with other incoming Trump administration officials, including Michael Waltz, Trump's pick for national security adviser, who called for a U.S. boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing due to China's involvement in the origin of COVID-19 and its ongoing mistreatment of the minority Muslim Uyghur population, AP reported.

“The intelligence is clear: Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically,” Ratcliffe wrote in a December 2020 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. ”Many of China’s major public initiatives and prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party.”

China braces for renewed tensions

China is bracing for renewed tensions with the Trump administration — and possibly a tariff war — while national security and intelligence officials who track China remain concerned about economic espionage, cyberattacks, technological advances and disputes over Taiwan that could further roil relations.

(With inputs from AP)