Hegseth is one of several Trump Cabinet nominees who were purportedly targeted by bomb threats and swatting this week.
Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Defense, has reacted after being targeted by what he says was a «credible pipe bomb threat.»
Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt announced on Wednesday that «several» of the president-elect’s nominees had been «targeted in violent, unAmerican threats to their lives and those who live with them» on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Leavitt said the incidents «ranged from bomb threats to ‘swatting'», or the practice of sending police to a target’s home by falsely reporting a crime or emergency.
Media reports and remarks by the nominees themselves later revealed that targets included U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik, Trump’s U.S. ambassador to the United Nations nominee, Environmental Protection Agency administrator nominee Lee Zeldin and former U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz, Trump’s failed first choice for U.S. attorney general.
Hegseth on Wednesday evening divulged in a post to X, formerly Twitter, that he had been targeted alongside his family. He indicated that his family was unharmed and insisted that he would serve in Trump’s Cabinet without being «bullied or intimidated.