Pete Hegseth is shaking things up as Secretary of Defense.
He made a big impact in a place no one expected.
And Pete Hegseth joined one fight that let Democrats know it was a whole new ballgame.
Pete Hegseth travels to the southern border
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and “Border Czar” Tom Homan traveled to New Mexico to visit soldiers and Border Patrol agents who were guarding the southern border.
The border crisis is a national security issue and the Pentagon is pitching in to help under Hegseth with 1,500 active-duty troops deployed to help with border security.
“We have defended other places and other spaces,” Hegseth said. “We will defend this line.”
The Department of Defense is also pitching in by housing illegal aliens at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
Cabinet officials traveling to the southern border was a change from the Biden administration where they avoided it like the plague.
Representative Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) praised Hegseth for making the trip to the border during an appearance on Newsmax’s National Report.
“I think it’s been far too long since you’ve had Cabinet members who’ve gone down there to offer support, to tell these people who are working so hard on our border . . . to defend our country that hey, we have your back,” Van Duyne said.
A big change is underway under Donald Trump with the border
Van Duyne recalled under the Biden administration when the Border Patrol was turned into “glorified babysitters and cab drivers” who processed illegal aliens instead of securing the border.
“The night-and-day difference, when you had a VP [Kamala Harris] and other members of the Biden administration who were claiming that [border agents] were whipping migrants, that were throwing CPB under the bus, that were comparing them to Nazis, that were saying how they were going to charge them for doing their job,” Van Duyne stated.
A phony controversy broke out in 2021 when Border Patrol agents on horseback were apprehending illegal aliens from Haiti and they were falsely accused of whipping them because they were photographed with western split reins.
After that, the border patrol pulled mounted patrols off the border.
A recent video showed Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on horseback with a mounted patrol, showing they’re back in action.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem on horseback with agents at the southern border. pic.twitter.com/fPwJZ5vMv5
— The American Conservative (@amconmag) February 3, 2025
Van Duyne praised the change under the Trump administration toward the treatment of the Border Patrol.
“And now you got a Defense Secretary who’s down there saying our borders are important, thank you so much for the job that you do,” Van Duyne explained. “And if you do your job well, we’ve got your back. I love it. I think this is the golden age; it’s exactly what we’re talking about.”
Van Duyne supported President Donald Trump’s decision to send illegal aliens to Guantanamo Bay.
“We have the infrastructure, but some of it actually has to be rethought and repurposed about how we’re using it. If we’ve got these places that we are spending taxpayer dollars on that can be used for other uses, use them,” Van Duyne said. “I have no problem with it.”
She also expressed support for Trump’s designating the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
“I think [it’s] one way that we can actually get our military involved in going where these drug cartels are the worst and not having to wait for them to come physically into our borders,” Van Duyne stated. “I think it gives us another tool on the table to be able to combat the drug trade, the drug sales, the drug cartel violence. And we should absolutely do everything that we can to be able to prevent that.”
The Trump administration is using every option available to help with border security.
