We Asked Pete Hegseth if Women Should Have the Right to Vote. The Answer Was Unsettling.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth raised an alarming question last Thursday when he reposted a seven-minute CNN segment on X.

The video he reposted was about the influential pastor Doug Wilson, a leading theologian of the Christian nationalist right. In the clip, a female CNN reporter, Pamela Brown, followed Wilson around his base in Moscow, Idaho, where Wilson explained his particular biblical views on gender. In his vision of an ideal Christian society, Brown noted, women wouldn’t be able to vote.

This stance wasn’t a single comment; it was a major focus of the clip. A fellow pastor at Wilson’s church argued that ideally, people should vote as households, with men casting the vote, “having discussed it with [the] household.” When Brown mentioned that some Christian nationalists wanted to repeal the 19^th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, another pastor at the church said, without any pause, that he would support that move.

In his repost of the video, Hegseth left a rather cryptic comment: “All of Christ for All of Life.”

This brief social media exchange did not say anything definitive about Hegseth or his views, but given the extreme and decidedly pre-Enlightenment nature of Wilson’s beliefs on the rights of women, it did seem to raise an important question: Does Pete Hegseth, the man in charge of a department that employs millions, think women should be allowed to vote?

Hegseth posting a news segment doesn’t necessarily mean he shares every view expressed in it, of course. It also doesn’t mean he watched the whole thing. In short, there’s some room for doubt here. So, in the hope of clearing up any misunderstanding, Slate reached out to the Pentagon. In calls and an email, we made it clear that we were asking specifically for clarification on Hegseth’s view on women’s voting rights. We asked directly, and in the final line of a very brief email: “Does Secretary Hegseth believe women should have the right to vote?”

This was the department’s response, in full, sent four and a half hours later:

Hello. Thanks for your note. Here is our statement: “The Secretary is a proud member of a church affiliated with the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches, which was founded by Pastor Doug Wilson. The Secretary very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson’s writings and teachings.” —Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell

The statement, notably, did not say that Hegseth believes women should have the right to vote.

So in summary, the U.S. secretary of defense posted approvingly about a video in which multiple members of his religious movement suggest that women should be stripped of the right to vote. And when asked for Hegseth’s own views on whether women should vote, the Pentagon declined to answer the question. What is going on here?

Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, has faced scrutiny for his association with Wilson—and Wilson’s anti–women’s suffrage views—since he was nominated to lead the Department of Defense. (Wilson also once wrote that “slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races.”)

Hegseth, as the statement noted, attends a church affiliated with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a conservative network of churches founded by Wilson. Wilson is famous in certain Christian circles, known for the ambitions of his church network, having effectively taken over the town of Moscow, Idaho, with a variety of conservative Christian institutions. As a proud Christian nationalist, he has encouraged CREC members to actively fight the separation of church and state, and he has urged his followers to assert control over secular institutions where they can.

It would be wrong to assume every politician holds the most extreme beliefs of their religion. And so despite Hegseth’s Christian nationalist tattoos, despite his prayers with a CREC pastor declaring Trump divinely appointed, and despite his comments encouraging schools to teach “biblical truth,” we could not previously say that Hegseth shared Wilson’s specific views on women and voting. He had given us no direct indication he holds an anti–women’s suffrage position.

But Hegseth is not usually an enigma. After years on the air at Fox News, Hegseth has made it pretty clear where he stands on most issues. He hates Democrats; he is hostile to Islam; he thinks environmentalism is for the weak and foolish; he scorns the celebration of diversity; and he opposes allowing women to serve in combat positions. He’s comfortable making his views clear; he has done this, on the air, for huge audiences, for years.

At this point, it seems improbable that he’s unaware of the signal he’s sending with his nonanswer. He shared a video he must have known would be controversial. So why won’t Pete Hegseth say women should have the right to vote?

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