The acting navy secretary, Hung Cao, who steps into the function after the sudden departure of John Phelan, is a veteran naval officer and former refugee who earned a place with the Trump administration with campaigns for political workplace in Virginia marked by non secular intolerance.
When Cao was first appointed, the protection secretary, Pete Hegseth, set him to modernizing base infrastructure and quality-of-life points for sailors and marines, and to lift recruiting requirements. Cao has additionally been a degree individual in the administration on allowing vaccine refusal and eliminating “DEI” insurance policies in the army.
He has been sharply outspoken about the army’s recruiting practices, saying in a debate with Tim Kaine when he ran towards him for Senate in 2024 that the army must be recruiting “alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them, and ask for seconds”.
At his affirmation listening to, Cao described an plane provider as “99,000 tons of American diplomacy” however famous that the availability of ships hovered at about 60%, which he described as “horrid” readiness.
Asked about his views on easy methods to both use the present fleet or to transition to a new paradigm for naval warfare, Cao mentioned the army was residing every day prefer it was 10 September 2001, and that the nation should speed up shipbuilding whereas bettering know-how in order that it could defeat hypersonic missiles and different threats.
“We need to rethink naval warfare,” Cao mentioned final June. “We need to be ready for what happens tomorrow.”
Cao ran twice for federal workplace as a Republican candidate in Virginia, falling to US consultant Jennifer Wexton in a House race in Virginia’s northern suburbs in 2022, then to Senator Tim Kaine in 2024.
Cao’s comments in an interview about Monterey being taken over by “witches” and a joke about being “African American” as a result of he lived in Africa as a baby turned a marketing campaign problem. Cao expressed assist for a nationwide abortion ban as a candidate.
Cao, 55, fled Vietnam together with his household when he was 4. He lived in Niger as a baby whereas his father labored for USAID. Cao enlisted in the navy in 1989 earlier than graduating from the US Naval Academy and incomes a fee as a particular operations officer.
He served on lively responsibility as a diver and explosive ordnance technician with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, notably main the crew that recovered the physique of John F Kennedy Jr off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. Cao was part head for the funds programming division in the workplace of the chief of naval operations earlier than retiring as a captain in 2021. He has a grasp’s diploma in utilized physics from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and accomplished fellowships at MIT and Harvard.
“I came to this country with nothing, as a refugee,” Cao mentioned in response to a query throughout his affirmation listening to as undersecretary of the navy. “We grew up in Africa, actually. In 1979, when the shah of Iran was overthrown, the marines brought us into the embassy and stood watch over us in case they had to do an evacuation … I wanted to be like those heroes, so I have dedicated my entire life to serving the military.”
Cao’s son graduates this yr from the US Naval Academy.
