WASHINGTON (AP) — When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth^[1] starts his first official day on Monday morning, he will face a daunting array of issues to tackle — from global conflicts and border security^[2] to administrative tasks.

At the top of his list is addressing President Donald Trump's priority to strengthen the U.S. military presence along the southern border^[3] and reviewing whether active-duty forces should be used for law enforcement — something done rarely.

Dozens of other issues will compete for his attention, including developing the Pentagon's massive budget, decisions about aid to Ukraine, support for the ceasefire in Gaza^[4], troop deployments in the Middle East^[5]. Not to mention Trump directives to rid the federal government of diversity programs^[6] and personnel as well as moves to cut waste and remove any lingering Biden administration backers.

In a message to the force shortly after he was sworn in Saturday, Hegseth cited the challenges he sees ahead. Some are ones his predecessors also faced, such as reorienting the military from decades of a Mideast focus and better deterring China. Continued conflict in the region, including the October 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, has made that shift impossible to execute.

Hegseth also told service members about other priorities,^[7] including strengthening the defense industrial base and getting the Pentagon to pass an audit, while ensuring that the U.S. remains “the strongest and most lethal force in the world."

He made an unannounced stop to the Pentagon on Saturday after the swearing-in ceremony at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. There was no media coverage of his arrival. The Pentagon later released an official photo saying Hegseth was “ready to get to work on behalf of America’s warriors.”

Already, support staff have been meeting with military leaders, including Gen. CQ Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But Hegseth will get to experience what many describe as “drinking from a firehose” as he works to quickly get up to speed on what his 2.1 million service members and 780,000 civilians in the department are doing. Among them are tens of thousands serving overseas, including in combat zones.

Then there are the cultural issues that Hegseth railed on as a media personality that did not make it into Hegseth’s message to the military. Many expect they will surface in the coming days.

Here are some key issues that Hegseth, who was confirmed in a tiebreaking vote Friday by Vice President JD Vance, will face right away:

Border deployments

In trying to meet Trump's demand of securing the border^[8], Hegseth will face a barrage of information about what troops are available, what assistance the Border Patrol needs and where, as well as how to house, feed and transport the troops and border personnel and how to ensure none of this affects other national security requirements.

One of his first big decisions is whether he will recommend that active-duty troops deployed to the border get involved in law enforcement, a move that military leaders in recent years have pushed to avoid.

Active-duty forces are prohibited from doing law enforcement duties on U.S. soil under the Posse Comitatus Act. Trump has signed an executive order directing that his defense and homeland security secretaries report back within 90 days on whether they think he should invoke the 1807 law called the Insurrection Act^[9], which allows troops to be used for civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil during emergencies.

During previous deployments, troops have been used for transportation, intelligence, logistics, wall-building and other support tasks, freeing up the Border Patrol to interact with migrants and conduct the law enforcement duties.

Transgender troops

In his first executive order, Trump again stripped protections for transgender troops^[10] that Democratic President Joe Biden had restored after Trump banned those members from serving during his first term in office.

The ban previously faced legal challenges, and lawyers who represented transgender forces last time are readying to take it up in the courts again. While Trump has not announced a ban, his decision to revoke protections is seen as a first step toward that.

It is unclear how many troops would be affected. The Defense Department has no exact figure on the number of transgender troops serving because not every transgender person is in the same state of medical transition and not every transgender person identifies as such in military paperwork.

The department has referred queries on how many transgender troops there are to the services; the services have said they have no way to track.

The budget and Ukraine

Hegseth will have to become familiar with the complicated construction of the Pentagon budget, which right now is about $850 billion. Trump ran on a vow to make the U.S. military more lethal — something Hegseth has echoed. But they also have spoken extensively about cutting waste.

So Hegseth's imprint on the budget will be studied to determine how that's being done.

Woven into those discussions will be security assistance to Ukraine. The State Department has ordered a freeze on new funding for almost all U.S. foreign aid^[11], and there was no indication of a waiver for military assistance for Ukraine like there was for Israel and Egypt.

The Biden administration provided Kyiv with more than $66 billion in military aid and weapons during the war with Russia. It had left unspent about $3.85 billion in congressionally authorized funding to send more weapons to Ukraine from existing U.S. stockpiles — a sum that is not affected by the foreign aid freeze. But it is now up to Hegseth and Trump to decide whether or not to spend it, and Trump hasn’t said what he will do on Ukraine aid.

Diversity, equity and inclusion rollbacks

Hegseth will take over the Pentagon's push to implement Trump's executive order to get rid of DEI programs^[12], coming as military officers fret over whether they will be fired for being “woke," as Hegseth has pledged to do^[13].

During his Senate hearing^[14], Hegseth said DEI policies “divide” troops and do not prioritize “meritocracy.” In post Sunday on X, Hegseth said the department would comply immediately with Trump's order. “Those who do not comply will no longer work here,” he wrote on secretary of defense stationery, as seen in a photo.

Officials said the Defense Department doesn’t have any full-time workers assigned to DEI so they don’t expect to have to fire people, as other federal agencies have.

But senior leaders have been poring over their websites to delete pages that mention diversity. Lacking clear guidance, staffers were pulling websites down in often inconsistent ways. The Army, for example, temporarily removed its sexual assault guidelines before they later came back online.

Hegseth also has railed against women in combat^[15] in his books and on podcasts and said standards were lowered for them, which is not true. He has since toned down his criticism^[16] after substantial pushback from lawmakers.

He most recently told senators that he's not aware that Trump wants to roll back the decision to allow women to serve in all combat jobs. Instead, he has talked about doing a review of standards.

Reproductive care

After the Supreme Court in 2022 ended constitutional protections for abortion that were set out in Roe v. Wade^[17], then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin came out with a policy that would allow service members to take leave and be reimbursed for travel expenses to obtain reproductive care — including abortions and in-vitro fertilization — if the military base they were assigned to was in a state that had banned that care.

It’s not clear whether Hegseth will seek to further revise that policy to remove the reimbursement provisions. It has been only scarcely used, and the department does not break down what the travel was for due to medical privacy laws.

Pete Hegseth^[1] was sworn in Saturday as the nation's 29th secretary of defense, quickly joining President Trump's Cabinet^[2] after a dramatic late-night vote in the Senate installed him as the Pentagon's leader.

Hegseth took the oath from Vice President JD Vance in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with Hegseth's wife, Jennifer Rauchet, at his side and Republican senators looking on. The ceremony came less than 12 hours after Vance broke a 50-50 tie in the Senate to narrowly seal Hegseth's confirmation.

In brief remarks, Hegseth outlined what he said were his guiding principles: “Restore the warrior ethos in everything that we do, rebuild our military and reestablish deterrence.”

“We don’t want to fight wars,” he added. "We want to deter them … and we want to end them responsibly. But if we need to fight them, we’re going to bring overwhelming and decisive force to close with and destroy the enemy and bring our boys home.”

He thanked Vance for his tiebreaking vote and joked that his children were happy their father “won in overtime.”

“It is the honor of a lifetime, sir, to serve under you," Hegseth said, in thanking Trump, who was in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Later, in an emailed message to the American military, he said “we will remain the strongest and most lethal force in the world" and he singled out the needs “to deter aggression in the Indo-Pacific by Communist China ... and reorient to key threats. We will stand by our allies — and our enemies are on notice."

The unusually narrow confirmation for a defense secretary came after questions from members in both parties over Hegseth's qualifications to lead the military, especially amid allegations of heavy alcohol use and aggressive behavior toward women.

For Hegseth, the challenges ahead are steep, as he takes charge of a sprawling bureaucracy at a time of severe challenges around the globe.

He enters office with far less experience than modern defense secretaries before him, acknowledging during his confirmation hearing that he’ll need to build an experienced team as he settles into the job. “I want smarter and more capable people around me than me, and you will get that at the department,” he said in his testimony.

Hegseth also lacks the broad bipartisan support that most have brought to the role. Every Senate Democrat voted against Hegseth’s confirmation, as did three Republicans deeply skeptical of his qualifications for the job.

Adding to the acrimony, Hegseth refused to meet with any Democrats before confirmation, breaking from tradition.

Rarely has a Cabinet nominee faced such wide-ranging concerns about his experience — having been a combat veteran, veterans advocate and Fox News host — as well as behavior as Hegseth, particularly for such a high-profile role atop the U.S. military.

But the Republican-led Senate was determined to confirm Hegseth and round out Trump’s^[3] top national security team.

Democrats, the minority in the Senate, had helped confirm Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in bipartisan votes. But they fiercely opposed Hegseth, with even the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee refusing to support him.

Reacting to the vote, Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer of New York said Republicans have “entrusted the most powerful military in the world to someone with no experience, terrible judgment and serious flaws of character.”

“I hope for the sake of our troops and the good of our country that he can eventually grow into the job,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Three Republicans — Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — also voted against Hegseth, questioning his qualifications for the job.

Hegseth faced allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman^[4] at a Republican conference in California, though he has denied the claims and said the encounter was consensual. He later paid $50,000 to the woman^[5].

Hegseth also had promised during his confirmation hearings that he would not drink while on the job, were he to be confirmed.

Meanwhile, his opposition to women in combat became an issue after Trump announced his choice in November. But, in the face of questions from Congress, Hegseth appeared to shifted.

Asked about the issue on the “Megyn Kelly Show” in early December, Hegseth said he cares only that military standards are maintained. Women serve in combat, he said, and, “if we have the right standard and women meet that standard, roger. Let’s go.”

Hegseth told senators that he supports women in the military but wants to review standards to make sure they are not lowered to accommodate women.

At the swearing-in ceremony, a question directed to Hegseth about why women in the armed services should trust him was answered by Vance.

“All people in our armed services should trust him because he looks out for them and he is going to fight for them," Vance said.

___

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

"Content not found." That was the message Friday on the webpage for the Marine Corps^[1]' Culture and Inclusion Branch located in Quantico^[2], Virginia.

The branch's page previously featured messages such as "treating each Marine, despite diverse backgrounds, with care and respect are fundamental to cohesion." But it was apparently pulled down this week as part of the military's frantic rush to scrub programs and policies that advocate for women, people from racial minority groups and LGBTQ+ troops.

The Army^[3], Navy^[4], Marine Corps, Air Force^[5] and Space Force^[6] -- as well as the Department of Veterans Affairs^[7] -- were all working this week to comply with President Donald Trump's order Monday to end all federal equality and diversity efforts. But the hurry to eliminate the various programs and policies across the military led to a confusing landscape where seemingly unrelated policies were canceled and it was unclear what programs were still in effect.

Read Next: Inside the Military's Scramble to Move Troops to the Mexico Border^[8]

No service had come forward by Friday with a comprehensive list of what programs and policies have been affected by the order.

The military has worked for years to improve the service experience for women and people with minority backgrounds -- and most recently, gay and transgender troops -- as the national recruiting^[9] pool and general population have become more diverse. But those efforts became a political lightning rod amid attacks by Republicans claiming such "woke" policies have weakened the military. After being sworn in Monday, Trump carried out a promise to gut the programs across the federal government, including the military.

The service branches' communications to the rank and file and public about Trump's order were mixed. The Army^[10] and Marine Corps^[11] transmitted public messages that served as official guidance to their troops, while the Navy did not. The Air Force and Space Force also do not appear to have offered official guidance, issuing two memos primarily on their service websites.

Those messages echoed memos sent across all federal agencies: All diversity efforts would be shuttered and recipients should report efforts to disguise or obscure such programs. They warned of potential punishment if the attempts were not reported within 10 days.

They also ordered the removal of websites and documents from public view, as well as the elimination of groups and teams that were working on efforts like improving quality of life for women and minorities.

On Wednesday, the Army's acting civilian leader issued a memo that called for the service^[12] to take down all "outward-facing media" that dealt with diversity and inclusion and cancel all related training immediately.

The next day, the Army removed its sexual harassment and assault prevention policy^[13] from the website that houses service rules, meaning the policy was unavailable to be referenced by soldiers and commanders. The regulation governs how to properly document incidents and best practices for victim protection. The service's regulation on command policy^[14], which outlines the expectations of commanders, was also taken down.

When Military.com inquired about the removal, several Army officials said that the policies were taken down as part of the Army's scrub of anything that might be "DEI related."

They were restored several hours after the inquiry was made.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, a Navy official told Military.com that, while the sea service was complying with the order, it didn't have much in the way of public-facing materials to remove owing to the last several congressional policy bills that clamped down on diversity programs^[15] across the military.

Yet on Friday, a Navy memo was posted to social media^[16] from Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore -- the head of the Navy Reserve -- announcing she was canceling six reserve force policies, including those on anti-harassment, fraternization, and safety and occupational health.

The other three included a diversity policy, an equal employment opportunity policy, and a military equal opportunity policy.

When asked about the document, which went out Thursday, the same Navy official confirmed that the memo was real but stressed that the referenced policies were being "updated to ensure compliance with all directives outlined in executive orders issued by the president."

The Navy official said the service was not ready to formally say whether any civilian employees were placed on leave as a result of Trump's orders. The Army did not comment in time for publication.

The effect of Trump's order on the Marine Corps also appears to be a series of downed websites that leave questions as to whether those programs are still in effect.

The moves by the service, including the removal of the Culture and Inclusion Branch webpage, seem to contradict assurances from the Marine Corps' top officer that the branch had no programs that would be scaled back by the new administration.

Military.com asked about the status of those who worked in that branch office on Friday. But the service directed the publication to a statement from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which reiterated the effort to comply with the president's executive orders.

Web links to other Marine Corps initiatives, such as the Diversity AIMED program, which sought to recruit "historically underrepresented populations" into the reserves, also seemed to have disappeared on Thursday. The service did not say when asked whether that program had been canceled.

Between 2010 and 2020, diversity for enlisted Marines and officers surged, according to a Marine Corps Times article from 2022^[17], which also cited service officials touting the Diversity AIMED program launched that year. As recently as October, the Marine Corps' recruiting command said that "diversity officer accessions accounted for 35% of all officer accessions" in 2024, though the command described that population as men and women who bring a "diversity of background, culture and skill," a spokesperson said at the time.

Gen. Eric Smith, the service's top military official, rebuffed the idea that the Marine Corps had any diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or DEI -- the term used by the Trump administration -- when asked by reporters at an event last week.

"As far as DEI, the Marine Corps has not had DEI programs," Smith said, citing examples of women who have taken jobs as artillery officers, pilots and astronauts and met the physical and academic standards set out by the service to do so.

"We don't do DEI in the Marine Corps; we never have. We're a meritocracy-based organization. We always have been," he said. "If you want to apply for a [military occupational specialty], strap on your pack, grab your rifle, and make a run at it."

When asked whether the commandant had anything to add to his previous statement or in relation to programs now being shut down by the Marine Corps, a spokesperson told Military.com he did not have any further comments.

The president's order had a more clear and immediate effect on the Air Force and Space Force.

Military.com reported Wednesday that Acting Air Force Secretary Gary Ashworth had issued a memo saying all of the Air Force and Space Force's Barrier Analysis Working Groups -- which fought for more progressive policies for women, LGBTQ+ and minority airmen and Guardians -- were being discontinued immediately^[18].

Many of the social media pages for those groups began to disappear or be renamed shortly after that order was made. Some of the website pages for the Department of the Air Force's diversity efforts were no longer loading on Friday or could not be located online, including details about the Air Force Academy^[19]'s Diversity and Inclusion minor or Air Combat Command's Organizational Culture Office.

Two memos were posted publicly to the Air Force and Space Force websites: the memo ending the diverse working groups^[20] and another asking personnel to "remove all outward-facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) offices" as well as "withdraw any final or pending documents, directives, orders, materials and equity plans" related to Trump's order.

That memo^[21] also ordered the services to cancel any "DEIA-related training and terminate any DEIA-related contract." The scope of training and policies that may be caught in those orders was still unclear.

As the military worked to adhere with mixed results, the Department of Veterans Affairs was one of the more aggressive agencies in not only carrying out Trump's order but also being more transparent than most in communicating its effects.

Acting VA Secretary Todd Hunter issued a memo announcing the department would close all diversity offices and cancel diversity-related contracts.

"These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination," Hunter wrote in the memo.

In addition to deleting websites, the agency also shuttered all offices focused on diversity initiatives and placed 60 employees whose jobs were solely created to support diversity activities on paid administrative leave, according to VA spokeswoman Morgan Ackley.

Related: Air Force Groups that Advocated for Beard Policies, Better Body Armor Are Gutted by Trump Directive^[22]