As undersecretary of the Navy, Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain and former Republican Senate candidate in Virginia, was purported to have a broad portfolio as the service’s No. 2 civilian, which included personnel points and safeguarding the Navy’s “warfighter ethos.”
But in actuality, Cao was typically minimize out of decision-making by his boss, Navy Secretary John Phelan, one supply acquainted with the scenario informed NCS, who said Phelan put Cao “in a box”
Cao was remoted from Navy resolution making and wasn’t allowed to signify Phelan in official conferences that Phelan didn’t attend, one thing a typical undersecretary would do, the supply said.
That all modified following Pehlan’s sudden ouster as Navy secretary by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week. Cao is now in the job on an acting foundation. He realized about his promotion from the Pentagon entrance workplace, which known as him in and said, “Ok, you’re it — we made a change,” in line with the supply.
“He’s quickly coming up to speed on all the things he wasn’t allowed to be involved in,” the supply added.
A embellished particular operations officer, Cao takes over as the Navy’s prime civilian at a time when the service is taking part in a important position in stopping Iranian ships from traversing the Strait of Hormuz. As the 2024 Republican nominee in opposition to Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, Cao championed Trump and Hegseth’s assaults on social points and opposition to variety, fairness and inclusion initiatives.
Cao immigrated to the US as a toddler after his household fled Vietnam throughout the Vietnam War.
After retiring from the Navy in 2021, he ran for Congress as a Republican in 2022 and challenged Kaine in 2024, the place he had a penchant for making controversial statements.
“When you’re using a drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that’s not the people we want,” Cao said at a 2024 debate with Kaine in response to a query about military recruiting. “What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat ’em and ask for seconds. Those are young men and women that are going to win wars.”
In a press release after his appointment as acting secretary, Cao said that he would concentrate on advancing the Navy’s shipbuilding priorities — the very subject that contributed to Phelan’s firing.
“I remain fully committed to accomplishing the core mission of the Department of the Navy as a premier warfighting organization and providing unwavering support to our warriors downrange,” Cao said.
Phelan, a businessman and good friend of Trump’s who fundraised for his marketing campaign, was eliminated as Navy secretary following tensions with Hegseth that had stretched on for months. Hegseth believed Phelan was transferring too slowly on implementing shipbuilding reforms and was additionally irked by Phelan’s direct communication with Trump, which Hegseth considered as an try to bypass him, NCS previously reported.
It’s unclear whether or not Cao will be nominated to take over as Navy secretary completely.
In a press release to NCS, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Cao “brings battle-tested leadership to the Navy’s highest office” and that he “embodies the relentless grit and America First vision required to maintain America’s maritime superiority.”
After immigrating to the US in 1975, Cao and his household then moved to West Africa, the place his father served as a USAID agricultural specialist, in line with his Navy biography. Cao returned to Virginia when he was 12.
He then enlisted in the Navy in 1989 and grew to become an officer after graduating from the US Naval Academy in 1996. Over a three-decade profession Cao labored as a Navy diver and explosive ordnance disposal officer. His deployments included Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. He additionally had a stint at the Pentagon engaged on budgets and acquisitions.
Cao and Hegseth knew one another earlier than they each joined the Trump administration, and Cao accompanied Hegseth on a visit to Vietnam in November.
At a 2024 rally in Virginia simply days earlier than the November election, Trump praised the Virginia Senate candidate and known as him as much as be a part of him on stage.
“We’re pleased to be joined by a wonderful guy, and with this name I really believe he’s gonna win for the senate — Hung Cao,” Trump said. Trump gained the White House however misplaced Virginia, and Kaine defeated Cao in the Senate race 54% to 45%.
In his Senate race, Cao typically criticized the Biden administration’s DEI insurance policies, blaming them for the military’s recruiting points.
“This administration has a growing obsession with DEI. It’s no wonder we have a military recruiting problem in our country and that will continue under Harris/Walz,” Cao wrote on X in September 2024.
Cao was confirmed as Navy undersecretary on October 1. All Democrats voted in opposition to Cao nomination and all Republicans supported him, apart from Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted no.
That similar month, Phelan’s chief of employees was fired by Hegseth, partially over efforts to undermine the Navy undersecretary’s workplace earlier than Cao arrived on the job, Politico reported last fall.
As undersecretary, Cao was tapped to be the senior protection official for Guam, the place Cao’s household first arrived many years earlier as Vietnamese refugees. He additionally headed up recruitment and personnel coverage for the Navy, together with implementing Trump’s government order to reinstate service members who had been discharged from the military over its Covid-19 vaccine mandate in 2021.
In January, Cao wrote a letter apologizing to sailors who had been kicked out of the military because of the mandate.
“To the sailors and Marines who were wrongfully discharged during Covid, we failed you. We will never allow this to happen again. Not on my watch,” Cao said in a video the place he signed the apology letter. “You are warriors of conscience, and we need people like you back in the force.”
The supply acquainted with the scenario said that Cao has informed Pentagon officers he gained’t attempt to go round Trump or Hegseth. “He is going to give his feedback within the building,” the supply said, “and he will loyally support whatever decision the president makes.”