As undersecretary of the Navy, Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain and former Republican Senate candidate in Virginia, was imagined to have a broad portfolio because the service’s No. 2 civilian, which included personnel points and safeguarding the Navy’s “warfighter ethos.”
However in actuality, Cao was typically lower out of decision-making by his boss, Navy Secretary John Phelan, one supply acquainted with the state of affairs advised CNN, who stated Phelan put Cao “in a field”
Cao was remoted from Navy choice 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 stated.
That each one modified following Pehlan’s sudden ouster as Navy secretary by President Donald Trump and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth this week. Cao is now within the job on an performing foundation. He realized about his promotion from the Pentagon entrance workplace, which known as him in and stated, “Okay, you’re it — we made a change,” in response to the supply.
“He’s rapidly coming on top of things on all of the issues he wasn’t allowed to be concerned in,” the supply added.
A adorned particular operations officer, Cao takes over because the Navy’s high civilian at a time when the service is enjoying a crucial position in stopping Iranian ships from traversing the Strait of Hormuz. Because 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 through the Vietnam Conflict.
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.
“While you’re utilizing a drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that’s not the folks we wish,” Cao stated at a 2024 debate with Kaine in response to a query about navy recruiting. “What we’d like is alpha males and alpha females who’re going to tear out their very own guts, eat ’em and ask for seconds. These are younger women and men which might be going to win wars.”
In a press release after his appointment as performing secretary, Cao stated that he would concentrate on advancing the Navy’s shipbuilding priorities — the very subject that contributed to Phelan’s firing.
“I stay totally dedicated to engaging in the core mission of the Division of the Navy as a premier warfighting group and offering unwavering assist to our warriors downrange,” Cao stated.
Phelan, a businessman and pal 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, CNN previously reported.
It’s unclear whether or not Cao will probably be nominated to take over as Navy secretary completely.
In a press release to CNN, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell stated Cao “brings battle-tested management to the Navy’s highest workplace” and that he “embodies the relentless grit and America First imaginative and prescient required to keep up 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 response to his Navy biography. Cao returned to Virginia when he was 12.
He then enlisted within the Navy in 1989 and have 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 on 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 happy to be joined by a beautiful man, and with this title I actually consider he’s gonna win for the senate — Hung Cao,” Trump stated. Trump gained the White Home however misplaced Virginia, and Kaine defeated Cao within the Senate race 54% to 45%.
In his Senate race, Cao typically criticized the Biden administration’s DEI insurance policies, blaming them for the navy’s recruiting points.
“This administration has a rising obsession with DEI. It’s no surprise we now have a navy recruiting drawback in our nation and that can proceed below 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, aside from Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted no.
That very same month, Phelan’s chief of workers 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 a long time 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 have been discharged from the navy over its Covid-19 vaccine mandate in 2021.
In January, Cao wrote a letter apologizing to sailors who have been kicked out of the navy on account of the mandate.
“To the sailors and Marines who have been wrongfully discharged throughout Covid, we failed you. We are going to by no means permit this to occur once more. Not on my watch,” Cao stated in a video the place he signed the apology letter. “You’re warriors of conscience, and we’d like folks such as you again within the power.”
The supply acquainted with the state of affairs stated that Cao has advised Pentagon officers he gained’t attempt to go round Trump or Hegseth. “He’s going to provide his suggestions throughout the constructing,” the supply stated, “and he’ll loyally assist no matter choice the president makes.”
