Former Fox News personality, military veteran and conspiracy theorist Pete Hegseth has been narrowly confirmed as the next US defence secretary in a 50-to-50 vote in the Senate that was broken by a tiebreaker cast by Vice President JD Vance.

According to Al Jazeera, during confirmation hearings earlier in January, Hegseth was asked whether he supported Israel’s war on Gaza.

“I support Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas,” Hegseth had said.

Al Jazeera further said that his 2020 book American Crusade “depicted Islam as the historic enemy of the West”.