Hung Cao hits the top of a side stand while speaking during the second day of the Republican National Convention Tuesday, July 16, 2024, in Milwaukee. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
(Tribune News Service) — Hung Cao, a 25-year Navy veteran and Virginia Republican who lost a bid for U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine’s seat in November, was nominated Thursday night by President Donald Trump as Under Secretary of the Navy.
Trump praised Cao as “the embodiment of the American dream” in a post on Truth Social.
“As a refugee to our Great Nation, Hung worked tirelessly to make proud the country that gave his family a home,” the post read. “With Hung’s experience both in combat, and in the Pentagon, he will get the job done.”
Cao thanked Trump in a post on X, saying, “It’s time to get to work.”
As under secretary, he would serve as chief operating and management officer of the Department of the Navy. His duties would include providing oversight and developing policy for defense and naval strategy, intelligence and intelligence-related activities, as well as being responsible business operations, performance management, and risk management within the department, according to the Navy.
Trump endorsed him against Kaine. Cao, who has a master’s in physics from the Naval Postgraduate School and held fellowships at MIT and Harvard University, was an outspoken critic of COVID vaccine mandates for military personnel and condemned the military’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts during a debate with the Virginia Democrat.
“When you’re using a drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that’s not the people we want,” Cao said. “What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them and ask for seconds. Those are the young men and women that are going to win wars.”
Cao lost to Kaine by nearly 9 percentage points, according to Virginia election results. He previously ran for a U.S. House seat in northern Virginia in 2022, losing to Democrat Jennifer Wexton.
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