Acting Navy secretary's record raises eyebrows, including his concerns about 'witchcraft'
By: Steve Benen (MS NOW)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Hung Cao took the reins at the Navy this week, though his record is not without controversy.
One of the oddities of Donald Trump's personnel choices in his second term is how often he has chosen failed GOP candidates for important positions. Indeed, the White House seems to be a jobs program for Republicans who've been rejected by voters, hiring so many failed candidates that Roll Call last year said the president had created a "Team of Losers."
This week, that list grew a little longer, as Hung Cao took the reins at the U.S. Navy, replacing former Navy Secretary John Phelan, who was fired Wednesday by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Cao is known to campaign watchers as a Virginia Republican who ran a failed congressional campaign in 2022, losing to then-Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton by nearly seven points, followed by a failed Senate campaign in 2024, losing to Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine by nearly nine points.
Just months after Cao's defeat, Trump tapped the Republican to serve as undersecretary of the Navy, and he was narrowly confirmed last fall. Now, he's the acting Navy secretary, the 10th person to serve in the position across both of Trump's terms.
Cao's record, however, is not without controversy. During his 2024 candidacy, for example, USA Today reported that the Republican, a decorated Navy veteran, "made repeated references to becoming disabled after he was 'blown up' in combat," although his military record did not support those claims.
The article added that Cao's Navy service record "does not show a Purple Heart award, the commendation given to troops who have suffered wounds from 'direct or indirect result of enemy action' that required medical attention. Nor does his record indicate that he received the Navy's Combat Action Ribbon, which requires that a sailor 'must have rendered satisfactory performance under enemy fire while actively participating in ground or surface combat engagement.'"
Pressed at the time for an explanation, Cao declined to answer specific questions about his military service.
Complicating matters, shortly after launching his Senate campaign, Cao also expressed concerns about, of all things, witchcraft.
During one 2023 interview, Cao said witches had “taken over” a California city, and he wanted to prevent similar problems in the commonwealth.
“We can’t let it turn like this,” he said during an interview with a Christian pastor. “There’s a place in Monterey, California, called Lovers Point. The original name was Lovers of Christ Point, but now it’s become — they took out the ‘Christ,’ it’s Lovers Point, and it’s really — Monterey is a very dark place now, a lot of witchcraft and the Wiccan community has really taken over. We can’t let that happen to Virginia.”
It’s not clear how long Cao will remain as acting Navy secretary or whether the president may consider him as Phelan’s permanent successor.
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He is a fraud.
And insane.
Only the best people!
the purge of maga morons from the US military will be a lot easier after trump tries to use them in november ...
Morning... great you mob have got a troppo leader and now you have one in the Navy..
Just bloody brilliant..
It just keeps getting better and better..🙄
build a large solar powered desalinization plant on the coast and a pipeline from it into the middle of the outback. we'll be delivering a million tons of free organic compost directly. paint 3 large white concentric circles on the ground that can be seen from 3kms above where you want it ...
I'd sell any of your properties in taiwan, south korea, thailand, cambodia, laos, vietnam, malaysia, and the phillipines as soon as possible if I were you ...
He obviously doesn't really know much about witchcraft. (After all, there are both good witches as well as bad witches!)
Perhaps we should take up a collection to buy him tickets to the Broadway hit show "Wicked"-- that might help to enlighten him!
Actually a better solution to fix his miscconceptions about witches might be to simply recommend he view "The Wizard of Oz"!
they represent the pedophile guild,
the pedophile guild, the pedophile guild.
they represent the pedophile guild,
and welcome you to magaland.
And then let's talk to him about the "Friends of Dorothy"
I'm telling ya...Glinda would have received a throat punch from me....
I wonder how many munchkins can hide under that gown?
I doubt many people know much about any belief system outside of the one they were indoctrinated into as a child. The people who actually study the origins of religion are likely to become atheists.
I have been listening to pagan playlists. I suspect much, if not all, is AI generated. I find a lot of it entertaining. I took an online belief test over a decade ago and was categorized as neo-pagan.
Probably less than the number of Angels that can dance on the head of a pin!
These are results for how many angels can dance on the head of a pin:
I've always been a very curious person, so I have done research on various religions. (Although I certainly don't claim to be "an expert").
But I am not an Atheist.
My path is more of a "spiritual" one, not totally consistent with any "Conventional" religions.
Also I get bored with discussions about which religion is "right".I have no interest in trying to convert anyone to any religion-- or to even debaten the exitence or non-existence of any god or gods.
Both conventional and not.
And BTW for awhile I read up on Earth religions, including Witchcraft, etc. (But I am not a Warlock--- nor have I ever played one on TV!)
I'd rather live next door to a coven of witches than a deplorable shit bag of MAGAites
Over the years I have actually met a few practitioners of "The Craft". In fact two actually became friends.
Both lovely people!
We have a practicing Wiccan here on NT. And she's a lovely person
Yes I have spoken with her.
We actually have some things in common.(IIRC most true witches use Astrology and many "read the cards" i.e. the Tarot
And FWIW I do tend to like Black Cats (even those who aren't named Pyewacket!)
I really liked Bell, Book and Candle as well as the Harry Potter Series.
The inside of this guy's head is a very dark place. Monterey is a great, wonderful place!
Monterey Bay Aquarium
(Photos from the Internet)
How lovely!
Maybe it's the witches that keep it that way
The entire Monterey Bay area is really beautiful. Carmel, which is on Monterey Bay, is beautiful beyond compare.
Must be the witches.
Particularly at night,
(During the day . . .not so much!)
some asian names really crack me up. I'll assume that cao is pronounced cow. hung cow. I'll add that name to my list that includes no park and phuk noh, and another one I find hilarious and that I can't recall from 20+ years ago ...
I have heard that Way Wong used to be a tv journalist in San Francisco....
Are you sure you're not thinking of the wong one?
Not to detract from the joke, but I cannot be assured of anything since this is anecdotal evidence.
If lovin 47 is Wong, I don't want to be white, or was it write, written wong way down side up, like a lexdysic cup, that wonith over, cuz upside down, like me, when smokin my bong in reverse, cuz Chow the mein bogart, always Humphreying, asz he was always on Bacall, and all apoligies too N e offended, just my slant on the whirled spun eggzactly like a roll of yarn till dropped in my soup, at the won tine
I love you, Iggy.
Isn’t No Park a member of the notorious Here family?
No Park Here.
they have no meters in the park.
That was his name!: ("Icant Recall!")
Why do these nutbags obsess over California, when they don’t even live here and we haven’t done anything to them? Monterey is impossibly beautiful, by the way. Other than it being an understandably expensive place to live, this is the first time I have heard anyone try to shit on the place.
the maga elite don't like expensive places where they don't feel welcome ...
I think its because its mostly a pretty solidly Democratic state.
(And the Bay area has a large concentration of liberals-- and political activists.)
Sure, but I don't spend one second of my day thinking about crappy racist southern states, while they are fixated on California. It's weird.
Just to say... I have lived all over this country, and some of the "crappy racist southern states " have some of the most non-racist "I don't know what the fuck you are talking about" replies to the boilerplate enunciation of separateness that you are referring to. Everyone can think for themselves. Each individual. It is the politicians that divide us up into groups for harvest at election time that are the problem.
... racism still exists in the south, but has lost it's edge from the past. the old goober racists are dying off ...
not as fast as you think. My former supervisor, a highly educated man, is a deep seated racist
I'm sure it does. I've lived in nearly a dozen states in my life and racism exists everywhere. My wife and I drove from one side of Wisconsin to the other last weekend. Between larger cities is all Trump country... The increase of Hispanic people moving to our area is making some people shit their pants.
Racism does exist most everywhere. While it is not endemic to a region, it can be thought of as being prevalent to a mind-set that relies too much on mental-shorthand, and a great deal of racism/bigotry is nurtured by politicians for the sake of political traction. Stop. Think.
I've been in and out of texas for 55 years. my fake southern accent is flawless. I know what they say in mixed company, and amongst themselves. I have noticed a change over the course of decades. while still not close to where racial equality should be, the inherent racism is slowly fading. it's a generational thing and it's disappearing at about the same rate as their forced southern accents, but it is disappearing. you don't hear that southern twang from brown people that were born and raised in the south, and it's almost non-existent in the educated white kids. I've personally experienced the changes in interpersonal relationships when people I dealt with discovered that I was not a southerner and from colorado, when I was in texas. the best way to describe the center point of racist not racist in southern racism versus northern racism is like the difference between north and true north on a compass. we're still at least 2 generations away from getting the confederate skidmarks out of our american shorts ...
I grew up as a Yankee racist. Northern racism is more subtle unless you are a redneck then you may as well be a confederate flag-waving dumbfuck. It took time and education to clean the racism out of me.
all the old racists in my family are where old racists belong, dead and buried. I grew up in farm/ranch towns around latino kids and was 10 years old before I saw a black person in the flesh. I thought I was latino. we moved to denver metro when I started high school and there were 3 black kids in my school. they were the most popular kids in school. I've worked with black people in a number of jobs and counted them as among my friends.
I hired 3 black installers when I was a field supervisor for an installation contractor and upper management freaked out and told me we don't hire them. they said the same thing when I started hiring female installers. both times I demanded that they put who I shouldn't hire in writing. the racists where also at the front of the line to take credit for the diversity of the company's installation dept. after I trained them and they had job experience, the company's clients, local cable TV operators would hire them away from me to meet federal guidelines.
my son's best friend for 30 years, and pretty much a member of our family, is black. my cousin's adopted son, is black. my grand daughter is inca/latino and whatever heinz 57 variation of whatever american white bread that I came from, and I really don't give a fuck, and neither do my kids, because they were raised as americans that are allowed to identify as whatever subset they wish to be ...
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