When Elisa Smithers was deployed to Iraq in 2005, there was a ban on women serving in ground combat operations. She now fears the progress made for women in combat since then will be reversed after President-elect Donald Trump announced Pete Hegseth this week as his pick for secretary of defense – a Fox News host and Army veteran who has criticized efforts to allow women into combat roles.

In picking Fox News Channel host Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense, President-elect Donald Trump has selected a military veteran and popular conservative media personality with a large following of his own.

“Trump’s incoming SECRETARY OF DEFENSE who doesn’t wash his hands and doesn’t believe in germs,” rebuked one critic. “So, the Secretary of Defense is a guy that if he can’t see the threat, it doesn’t exist? Cool. Cool,” ripped another person. “Our new Secretary of Defense can’t fight germs,” quipped someone else.