Hung Cao, a former Virginia Republican Senate candidate, was nominated by President Donald Trump on Thursday as under secretary of the U.S. Navy.
Cao, who Trump described as the “embodiment of the American Dream,” will have to be approved by the Senate to assume the role, New York Post reported Friday.
Table of Contents
Cao’s Leadership Ideology
The former special operations officer is a vocal critic of the diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives implemented in the military during former President Joe Biden’s term. Trump instructed the military to end its DEI programs last month.
Cao, who ran as a Republican candidate for the Virginia Senate against incumbent Tim Kaine, said during a televised debate last year that military branches should recruit “alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat ’em and ask for seconds.”
When asked about the DEI’s effect on military recruitment, Cao said, “When you’re using a drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that’s not the people we want.”
“As a refugee to our great nation, Hung worked tirelessly to make proud the country that gave his family a home,” said Trump.
“With Hung’s experience both in combat and in the Pentagon, he will get the job done,” the president added.
The retired Navy captain responded to his nomination by tweeting Thursday, “It’s time to get to work.”
Cao’s Career History
Cao previously worked at CACI International as vice president of its Navy and Marine Corps business, a client executive and a solutions architect. He served in the Navy for 25 years holding a wide range of leadership positions, including division chief of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, director of counter improvised threats – combined security transition command Afghanistan and commanding officer of the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center.
Related Articles
Gregory Barbaccia, federal chief information officer and a 2025 Wash100 awardee, has shared his insights on how the federal government should advance digital transformation. “I notice a lot of the government considers itself to be ‘digital,’ but in reality, we’ve only digitized, not transformed. Sure we went 0-1, but that should have just been the beginning,” Barbaccia wrote in a LinkedIn post. He noted the lack of automation and that workflows remain unchanged despite the replacement of paper ledgers with spreadsheets. “Files are shared over email instead of through real-time collaboration tools,” he added. Advancing Digital Transformation in Federal Government
The Federal Communications Commission has adopted new rules that seek to eliminate unnecessary paperwork and address regulatory barriers to the ground-station-as-a-service, or GSaaS, business model as part of efforts to drive innovation in the U.S. space economy. FCC said Thursday the new rules establish a process for ground station operators to secure a baseline license without first identifying a satellite point of communication. A simple FCC notification will be required for each new point of communication. According to FCC, the change would eliminate nearly half of earth station modification applications. “Making the smallest change to a satellite system or earth
The General Services Administration has announced a OneGov agreement with Amazon Web Services that will provide up to $1 billion in direct incentive credits to federal civilian agencies. According to GSA, the direct incentive credits, aggregated across the agencies, will include savings on core AWS cloud services through AWS credits, infrastructure and application technologies modernization through AWS modernization credits, access to AWS training and certification through training credits and a streamlined engagement model with greater savings for direct contracts through direct partnerships. Advancing America’s AI Leadership The agreement is expected to accelerate large-scale IT transformation and boost AI innovation across