Hung Cao, Trump’s newly appointed acting Navy secretary, apparently worries that witches and Wiccans are threatening to overtake communities nationwide.
Cao replaced former Navy Secretary John Phelan, who was fired Wednesday by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. But in a 2023 interview, during Cao’s failed 2024 Senate campaign for Virginia’s U.S. Senate seat, Cao said he was worried that Wiccans and witches had “taken over” Monterey, California.
Related
“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.”
Insights for the LGBTQ+ community
Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
USA Today noted that during his 2024 race, Cao claimed that he had repeatedly claimed to have become disabled while being “blown up” in combat, but his military record didn’t support those claims. He declined to answer specific questions about his military service, MS NOW reported.
Cao was narrowly confirmed by the Senate last fall to serve as the Navy’s undersecretary.
In a similarly supernatural vein, Gregg Phillips, the president’s appointee to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Office of Response and Recovery, is a 2020 election denier who repeatedly claimed he was once involuntarily teleported to a Waffle House restaurant 50 miles away. He also said his deceased girlfriend once appeared inside his moving car and lifted it off the road to avoid an oncoming truck.
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.