In a resurfaced speech from 2019, Pete Hegseth, US President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for defence secretary, stated that "Zionism and Americanism are the front lines of Western civilisation and freedom in our world today."

Hegseth, who spoke at the National Council of Israel's Gala dinner, also said that there is an "eternal and unbreakable" bond between Israel and America, which he argued represents "faith, freedom, and fidelity to historic, religious, and cultural traditions, the opposite of secularism, Islamism, and antisemitism."