# Anthony Tata **Anthony Tata** is a retired Army brigadier general, novelist and former Fox News commentator. Trump has now put him in the Pentagon twice. The first time, in November 2020, came after his nomination had collapsed. The second, in 2025, was as the Senate-confirmed **Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness**, who runs military personnel policy, the military health system, Pentagon schools and commissaries. ## Background Tata served in the Army from 1981 to 2009, including as deputy commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division. After retiring he ran the Wake County, N.C., school system (2010–12), which fired him, and served as North Carolina's transportation secretary (2015–17). He also wrote a series of military thrillers and became a regular Fox News commentator. ## 2020: nominated, pulled, installed anyway Trump nominated him in 2020 as Under Secretary for Policy, the Pentagon's third-ranking job. His Senate hearing was canceled after reporting surfaced on his social-media history, including calling Barack Obama a "terrorist leader" and suggesting Obama was a secret Muslim. Tata was placed in the Pentagon anyway. On **Nov. 10, 2020**, the day after Defense Secretary [[Mark Esper]] was fired, he was made "performing the duties of" Under Secretary for Policy. That was part of the post-election installation of loyalists, alongside [[Kash Patel]] and [[Ezra Cohen-Watnick]]. It is a textbook case of using acting titles to get around a failed confirmation. See [[Federal Vacancies Reform Act]]. ## 2025–26: personnel chief This time the Senate confirmed him, **52–46** on **July 15, 2025**, on a party-line vote. At his May hearing he expressed regret for his past statements and promised to be "an apolitical leader." Ranking Armed Services Democrat [[Jack Reed]] said he held "a misguided and discriminatory view" of the workforce he would run. Under [[Pete Hegseth]], his office is the one that carries out the culture-war personnel agenda. In August 2026 the *Washington Post* reported that retired colonels with large conservative social-media followings held civilian `.civ` positions in Tata's office, promoting the administration's line with no public disclosure of what they were paid to do. See [[Pentagon Influence Operations - gc_ Generation]] and [[Special Government Employee]]. He was also listed on promotional materials for a 2025 [[NESARA-GESARA]] event. The *Arizona Mirror* reported him as a speaker; *New Lines* reported that he denied attending. ## Why he matters Tata shows how the first term's failed confirmations came back as the second term's successful ones. A nominee blocked in 2020 over conspiracy-tinged rhetoric was confirmed in 2025 into a job with authority over roughly 2 million service members' careers, health care and schools. ## See also - [[Pete Hegseth]] · [[Department of Defense]] · [[Kash Patel]] · [[Ezra Cohen-Watnick]] - [[Pentagon Influence Operations - gc_ Generation]] · [[Special Government Employee]] · [[Iran War 2026 Timeline]] - [[NESARA-GESARA]] · [[Federal Vacancies Reform Act]]