WASHINGTON >> Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrived Monday for his first full day leading the Pentagon, vowing to support President Donald Trump’s priorities of sealing the U.S. border with Mexico, promising that more executive orders affecting the military were coming.

Hegseth said the new executive orders would include one reinstating thousands of troops who were kicked out for refusing COVID vaccines during the pandemic.

In a speech Monday evening, Trump briefly spoke about that issue, telling House Republicans that those ousted service members would be restored “to their former rank with full pay.”

Transgender order

Trump also signed an executive order Monday directing Hegseth to revise the Pentagon’s policy on transgender troops, likely setting in motion a future ban on their military service.

Both Trump and Hegseth had described parts of the anticipated orders throughout the day, but the exact language did not drop until late Monday evening.

A transgender ban had been widely expected, and the order Trump signed largely sets in motion a future ban — but directs Hegseth to come up with how that would be implemented in policy.

In his order, Trump claimed that service by troops who identify as a gender other than their biological one “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is harmful to military readiness, requiring a revised policy to address the matter.

Trump had tried to impose a ban on transgender troops during his first term, but it was tangled up in the courts for years before being overturned by then-President Joe Biden.

Lawyers for transgender troops who challenged the ban in the courts during Trump’s first term have already pledged to fight the new ban.

On the border

The Pentagon last week rushed 1,600 active-duty Marines and Army soldiers to the southwestern border, joining 2,500 forces already there. Hegseth predicted that more would be on the way soon to help build barriers and support law enforcement.

“Whatever is needed at the border will be provided,” Hegseth told reporters after he stepped out of his car at the Pentagon. “This is a shift. It’s not the way business has been done in the past.”

Last week, Trump signed an executive order that gave the military an explicit role in immigration enforcement. It also directed the Defense Department to come up with a plan “to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion.”

In his remarks at the Pentagon, Hegseth said the Defense Department supported “the defense of the territorial integrity of the United States of America” in compliance with “the Constitution, the laws of our land and the directives of the commander.”

What the law says

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 forbids the use of armed forces for law enforcement purposes on U.S. soil, unless Congress or the Constitution expressly authorizes it.

The main exception to the Posse Comitatus Act is the Insurrection Act. The law, more than 200 years old, grants the president power to deploy the military domestically when faced with “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion” that prevent the execution of federal or state laws.

When asked about invoking the Insurrection Act, Hegseth did not rule it out and said the White House would make such decisions.

Hegseth also said the Pentagon would “absolutely continue” to use military aircraft to deport migrants with uncertain or contested legal status from the United States. The military’s participation in these flights started last week, with two flights of migrants to Guatemala. In the past, they had been carried out by commercial and charter flights.

Meeting the brass

Gen. C.Q. Brown Jr., chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, greeted Hegseth warmly at the Pentagon at 9 a.m. Monday. Hegseth has suggested that Brown, a four-star fighter pilot with decades of military experience, should be fired. But when asked whether he would dismiss Brown or any of the other Joint Chiefs, Hegseth patted the general on the shoulder. “I’m standing with them right now,” he said.

“Our job is lethality and readiness and for fighting,” said Hegseth, who has vowed to bring a “warrior ethos” to the U.S. military but has yet to provide details. “We’re going to hold people accountable.”

Hegseth used one of his first directives over the weekend to echo the Trump administration’s now familiar refrain about banishing diversity, equity and inclusion programs and making sure the employees those programs seek to promote do not sneak in under other guises.

He posted on social media that anyone who did not comply with the Trump directive would be fired.

Tuskegee flap

The Air Force had responded to the Trump orders last week by removing two videos that taught basic training students about the Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Air Force Service Pilots, both groups that fought during World War II.

But there was a backlash to the move. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., called it “malicious compliance” with Trump’s directive and reminded Hegseth that the president had previously honored the Tuskegee Airmen.

“President Trump celebrated and honored the Tuskegee Airmen during his first term,” Britt wrote on social media.

About the same time, Hegseth wrote: “Amen! We’re all over it Senator. This will not stand.”

On Sunday, the Air Force said it would resume instruction of the videos.

In his comments Monday, Hegseth used the former names of two Army bases that had honored Confederate officers.

“Every moment that I’m here, I’m thinking about the guys and gals in Guam, in Germany, in Fort Benning and Fort Bragg, on missile defense sites and aircraft carriers,” he said. “Our job is lethality and readiness and warfighting.”

The bases he cited were both renamed as part of an effort to remove honorifics for people who had rebelled against the Union during the Civil War.

Fort Benning, near Columbus, Ga., had been named for Henry L. Benning, a Confederate general. In 2023, it was renamed Fort Moore in honor of Lt. Gen. Harold Moore, who earned a Distinguished Service Cross in Vietnam, and his wife, Julia, who championed reforms for caring for the surviving family members of service members who are killed or wounded.Also in 2023, the Army’s base near Fayetteville, N.C., known since 1918 as Camp Bragg and then Fort Bragg in honor of Braxton Bragg of the Confederate Army, was renamed Fort Liberty.

Trump has pledged to restore the Confederate names of the bases.

This report contains information from the Associated Press.