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After ousting Defense Secretary and four-star Marine General Jim Mattis, President Donald Trump is looking for a replacement to head the Pentagon. One man who the president is said to be considering is Reagan-era secretary of the Navy and former Democratic senator from Virginia, Jim Webb.

President Trump, enraged over Mattis’ highly critical resignation letter, pushed out the general two months earlier than he originally planned.

As Trump withdraws American troops from embattled Syria and Afghanistan, he may bypass traditional foreign policy-minded, hawkish Republican picks and decide to put the faith of the U.S. military into the hands of an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war. In the past, and even more recently, Webb has advocated to pull troops from the Middle East, also to become more aggressive in handling China.

In a 2015 Democratic primary debate, then-presidential contender Webb accosted Beijing’s military expansion in the South China Sea and cyberattacks on American institutions.

“If you want a place where we need to be in terms of our national strategy, a focus, the greatest strategic threat that we have right now is resolving our relationship with China,” Webb said in a report from the New York Times.

While President Trump has remarked that acting-Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, may remain at the top spot at the Pentagon “for a long time,” other names have surfaced as potential replacements like Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and former Missouri Republican senator Jim Talent.

Nevertheless, much like Trump, Webb was also critical of then-President Barack Obama’s efforts in 2015 to strike a deal to curtail Iran’s nuclear program.

“The end result of this could well be our acquiescence in allowing Iran to develop a nuclear weapon,” Webb said.

In August, Trump reimposed sanctions to force Tehran to address its nuclear proliferation, which includes ballistic missile tests. Heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran were also amplified as Tehran began carrying out naval exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, designed to send a message to Washington over the sanctions.

In 1984, then as a member of the Republican Party, Webb joined the Reagan Administration as assistant defense secretary for reserve affairs. Three years later, while secretary of the Navy, Webb pushed for modernizing the fleet, but resigned one year later after refusing to agree to reduce the size of the branch. Although Webb proposed upping the Navy to 600 ships, his expansionist view is in line with President Trump’s more modest goal of a 355-ship fleet and the construction of highly-advanced Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers to rule the seas.

If Webb is chosen, however, he will undoubtedly be grilled during his Senate confirmation hearing about potentially “insensitive” comments he has made in the past regarding military practices, foreign policy, and his experience on the field of battle.

During his short-lived 2016 presidential candidacy, Webb made headlines when he was asked who he was most proud to have as an enemy. He replied with an anecdotal tale from his time during the Vietnam War where was wounded twice and received the Navy Cross for his service and bravery.

“I would have to say the enemy soldier that threw the grenade that wounded me, but he’s not around right now to talk to,” Webb said.

Though, he reportedly walked away from the presidential primary after alleged contention with some of the Democratic Party’s political issues.

Nevertheless, apart from serving as a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and becoming a Reagan-era Navy bureaucrat, Webb would bring his experience as senator from 2006 to 2012 to the Pentagon. Webb sat on the on Armed Services Committee, serving on the Airland, SeaPower, and Personnel subcommittees, leading the latter as chairman. He was also on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, serving as chairman of the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, and as a member of the African Affairs, European Affairs, and Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Narcotics Affairs subcommittees.

Following former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore‘s nomination for the position of ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Webb would be the second presidential hopeful from the Commonwealth to join the Trump Administration.

The 116th Congress has been sworn in and the Democrats have regained the majority in the House of Representatives after a blow to the Republican stronghold on November 6, 2018. As the President Donald Trump and Republicans go into what can only be foreshadowed as a tumultuous two years until the 2020 General Election, they will have to contend with the former and now current Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (CA-12).

Around noon, Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (NY-8) nominated Pelosi for the speakership, adding that under the tutelage of the California legislator, the Democratic Party will have Congress passing minimum wage increases, a proposed Medicare for All plan, a new voting rights act, and protection for the “DREAMers.”

Wyoming’s lone Congresswoman Liz Cheney gave a fiery rebuke, nominating Republican and former House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA-22) for speaker of the house, which was met with boos from the left and cheers from the right. Cheney said that McCarthy has been a leader in passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), legislation to help ward off the opioid crisis, and working to repeal parts of Obamacare, because “[government] is more of a burden than a help to small business across the country.”

As well, she said that Republicans led by McCarthy have been fulfilling the mission of the president in securing borders, reforming immigration policy, voting against the “devastating practice of sanctuary cities,” enthusiastically proclaiming “and, yes, madam clerk, build the wall,” which was met with a raucous response from both sides of the aisle.

Nevertheless, the votes were tallied out of 433 in quorum:

Pelosi (D): 219

McCarthy (R): 192

Others: 19

Present: 3

As Democrats are set to run the lower chamber for at least the next two years, their first task has been widely said to be making a deal with the White House to reopen the government, which is now in its 13th day closed.

Through the Christmas holiday, President Trump reaffirmed his commitment to at least $5 billion in wall funding to enhance security at the U.S.-Mexico border, saying in the Oval Office to reporters last week, “I can’t tell you when the government is going to be open…It’s not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they like to call it…I’ll call it whatever they want…but it’s all the same thing, it’s a barrier.”

On Monday, however, Trump said that he was “ready to go” to make a deal to reopen the government. Reportedly, the president will now be willing to accept funding figures for the border wall that are somewhere between the $5 billion he has requested, and the $1.6 billion congressional Democrats are willing to pass. However, the liberal party has demanded that those dollars not be dedicated to any portion of President Trump’s “immoral, ineffective, and expensive” wall, per Pelosi’s remarks throughout the shutdown.

Earlier on the “Today Show,” she reiterated that any funding measures pursued by the new Democratic majority will include “nothing for the wall.”

“There is no amount of persuasion he can do to say to us, ‘We want you to do something that is not effective, that costs billions of dollars,'” she said Thursday morning. “That sends the wrong message about who we are as a country.”

Legislation to be forwarded in the opening day of the 116th Congress from Democrats would fund closed departments through September 30, with another measure keeping the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) open until February 8 as contention still surrounds the proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall and other immigration policies stemming from the Trump Administration.

Regardless, since Democrats did not gain ground in the upper chamber of Congress, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), ready to battle against the opposition party, said that any funding package President Trump does not support will not have a scheduled vote.