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The knives are out for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. While top White House officials insist the growing questions surrounding the Defense Secretary’s behavior is proof he’s threatening the status quo, the sentiment across much of the capital is far less charitable. Amid the fallout of news that he shared military targets to a second group chat, this time from his personal phone and to family members, there is a growing sense that the former Fox News weekend host is poised to be one of the first senior members of the Administration to be shown the exit.
The only real question at this point is the length of Trump’s fuse amid the constant pummeling Hegseth and others are facing for being so reckless with highly sensitive information that, in another timeline, could have cost Americans their lives. By Tuesday afternoon, it seemed this might well be a slow burn.
The New York Times on Sunday published a bombshell story that revealed Hegseth last month shared flight schedules for F/A-18 Hornets en route to bomb Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen with his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. NBC News reported on Tuesday that Hegseth had shared that info after receiving it from a top U.S. general using a secure U.S. government system intended for sensitive and classified information.
Privately, Republicans are bracing for further embarrassing disclosures in the wings, as first reported by NOTUS. Many in the party never really liked the former TV personality for the role of running the world’s largest employer. (The Department of Defense employs more than 3 million people in military or civilian roles.) His confirmation hearings dealt with reports of alcohol abuse, hush money to settle a sexual assault allegation, and organizational mismanagement with a veterans group.
His confirmation vote was a dead tie in the Senate, requiring Vice President J.D. Vance to drag Hegseth across the finish line past unified Democratic opposition and nay votes from Sen. Mitch McConnell, the influential former Republican Leader, and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.
Since breezing into the Pentagon with promises of de-woke-ifying and re-warrior-izing, Hegseth’s tenure hasn’t exactly been confidence inspiring. National security hawks in both parties are watching the Pentagon for daily dust-ups that shake America’s image and remake its top ranks. He was sharing bombing details on a first group chat that somehow included the top editor of The Atlantic, and then on another one with his family. His inner circle was dismantled last week, ostensibly over leaked information about a pending briefing on China for Elon Musk. And Hegseth’s top spokesman went rogue and published a highly critical assessment of the Secretary’s tenure: “In short, the building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership.”
Hill Republicans are begrudgingly grateful that the news of the second group chat emerged while most are out of town, at home for a holiday work period that continues through this week. But several lawmakers have been using their best stage whisper to urge Leadership teams in the House and Senate that this sort of sloppy handling of sensitive information cannot become normalized. So far, just one Republican lawmaker—former Air Force General and current Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska—has put his name on pointed criticism of Hegseth but there is a sense that the time for choosing will come when Congress comes back next week. It’s going to get tougher to stay silent, especially as Democrats are planning a coordinated effort to suss out just how Trump administration officials are using third-party platforms like Signal and Gmail to potentially skirt keeping a full record of their correspondence.
Yet even some Republicans tired of Hegseth are wary of seeing him pushed out. After all, as one Republican who helped Hegseth salvage his nomination told me, there is little reason to think Trump would turn to a polished pro for that role now, or that a quick confirmation process is in the offing. A Hegseth-run DOD may look positively orderly compared to what follows, some fear.
At the White House, a tone of public defiance has settled in. Trump and Hegseth spoke just hours after the Times report went online Sunday and they seemed simpatico in a belief that the revelations were coming from disgruntled employees and so-called Deep State defenders of business as usual. But the contradiction was apparent for anyone willing to scratch the surface: the three public suspensions and one defection from the Pentagon’s top ranks were all, until very recently, Hegseth loyalists. It’s not clear that they would have been behind the leak about Hegseth’s chat history; and it’s worth noting that the White House has not disputed the accuracy of those stories, only the interpretation about just how bad they are.
For his part, Hegseth returned to the morning show he hosted for years to bat away the furor, but noticeably did not deny the underlying story, either.
“Once a leaker, always a leaker, often a leaker,” Hegseth said Tuesday. “I don’t have time for leakers. I don’t have time for the hoax press that peddles old stories from disgruntled employees.”
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the latest reports part of a “smear campaign” against a change agent and again denied reporting that says those close to Trump are looking for a replacement. Instead, she cast all of this as a betrayal—by the people who told the Times about the Signal group chat in the first place, suggesting they would be held to criminal account. “We are not going to tolerate individuals who leaked to the mainstream media, particularly when it comes to sensitive information,” Leavitt said. “The President stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth and the change that he is bringing to the Pentagon. The results he has achieved thus far speak for themselves.”
That may be the case at present, but betting on Trump to stay the course is seldom a good wager. Republicans who have spoken with the White House say Trump is committed to keeping Hegseth, although there is the long-running understanding that the President’s loyalty is inviolable until it isn’t.
During his first term, Trump dumped just about anyone at any time—for bringing bad headlines, for getting headlines that were too good, for inching too close to the spotlight, or bumping Trump from the front page. This time, Trump seems determined not to give his critics a single win, doubling down when other Presidents would have ditched the trouble. (Remember when Barack Obama ditched the top general in Afghanistan for a series of disparaging comments to Rolling Stone about his team? Stanley McCrystal sure does.)
So, for now, there is merely the constant glare on Hegseth, who seems to be atop a fast-flaking camp of defenders. Trump, who has made this his weekly Waterloo, has stood by Cabinet officials far longer with far less threatening incoming. Now, Washington is just waiting to see where a second-term Trump has parked his pain threshold.
—With reporting by Nik Popli
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