Give Hegseth the Boot Already!
Pete Hegseth has proven he is not fit to run the Defense Department. It's time to fire him.
In February, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had announced during a speech to NATO leaders that the U.S. was taking future NATO membership for Ukraine off the table as a negotiating chip with Russia. This was a significant policy change, except that the only problem was that this wasn’t a real policy change. The Trump administration quickly engaged in cleanup and clarified (sort of) that NATO membership was still a consideration. Hegseth, the day after his infamous speech, walked back his comments, saying his original remarks did not represent an official shift in U.S. policy. In short, Hegseth showed the world that when he says that the U.S. changes its policy, you can’t bet on his word representing an actual change in U.S. policy.
Now, Hegseth has revealed that when he officially acts to change U.S. policy, you have to take into consideration that this, too, does not represent a legitimate policy change.
Last week, it was reported that the Trump administration was pausing weapons shipments to Ukraine. This pause came after Hegseth signed off on a review of military spending and U.S. foreign aid, bringing no small degree of surprise to Republican allies of Trump in Congress and the Ukrainians. Russia was giddy over the announcement.
The move, however, reportedly came with limited coordination within the administration, which White House and State Department officials pushed back on. One White House official who spoke anonymously to Politico denied that the administration was kept in the dark about the decision. “This entire narrative is flat out wrong,” said chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell. Anna Kelly, White House Deputy Press Secretary, called the decision simply an advancement “to put America’s interests first.”
But this week, Trump publicly stated the U.S. would be sending more weapons to Ukraine: “We’re going to send some more weapons. We have to — they have to be able to defend themselves.” According to Axios, Trump explained to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky in a phone call that the weapons pause was only implemented because of a concern that the U.S. was running low on stockpiles, but he assured Zelensky that he would be sending ten Patriot interceptors to war-torn Ukraine anyway. Then, later this week, things got weird. When asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins about who had approved of the previous weapons pause, Trump replied, “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”
Well, that sure sounds like a problem.
Let’s take a moment to assess the seriousness of this revelation. A major policy change was implemented under Hegseth’s approval, but Trump, who has now reversed course on the weapons pause, says that he didn’t approve of the change and claims he doesn’t know who made the decision. That’s … concerning … to say the least. So what’s going on here?
CNN is reporting that when Hegseth authorized the weapons pause, he did not inform the White House before signing off on the decision. Even our special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, and Secretary of State (as well as national security advisor) Marco Rubio only learned about the pause from press reports. This uncoordinated decision, per CNN, set “off a scramble inside the administration to understand why the halt was implemented and explain it to Congress and the Ukrainian government.” The report goes on to reveal that when Trump learned about the weapons pause last week, he ordered Hegseth to continue with shipping at least some of the munitions, many of which are already in Poland and can be easily delivered to Ukraine.
Based on this reporting, it’s pretty clear that Trump should know that Hegseth initiated the pause without his direction. He’s just trying not to officially out his Defense Secretary. But Hegseth’s rogue decision (reportedly encouraged by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Elbridge Colby, a Ukraine-aid critic) is a feature of his reckless tenure that Trump should respond to. This isn’t even the first time Hegseth has unilaterally halted sending weapons to Ukraine. In February, he made this same decision before it had to be quickly reversed. Who does Hegseth think he is?
Since becoming Defense Secretary, Hegseth has proven his incompetence time and time again. His kerfuffle over the policy change that was not with potential Ukrainian NATO membership was disgraceful, but since then, he’s continued on with disgracing his office. As Elon Musk’s DOGE was considering making cuts to the Defense Department, Hegseth invited Musk (who has no foreign policy experience) to a military briefing held in the secured Pentagon conference room, the Tank. After learning about the scheduled briefing, Trump was displeased, making it clear that no discussions about China should be permitted during the briefing because of Musk’s business ties to the nation. After news broke about the meeting, Trump told Hegseth that inviting Musk was “a bad look.” It was more than a bad look. Musk had no business at a military briefing. Hegseth should have known better.
Then there’s the “Signalgate” controversy. In March, Trump’s former national security adviser (now a nominee for ambassador to the U.N.) Mike Walz accidentally added The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to a high-profile Signal chat concerning the upcoming strike against the Houthis. That’s bad enough, but it got worse when Hegseth posted the exact times and weapons that would be used in the strike thirty minutes before the mission launched. Now, put aside the fact that Goldberg was in the chat. There was no need for Hegseth to be sharing this information in a commercial messaging app. If the information had leaked out into the wrong hands, the mission could have been jeopardized. Then, after news about Signalgate broke, Hegseth lied, insisting that “Nobody was texting war plans.” Apparently, Hegseth was naive enough to believe the American people can’t read.
Oh yeah, and it turns out that Hegseth was also sharing sensitive information about this same strike in another Signal chat that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. Hegseth’s wife does not work in the Defense Department. His brother and attorney do work at the Pentagon, but their ranks are nowhere near a level where they would need to know about forthcoming strikes. And it turns out that this chat also included two of Hegseth’s senior advisors, who have both been fired after being accused of leaking unauthorized information.
This latest revelation about Hegseth acting on his own in pausing weapons shipments makes it clear that Hegseth is still the same Hegseth: A reckless and incompetent man who has no business being Defense Secretary. He has not, contra Matt Schoenfeldt’s contention in National Review, changed the Pentagon for the better. I’m perfectly happy to see weird woke agendas like diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and climate initiatives get nixed on his watch to make the Defense Department more focused on, well, defense, but these are elementary reforms and do not make one a competent steward of an institution. You can be good at getting rid of an institution’s wasteful programs, but you better be really good at running that institution if you expect to lead it.
Given Hegseth’s track record, it’s clear that he simply doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s time to stop giving Hegseth any more chances. If Hegseth is going to act recklessly with sensitive information entrusted to him and perform in his role as Defense Secretary without the President’s approval, he should be fired. How many more scandals are we going to have to sit through if this guy remains in power?
Enough is enough. Just give Hegseth the boot already!