Trump’s protection secretary loves taking selfies whereas presiding over administrative anarchy.
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The person within the empty swimsuit: Hegseth speaks throughout a information convention on the Pentagon on June 26, 2025.(Andrew Harnik / Getty Pictures)
Pete Hegseth, the protection secretary, loves posting photos of himself—and you may hardly blame him. Forward of the NATO assembly in February, Hegseth seeded social media with images exhibiting him understanding with Marines stationed in Europe, lifting weights and going for a jog. His chiseled visage and athletic construct aren’t simply an asset however arguably his sole promoting level. Hegseth retains getting employed for his seems to be, which was not so stunning in his earlier put up as a Fox Information host. Being photogenic goes with the job if you’re showing on tv.
However, Hegseth’s present place as protection secretary is usually not a job the place the chief qualification is being visually putting. However Hegseth was chosen for the position by an uncommon president. Previous to turning into commander in chief, Donald Trump’s best declare to fame was being a actuality TV star on The Apprentice, the place he pretended to make choices on hiring and firing. As president, Trump has taken a media strategy to the identical questions. His favourite reward for his personal nominees is that they’re straight from “central casting.” Except for Hegseth, Trump has elevated at the least 18 Fox Information personalities to high-level administrative posts.
If Hegseth didn’t match the Trumpian very best of a bodily interesting man, he would possibly nicely be unemployable. His nomination was contentious, clearing the Senate solely by the grace of Vice President JD Vance casting a tiebreaking vote. Even Republican senators blanched at his sordid private historical past, which features a file of heavy consuming, shut members of the family reminiscent of his mom and sister-in-law characterizing him as a misogynist, and a $50,000 monetary settlement for an rape allegation. Nor was his administration expertise anyplace close to what was required for operating the Pentagon—a posh forms that employs greater than 3 million individuals.
As The New Yorker reported in December, “Hegseth was pressured to step down by each of the 2 nonprofit advocacy teams that he ran—Veterans for Freedom and Involved Veterans for America—within the face of great allegations of monetary mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and private misconduct.” Veterans for Freedom employed fewer than 20 individuals and Involved Veterans for America roughly 160. If Hegseth made a hash of these organizations, what could possibly be anticipated when he was accountable for the world’s largest army?
Not surprisingly, Hegseth has delivered to the Pentagon the identical dysfunction and disarray that has characterised his complete messed-up and messy life. A part of this mayhem is ideological: As I’ve famous in a earlier column, Trump is popping the army right into a MAGA establishment, utilizing troops to quell home protests and giving political speeches the place troopers function stage props. Hegseth has been very a lot a part of this harmful politicization of the army, working to purge the army of trans troopers as nicely as eradicating as any optimistic tributes to civil rights pioneers reminiscent of Jackie Robinson and Harvey Milk. Hegseth backed down from deleting Robinson from a Protection Division web site after protests, however his basic campaign to create a right-wing army continues.
However MAGA isn’t nearly ideology. Trump’s chaotic administration fashion could be very a lot a logical outgrowth of his strongman politics, the place the whim of the chief counts greater than coherent coverage.
Present Situation
In April, John Ullyot, a Trump supporter who served as a communications director in his 2016 marketing campaign and because the chief Protection spokesman throughout Trump’s first time period, warned in Politico of “whole chaos” on the Pentagon. Ullyot’s rebuke was echoed in a New York Instances report that Hegseth had “produced a run of chaos that’s unmatched within the latest historical past of the Protection Division.” Within the wake of those studies, Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican serving on the Home Armed Companies committee, prompt that Hegseth ought to resign, saying, “It seems to be like there’s a meltdown happening.”
The most effective account we now have of the mess on the Pentagon is a deeply reported profile of Hegseth in New York journal written by Kerry Howley. The article focuses on a witch hunt towards leakers that got here within the wake of dangerous press protection, notably tales specializing in two circumstances the place Hegseth shared delicate authorities info on Sign. On account of the following destructive press protection, Hegseth turned more and more paranoid, along with his chief of employees, Joe Kasper, a wildly unqualified loyalist, spreading rumors about perceived foes. At one level, Hegseth threatened Adm. Christopher Grady, vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Workers, “I’ll hook you as much as a fucking polygraph!”
One regrettable end result of this tumult was the firing of key advisers round Hegseth who had real administrative expertise, together with Colin Carroll, chief of employees to the deputy secretary of protection; senior adviser Dan Caldwell; and deputy chief of employees Darin Selnick. These had been a lot wanted voices of prudence. Caldwell’s firing was particularly regrettable as a result of he was a number one advocate for a extra restrained international coverage.
This purge was accompanied by Hegseth surrounding himself with an inside circle of loyalists and members of the family, together with his private lawyer, Tim Parlatore; his brother Phil Hegseth; and his spouse, Jennifer Hegseth. These loyalists now work with Hegseth within the Pentagon. He’s particularly dedicated to his spouse, preserving seven images of her in his workplace. He says he owes every part to the 2 “J’s”: Jesus and Jennifer.
Howley supplies a vivid image of the turmoil within the Protection Division:
Sources within the Pentagon throughout these months describe a sustained sense of instability. Individuals stop or had been fired and the roles went unfilled….
Hegseth was totally different after Signalgatein keeping with six individuals ready to know. He was extra susceptible to anger and fewer prone to be clean-shaven within the morning. He appeared reluctant to make choices; terrified of doing the mistaken factor, paralyzed as he awaited orders from the White Home. The Pentagon had ceased, one supply says, to be “artistic”; it was a mechanism for implementing govt orders. Every new leak contributed to Hegseth’s sense that he was surrounded by moles in league along with his enemies.
This degree of Pentagon chaos can be troubling sufficient even beneath regular peacetime situations (as uncommon as these are in fashionable American historical past). However they’re much more worrying since Donald Trump has betrayed his promise to keep away from wars. In his second time period, Trump has as an alternative appeared desirous to deploy troops at residence and overseas, within the streets of Los Angeles in addition to over the skies of Iran. The minority of voices advocating for restraint in Trump’s administration have both been purged (as occurred to Caldwell) or successfully silenced (as appears to be the case with Vice President JD Vance and director of nationwide intelligence Tulsi Gabbard).
This could be a great time for Congress to analyze Hegseth’s Pentagon and push for his resignation. Whereas some in Congress reminiscent of Don Bacon are gesturing in that course, the regrettable truth is the brand new bipartisan development is to assault Hegseth on the absurd grounds that he’s not militarist sufficient. In a reprise of the Russiagate follies of Trump’s first time period, congressional Democrats and Republicans are uniting to upbraid Hegeth for halting an arms cargo to Ukraine. Regardless of the coverage deserves of this query, it’s a minor matter in comparison with the protection secretary’s politicization of the Pentagon and chaotic administration fashion. Right here, as elsewhere, the bipartisan institution retains failing to carry Trump’s White Home to account.
Jeet Lord
Jeet Heer is a nationwide affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He additionally pens the month-to-month column “Morbid Signs.” The creator of In Love with Artwork: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Artwork Spiegelman (2013) and Candy Lechery: Critiques, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for quite a few publications, together with The New Yorker, The Paris Evaluation, Virginia Quarterly Evaluation, The American Prospect, The Guardian, The New Republic, and The Boston Globe.
