Donald Trump sat down with The Atlantic a couple of weeks ago, and when the discussion turned to his beleaguered defense secretary, the president offered support — in an awkwardly worded way. “I think he’s gonna get it together,” Trump said about Pete Hegseth.
That might yet be true, but the hapless Pentagon chief apparently hasn’t gotten it together yet.
While Hegseth’s entire tenure at the Department of Defense has been a shambolic mess, the last week has been especially brutal. Last Tuesday, for example, the secretary took steps to end the Pentagon’s Women, Peace and Security program, condemning it as a “woke” initiative championed by “feminists and left-wing activists.” What Hegseth apparently didn’t know was that Trump championed the program, characterizing it as a key first-term accomplishment, after it was crafted by Marco Rubio and Kristi Noem — two of Hegseth’s Cabinet colleagues.
One day later, The Washington Post published a deeply unflattering report about Hegseth elevating his third wife to an “unorthodox role” shaping Pentagon affairs, which has apparently not been well received within the department.
One day after that, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon inspector general decided to “expand an investigation into Hegseth’s sharing of military plans to a second Signal chat that included his wife and brother.”
As this week got underway, his troubles intensified: The Journal also reported that Hegseth used the Signal messaging app for official Pentagon business more extensively than had been previously disclosed, “engaging in at least a dozen separate chats.” Soon after, Reuters reported that Hegseth sparked widespread confusion among national security officials in January when he unilaterally halted an arms shipment to Ukraine, catching the White House off guard.
It was against this backdrop that the former Fox News personality did what he’s done several times before: Hegseth advanced his ongoing purge of U.S. military leaders. The New York Times reported:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a 20 percent reduction of four-star officers — the military’s senior ranks — continuing the wide swath of job reductions and firings that have marked his three months at the helm of the Pentagon. In a memo on Monday, Mr. Hegseth also ordered a 10 percent reduction of overall general-level officers in the military, and a 20 percent cut of four-star positions in the National Guard.
“Through these measures, we will uphold our position as the most lethal fighting force in the world, achieving peace through strength and ensuring greater efficiency, innovation and preparedness for achieving any challenge that lies ahead,” the secretary said.
That’s certainly one way to look at the developments. But as NBC News noted, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, indicated Hegseth’s explanation for the dismissals fell short.
“I have always advocated for efficiency at the Department of Defense, but tough personnel decisions should be based on facts and analysis, not arbitrary percentages,” Reed said in a statement. “Eliminating the positions of many of our most skilled and experienced officers without sound justification would not create ‘efficiency’ in the military — it could cripple it.”
“Secretary Hegseth has shown an eagerness to dismiss military leaders without cause, and I will be skeptical of the rationale for these plans until he explains them before the Armed Services Committee,” Reed added.
The point about Hegseth’s “eagerness to dismiss military leaders without cause” was of particular interest because the recent pattern is so difficult to defend. Less than a month ago, for example, Hegseth’s Pentagon fired the commander of a base in Greenland, after she refuted remarks from Vice President JD Vance. Days earlier, Hegseth also ousted U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the only woman on NATO’s military committee. The broader purge also includes Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, who was both the head of U.S. Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency; Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Gen. James Slife, former vice chief of staff of the Air Force; Adm. Linda Fagan, the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard; Adm. Lisa Franchetti; Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short; Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, the Army’s top military lawyer; and Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer, the Air Force’s top military lawyer. Several weeks ago, five former defense secretaries — including retired Gen. Jim Mattis, Trump’s first defense secretary — condemned the firings as “reckless.” Their joint letter, addressed to Congress, asked that the House and the Senate hold “immediate hearings to assess the national security implications” of the dismissals. Hegseth and the administration appear to have ignored the concerns; the purge is ongoing; and GOP leaders on Capitol Hill have scheduled no such hearings. This post updates our related earlier coverage. The aforementioned reports from The Washington Post, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal have not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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