Facing serious allegations about his role in recent military strikes against civilian boats in international waters, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was a focus of great attention during the latest White House Cabinet meeting. Indeed, he faced a new round of questions about his alleged “kill everybody” directive and allegations that U.S. personnel killed two survivors of a boat strike in September.
The beleaguered Pentagon chief’s answers — citing “the fog of war,” Hegseth said he hadn’t noticed the survivors and didn’t stick around to watch the follow-up strike — did little to quell the intensifying controversy.
His Democratic critics are not letting up.
“The failure of the leadership at the Department of Defense is a national embarrassment,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor on Tuesday afternoon. The New York Democrat added, “The mess Secretary Hegseth creates regularly shows the consequences of picking an inexperienced Fox News host to lead a massively complex, life-or-death federal agency. Donald Trump is learning the hard way: If you pick a Fox News cable host to lead the largest, most complicated federal agency of all, you get burnt. And Secretary Hegseth is just way beyond what anyone would imagine how bad he is at that department.”
After CNN reported on a 2016 speech in which Hegseth talked about the importance of military service members rejecting “unlawful orders,” Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, whom the secretary targeted for pushing a nearly identical message, turned to social media to mock Hegseth’s brazen hypocrisy.
But making matters worse for the secretary is the degree to which he’s losing Republican support, too.
“Secretary Hegseth said he had no knowledge of this, and it did not happen. It was fake news. It didn’t happen. And then the next day, from the podium at the White House are saying it did happen,” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told reporters. “So, either he was lying to us … or he’s incompetent and didn’t know it had happened.”
Some observers might be inclined to overlook Paul’s concerns, since he often breaks with GOP orthodoxy on matters related to the use of military force. But complicating matters for the party and the Trump administration, the Kentuckian had plenty of company.
Republican Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia conceded that he’s “not comfortable” with the latest allegations against the Pentagon chief. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told MS NOW this week, “I think most would say when you have two individuals that are literally floating in the water, a second order to ‘kill them all’ is not something that we would consider within the rules of war.”
“Obviously, if it can be substantiated by facts, it’s a violation of both ethical and possibly legal requirements,” Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina added. “If it is substantiated, whoever made that order needs to get the hell out of Washington.”
Even Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, who’s retiring next year, told HuffPost, “The accusations are really serious.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune was also asked this week how comfortable he is with Hegseth’s leadership. “I don’t have, at this point, an evaluation of the secretary,” the South Dakota Republican told reporters. “Others can make those evaluations.”
A ringing endorsement it was not.
On the other side of Capitol Hill, Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska told CNN, in reference to Hegseth, “I’ve seen enough that I don’t think he’s the right leader.”
To be sure, some prominent GOP voices have dismissed allegations of possible war crimes as unimportant — “I think it’s typical Washington Post bull—-,” Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana said — and the secretary appears to still have Donald Trump’s backing.
But as a rule, when flailing cabinet secretaries start facing criticism from lawmakers in their own party, their future is not bright.
