Among Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s many problems at the Pentagon is the recent personnel turmoil inside the building, including the departure of his own chief of staff. The good news is that the vacancies have been filled, but the bad news is that this might not make much of a difference. NBC News reported:
On Friday, the Pentagon announced that Hegseth had tapped four officials who’d already been working in the building to support him in what’s known as the front office. That includes Justin Fulcher, Patrick Weaver and Ricky Buria as senior advisers. Sean Parnell, who has been serving as the assistant to the defense secretary for public affairs and chief Pentagon spokesman, is now also a senior adviser. No individual had been identified as Hegseth’s chief of staff.
Fulcher’s role was especially notable, because he’s been a member of the DOGE team embedded at the Pentagon — and if the goal is to reduce chaos inside the Defense Department, investing more power in a DOGE representative might be unwise.
But that’s just part of a larger issue. Hegseth, no matter who surrounds him, is still a hapless amateur who’s obviously in over his head. New aides will not change the fact that putting a scandal-plagued and manifestly unqualified former television personality in charge of one of the planet’s largest and complex bureaucracies was a ridiculously bad idea.
There’s even growing concerns about the Cabinet secretary’s personal capacity to do the job. NBC News’ report added Hegseth’s behavior has become increasingly “erratic” of late, which came on the heels of a devastating written piece from a longtime Trump loyalist who worked directly with the secretary. The author described “total chaos” and a “full-blown meltdown” at the Pentagon, all of which he attributed to Hegseth’s failed leadership.
With this in mind, those who assume surrounding the secretary with a new team will make a big difference might need to adjust their expectations.
Complicating matters further, with Parnell — a former failed Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania — getting a promotion, there was a vacancy in the office of the Pentagon press secretary. It’s apparently been filled, at least for now, by Kingsley Wilson. Her name might not be familiar to national audiences, but a recent NPR report summarized: Over the last several years, Wilson posted and commented prolifically on podcasts in her position at the right-wing think tank the Center for Renewing America. Wilson praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, promoted theories widely seen as antisemitic, excoriated Republicans in Congress who supported Ukraine, frequently used a slur for people with intellectual disabilities and also appeared to support political violence.
Wilson has, among other things, called for Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to be “deported,” condemned House Speaker Mike Johnson as “an embarrassment” and wrote shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: “The American intelligence apparatus is more evil than Vladimir Putin.” Evidently, that didn’t stop Hegseth and his team from elevating Wilson to serve as the acting Pentagon press secretary.
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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