After Pete Hegseth walked away from the Signal chat scandal relatively unscathed — largely avoiding the public ire of President Donald Trump — Nicolle Wallace says the defense secretary has “finally earned a rare rebuke” from the White House over his “obsessive paranoia” about alleged leaks at the Pentagon.
On Monday, Wallace shared a new report from The Washington Post about Hegseth’s use of polygraph tests to root out people within the agency who may be leaking information to the media. According to the Post, Hegseth was ordered to halt those tests after a senior adviser raised concerns directly with the White House.
That intervention, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to the Post, “came in the form of a phone call by an individual close to the administration after Hegseth’s team had begun administering polygraph tests to people around the defense secretary in April.” (The Pentagon declined to respond directly to the Post’s reporting about the polygraph tests.)
Wallace, who served as the White House communications director during former President George W. Bush’s second term, noted officials did administer polygraph tests during her time in the government but stressed it was often a “last resort.”
The “Deadline: White House” host explained that in her experience, polygraph tests would only be used in “specific and narrow national security” situations, “not to prevent leaks about what a hot mess Pete Hegseth is.” But, according to Wallace, under Hegseth, “That is clearly the deployment of the polygraph inside the Pentagon.” Wallace also warned that this report could be the “tip of the iceberg” concerning how career officials are being treated at the Defense Department under Hegseth. “It suggests that the treatment of the careers is far worse,” Wallace said. You can watch Wallace’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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