Hegseth v. Head of Lettuce

Pete Hegseth, you in danger

Photo: Charlene Bougourd/Daily Star

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is imploding in real time, and it’s quite something. Before we wade through the mess, it’s time for a Debbie Reynolds “Told You So” dance.

Honestly, whoever could have predicted that an inexperienced rube turned Fox & Friends host, with a history of substance and spousal abuse coupled with big anger management issues, would implode just 100 days into the job?

Disaster has followed regularly in Hegseth’s wake. So let’s walk through a list of five recent Hegseth facepalm moments. They’ll set the scene for what’s increasingly likely to go down at the Pentagon.

SignalGate, or “New Phone, Houthis?”

Facepalm moment one was the infamous private Signal chat group, initiated by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, in which Hegseth claims he absolutely did not share classified wartime operational information with a journalist from the Atlantic.

Here’s what Hegseth’s own friend and longtime advisor, John Ullyot, said about that in a recent OpEd:

Once the Signalgate story broke, Hegseth followed horrible crisis-communications advice from his new public affairs team, who somehow convinced him to try to debunk the reporting through a vague, Clinton-esque non-denial denial that “nobody was texting war plans.” This was a violation of PR rule number one — get the bad news out right away.

His nebulous disavowal prompted the reporter, Jeffrey Goldberg, to release Hegseth’s full chat string with the detailed operational plans two days later, turning an already-big story into a multi-week embarrassment for the president’s national security team.

The text threads showed Hegseth was providing real-time updates on military strikes—which is about as classified and sensitive as you can get given the risk it puts those involved in. And his handling of the incident revealed an incapacity to admit wrongdoing and a willingness to lie flagrantly—a skill he honed for years at Fox.

But this isn’t network entertainment posing as news. It’s our national security. His actions led to an official investigation by the Pentagon’s Inspector General requested by no less than the leadership of the Senate Armed Services Committee, meaning both Republican Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) and ranking Democratic member Jack Reed (D-RI).

It’s okay, she’s my wife

Hegseth next came under criticism for the amount of access he has given his wife Jennifer, who is a former Fox producer, to highly sensitive defense-related information. Per reporting by The Wall Street Journal, Hegseth brought her into at least two meetings with military counterparts earlier this year. The parties in those meetings discussed and exchanged confidential information, despite the fact Jennifer Hegseth has no security clearance.

Yes, second facepalm. Here’s are the details per the WSJ report:

Hegseth brought his wife Jennifer Hegseth to a NATO meeting in February in Brussels. There, defense officials comprising the Ukraine Defense Contact Group discussed the defense of that country, including the coordination and delivery of weapons. Hegseth’s brother Philip has also been traveling with him on official visits—something that we’ll get to later in today’s discussion. Per the WSJ, “At the closed-door discussions, national representatives routinely present confidential information, such as donations to Ukraine that they don’t want to be made public,” per officials it spoke with.

Another meeting where Hegseth brought his wife occurred on March 6 and involved high-level discussions at the Pentagon between Hegseth and U.K. Secretary of Defense John Healey. If you recall, this was right after the U.S. cut off all military intelligence sharing with Ukraine. The group, which also included the head of the U.K.’s armed forces, discussed the rationale behind that decision among other topics.

Elon-gate

The third Hegseth facepalm comprised an embarrassing incident involving Elon Musk, who is rather known for creating embarrassing incidents. Hegseth had apparently invited Musk to the Pentagon to view to secret war plans the military had developed against China. As I wrote earlier concerning this event,

According to reporting by Eric Schmitt, Eric Lipton, Julian E. Barnes, Ryan Mac and Maggie Haberman, the Pentagon had intended to brief Musk later today on U.S. military war plans covering any conflict that might break out with China. That’s according to two different U.S. officials the Times spoke to, which described the plans as follows:

“The top-secret briefing that exists for the China war plan has about 20 to 30 slides that lay out how the United States would fight such a conflict. It covers the plan beginning with the indications and warning of a threat from China to various options on what Chinese targets to hit, over what time period, that would be presented to Mr. Trump for decisions, according to officials with knowledge of the plan.”

This is probably one of the most closely guarded secrets that the Pentagon has. After all, if it fell into the wrong hands, it would permit China to understand what constitutes a threat in the eyes of the U.S., what the U.S. plans to do in the event of such threats, and how to prepare countermeasures and defense around specific targets.

It is quite remarkable that officials at the Pentagon would leak word of the meeting and the presentation to the press. It’s an indication of how alarmed some officials are at the prospect of Musk gaining access to classified war plans.

After news of the arranged meeting broke, the presentation got scuttled along with a scolding from Trump himself. “What the f**k is Elon doing there? Make sure he doesn’t go,” Trump said, a top official recalled to Axios.

Leaking like Rudy’s hair dye

By this point, Hegseth was paranoid and desperate to stop the leaks of his constant gaffes, illegal communications and uninvited guests without security clearances.

That led to the fourth facepalm moment, if you’re counting.

He ordered a hunt for leakers within the Pentagon, complete with the threat of polygraph tests to root out the leakers. This added to the atmosphere of fear and distrust already present from his summary firings of top leadership and purge of anything “DEI” from official publications and websites.

The drama playing out in the Pentagon honestly sounds like something out of Mean Girls. Per the Times,

Mr. Hegseth’s office has been plagued by infighting, dysfunction and occasional screaming matches since he took over in late January, said defense officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal operations.

I should point out that screaming matches were commonplace in Trump 1.0 and have remained a regular feature of Trump 2.0.

The backstabbing and rumormongering culminated last week with quite the hallway fight scene. Dan Caldwell, Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, who served as senior advisers to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, were all summarily fired. These three were longtime Hegseth aides and loyalists, yet they were still marched out of the building on Friday, with a strong implication that they were the “leakers” and were being punished. Interestingly, none of them had even taken a polygraph test, so this appeared more to be a test of wills with Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper.

The three did not go quietly. Instead, they issued a furious public response: “Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door,” they tweeted. “At this time, we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with.”

The shake-ups were not quite done. Kasper, Hegseth’s Chief of Staff, also announced his departure from his position, effective in the coming days. This will leave Hegseth adrift without a chief of staff, deputy chief of staff or any senior advisors. It follows his purges of top military commanders, including Joint Chiefs Chair General C.Q. Brown and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti.

You gotta be kidding me

At this point, a fifth facepalm felt rather inevitable. On Sunday, we learned of a second Signal Chat group, this time created by Hegseth, that included his wife, brother and personal attorney, with whom he also shared wartime ops in real time. That’s a cut-and-dried criminal offense, so he’s lucky this Justice Department, which serves as a political extension of the White House, likely won’t prosecute him.

They really should. In fact, let’s listen to what Hegseth himself said should be done when the person “at the very top” mishandles classified information so flippantly—at least when it concerned documents found at President Biden’s residence.

And lest we forgot, here’s the current Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, with her view on that same question, at least when it comes to leaks to the press:

Senator Reed has already urged the Inspector General to probe the reported second Signal chat, saying that Hegseth “must immediately explain why he reportedly texted classified information that could endanger American servicemembers’ lives.” He added, “I have grave concerns about Secretary Hegseth’s ability to maintain the trust and confidence of U.S. servicemembers and the Commander-in-Chief.”

The crazy thing about this second Signal chat is that others, including his aides (whom he summarily fired Friday) had reportedly warned him “a day or two before the Yemen strikes” not to discuss them in his group chat. Signal is encrypted but isn’t secure, and Hegseth had the chat on his personal, not his government phone.

Hillary Clinton would like a word.

The existence of a second Signal chat raises the likelihood that there are other and perhaps multiple serious breaches of national security of which Hegseth is guilty. And the fact that his top aides, who now have big axes to grind, personally know where all the bodies are buried will probably work to his serious disadvantage.

It would not surprise me in the least, given the timing of the firings and the story of the second Signal chat out two days later, that one or more of them leaked this information to the New York Times as payback.

Total disarray

Some rats are scurrying off the Hegseth ship before it sinks. Former Pentagon spokesman and longtime Hegseth and Trump loyalist John Ullyot penned a stunning OpEd for Politico in which he basically crafted the epitaph for Hegseth’s time in charge of our national defense.

He began with ominous words that suggested the clock is ticking on Hegseth’s position. “It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership,” Ullyot said.

He then decried the firings of Hegseth’s top aides and warned, “More firings may be coming, according to rumors in the building.” He claimed the Pentagon is now in “total disarray,” and that “it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer.”

Yikes. The S.S. Hegseth has definitely struck an iceberg and is taking on water fast.

Speaking of icebergs, it’s high time we started the iceberg lettuce countdown, first made famous by former British PM Liz Truss. Like Truss, Hegseth is isolated, flailing, and has lost the trust and support of some of his closest people. If Trump had any sense in him, he’d cut Hegseth loose before he can do more damage.

And to the John Ullyots of the world, listen up: It’s not that Trump deserves better than Hegseth. After all, Trump picked this sorry excuse of a man to lead our armed forces and is getting exactly what he asked for.

Rather, it is that we, as a nation, deserve far better. Hegseth should resign, or he should be fired, for the good of the country and the safety of our service members in uniform, before he puts even more lives and our entire nation at graver risk.