Pete Hegseth is angry. Look at any news clip of him since the SignalGate controversey broke and you’ll hear the barely contained rage as he alternates between proclaiming his own innocence, on the one hand, and lashing out against his perceived enemies on the other. And the enemies, ironically, are his own aides — and the “entire Pentagon” to quote Karoline Leavitt. The Pentagon and the Department of Defense employ 3.4 million people, that is a lot of adversaries. But Hegseth believes that they’re all out to get him.
It’s getting difficult to ascertain exactly what is Hegseth’s paranoid delusions and what is actually evidence of a concerted effort to get rid of him. You know the old saying, “You’re not paranoid if they are out to get you.” And a lot of people in the military do believe he needs to stand down. In fact, they believe he never should have been confirmed to begin with. So today’s latest fracas has Hegseth screaming at an Admiral about a “fucking polygraph.” That’s it, Pete. Just scoop people off the streets and hook them up to polygraphs. And then what, execution at dawn?
WASHINGTON—Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was rattled.
Word had leaked that he was planning a classified briefing for Elon Musk on China, a revelation that infuriated President Trump and raised alarms inside the Pentagon given Musk’s business ties to Beijing.
“I’ll hook you up to a f——g polygraph!” Hegseth shouted at Adm. Christopher Grady, the then-acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to two people familiar with the exchange. Hegseth demanded proof that Grady hadn’t leaked news of the March 21 briefing.
Grady was never subjected to a polygraph, and Hegseth would go on to accuse a number of other people for the leak, including Lt. Gen. Doug Sims, the Joint Staff director, who Hegseth also threatened with a polygraph test.
But for Hegseth, the episode marked a turning point in an already rocky tenure. Coming just days after revelations that the former Fox News host had shared sensitive military information in unsecured group chats on Signal, the leaks deepened his frustrations and eroded his trust in his close circle of advisers, the officials say.
Problems only snowballed from there. At least five political appointees have been fired or resigned, and Hegseth has said he is referring some of the aides for criminal investigation. Meanwhile, he is under investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general for the alleged mishandling of classified information.
This situation is accelerating and getting out of control. Hegseth’s own handpicked aides are the ones telling the truth about him. Plus, the case with the Pentagon’s Inspector General is pretty much cut and dried. And those are just the basic barebones major issues he’s dealing with. Hegseth’s real problems go much deeper. He is not qualified to lead the Department of Defense and his feckless attempts to do so so far are only blowing up in his face.
Trump has stood by him so far because Trump doesn’t want to award a “win” to the media or the Democrats, both of whom have staunchly opposed the nomination of Hegseth.
Every new leak of sensitive Pentagon operations or planning induce new concerns and fears in Hegseth, a senior defense official said.
Trump, who in recent days has spoken with Hegseth on the phone and met with him in the White House, has indicated he will stand by the defense chief. He has praised him for “doing a great job,” and blamed “disgruntled employees” for the leaks. Still, Trump has begun to ask people around him about Hegseth’s performance, and his advisers have closely watched his recent media appearances.
On his end, Hegseth has become increasingly concerned about how Trump is perceiving the situation and the possibility of being fired, according to defense officials and people familiar with the Pentagon’s leadership. He has spent hours on the phone shoring up support outside the Pentagon and was late to multiple meetings during his first trip to the Asia-Pacific region.
As questions have mounted about Hegseth’s political survival, he has backed the abrupt dismissal of key aides and longtime advisers over as-yet unproven allegations of leaking information. He has narrowed his inner circle, trusting a junior retiring Marine to serve as his top adviser. And despite close advisers’ counsel to appear calm and collected on camera, he has opted for a combative approach, confronting the media head-on and defiantly defending his leadership, the officials said.
Hegseth can remain combative but this is the real world and his lack of credentials cannot be overcome. In any normal world he would never have been nominated and if by some miracle that had happened, a normal senate would not have confirmed him. But Hegseth’s nomination was railroaded through against massive protest and against all odds.
The bottom line is that Trump will save himself over Hegseth. Trump’s approval ratings are tanking and SignalGate is massively unpopular and has managed to tank Hegseth’s ratings. Trump will get rid of Hegseth in order to serve another purpose, that of saving his own skin, just like he backed down on firing Jerome Powell, to staunch the free fall that the stock market was in.
Trump is predictable. Hegseth will be gone. It’s more a question of when, not if, at this point.
In the Marines leadership by example was a regular refrain, and not just in annual Leadership Training! It might not get the same emphasis in the Army but I’ve known enough soldiers in my life that the same sentiment exists and is sometimes promoted. And Hegseth was after all an Officer so he damned well was taught that at some point. And I’ll be even snarked at his NCOs about it. So, given SO MANY things it would be appropriate to ask him about while hooked up to a polygraph I say “YOU FIRST PETEY! Show us some leadership by example.”
Talk about pulling on Superman’s cape. AP is reporting he set up a “dirty” Internet line in his office to avoid using the secure Pentagon network. According to a Pentagon spokesman, ““… we can confirm that the Secretary has never used and does not currently use Signal on his government computer,” which is correct. He used his own computer to run Signal on the dirty line instead.
https://apnews.com/article/hegseth-signal-chat-dirty-internet-line-6a64707f10ca553eb905e5a70e10bd9d