In his November 2024 victory speech, President Donald Trump said, “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.”
He promised “peace through strength,” then put Fox News weekend host Pete Hegseth of Forest Lake, Minn., at the helm of the Department of Defense.
Hegseth is the only Minnesotan in Trump’s Cabinet. I wish he were someone we could proudly claim as a native son. Instead, the upheaval and instability at the Pentagon raises troubling questions about whether Hegseth is prepared to manage the military during a deepening conflict.
Always simmering, those questions intensified at the end of August, when Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll resigned. In departing, Driscoll told Trump that he was frustrated by Hegseth’s personnel decisions, including blocked promotions and the removal of military leaders with whom the secretary disagreed, according to The New York Times.
Hegseth has dismissed some two dozen top generals and admirals. He’s repeatedly denounced diversity, equity and inclusion efforts while insisting on fairness and uniform standards. At the same time, Hegseth brushed off reports about depleted supplies of tactical weaponry that imperil the nation’s defense.
Reports of a rudderless, sputtering Department of Defense come as the United States remains in an expanding conflict with Iran that seems to be without clear objectives or a plan for resolution.
At some point, someone will have to answer for Trump’s broken promise about not starting new wars and the turmoil in the Pentagon. Hegseth is the obvious place to start.
Hegseth has described his personnel and policy changes as a restoration of standards. In the graduation address at West Point in May, he said the military should emphasize meritocracy, lethality, accountability and readiness. He also promised “uniform, unwavering standards” and “meticulous discipline.”
These sound like worthy goals, but it’s questionable as to whether Hegseth has advanced them or applied them to himself.
I look forward to the end of his tenure as the damage seems to mount hourly. But that’s what happens when the guy in charge of the military is called “Kegsbreath” due to his alleged drinking habits.
Hegseth seems like a caricature of a defense secretary, a leader living out his childhood G.I. Joe fantasies. He engenders a “Can this really be happening?” reaction every time I read about his over-the-top machismo.
Hegseth sees it differently, of course, as he claims victory through his ostracizing and stalling out of the careers of women, minorities and transgender troops.
“Training, lethality, accountability, discipline, readiness — the bedrock of what it means to be an American warrior — is the only focus of our department. Colorblind, gender-neutral, merit-based. That’s it,” he said at the Iowa State Fair last month.
If Hegseth were truly committed to substance over optics, then what’s with the installation of his green room, a hair and makeup studio at the Pentagon to primp for TV appearances?
Over Labor Day weekend, a member of Congress said that Hegseth hasn’t briefed them on the investigation into a news leak regarding low munitions supply. Because, yes, this administration is worried about the leak, not the underlying substance of the claim.
Withholding information is a trend with this administration “not wanting anybody, including members of Congress, to understand what’s going on,” U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., said on CBS.
When Crow was asked about the state of the dwindling munitions supply, he said, “They don’t want people to know. This is exactly the point.”
It’s not just Democrats who are openly disgruntled.
Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., has urged Trump to replace Hegseth. “I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country,” Tillis wrote. “He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force.”
In an alternate reality, a majority of Minnesotans would be proud of a native son’s rise in D.C., but not this one who is so widely mocked for bravura without the skills to back it up.
Instead, we hear about new, derisive nicknames, the latest being a report in the Daily Beast that the elite Delta Force calls Hegseth “No Tab Pete” because the secretary lacks the specialty patches of an elite warrior.
The debate about Hegseth, however, isn’t about nicknames or his TV appearances. It’s about applying the evenhanded accountability he wants for the troops to Hegseth himself.
Hegseth should encourage and stand for the rigorous scrutiny he claims to favor. We are all entitled to an ongoing review of his operations and abilities, but none more so than the family of the late Reserve Master Sgt. Nicole Amor of White Bear Lake, Minn. The 39-year-old married mother of two was killed March 1 in an Iranian airstrike while she was working on a support operation in Kuwait.
That’s long been the way of war: The troops endure the deadly consequences of decisions by remote leaders. If Trump’s going to break his promise of not starting new wars, he owes the troops and the rest of us a stable leader in the Pentagon. It’s long been clear that Hegseth isn’t that leader.
