War Room
Opinion |
Former
Top Pentagon Spokesperson Details ‘Month From Hell’ Inside the Agency
The total
chaos at the Department of Defense is becoming a major distraction for the
Trump administration, writes John Ullyot.
Opinion by
John Ullyot
04/20/2025
07:15 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/04/20/pentagon-chaos-ullyot-hegseth-00205594
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.
President
Donald Trump has a strong record of holding his top officials to account. Given
that, it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for
much longer.
The latest
flashpoint is a near collapse inside the Pentagon’s top ranks. On Friday,
Hegseth fired three of his most loyal senior staffers — senior adviser Dan
Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll, chief of staff
to the deputy secretary of Defense. In the aftermath, Defense Department
officials working for Hegseth tried to smear the aides anonymously to
reporters, claiming they were fired for leaking sensitive information as part
of an investigation ordered earlier this month.
Yet none of
this is true. While the department said that it would conduct polygraph tests
as part of the probe, not one of the three has been given a lie detector test.
In fact, at least one of them has told former colleagues that investigators
advised him he was about to be cleared officially of any wrongdoing.
Unfortunately, Hegseth’s team has developed a habit of spreading flat-out,
easily debunked falsehoods anonymously about their colleagues on their way out
the door.
On Friday,
POLITICO reported that Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, was leaving his
role. Kasper had requested the investigation into the Pentagon leaks, which
reportedly included military operational plans for the Panama Canal and a pause
in the collection of intelligence for Ukraine.
Hegseth is
now presiding over a strange and baffling purge that will leave him without his
two closest advisers of over a decade — Caldwell and Selnick — and without
chiefs of staff for him and his deputy. More firings may be coming, according
to rumors in the building.
In short,
the building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership.
Fortunately,
I was not a victim of this purge of his senior leadership. Like Caldwell and
Selnick, I am a longtime backer of the secretary. In December, when his Senate
confirmation was in jeopardy, I wrote an opinion piece arguing strongly that he
was the best man to shake things up at a Pentagon in need of serious reform.
A month
later, Hegseth invited me to stand up and lead the Pentagon public affairs
operation for his initial time in the building, and then possibly take on
another position in the department after that.
We
accomplished a lot together, including bringing new, largely more conservative,
media outlets into the Pentagon press space, and ensuring the public
understands Trump’s commitment to rebuilding our military after four years of
drift under President Joe Biden and his Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin,
including their injecting divisive identity politics and lowering high
standards on body composition and physical fitness in the uniformed services.
Last week, a
month after leaving my public affairs role, I respectfully declined the
secretary’s generous offer for a new position and informed him of my decision
to leave the department, wishing him all the best. I value his friendship and
am grateful for his giving me the opportunity to serve. I salute his leadership
in helping the president make America strong again.
Yet even
strong backers of the secretary like me must admit: The last month has been a
full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it’s becoming a real problem for the
administration.
First there
was Signalgate, where the secretary shared detailed operational plans,
including timelines and specifics, about an impending military strike on the
Houthis in Yemen over an unclassified Signal chat group that happened to
include a member of the news media.
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. Hegseth now faces an inspector general investigation into a
possible leak of classified information and violation of records retention
protocols.
That was
just the beginning of the Month from Hell. The Wall Street Journal and other
outlets reported that Hegseth “brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to
two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was
discussed.”
Next, the
Pentagon set up a top-secret briefing by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on China for
Elon Musk, who still has extensive business interests in China. After learning
about it, the White House canceled that meeting.
Then came
the purges. And the news keeps coming. On Sunday night, The New York Times
reported that Hegseth shared details about the Yemen strike in another Signal
chat that included his wife and brother.
There are
very likely more shoes to drop in short order, with even bigger bombshell
stories coming this week, key Pentagon reporters have been telling sources
privately.
One reason
the American people gave Trump a conclusive victory last November is that he’s
not a go-along, get-along creature of the Beltway like many of his recent
predecessors, but rather a shrewd businessman who expects results and holds his
team accountable for serious mistakes that occur on their watch. Just ask
Cabinet Secretaries Jim Mattis, Mark Esper, Rex Tillerson, David Shulkin, Tom
Price and Ryan Zinke. They, like Hegseth, are all good men and patriots whom
Trump dismissed in his first term when he found their performance wanting.
Biden did
the opposite. From his Defense secretary’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan
and disappearing for six days telling neither his staff nor the White House, to
his Transportation secretary’s weeks-long refusal to visit the site of a major
railroad derailment and catastrophic chemical spill, to his secretary of
State’s allowing Chinese officials to lecture him about race relations, Biden
held not a single one on his team accountable and just let them skate.
In Trump’s
first term, he produced more national-security wins than any president in a
generation or more. Trump countered Communist China’s aggression, strengthened
our Indo-Pacific partnerships, began America’s long-awaited departure from
Afghanistan, eliminated the ISIS caliphate, and killed its leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, among other big wins.
In the first
three months of his second term, Trump has continued that great record on
national security, in particular refocusing the Defense Department on its core
mission of preparing to fight and win wars. Unfortunately, after a terrible
month, the Pentagon focus is no longer on warfighting, but on endless drama.
The
president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon. Given his
record of holding prior Cabinet leaders accountable, many in the secretary’s
own inner circle will applaud quietly if Trump chooses to do the same in short
order at the top of the Defense Department.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário