The chaos at the Pentagon appears to have become so severe that Donald Trump’s administration is facing tough questions from an unlikely source: Fox News.
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz appeared on Sunday Morning Futures with host Maria Bartiromo, who asked about the possibility of reaching a peace deal in Ukraine even as the Pentagon is in disarray, with five members of senior leadership resigning amid a fierce power struggle between aides to embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“Can you do this in what appears to be a chaotic, weakened Defense Department?” Bartiromo asked.
“Pete Hegseth, of course, our Defense Secretary, has been threatening polygraph tests,” she said. “He’s been firing people who we thought were his allies. What is the state of affairs at the Defense Department right now?”
Waltz defended the administration’s actions, saying that “100 days ago, we were more worried about DEI and climate change nonsense.”
“Now we’re focused on lethality and winning. That’s been, in just over three months, the change,” he said.
The national security advisor’s comments follow staffing changes and a litany of reports alleging Hegseth shared sensitive information about strikes in Yemen in group chats on the messaging app Signal.
Hegseth, 44, was most recently a weekend host of Fox & Friends. His confirmation process was anything but straightforward, with the Senate confirming his appointment in a tight vote — and for the first time in history, a vice president had to break a tie to confirm a secretary of defense.
Last month, it was reported that Hegseth shared sensitive information related to military strikes against Houthis in Yemen in a chat with cabinet-level officials, which also inadvertently included The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
Waltz created that chat thread, according to The Atlantic’s bombshell reporting on the incident.
And last week, it was reported that Hegseth also shared strike information in a group chat with his wife, his brother, and his personal lawyer.
Waltz claimed that the reported chaos within the Pentagon “is a media narrative that we are going to power through.”
“How’s he going to replace all of those people so fast?” Bartiromo pressed.
“Maria, there’s 20,000 people in the Pentagon,” Waltz pushed back.
He said there were officers who “weren’t getting the job done, and admirals get fired and get replaced,” including retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Dan “Razin” Caine, who was recently confirmed as the new chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“That’s what [the] Pentagon needs. No one ever gets fired. There’s never a sense of accountability. And now there is,” Waltz claimed. “And whether it’s leaks, or not getting the job done, or failures in terms of procurement acquisition, now you have a leader that’s in charge. And I couldn’t be prouder of Pete Hegseth.”
New Hampshire Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen slammed Hegseth for “creating chaos” at the Defense Department during her appearance on CBS Face the Nation on Sunday.
“The fact is, Pete Hegseth was not qualified to take the job as Secretary of Defense, and he has shown that time and again,” she said.
On Friday, CBS News reported that the Pentagon had established a system in the secretary’s office allowing him to check Signal messages, bypassing Defense Department security protocols. A spokesperson for the department rejected the notion that there’s currently any Signal use in the office.
At the same time, several top political appointees have resigned or been fired from the department in recent days.
“For those people who serve under him, he has shown that he is not the kind of role model, not the kind of leader that we need at this time,” Shaheen said.
Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, told CBS that “chaos” at the department was more prevalent in the last administration, citing the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan and “a divisive DEl culture that destroyed service member morale.”
Parnell claimed that “weak leadership” led to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hamas’s attack on Israel, and the Houthi rebels attacking ships. He also pointed to “the invasion of our U.S. southern border by transnational criminal gangs.”
Last week, Hegseth told reporters that “a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out.”
He said “anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news doesn’t matter.”
Hegseth’s inner circle is reportedly increasingly consumed by a leak investigation that people inside the Pentagon believe is behind the removal of three top staffers last week, The Guardian reported on Saturday. The probe surrounds the alleged disclosure of a top-secret document outlining options to reclaim the Panama Canal to a reporter.
The leak was attributed to one of the fired staffers, Dan Caldwell, who has strenuously denied the allegations, telling former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the leak investigation had been “weaponized.”
This comes amid the departure of Hegseth’s former Chief of Staff, Joe Kasper, after he was viewed by some as an ineffective manager.
Hegseth ordered investigations into at least nine leaks, as Kasper suggested bringing in the FBI to conduct polygraph tests on aides, officials told The Guardian.
