Trump is supporting his defense secretary—for now. But some in the administration are speculating about how long Pete Hegseth will last.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared sensitive attack plans in a Signal group chat. No, not that one—a different one. Some of his top Pentagon aides have been ousted, but few in the building are sure what they were ousted for, or even by whom. And the talk in Washington revolves around who might be on the short list to replace him, even as President Donald Trump delivered a firm defense of Hegseth today while standing a few feet away from a giant bunny.
That surreal sight—at the White House Easter Egg Roll this morning—seemed oddly fitting on a day when the world’s largest military was enveloped in a level of dysfunction that bordered on the comical, except for the hundreds of billions of dollars of fighter jets and tanks involved. An organization dependent on clear lines of communication was in a state of confusion, while questions surrounding Hegseth’s fitness for the post that first surfaced during his contentious confirmation became relevant again.
Their revival was thanks to revelations about Hegseth’s wider-than-previously-known use of the nongovernmental messaging app Signal to communicate sensitive war plans, this time to an audience that included his wife, his brother, and his personal lawyer. The new disclosure, reported yesterday evening by The New York Times, prompted the first Republican lawmaker to call for Hegseth’s ouster. And it came just days after a meltdown at the Pentagon that led to the abrupt departures of several top senior aides, one of whom took the extraordinary step of openly questioning Hegseth’s fitness for his post and calling for his dismissal.
Trump spoke with Hegseth late last night and, for now, is willing to support him, two senior White House aides and three close outside advisers told me on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. But some in the White House and the Pentagon have begun speculating about Hegseth’s shelf life and have even begun circulating the names of possible replacements, according to one of the White House aides and one of the outside allies.
The overall mood in the West Wing has grown dark. Trump and his inner circle are frustrated at having to revisit a damaging storyline that they believe slowed their momentum last month, the sources told me, even as the president remains loath to fire a Cabinet member under pressure.
“Here we go again. Just a waste of time. He is doing a great job,” Trump said of Hegseth at the Easter event, telling reporters that he has “great confidence” in the secretary of defense. “Ask the Houthis how he is doing.”
All of last week, the White House had told staffers to hammer home its messaging about deportations, immigration, even Greenland—really, any issue that could distract from an economy left quaking by Trump’s trade war–inducing tariffs.
