Pete Hegseth Bet on the Wrong Side of History

War Stories By Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. Sign in or create an account to better manage your email preferences. Unsubscribe from email alerts Are you sure you want to unsubscribe from email alerts for Fred Kaplan? Nov 10, 20265:01 PM (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Making predictions is a mug’s game, especially in the unpredictable world of Donald Trump’s Washington, but it’s a pretty safe prediction—the safest bet anyone could make right now—that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is a goner. His departure will come about in one of three ways: He will be impeached and convicted in the next few days or weeks by the current congress; he will be impeached and convicted early next year by the new congress; or President Trump will fire him, or force him to resign, to avoid a fight that even he must know cannot be won. Late Monday afternoon, the House took up the first procedural motion on what happens next. This state of play—the possibility that we may witness only the 3rd time ever that a cabinet secretary has been impeached—is the result of three calamitous mistakes. The first was Trump’s, for not pulling Hegseth’s nomination before it went forth, despite compelling evidence of his inexperience and poor character. The second was by Senate Republicans, for succumbing to Trump’s pressure against their better judgment. (Hegseth won in a 50-50 tie, which Vice President JD Vance broke in his favor, a vote that some of his crucial supporters now regret.) The third was by Hegseth himself, for acting like an arrogant jerk throughout his two years in office rather than prudently taking steps to cultivate support in the Pentagon, Congress, and the press corps. And so, gearing up for his final battle, he has no wagons to circle around him. He is feared and disliked, in both cases for the damage has inflicted on the job. He staked his fortunes entirely on Trump—applauding his prejudices, appealing to his combativeness, aping his mean demeanor. Now, in the wake of the midterms—which repudiated Trump’s most impassioned policies, diminished his power, and imploded his base—it seems Hegseth bet too fervently on the wrong side of History. Like many in Trump’s entourage, he behaved as if the 2024 election marked a new phase of American politics, an era of Trumpist domination that would last forever. He was wrong. To the victor go the spoils (a cliché that Trump recently recited in a different context), and one of the spoils that the Democratic victors will demand is Hegseth’s head. It’s not just Democrats. Many Republicans are sharpening their own daggers. Vance, who yearns to succeed Trump in 2028, was quick to blame his party’s rout on the war in Iran—for which, he needn’t remind folks, the chief promoter has been Hegseth. Sen. Ted Cruz, another GOP hopeful, said on Monday that Hegseth was “running out of road” and that, if he didn’t resign, it was “extremely likely, if not certain” that he’d be impeached. At the moment, Trump is standing up for Hegseth, boasting that his war secretary has “won two wars” (an even more baffling pronouncement than the claim that Trump has stopped eight wars). Emboldened by the president’s support, and perhaps preferring to ignore the fact that Trump has been known to push his minions under the bus the moment they no longer serve his interests, Hegseth called a press conference Monday morning to blast the pending impeachment motion as “slander” and a “political spectacle” launched by “one disgruntled guy.” The “guy” who introduced the resolution, charging Hegseth with eight counts of high crimes and misdemeanors, is Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, who is nearing the end of his 7th term in the House because he lost his party’s primary earlier this year to a Trump-backed MAGA member. Such is the danger of booting out incumbents from your party while leaving them in office for several months—enough time to seek revenge without fearing further retribution. But it is not just Massie gunning for Hegseth, nor is it just Republican contenders for the next presidential election who want to dissociate themselves from the disastrous, unpopular war in Iran. Hegseth has alienated many members of the armed forces, on many grounds. He came to Trump’s attention as a Fox News host who spoke out against the court-martialing of three officers on charges of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, arguing that war is about killing and that, therefore, the term “war crimes” is a contradiction. (Trump pardoned the three after he won, even though their crimes were so heinous that several of their own soldiers testified against them.) Hegseth also wrote a book slamming the recruitment and promotion of Blacks and women as “woke.” As secretary, he has fired or blocked the promotion of more than 80 generals and admirals, many of them for seemingly no other reason than their color or gender. Besides being racist, sexist, and in many cases simply wrong (many of those fired had racked up impressive records as warriors and commanders), his stance is demoralizing, given that, as demographic groups, Blacks and women each comprise about one-fifth of the active-duty military. Many of them must wonder whether it makes sense to stay in the service, given their dim chance of high promotion as long as Hegseth is at the helm. In a recent poll of 731 active-duty service members, 53 percent said they want to quit the military because of this politicization. About half of those polled disapproved of Trump and Hegseth—an extraordinarily high percentage for a group that’s usually respectful of authority. Some see a more urgent need for Hegseth’s removal. In February, the Trump administration will present its budget for the following year. The military’s share of the proposed budget is $1.5 trillion—a nearly 50 percent increase over last year’s defense budget, which itself was the largest in U.S. history, even adjusting for inflation. The secretary of defense is the official who makes the case for the budget to Congress, in public hearings and in private sessions. Hegseth has lost credibility as an effective spokesman. This is especially true, given the widespread belief, given fiscal and political realities, that the budget will have to be trimmed back to around $1 trillion. Hegseth’s response to any criticism, from any quarter, is to scream and to accuse the critic of stupidity, poor citizenship, or treason. This may have been tolerated in the early phase of Trump’s second term, when the president shouted down those who simply asked a challenging question—and the president’s aides followed suit. This won’t work any longer. In this sense, Hegseth’s Monday morning press conference was not only a desperate attempt to salvage his position but an ill-calculated one. It was the first press conference he’d called in six months, a sign that he doesn’t care about the press or his public image. He’s taken great joy in imitating his master, Trump, by denouncing the press as the enemy of the people. Once, while blasting a proper question by a CNN reporter, he said, “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better”—Ellison being the pro-Trump executive who bought CNN, CBS, and Paramount. In other words, Hegseth is a political hack, always has been, and never made any effort to prove himself a serious leader. Few will shed a tear, almost everyone will heave a sigh of relief, when he’s gone. Donald Trump Iran Republicans War