The White House has begun the process of looking for a new secretary of defense, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

This comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continues to find himself mired in controversy. NPR has also confirmed with the same official that Hegseth shared details ahead of last month’s Yemen strikes with his wife and brother in a Signal chat on his personal phone, minutes after being updated by a senior U.S. military official. The news of the second Signal group chat about the mission was first reported by The New York Times.

In March, Hegseth shared details about action against Houthi targets in Yemen in a Signal chat with top White House officials that accidentally included a journalist.

  • Dem Bosain@midwest.socialEnglish
    11·
    21 hours ago

    A couple weeks before the inauguration, I listened to the President/CEO of the company I work at go on an absolute rant about how Trump was going to get rid of all Biden’s DEI hires, about how the Navy Chief was a woman and she would be fired, about how the fastest running time for a woman was slower than the slowest running time for a man(???), and some other, racist stuff.

    I lost my train of thought…what happened?

  • Mrkawfee@lemmy.world
    4·
    23 hours ago

    You can be an incompetent drunk so long as you don’t screw things up for your puppet master, israel.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    38·
    23 hours ago

    During his first term, Trump dismissed both of his Secretaries of Defense:

    • Trump’s first Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis — who was generally regarded as a strong pick for the office — was dismissed after he announced that he would resign over a decision Trump was making.

      On December 19, 2018, Trump announced immediate US withdrawal from Syria, over his national security advisers’ objections.[133] Mattis had recently said that the US would remain in Syria after ISIL’s defeat to ensure it did not regroup. The next day, he submitted his resignation after failing to persuade Trump to reconsider.[134][135] His resignation letter contained language that appeared to criticize Trump’s worldview—praising NATO, which Trump has often derided, and the 79-nation anti-ISIS coalition that Trump had decided to leave. Mattis also affirmed the need for “treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors” and remaining “resolute and unambiguous” against authoritarian states such as China and Russia. He wrote that Trump has “the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with [his] on these and other subjects.”[136][137] His resignation triggered alarm among historical allies.[138] In his 2018 resignation letter, Mattis called both Russia and China “authoritarian models” rivaling US interests.[139] Mattis’s letter said his resignation would be effective February 28, 2019.[140] Three days later Trump moved Mattis’s departure date up to January 1, after becoming angered by the implicit criticism of Trump’s worldview in Mattis’s letter.[141] On January 2, 2019, Trump criticized Mattis’s performance as secretary of defense and said he had “essentially fired him.”[142]

    • Trump’s replacement, Mark Esper, was fired via Trump tweeting:

      After Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, Trump launched a months-long effort to challenge the election outcome and remain in power, claiming that the election had been “stolen” from him.[284] In his subsequent memoir, published in 2022, Esper wrote that Trump’s effort “was a national embarrassment that undermined our democracy, our credibility, and our leadership on the world stage.”[284]

      On November 9, 2020, days after his election loss, Trump tweeted that Esper was “terminated,” and that he had been replaced by Christopher C. Miller, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center who would serve as Acting Secretary of Defense.[285] Esper had written his resignation letter four days earlier, when a winner had not yet been determined.[286]

      On January 2, 2021, days before the end of Trump’s term and the inauguration of Biden, Esper, along with all other living former secretaries of defense, published a Washington Post op-ed piece in January 2021 that rebuked Trump’s effort to alter the election results, and said there was no role for the military to change them. The group’s piece appeared days after Trump ally Michael Flynn, an ex-Army general, and reportedly Trump himself, discussed the possibility of declaring martial law and attempting to stay in power. The group wrote: “Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.”[287] Esper later wrote that Trump’s behavior on January 6, when a mob of his supporters, incited by the president, attacked the Capitol and disrupted the counting of the electoral votes, “threatens our democracy.”[288]

    That being said, in both cases, it sounds like it was due to them disagreeing with him. As far as I know, Hegseth has not gotten into a major disagreement with Trump.

  • BarrierWithAshes@fedia.io
    14·
    23 hours ago

    I’m kinda surprised we haven’t had more people ejected from this administration yet. 2016 had lots. Never knew who was ‘getting voted out of the Whitehouse this week’.

    • jumperalex@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      23 hours ago

      Because before he was kicking out people who, while he might have ‘picked them’, weren’t really ‘his people’ and they stood up to him. Now he has sycophants who suck his orange hole and his only reason to get of them would be when there’s too much pressure and he’s forced to admit he was wrong for picking them.

      Two VERY different sets of circumstances.

      • BarrierWithAshes@fedia.io
        2·
        22 hours ago

        I’ll admit when he was reelected I assumed it would’ve just been more like 2016 where we got a rotating cabinet and nothing really accomplished side from taking credit on stuff the Dems set up. He’s far more focused now. Granted I’m not American so likely there’s domestic stuff and signs I missed. He only had a few spats with my PM but this time around he’s had a whole war. And we haven’t hit the 100 day mark.

        • jumperalex@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          22 hours ago

          yeah, i had a sense it would get like this, “they learned their lessons; there’s no more adults in the room; they are vengeful” but I won’t pretend I truly appreciated the full scope of the damage that would be attempted, no less accomplished. And as you said, not even 100 days. I have a lot of friends and colleagues who’s jobs have been impacted. Which also means I have some depressing insights into the impacts at some of the agency’s that will inevitably impact the services they provide. It ain’t gonna be pretty if there isn’t a “fix it” phase that follows the current “break things” phase.

          • Serinus@lemmy.world
            2·
            19 hours ago

            Nobody saw Elon coming in to exfiltrate data and rampage agencies the way he did. The tariff shit and destruction of the economy otherwise is pretty in line with expectations.

    • Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      16·
      23 hours ago

      I don’t know about that. It’s possible, but Trump’s scapegoats generally don’t get golden parachutes. They get crushed underfoot while he moves onto the next one. Every contractor stiffed on the bill, every lawyer thrown under the bus, every single high-level advisor who he either completely “forgot” or just straight up attacked on live TV.

      If they’re still useful - like literal violent traitors - they might recieve a get-out-of-jail-free card every now and then. But if they’re not useful anymore? A publically intoxicated news anchor turned disgraced Defense Secretary, who is stupid enough to add his wife, brother, and a newspaper editor to illegal self-deleting group chats involving the Joint Chiefs of Staff?

      He’s getting burned, if only as a distraction from the fact that there were a whole bunch of other high-level executive and defense staff in those chats that A) never should have agreed to use self-deleting Signal messages, and B) should have noticed an unauthorized recipient in the chat and shut the whole thing down immediately.

      The fuckup in chief doesn’t have allies, he has handlers, stooges, and scapegoats, and they’re all too fucking stupid to realize that the only thing separating the stooge and handler from the scapegoat is a matter of time. There’s nothing fascists love more than ruling from a position of fear.

      • Monkey With A Shell@lemmy.socdojo.comEnglish
        1·
        20 hours ago

        I would generally agree, the one extra factor though is that Trump will never admit he was wrong for selecting him to begin with, so there would have to be some kind of betrayal that he cuts him off for. Last I heard he was still saying Pete is a great guy and top choice, so it’ll be interesting to see what he spins to blame it on someone other than himself.

        • Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          3·
          17 hours ago

          He never has to admit he’s wrong. He slanders whoever and whatever he wants without ever acknowledging the concept of responsibility, such as his own trade deal with Canada.

      • void_turtle@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        2·
        20 hours ago

        This is what I’m saying. To Trump, the worst sin is disagreeing with him. The second worst sin is failing him. Hegseth is gonna get fucked, maybe charged for leaking classified info. Hell, the way things are going he may spend the rest of his life in an El Salvadoran gulag.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
      26·
      23 hours ago

      On the upside … any of us are qualified for the job and have a higher chance now of achieving that position than at any time in the past … and I’m not even American!