Defense Secretary Hegseth proves he's unfit for duty

Another unapproved, unsecured Signal messaging chat emerged this week in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared sensitive military details with his wife, brother and lawyer for reasons unknown. And that might be the least of his leadership problems.

The Trump administration has yet to explain the second troubling discovery. But it’s clear that under Hegseth, turmoil grips the highest levels of the Pentagon, and only partly due to this mishandling of real-time information regarding U.S. bombings in Yemen. It turns out Hegseth, in this second Signal chat, was sharing classified material that originated in a secure communications channel used by U.S. Central Command.

More disturbing yet, the White House response has been vague and defensive.

President Donald Trump on Monday talked in hostile buzz phrases like "fake news" and "disgruntled employees." Hegseth, on "Fox and Friends" Tuesday, vaguely accused people who had been his own inner circle of "leaking." But nobody in charge ventured to say why Hegseth was discussing the planned strikes against Houthis in mid-March on a private device rather than a government one.

This is a dangerous crisis of competence.

The newly revealed Signal chat involved the same material — launch times and bomb drops — as the one previously publicized in which the editor of The Atlantic was inadvertently added to the text chain. After the first disclosure, the Pentagon’s acting inspector general announced an "evaluation" to decide "the extent to which" Hegseth and others complied with Pentagon procedures for "the use of a commercial messaging app for official business." That was three weeks ago. But we can venture to predict the results won’t make Hegseth look good. If Pentagon leadership can’t shield confidential information by enforcing basic protocols, how much trust can we have that a vital agency is in competent hands?

The bigger crisis is the general chaos at the top. Hegseth, a longtime Fox Network broadcaster, never ran a major government operation of any kind. This is revealed clearly by John Ullyot, a DOD spokesperson until recently, who took Hegseth to task in an opinion piece published by Politico. He said the Pentagon is in such a state of disarray, "It’s hard to see Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth remaining in his position for much longer." Most of Hegseth's inner circle of aides that he brought with him to the job have been fired or quit. This is not from some conjured "deep state." 

House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a former Air Force brigadier general, is advocating for Hegseth's replacement. "The military should always pride itself on operational security. If the reports are true, the Secretary of Defense has failed at operational security, and that is unacceptable," Bacon said. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a wounded combat veteran, says, "Every day he stays in his job is another day our troops' lives are endangered by his singular stupidity."

Hegseth has proved himself hazardously inadequate in this role. He needs to go.