Secretary Hegseth Welcomes Australia Deputy Prime Minister And Minister Of Defence Richard Marles To The Pentagon
Source: Win McNamee / Getty

Under the non-leadership of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump, the Pentagon has become disorganized, and military leaders are consistently at odds with the Christian conservative “warrior ethos” cosplayer, who leaks confidential war plans on Signal, blocks Black and female military officers from being promoted, arbitrarily bans trans people from serving, calls all military command to a single, publicly announced, location so he can tell them they’re too fat and too woke, and, for whatever reason, wakes up one morning and decides he wants to check everyone’s testosterone.

Hegseth is the reason military leadership is shakier than his pastor’s fist when he thinks about women voting. He is and has always been a joke — and apparently, some in the GOP are finally starting to notice.

On Wednesday, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called for Trump to fire Hegseth after Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned this week, reportedly because of the damage he says Hegseth has done to the Army.

“I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country,” Tillis tweeted. “He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force.”

From Politico:

Driscoll, whose long-rumored resignation became official this week, had clashed with Hegseth over the Defense secretary’s reluctance to modernize the Army and his firings of dozens of senior officers. Hegseth has focused more on cultural issues — including grooming and fitness standards — within the department.

“If we had a @SecWar who maintained the same priorities and forward-thinking, he would be fighting to retain talented leaders like Dan and the many flag officers he has forced into retirement,” Tillis charged. “Instead, he is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks.”

Tillis, who is not running for reelection in November, has openly clashed with Hegseth since Trump tapped the former Fox News host to lead the Pentagon in 2024.

Tillis didn’t tell a single lie in his lengthy post, blasting Hegseth, but, well, at some point, the GOP is going to have to admit to itself that this is the monster that it created, and Hegseth is honestly just a symptom of the disease that is MAGA.

After all, what is the Trump administration if not a cesspool of incompetents who are woefully underqualified to do anything but fight the culture war that largely exists in their otherwise underutilized minds?

In May, Tillis told Politico that Hegseth’s firing was on his “Christmas wish list,” suggesting that the so-called “Secretary of War” essentially conned Trump into the Iran War through misinformation, which is, of course, believable. But, again, misinformation and disinformation have been the Trump administration and the GOP’s political bread and butter for at least the last decade. What business conducted in this White House isn’t being fueled by a web of lies?

Still, according to The Hill, the war in Iran and its cost, including more than $70 billion in emergency national security spending that the administration wants added to the budget, will become a serious point of contention with Senate Republicans when they meet with Pentagon leadership this fall. They’re also expected to grill Pentagon leadership about the departures of senior military officials, such as Driscoll.

“I was disappointed. I think he’s been a pretty solid guy. So disappointed,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who noted that Driscoll was “frustrated with some of his top generals being released.”

“That’s not the first time I’ve heard that. I think that points to questions we’re going to be asking when we get back in terms of where’s the leadership at,” Rounds continued. “We’ve had some very good generals that are no longer there that we respected, and that had a huge amount of foundational knowledge in terms of moving us forward as far as the changing capabilities that we need to incorporate into the overall fighting force.” 

A former senior Republican Armed Services staffer told the Hill anonymously that “Hegseth has treated the Pentagon like his own personal playground in the culture wars.”

“He’s driven out over two dozen senior leaders, including Driscoll, and ignored the chain of command by intervening personally in official investigations,” the former aide said.

So, basically, there are Republicans who actually do see what everyone else can see plainly regarding Hegseth, and, hopefully, the rest of the administration. It’s just too bad everything has to be in shambles for some of them to finally speak out.

SEE ALSO:

Pete Hegseth Is Getting Ripped On Social Media By A Trump Official

Pete Hegseth Fired US Army Chief Of Staff So He Can Be Racist In Peace