Pete Hegseth, the most unqualified defense secretary in America’s history, has been embroiled in scandal after scandal in the short time he’s held the Pentagon’s top job. The former Fox News host appeared on his old cable network Tuesday morning to defend himself, as speculation swirls about President Donald Trump potentially firing him soon. But Hegseth’s appearance was embarrassingly awkward, as he made excuses for Signalgate, blamed the so-called deep state for his troubles, and struggled to defend his actions.
Brian Kilmeade, one of the co-hosts of Fox & Friends, got things started during the interview by accidentally referring to Hegseth as the “former” defense secretary before correcting himself. Kilmeade asked Hegseth about “his thoughts” on new reporting from the New York Times that he had a second Signal chat where he discussed highly sensitive military information with about a dozen people like his wife, brother, and personal attorney.
“So Brian, if you remember when this all started, the first go around, ’cause this is the second go around, right? They peddle old stuff, they kick it back up,” Hegseth said.
“I said repeatedly, no one’s texting war plans,” Hegseth continued. “You know why I said that? ‘Cause I’m in the bowels of the Pentagon every single day. Just 10 minutes ago, I was looking at actual war plans of things that were ongoing or pending things to happen. ‘Cause that’s on the regular basis, on classified systems.”
You’ll notice that nowhere in Hegseth’s response did he deny that he had another Signal group chat where he was discussing sensitive information. That chat was taking place on his personal phone, according to the New York Times, and included flight schedules for F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen. Instead, Hegseth merely tries to play it off as “old stuff,” as though anything that happened in the past shouldn’t concern anyone. Later in the interview, Hegseth would say he didn’t have time for the “hoax press who peddles old stories from disgruntled employees.”
Hegseth also repeatedly tried to insist that there weren’t “war plans” on any of the chats, something that appears to be a semantic argument that doesn’t even hold up according to experts. When news first broke that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz had accidentally included the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg, on a group chat, Hegseth and Waltz made similar excuses about the lack of “war plans.” But Jeffrey Goldberg eventually published the chats, showing it was extremely sensitive information, including the time that strikes in Yemen would occur.
During his Fox & Friends appearance on Tuesday, Hegseth almost appeared to be speaking to an audience of one. President Trump clearly holds Hegseth’s future in his hands during this massive scandal, and the defense secretary knows it, flattering the president during his appearance and making it sound like Hegseth was taking heat that otherwise would’ve been directed at the president by his perceived enemies. Hegseth even described Trump as “super-human.”
“At the beginning, it was left-wing reporters from the Atlantic who got ahold of it and then wanted to create a problem for the president,” Hegseth said. “This is what it’s all about, trying to get at President Trump and his agenda.”
Hegseth, who said he was focused on “rooting out DEI,” also appeared to struggle getting the words out sometimes Tuesday morning, often stumbling verbally or using grammar that didn’t quite fit what he was trying to communicate, saying at one point, “We take the classification of information very important.”
Hegseth’s voice reached a higher register as he rambled, insisting that he wasn’t going to “play the game” of doing normal things like going on TV shows like Meet the Press and visiting the Council on Foreign Relations, the kind of diplomacy that’s typically expected of defense secretaries. The former Fox News host, who has been accused of excessive drinking in the past, including during an encounter where he was accused of sexual assault (a charge he’s denied), said he wasn’t “spending time with the new cocktail-sipping crowd.”
The defense secretary also touched on the incredibly high turnover of staff at the Pentagon since he was confirmed for the role. At least three staff hired by Hegseth have been “moved on,” as he puts it, with suggestions that they were all leaking to the press.
“In this point, those folks who are leaking, who have been pushed out of the building, are now attempting to leak and sabotage the president’s agenda and what we’re doing. And that’s unfortunate,” Hegseth said.
Several staffers have said they don’t even know why they were let go, and John Ullyot, the former chief Pentagon spokesman under Hegseth, wrote a piece for Politico on Sunday that described the chaos under Hegseth as a “full-blown meltdown.” Asked about that article, Hegseth said cryptically, “anybody who knows John knows why we let him go.”
“We did a lot of favors for John. He did some good work up front,” Hegseth said. “Then he was moved along and asked to move along. Now he’s misrepresented a lot of things in the press. It’s unfortunate. We did right by him. We tried to help. He’s spinning it otherwise. It’s too bad. It’s politics, I guess.”
Kilmeade pointed out Tuesday that many of the employees let go from the Pentagon were people that Hegseth brought on as close allies and were shown the door without even being asked to show the contents of their phones, something you’d expect in any leak investigation.
“These are the guys you picked, especially Caldwell,” Kilmeade said, referring to senior advisor Dan Caldwell. “And they worked for you for your previous job before you got over to Fox. And they said that they have not been asked to have their phones. They weren’t asked about communications. They didn’t go through… they didn’t take a polygraph. So why would they be let go and not be investigated?”
Hegseth didn’t have a coherent response, rambling on about leaks regarding Elon Musk’s visit to the Pentagon and what he called “Panama Canal plans,” perhaps a reference to the fact that Trump has threatened to take control of the canal by force. The defense secretary just said he had a “responsibility to take action,” which would be in line with the idea that the Trump regime shoots first and asks questions later.
“If one or two of these guys is exonerated after an investigation, great,” said Hegseth. “That’s what investigations are for. But we took it seriously. It led to some unfortunate places. People I have known for quite some time, but it’s not my job to protect them. It’s my job to protect national security.”
Hegseth’s interview on Fox & Friends happened a few hours before a new report from NBC News that indicates the defense secretary was sharing information in that second Signal group chat obtained from a top general who was using a secure government system.
The full interview with Hegseth, which runs about 13 minutes, is available on YouTube.
Experts generally agree that if anyone else had shared the kind of information that Hegseth had shared, it would be considered a massive security breach, and he’d likely face jail time. But Hegseth is politically protected by President Trump, who nominated the former Fox News host as a kind of fuck-you to the idea that people should be qualified for the roles they hold in his administration. If our grandpa president saw someone on the TV and they believe in Trump’s fascist agenda, that’s good enough for him.
How long can Hegseth hold on to his current role? Nobody knows for sure. NPR reported on Monday that Trump may be looking for a replacement. But if history is any indicator, it’s not over until Fox News turns on somebody. The president watches TV constantly and holds the opinion of Fox News in higher esteem than just about anyone else. He believes that the people of Fox are his base, and if they were to start questioning Hegseth, that could be a game-changer.
That, however, seems very unlikely given the fact that Hegseth was working at Fox until very recently. The former TV host has a lot of friends at the network. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first pick to be Attorney General, seemed to have fewer friends at Fox. And it was only after people started to question whether Gaetz was the right man for the job on Fox News that Trump swapped him out for Pam Bondi, who was eventually confirmed by the U.S. Senate for AG.
