In the wake of Pete Hegseth’s massive Signal scandal, the former Fox News co-host’s Pentagon has become a place more concerned with PR than directing America’s military.
Speaking with Megyn Kelly, another former Fox News host, on her podcast Sunday, ex-Hegseth aide Colin Carroll attested that the secretary and his team have been “consumed” by the rampant leaks escaping the Department of Defense. Carroll claimed that Hegseth and his team likely spend upwards of half their time trying to rein the gossip in.
“If you look at a pie chart of the secretary’s day, at this point, 50 percent of it is probably a leak investigation,” Carroll said.
Carroll had served as chief of staff to deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg before he was fired earlier this month amid an ongoing leak probe.
“That’s a bad thing for America. It’s a bad thing for the president’s objectives,” Carroll continued. “And in order to combat that image, it’s like, ‘Hey, I’m gonna go work out with the troops.’”
Carroll further argued that Hegseth’s recent obsession with filming his early morning workouts with troops was in an effort to counteract numerous reports of Hegseth’s excessive drinking—accusations that nearly kept him from securing his gig fronting America’s military. (In a highly unusual move, Vice President JD Vance joined the vote in January to break a 50-50 tie on Hegseth’s confirmation, ushering the former Fox & Friends co-anchor toward Donald Trump’s Cabinet. Three Republicans—Senators Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins—broke party lines by voting against Hegseth’s confirmation.)
“While that is important—and it’s a thing to do to get out there and helps recruiting and helps morale—if you’re taking a half day trip to the Naval Academy at the same time the budget is due, and we really need some support here.… come on, you gotta weigh priorities,” Carroll told Kelly.
Hegseth’s tenure leading the Pentagon has been plagued by a trove of terrible decisions—as well as subsequent damning leaks to the press, exposing the defense secretary’s poor planning.
In March, Trump administration officials accidentally added The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to a Signal chat regarding sensitive details of a plan to bomb Houthis in Yemen. The monumental slipup was a horrific omen for U.S. national security, whose weakest link is apparently a crew of Cabinet members who can’t even accomplish the basic due diligence of double-checking who they’re adding to a group chat hosted by a private company.
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