Two of the highest-ranking military Cabinet members have essentially been cut off as Trump teeters on the edge of joining Israel’s war on Iran, according to a report from The Washington Post.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, two people who you’d expect to be closely involved with the potential wartime situation, have been kicked to the curb in favor of his “tier one” advisory group on Iran, which includes Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine.
While Israel has bombarded Iran based on unsubstantiated nuclear weapons claims, Trump has yet to confirm U.S.-led military strikes on Iran, which could lead to global fallout. Reports Wednesday indicated that Trump has approved strikes but not yet given the final green light.
Hegseth has struggled to establish trust and consistency while leading the Pentagon, a job he was nearly disqualified from in the first place. Now it seems clear that the president does not take him seriously as a leader or confidant. “Nobody is talking to Hegseth,” one official told the Post. “There is no interface operationally between Hegseth and the White House at all.”
Trump has made his distaste for Gabbard much clearer, especially after she posted a three-minute-long X video last week that went mostly unnoticed at the time but now appears to be an obvious rebuke of U.S. support for Israel’s war on Iran.
“I don’t care what she said,” Trump stated on Tuesday when asked about Gabbard’s video, on Air Force One. “I think they were very close to having a weapon.”
While Gabbard’s booting from the inner circle seems to be ideology-based, Hegseth’s shunning feels like a competency and trust issue. Either way, the country’s two top defense leaders are not involved in discussions around starting a massive war, which points to a troubling level of internal discord and disunity, especially just months into Trump’s first year as president.
The post Trump Deliberately Leaves Two Key People Out of Iran Plan Convos appeared first on New Republic.
