It’s not just Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth who’s apparently causing turmoil in the White House.
Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s top policy chief under Hegseth, has blindsided senior administration officials and foreign allies alike with a series of rapid-fire foreign policy moves, according to multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke to Politico.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Pentagon for comment.
Colby, 45, who is spearheading the next National Defense Strategy slated for release in August, reportedly advanced the proposal that led Hegseth to pause military assistance to Ukraine, without first notifying the White House. The decision caught many within the administration off guard, CNN reported, and was later publicly reversed by President Donald Trump.
He also alarmed top officials at the State Department and the National Security Council when he launched a surprise review of the AUKUS submarine pact between the U.S., Australia, and the U.K., in June.
“The way that one person from State put it to me is: ‘Who is this f—-ing guy?’” a former U.S. official familiar with the policy discussions said of the department’s reaction to the AUKUS review.
“He is p—-ing off just about everyone I know inside the administration,” one person familiar with the situation told the publication. “They all view him as the guy who’s going to make the U.S. do less in the world in general.”
Another person familiar with internal dynamics added that Colby “has basically decided that he’s going to be the intellectual driving force behind a kind of neo-isolationism that believes that the United States should act more alone, that allies and friends are kind of encumbering.”
Colby’s approach has also ruffled feathers abroad. In conversations with foreign counterparts, including those from Japan, his aggressive demands for increased defense spending have caused tensions, according to a U.S. official.
“DOD has been telling a European partner that we don’t need the Europeans to be doing anything [in the Indo-Pacific],” they said.
Japanese officials were furious when Colby in the spring urged the nation to boost defense spending to at least 3 percent of GDP, and then escalated the demand to 5 percent. The sudden increase reportedly contributed to the collapse of a high-level bilateral meeting.
“The Japanese were very frustrated. They thought that they were agreeing to at least negotiate on the basis of 3 or 3.5 percent. Then Colby, all of a sudden, got DOD to say 5, and the Japanese got angry, because that’s not what they just agreed to,” one source said.
MAGA officials fear Colby is undercutting Trump with his “shoot first and ask questions later” approach, according to a senior Republican aide.
Publicly, White House officials have offered nothing but praise for Colby.
“The world is changing rapidly and Elbridge understands the moment. His innovative leadership is critical to addressing the challenges head-on and helping to deliver on President Trump’s America First agenda,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Colby has so far provided “invaluable” advice.
Hegseth’s rogue move last week to green-light pausing weapons shipments to Ukraine in the war started by Russia in Feb. 2022 is reported to have caused chaos in the White House.
Trump later walked back the move, saying Washington was “sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine.”
“Putin is not… he’s not treating human beings right,” Trump said. “He’s killing too many people.”
The president added: “We’re going to have to send more weapons, defensive weapons, primarily. But they’re getting hit very, very hard. So many people are dying in that mess.”
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