The past three months have shown that if a problem surfaces within the Trump Administration, it is almost invariably worse than it seems.
Few examples better illustrate this than the current troubles of our Defense Department Ken: Pete Hegseth. (Proud of yourselves, Princeton?)
Not only did Hegseth’s role in Signalgate 1.0, in which he recklessly shared top secret information that put U.S. troops at risk, lead to Signalgate 2.0, in which he did the very same thing in the very same really dumb and dangerous way, but these two transgressions have occurred alongside multiple other examples of scandal and chaos within the defense department that all can be traced to the blundering of Hegseth himself.
Therefore, it is appropriate that these scandals might collectively be called “Hegsethgate.”
It has gotten so bad that NPR reports that the White House is already looking for his replacement. (Secretary of Defense Laura Loomer anyone?)
One former senior Pentagon official even penned a bombshell editorial Sunday describing “chaos” and “dysfunction” at the Pentagon since Hegseth’s arrival.
The president said on Monday that Hegseth is “doing a great job.” But as any follower of Trump knows, when he says he’s got your back, check for knives.
He could be dispatched by the swift blow the executioner’s Truth Social post the moment Trump feels the Secretary of Defense is a drag on his “popularity.”
Clearly he should be. Hegseth should never have been nominated, never confirmed and now he himself has left no doubt that he should be fired.
More importantly, however, Hegseth’s glib goatf–kery and all that goes with it is actually just one of a series of alarming developments during President Trump’s first 100 days that, taken together, represent a deepening and unprecedented national security crisis for the United States.
At every level of the Trump national security apparatus there are developments that suggest that America’s standing as a superpower is in jeopardy, our safety and that of our allies is at risk, and that day-by-day as we become weaker, our enemies and rivals are being made stronger by the actions of the president and his team.
Just this past weekend, the New York Times reported that Trump’s team was planning a “drastic overhaul” of the State Department via executive order that would do serious damage to our ability to advance and defend our interests worldwide. While the Secretary of State has taken to social media to say that the Times report is a “hoax,” there is no reason to believe he is telling the whole truth.
The steps enumerated in the draft executive order (which I’ve read) include eliminating current regional bureaus and replacing them with four super-bureaus covering larger regions of the world, getting rid of or shrinking all or most programs that promote democracy, international institutions, combat climate change, support women’s issues, and advance U.S. public diplomacy (including valuable cultural diplomacy initiatives and much of what was good about the Fulbright Program).
Could Rubio be right and the document be an inaccurate reflection of the final White House plan to remake the oldest cabinet department, the one responsible for our foreign policy? Sure. Might the document have been a trial balloon? Possibly. But will big changes be coming? Of course.
While the State Department bureaucracy is too large and could use some reorganizing, nearly everything announced, planned or leaked by the Trump administration is worrisome. Not only will the steps dramatically reduce our ability to shape and anticipate global developments, they will make it much harder for American companies and individuals abroad to have the support of their governments as the companies and citizens of other countries get from theirs.
Further, Trump administration actions have already created openings for our rivals, like China and Russia, to make gains internationally. China is already offering aid programs to replace those once offered by the U.S.—thus strengthening their influence and underscoring how unreliable we have become.
In addition, one of the steps described in the NY Times article about the draft EO is eliminating or vastly reducing the US diplomatic presence (including many embassies) around the world and especially in sub-Saharan Africa. This is profoundly short-sighted. It will be greeted by toasts and laughter in Moscow and China. It will not only create opportunities for them but it will dramatically reduce the cost of their competition with us.
Another vital element of our national security establishment is the National Security Council. I’ve written two histories of the NSC and met with nearly every one of our national security advisors who was alive in my lifetime. I can honestly say that the current NSC, led by Mike Waltz, represents the absolute nadir of influence the organization has had since the 1960s. (Which is when it became an important organization.)
I said as much to the New York Times in an article about the weakness of the NSC under Waltz just the other day. The headline of the article described the situation we are in accurately, saying “Under Trump, National Security Guardrails Vanish.”
A sign of the weakness of the NSC is that Waltz himself was nearly fired for being the man behind Signalgate 1.0. His influence has waned so much that when Laura Loomer, a right wing crackpot with zero national security experience, suggested Trump fire several NSC staffers, he did. Which is saying something since Trump seldom listens to advisors like Waltz, Rubio or Hegseth.
The problems go deeper. Far too deep to be covered in a single article. Attacking alliances like NATO hurts us. Cutting aid to Ukraine hurts us. Pulling out of international organizations and ignoring international treaties hurts us. Undercutting the trust we have built around the world has been a devastating blow, depriving us of what I would consider our number one strategic advantage.
To add insult to injury, top Trump national security officials are saying and doing damaging and sometimes even crazy things on a daily basis. To offer just one example, see the comments this past week by White House counterterrorism chief Sebastian Gorka saying that anyone who criticized Trump’s rendition of scores of people to an El Salvador concentration camp without benefit of due process was themselves supporting terrorists and therefore subject to prosecution.
For those of you who are not national security professionals, let me summarize by saying: Lunacy, chaos, ignorance and incompetence are like sulfuric acid eating away at the foundations of our national strength. We grow weaker and more at risk daily. Our enemies and rivals grow stronger at our expense. The team in place to protect neither realizes that we have a problem nor that they are a central part of that problem.
In 1838, a 29 year-old Abraham Lincoln anticipated the origins of this crisis when he said in a speech in Springfield, Illinois, “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
He was right.
The post Opinion: Hegseth’s Pentagon Crisis Is So Much Worse Than You Think appeared first on The Daily Beast.
