Senior Pentagon officials were confronted Wednesday by how the unpopular Iran war spelled disaster for the Trump administration in the midterm elections, as Democrats seized power in Congress and questions arose about whether President Donald Trump will hold someone accountable for the GOP’s shellacking.
Democrats immediately set their sights on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, with whom they have clashed repeatedly over the past two years. But those close to the Trump administration questioned whether the president instead might dismiss Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or Adm. Brad Cooper, who has overseen the war.
Hegseth has served as a top salesman for the Iran war, which the Trump administration and Israel initiated in February. He has publicly berated lawmakers and journalists who have scrutinized the conflict’s shifting strategic objectives, cost and lack of congressional authorization; he falsely claimed Iran’s military has been destroyed for “years to come”; and he declared total victory over Tehran after a few weeks of fighting. But months later hostilities endure and a peace deal remains elusive.
People familiar with the military advice that all three men have provided the president over the course of the conflict said that, at different times, each was at fault for providing Trump overly rosy assessments about the war and not being clear enough about the risks and costs to the United States.
Spokespeople for Cooper and Caine declined to comment. Hegseth’s office recycled a statement that it provided for a separate Washington Post story published Sunday, saying he wants to stay at the Pentagon for the remainder of Trump’s term.
As the extent of Republican losses became clearer Wednesday, the mood in the Pentagon was one of uncertainty, more than a half-dozen officials and people familiar with the matter told The Post. They spoke on the condition of anonymity citing a fear of retaliation.
One person familiar with internal discussions said the political situation at the Defense Department appears “very dynamic at the moment,” with “knives out” as administration officials make sense of what the political earthquake in Congress will mean. Some questioned whether Hegseth will seek to shift blame for the election failures, this person said.
Another person said that, for weeks, senior Defense Department leaders have discussed that Republicans could lose their majorities in Congress and that this possibility was already accounted for. Given the scope of GOP losses, however, there was a lot of uncertainty around possible firings, this person said.
Cooper, who heads U.S. Central Command and is based in Tampa, has served as architect of the Iran war and a frequent advocate for aggression against its military forces, officials said.
Cooper was at the White House as recently as last week to recommend additional military action, officials said. Trump has vacillated in recent days between returning to full combat or moving on, saying that the United States could very quickly and forcefully strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facilities.
Also potentially vulnerable is Caine, the top military adviser to both Trump and Hegseth. Officials said he has shown more concern about how the Iran war could affect the military’s ability to do future operations, but generally does not raise objections to Trump’s plans.
As The Post reported before the start of hostilities, Caine cautioned the administration about a shortage of certain U.S. munitions and the absence of support from allies other than Israel.
One person familiar with discussions in Trump’s orbit said the president is looking for someone to blame for Republicans’ poor showing and that Hegseth is among the people who may take the fall. But Caine and Cooper, this person said, are more likely to be targeted.
Post-election, Trump has said that he does not intend to fire anyone as a result of Republicans’ drubbing. When asked by a reporter specifically about Hegseth’s future, the president said his defense chief is “doing a very good job.” He has defended the defense secretary through a series of controversies.
Vice President JD Vance, in a long social media post, said Wednesday that “the reason we lost is the war” and assessed that “many people” who voted for him and Trump in 2024 voted for Democrats this cycle.
Democratic gains — they secured significant majorities in the House and the Senate — have raised the possibility of extended investigations and will lead to new requirements on the president to compromise. Those discussions probably will involve everything from future political nominees, who must be approved by the Senate, to the composition of future defense budgets.
The Democrat-led investigations could extend well beyond the Iran war to include other controversial moves by Hegseth, including his approval of deadly military strikes on alleged drug traffickers, his purging of dozens of top military leaders without cause, and his dismantling of diversity efforts across the department.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Washington), who is expected to take over the House Armed Services Committee in January, said in a letter to colleagues on Wednesday that conducting “vigorous oversight” of the Pentagon will be his top priority.
This month in the House, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) is expected to force an impeachment vote against Hegseth over the Iran war. Massie sought the vote in September, but it was tabled by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), who said Wednesday that he intends to step down from his leadership role.
One Pentagon official said the election results raise questions about how Hegseth’s team will interact with military officers moving forward. Over the last two years, the secretary has cycled between saying his efforts would free the military of Biden-era politics and then criticizing and firing those he deems out of step with his thinking. He also has instituted polygraph tests in an effort to find anyone leaking to the media.
The result, this official said, was that a lot of military officers have “just tried to survive” the Hegseth era.
On Capitol Hill, the GOP’s crushing electoral losses will create an imminent leadership vacuum for Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee as the Trump administration has called for lawmakers to quickly pass its proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget.
The package, which includes signature Trump priorities such as a Golden Dome missile defense system and codifying the administration’s efforts to rebrand the Defense Department as the “War Department,” would take unanimous GOP support to pass in full.
Republicans privately have cast doubt on their ability to advance the budget with just over 20 legislative days left before Democrats take power in the new year, and multiple people familiar with the legislation said that this week’s election would make the effort far more difficult. Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), the Republican chair of the appropriations committee responsible for negotiating that budget, lost in her reelection bid Tuesday.
Without more funding, the Pentagon faces urgent shortfalls in money and weapons caused by the Iran war. Central Command has estimated that the conflict cost more than $47 billion through mid October. That total includes $30 billion in munitions alone, illustrating how quickly U.S. forces — under the stewardship of Hegseth, Caine and Cooper — burned through some of the military’s most valuable weaponry.
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