Pete Hegseth Will Never Be Fired

An Article for The Nation

About three weeks ago, I was asked to write an autopsy of Hegseth’s career to be published after his resignation, which seemed all but certain at that point. Over the past month, Hegseth has shared classified information on Signal, not once but twice. He had an unsecured office phone line installed inside his office, he took his wife (who does not have a security clearance) to mulitple meetings with foreign leaders, and he created a culture of paranoia and dysfunction within the Pentagon that has eroded their ability to perform basic tasks. If we lived in normal times, any one of these scandals would be enough to end a Secretary of Defense’s career and banish him from public life forever.

I replied that I would be absolutely delighted to write such a thing, but that I thought it was extremely unlikely that he would be fired and detailed the reasons why. That email, extended and in article form, dropped in The Nation this morning, and you can read it there if you would like to.

It’s always a bit of a nailbiter, taking a contrarian position while events are still playing out. After all, I’ve been wrong about plenty of things before and will be wrong about things again. I was comforted somewhat by the fact that, even though I’d look rather silly if Hegseth got fired, I would also be able to sleep better at night knowing Trump cared more about public opinion than destroying the military’s ability to say no to unconstitutional orders to commit war crimes on US soil.

Hegseth did not get fired. His political purges of the military continue. So far, unfortunately, my prediction has borne out. Go read it if you’d like to. I think it’s really good.