The conventional wisdom around the corridors of Washington a few weeks ago was that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth was headed for the exit.
Indeed, speculation raged for months that President Donald Trump wasn’t happy with Hegseth. In particular, a Washington Post story from August reported that Trump and Hegseth clashed at Camp David about munitions shortages caused by the war in Iran, and why the president had apparently been misled about the problem.
It was the latest in a series of controversies that seemed to pit the Pentagon against the White House. Earlier, reports indicated Hegseth’s department had unilaterally paused weapons shipments to Ukraine and scaled back the US troop presence in Romania.
Moreover, Hegseth clashed with top military personnel, and replaced several of them. There was an air of chaos and churn around the defence secretary, and Trump acknowledged receiving complaints.
There were strong parallels with 2006, when Republican president George W. Bush fired his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the day after a devastating midterm election when the GOP lost control of both chambers.
That dismissal also took place amid the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, which had become the exact kind of quagmire that Rumsfeld famously said “I don’t do”.
Even though Hegseth was executing Trump’s orders in Iran, he loomed as a potential fall guy for a war that was never popular and grew less so after initial peace plans collapsed.
But the midterm election results – delivering control of both chambers to the Democrats, with big majorities – changed the equation.
The Trump White House is now under siege, and preparing to fight. Trump has said so himself, and appointed hardline loyalist Stephen Miller as his chief of staff, replacing the more establishment Republican Susie Wiles.
This is a White House that is going to war, and its instinct is to defend its people. So when Hegseth faced an impeachment push from a Republican congressman, Thomas Massie, he was no longer liability but a potential victim – and Trump does not want to lose.
“In any normal political environment, getting impeached would be a bad thing for a cabinet member,” said Josh Rogin, security analyst at the Washington Post ’s WP Intelligence unit, on CNN this week.
“But in Trump’s mind and in Hegseth’s mind, this is a badge of honour. And what Thomas Massie has done is inadvertently throw Pete Hegseth a lifeline.
“A week ago, we all thought he was on his way out the door. Now he’s got the full backing of the president, and he’s making content off of it.”
The administration managed to keep every House Republican in line to defend Hegseth from impeachment on Tuesday (US time), except for Massie.
The attempt failed after 11 Democrats failed to show up to vote, including former speaker Nancy Pelosi, who returned to San Francisco for a Veterans Day event. Others said they were stuck in traffic after attending an off-site “new member reception”.
While next year’s changing of the guard will mean Democrats can easily impeach Hegseth in the House, they would not have anywhere near the two-thirds majority needed to convict him in the Senate.
As Rogin observed, it allows Hegseth to play the martyr, while Trump can decry the Democrats’ impeachment attempts as lawfare and weaponisation.
In a performance that won praise from the president, Hegseth used a rare Pentagon news conference to link his plight with Trump’s. “They” had impeached Trump twice before, he said. “Now, they’re trying a third time, this time against a member of his cabinet.
“They will fail again. And if standing with President Trump puts me in that company, I’ll take that company every day of the week.”
Trump gave Hegseth a shout-out during his Veterans Day remarks on Wednesday, prompting a resounding cheer from the crowd. “I had a feeling that was going to happen,” the president remarked.
Hegseth’s survival is now a marker of Trump’s success, while his removal would be a signal of the president’s failure.
The defence secretary could still be forced out if it becomes politically expedient. He is reportedly interested in a Senate vacancy caused by the Republican senator for Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn, being elected governor of that state.
But Hegseth is now the face of two wars: the one against Iran, and the one against the Democrats. And it’s the latter that will keep him in the job.
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