‘Amateur-hour bungling’: Conservative blasts Hegseth’s ‘disappointing’ 48 hours

The editor of the conservative National Review went after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s mystifying last 48 hours where he delivered a major Ukraine speech and policy announcement – only to walk it back a day later.

In an editorial on Thursday, National Review executive editor Mark Antonio Wright told readers that while “de-wokifying the military” is necessary, it is also an “insufficient job description for the U.S. secretary of defense.” His role, according to Wright, is also to speak for the Trump administration and deliver “crystal-clear U.S. policy in the realm of military and security affairs.”

“That’s why Hegseth’s last 48 hours have been so surprising — and so disappointing,” Wright wrote in his editorial critical of the Pentagon chief.

Hegseth spoke Wednesday morning before a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group and said the possibility of the war-torn nation joining NATO was unrealistic.

But Wright pointed out that “amazingly, not 24 hours after Hegseth’s groundbreaking policy announcement, the secretary of defense walked back the key points of yesterday’s speech in a Q&A session at NATO HQ."

While Wright acknowledged that the president sets the overall policy agenda, “that doesn’t excuse Hegseth and his staff for the amateur-hour bungling of yesterday’s speech and policy declaration.”

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He also had plenty of questions loaded for Hegseth and concluded his op-ed by revealing to readers why he believed Hegseth to be in a precarious spot.

“Who cleared Hegseth’s prepared speech?” Wright asked. “Did the White House — and then Trump changed his mind on the policy on Ukraine and NATO membership? Or did Hegseth and the DOD not ensure that their critical policy declaration was aligned with the president’s view? Who told Hegseth to walk back today what he said yesterday? Is the SecDef out of the loop?”

Either way, Wright said the episode spiraled into “a very disappointing moment for a team that is supposed to be taking over from and improving on the feckless performance of Joe Biden’s foreign-policy team.”

“Pete Hegseth is giving the impression that the secretary of defense doesn’t speak for the president, which is a dangerous place for us to be.”