Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) warned U.S. Secretary Pete Hegseth that he was now occupying “a sober job,” requiring more skill than he is presently delivering.
“Here's what Pete Hegseth is,” McCaskill told Deadline: White House anchor Nicole Wallace. “He's a show off. He's a braggart. He wants to show off to his friends what he knows, not thinking about the consequences to the brave men that were piloting those those aircraft that were dropping those bombs. He wants to do workouts and pushups. He wants to show off all of his regalia, and do videos and photo-ops. He doesn't understand that the secretary of defense is a sober job, and I mean that in more ways than one.”
Hegseth is allegedly fighting for his job after a second scandal in which he allegedly mishandled classified information, allegedly sharing tactical military information first with a reporter and now with family members and his attorney. McCaskill said the U.S. military was “damn lucky to have the leaders we have,” but she warned that “chipping away at the layers of leadership in the military,” gets at the muscle of our national security” and leaves the military with people like Hegseth.
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Multiple firings in the military has “cut down on people standing up to Trump inside of the White House" — the kind of people who recognize bad ideas when they see them.
What’s left are people “sort of learning on the job,” which is not just a problem for agency heads but for several rungs below that as the administration jettisons seasoned veterans in favor of “loyalists.” Enemy nations, she said, are well-aware of the United States' weaknesses.
“They know that this buffoon is putting classified information over his personal phone to his friends. They know he's more focused on working out in front of the cameras than he is in really understanding how to show competent leadership to the legions of people that need his leadership,” she said. “… The lack of respect he has amongst our enemies, is almost as dangerous as what he's trying to do internally in the Pentagon. It is really dangerous.”
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