A former staffer to President Donald Trump sighed heavily when discussing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's latest moved aimed at consolidating power within the U.S. military.
The Pentagon abruptly announced that Navy Secretary John Phelan, a businessman and major Trump donor who lives near Mar-a-Lago, would be leaving his job effective immediately, and former White House communications director Mike Dubke told "CNN This Morning" that he had mixed feelings about the move coming as U.S. forces enforce a naval blockade against Iran.
"Well, I actually want to pickup on what was already spokenabout," Dubke said. "I mean, the job that hehad was procuring additionalships for the Navy, building outnew ships for the Navy, doingall of those things, which youdon't necessarily need. Youbasically need to have a betterunderstanding of how to procurethings, put things together thanactually when they go outonto the sea, and our Navy is in need of aserious retread. So I don'treally have a problem with that."
"What this looks like more to meis again, and we talked aboutthis a few weeks ago, this ismore Hegseth consolidating hispower," Dubke added with a heavy sigh. "He doesn't like anyoneelse in the building to be ableto talk to the West Wing totalk to the president other than himself."
Phelan reportedly leveraged his close relationship with Trump to speak directly to him, and national security expert Alex Plitsas agreed that was an unusual arrangement for military officials in a time of war.
"Yeah, I mean, it underminesthe chain of command," said Plitsas, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. "I mean,the service secretaries reportup to the secretary of war,secretary of defense, who thenreports the president, thedirect relationship and kind ofgoing around is very unique tothe Trump presidency. That isnot something that istraditional in any White House,to be honest with you."