Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was reportedly concerned that President Donald Trump could dismiss him from his cabinet next, which is dictating his recent moves, an analyst said on Thursday.
Hegseth, who fired Navy Secretary John Phelan on Wednesday, has apparently started to show signs of paranoia over whether he will remain in the top Pentagon position, Tom Nichols, staff writer for The Atlantic, told MS NOW.
"I think what's going on now, and I think what you're seeing with Phelan is Hegseth is very worried that he's going to lose his job," Nichols said. "And so he's trying to repopulate the Pentagon and its environment with people who won't support him getting fired with, you know, who will stand up and say, 'I owe my job to Pete Hegseth. He's a great leader. Please, Mr. President, don't let him go.' That's one of the things.'"
Nichols described how Hegseth has already pushed an "anti-woke" agenda when he stepped into the Pentagon — and that this effort to remove detractors or disloyal insiders was part of the strategy for him to stay in his role.
"This is kind of how palace politics has played in Washington," Nichols added. "That you repopulate a lot of the offices around you with people that are loyal to you, so that if first of all, then the scuttlebutt about getting fired doesn't become scuttlebutt, because nobody will talk about it because they're your friends. But also it's a way of saying, if you think about, you know, switching sides, 'I can have the president relieve you.' So I think what's going on with all the firings of these officers when Hegseth first came in was part of this just weird crusade he's on. But I think what you've been seeing in the past few months is very much part of his struggle with what he thinks is a movement to get rid of him, and he's trying to firewall himself off from that."