Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's chances of becoming the first member to leave President Donald Trump's cabinet have doubled in recent days, according to a new analysis by CNN's Harry Enten.
The Pentagon chief has become embroiled in another scandal after sources told the Washington Post he directed Adm. Frank Bradley to leave no survivors in a missile attack on an alleged drug smuggling boat, and Enten dug into new polling on public attitudes toward Hegseth on "CNN News Central."
"This is not the firsttime that we have covered Pete Hegseth, and there's a reasonwhy, and that is because he has,simply put, not been a popularguy in the American electorate," Enten said. "I mean, Pete Hegseth's net favorabilityin the last year. There have been no polls, nopolls in which his netfavorability has been positive.Every single poll that I couldfind in the Roper Centerarchives has his netfavorability in the negativefrom when Donald Trump firstnominated him nearly a year ago.
"Every single poll has found thatthe American people are morelikely to dislike than like him, and the first poll that wastaken found that the pluralityof Americans said that the United States Senate should notconfirm him to the post ofsecretary of defense."
"No polls – zero, zero, zero, zero, zero," Enten added.
Secretaries of defense get so little attention that polling outfits don't typically survey public opinion about them, but Hegseth has been the subject of at least 10 in less than a year, Enten said.
"This is extremelyunusual for a defense secretaryto be generating this muchinterest, especially when we'renot at a time of war," Enten said. "You haveto go all the way back to Bob Gates to find this many pollsasking about the popularityrating of a defense secretary, and, of course, Bob Gates servedfour times as long so far as Pete Hegseth then, and, ofcourse, that was during a timeof war."
All those factors, and especially this latest scandal, makes Hegseth the favorite to be first to leave Trump's cabinet, Enten said.
"This is, I think, a greatchance to use the predictionmarket odds, chance to be thefirst to leave Trump's cabinet," Enten said. "Pete Hegseth on Friday, it wasjust 18 percent – it's now doubled.It's now doubled to 35 percent giventhe recent controversy, so a lot of folks outthere who are putting theirmoney where their mouth is thinkthere's a far better chancethat Pete Hegseth exits thecabinet now, being the first one."
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