'We're screwed': Pentagon insiders brought 'close to tears' by Hegseth failures

More than a dozen insiders spilled new details about the leadership void within the Department of Defense, which they say has been brought to the brink of collapse by Donald Trump's choice for secretary.

The president tapped former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as the military's civilian leader, despite having no relevant experience leading a massive bureaucracy, and his brief tenure so far has been marked with scandal, leaks, infighting and surprising dismissals, all of which inside sources told New York Magazine had undercut U.S. national security at an alarming scale.

“Pete is playing secretary,” a source told the magazine. “He’s not being secretary.”

The source specifically cited Israel bombing Iran – which actually happened hours before the report was published online – as the type of crisis Hegseth was not qualified to handle.

“For any sustained operations, we’re screwed," that source said. "There’s nobody in the SecDef’s office at this point that has any … they’re not heavyweights. They don’t have the sophistication. They don’t have the experience.”

Another source described how a veteran Pentagon employee was "close to tears" discussing the lack of readiness in the defense secretary's office.

"The department is so f-----," the employee said, according to the source.

Hegseth immediately set to work on the parts of the job he liked most – working out, posting photos of himself working out with troops and talking about purging the military of trans service members – and quickly falling into the grips of paranoia about leaks and disloyalty, according to insiders.

“The leaks seemed to come as fast as we had meetings in the building,” said one of the more than a dozen sources with close knowledge of Hegseth's tenure.

Hegseth chose a fellow "bro vet," Joe Kasper, as his first chief of staff and put him in charge of investigating the leaks, but he frequently rubbed colleagues the wrong way.

“I knew he was a moron within 30 seconds of meeting him," said Colin Carroll, who worked as deputy secretary Steve Feinberg's chief of staff.

Carroll was among the three top officials, along with deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick and senior adviser Dan Caldwell, who were abruptly fired April 15 after they were accused of leaking, although no evidence of that has ever emerged, and he offered a scathing assessment of Hegseth's handling of the matter.

If the secretary had said “things aren’t working out with Joe Kasper," Carroll said, they would have resigned, but he said Hegseth made the situation worse by unceremoniously dumping them and then reassigning Kaspar days later.

“That’s what pisses me off the most,” Carroll said. “I don’t want a secretary of Defense that can’t even f------ fire people properly and not have it rebound back on his a--. Pete can’t even be a good villain.”