A retired military commander on Monday unfurled a laundry list of misdeeds by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a grim warning about the cabinet member's future.
Retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner sounded off on Hegseth to CNN's Erin Burnett on "OutFront" over Hegseth's management of the Iran war, citing reports that American munitions and missile stockpiles have reached critically low levels. He also called Hegseth's sanity into question over a recent initiative to test the testosterone levels of military members.
"I'm very worried about, quite frankly, the sanity of the Secretary of Defense," Manner said bluntly. "He's not a strategist, and it's evidenced by the fact that he has unrelentingly used these very expensive munitions."
Manner noted that the U.S. continued to use expensive munitions to strike Iran, some of which cost up to $12 million each against Iranian drones that can be made for under $100,000.
"That is no way to be able to engage the enemy," he said. "The Ukrainians have learned how to engage and defend themselves with low-cost alternatives. We have not. And [Hegseth is] blaming everyone else but himself for the strategy. So I think, quite frankly, the Secretary of Defense's days are numbered."
Manner also chided Hegseth for the Defense Department's decision to test the testosterone levels of military troops aged 30 and up.
"This bizarreness, it sounds like he's trying to sell some kind of drugs or treatment as a used car salesman," Manner said. "It's extremely sad."
Hegseth’s decision to revise the number of soldiers killed in action in Iran also got under Manner’s skin. Burnett played a clip from a recent interview with a military widow who said she had "no words" to describe how bad that decision felt.
Manner described the decision as "unforgivable."
"He actually knows that he is between a rock and a hard place," Manner said. "He knows that things are even worse than he is letting on, probably worse than he's actually telling the president."
