A former Pentagon spokesperson disputed Vice President JD Vance's smiling dismissal of concerns about the all-hands meeting called by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth plans to convene top military leaders from deployment around the globe Tuesday to a Marine Corps base in Virginia for a meeting for unspecified purposes, which the vice president assured reporters in the Oval Office was "not particularly unusual," but former Defense Department spokeswoman Sabrina Singh strongly disagreed.
"Look, this meeting that Hegseth has called is incredibly unusual," Singh told "CNN This Morning." "He's summoning basically 800 generals and flag officers, you know, from all over the world from their combatant commands to the services to come into Quantico with their staff, too. So you're looking at upwards of a thousand people coming in for a meeting that no one knows what it's about."
"Also, don't they have stuff to do?" interrupted host Audie Cornish. "I hate to be a goose, but, like, it feels like we're pulling them from actual work."
Singh singled out Adm. Samuel John Paparo Jr., commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, as a military leader who should probably remain in his post instead of traveling to meet with Hegseth.
"You know, even if this administration doesn't think that China is a threat," Singh said, "there are many people in Congress and in the United States that do feel that China is certainly our challenge, and so to pull not only the admiral who oversees that combatant command, but his deputy commander as well, along with other members of his staff, to come to the United States, I mean, that sends an incredible message to our allies that we, you know, do not have the person in charge there. But on the other hand, to who is going to be in charge of these combatant commands all around the world that are facing tremendous challenges?"
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