New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said that President Donald Trump’s White House is less than pleased with how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been handling the recent controversies within the Pentagon.
Hegseth faced major scrutiny this week after the Times published a report detailing chaos and distrust that has been running rampant at the Defense Department.
In addition to reportedly sharing military information with his family, lawyer and close associates in a second Signal group chat, Hegseth also turned heads after firing aides last week, suggesting that they leaked information to the media.
“They’ve come after me from day one,” Hegseth said. “Just like they’ve come after President Trump. And I’ve gotten a fraction of what President Trump got in that first term. What he’s endured is superhuman.”
According to Haberman, Hegseth’s interview did not sit well with the White House.
“The interview this morning was not seen as a home run,” Haberman told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday. “I mean, even among Hegseth’s allies outside the administration, it was seen as, you know, a little disorienting and a little disjointed.”
Haberman added that Hegseth firing the Pentagon aides “caught a lot of ears as well.”
“It was also really striking to people that Hegseth was basically describing a process of frog-marching his own people out of the building, while then saying, ‘And, you know, we’re doing an investigation now, and we’ll see where it leads.’”
A U.S. official who remained anonymous told NPR that the White House already has begun looking to replace Hegseth. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called NPR’s report “total FAKE NEWS,” stating that Trump is standing behind his pick for secretary of defense.
Haberman told Collins that despite Trump’s support for Hegseth, the president still “does not like bad headlines.”
“We will see how long this stays in the news, but this morning was not seen as quelling it,” Haberman said.