Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to hide a four-day hospitalization from his superiors is a serious breach of conduct, National Review senior editor Charles C. W. Cooke said Tuesday.

“I think he has to be fired,” said Cooke. “Not because the public will clamor for it. . . . But I think he has to be fired to sustain and nourish our constitutional system of government, which requires him to be a subordinate of the president’s and thereby to report to the president at all times.”

After the recording of this show, more details about Austin’s condition were released: The defense secretary is being treated for prostate cancer and received a positive diagnosis, according to his doctors.

Whether or not Biden is a good president is irrelevant in this case, Cooke argued. “He is the president of the United States. It is in him whom we have vested the powers in Article 2.” Cooke said that taking leave without Biden’s permission is “a fireable offense in any universe.”

As Cooke reminded listeners, “In America . . . the military power is subordinate to the civil power. That is perhaps one of the greatest innovations in human history.” In this instance, “Lloyd Austin is the connection between the civil authority and the military. If Lloyd Austin is not there, he has broken that connection.”

“And to do so in such a blasé manner,” Cooke said, “if I were president of the United States, I would feel showed a fatal lack of respect for that great innovation in our political system.”

“I would fire him.”

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