The Pete Hegseth Debacle

Pete Hegseth is in trouble. He was already a scandal-plagued cabinet secretary, and he is now credibly accused of either committing or presiding over the commission of a serious war crime. On 2 September, the self-described secretary of war (formerly secretary of defence) ordered a strike on a small boat in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration maintains was being used to smuggle drugs into America. Once the boat had been partially destroyed, two survivors clinging to the wreckage were hit and killed by a second missile that may have been a criminal act.

Outrage about the operation itself was compounded by Hegseth’s response to the story. The administration acknowledges that he ordered the original strike on the boat and gave instructions to “kill them all.” But Hegseth has claimed that he then left the room and that the second strike on the survivors was ordered by his subordinate, Admiral Frank M. Bradley, in an effort to comply with Hegseth’s first directive. For the time being, he appears to retain the support of the Trump administration despite the grave nature of this crisis, and many people on both sides of the political spectrum seem to be convinced that Hegseth’s job is secure. President Trump once infamously said that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose any voters. Now we shall find out if Secretary Hegseth can supervise the shooting of two people swimming in the Caribbean Sea and keep his job.

Firing politically toxic cabinet secretaries has a long history in America. In 1831, President Andrew Jackson fired four members of his cabinet after a scandal involving the new wife of war secretary John Eaton. In 1862, with the Civil War raging, President Lincoln fired his secretary of war, Simon Cameron, for corruption in response to congressional pressure. Theodore Roosevelt fired two different attorneys general. Franklin Roosevelt fired isolationist war secretary Harry Woodring in 1940. Harry Truman fired his attorney general, and even more famously, fired one of the key military heroes of World War II, Douglas MacArthur, for insubordination in prosecuting the Korean War. (This particular move backfired spectacularly, as General MacArthur returned to a hero’s welcome in the United States from both the public and the Congress.)

More recently, President Trump—whose catchphrase on television, of course, was “you’re fired,” and who criticised President Biden in their 2024 debate for having “never fired anyone”—fired numerous cabinet secretaries and other senior personnel in his first term as president. Nonetheless, the belief persists that he’ll never fire Hegseth. I think this conventional wisdom is wrong, and that there’s a better than even chance that Trump will find a way to dismiss Hegseth as a result of this latest scandal as well as his previous conduct.

Pete Hegseth was, from the start, an atypical choice to run the armed forces. Usually, the defence secretary is a former or current member of the House or Senate with a particular interest in national security (Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Leon Panetta), a businessman with an interest in the topic (Robert Mcnamara), or an experienced hand in executive-branch agencies who can work the bureaucracy (Caspar Weinberger). Hegseth, on the other hand, was just a conservative-media pundit who espoused a reliable if simplistic list of talking points about military issues—that liberals are weak, that military lawyers (Judge Advocates General, which he called “JAG-offs”) hamstring the armed forces, and that America’s warriors should be given unconditional support with less regard for niceties such as the law of war. He had served at Guantanamo Bay after 9/11, and parlayed his service record and right wing views into leadership positions at conservative groups like Vets for Freedom that work on military issues. He had no relevant legislative or executive-branch experience for the position.