Army Secretary Dan Driscoll had solely been in the job for a matter of days earlier than he angered his new boss, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Driscoll, an Army veteran and longtime private pal of Vice President JD Vance, had been floating concepts to get Vance and President Donald Trump to go to the Pentagon — an occasion he believed would increase morale given the pomp and circumstance that accompanies any presidential go to. Trump expressed curiosity in the thought, two folks with information of the episode advised NCS.
Hegseth, nonetheless, considered Driscoll’s overtures to the White House in the spring as insubordination, the sources mentioned. Trump was his boss, and Driscoll shouldn’t have gone round him and made him look unhealthy, Hegseth advised the Army secretary upon studying of the plans. Driscoll replied that that wasn’t his intention, and the two — at least outwardly — moved on.
Hegseth’s wariness of Driscoll is emblematic of his bigger fixation with undermining or eradicating anybody he perceives as a menace to his public picture and standing with Trump, regardless of their experience or expertise, a dozen present and former officers advised NCS.
“If Driscoll starts getting too prominent, or too favored, it makes it a lot easier politically to just let Hegseth go somehow or find an off-ramp,” one of the sources mentioned.
Questions about Hegseth’s longevity in the job have swirled virtually from the starting of his tenure. And Driscoll’s title was more and more introduced up, together with inside the White House, as a potential substitute for Hegseth after a sequence of high-profile missteps by the protection secretary in the spring — to Hegseth’s nice irritation, sources mentioned.
Hegseth’s ways may be ruthless. In April, following a sequence of leaks he believed made him look unhealthy, Hegseth fired three senior Pentagon officers, two of whom had been shut mates that had labored with him for years, and publicly accused them of being leakers. Those accusations had been by no means confirmed.
Hegseth additionally threatened senior Pentagon officers, together with then-acting Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Chris Grady, with polygraph assessments and leak investigations. Hegseth refused to log out on a promotion for 34-year Army veteran, Lt. Gen. Doug Sims, who had been serving as the director of the Joint Staff, as a result of he believed he was leaking to undermine him and had been too near retired Gen. Mark Milley, a fierce Trump critic, sources mentioned. Grady and Sims each denied the accusations, which weren’t confirmed, sources mentioned. Sims is about to retire quickly.
Then, in June, right-wing activist Laura Loomer, who sources advised NCS has recognized Hegseth for greater than a decade and speaks to him frequently, started attacking Driscoll on X, accusing him of cozying as much as “Trump haters” as a result of he had posted a photograph on X with retired US Army officer and present Democratic member of Congress Eugene Vindman. His twin brother Alexander was a key witness to Trump’s 2019 impeachment over his dealings with Ukraine.
The Army shortly eliminated the publish with Vindman, however the harm had been executed.
“We got our assess handed to us” as a result of of Loomer, an individual aware of the dialog recalled.
Loomer launched an identical assault in opposition to Driscoll final month, and it took days for Hegseth’s spokesperson, Kingsley Wilson, to publicly defend the Army secretary. Even when she did, Wilson made a degree to notice that Hegseth appreciates Loomer’s “important work.”
Driscoll and Hegseth’s working relationship has improved since the early days of the Trump administration — with the two males even spending time collectively socially in current weeks, one supply aware of their dynamic advised NCS. But at the similar time, Hegseth’s unease about anybody he perceives as a possible rival lingers in the background, they added.
In a press release to NCS, Hegseth denied having any stress with Driscoll.
“It’s no surprise that people who know nothing about the strong dynamic between Army Secretary Driscoll and I are shoveling lies to NCS without putting their names to their statements,” Hegseth mentioned. “As said before, I have complete & total confidence in Secretary Driscoll, and we will continue to work together to make our military lethal again. He is doing a fantastic job leading the U.S. Army, and we are fortunate to have his America First leadership.”
Driscoll equally advised NCS in a press release that he’s “honored” to serve below Hegseth and any suggestion to the opposite is “fake news.”
“I’m honored to serve under the leadership of Secretary Hegseth as we restore the strength and lethality to the Department of War,” Driscoll mentioned. “His support has been vital as we transform the Army. No amount of media spin will distract us from working together to defend the American people.”
In a press release to NCS, a White House spokesperson mentioned it was “totally bogus to insinuate that anyone in the White House has anything less than extraordinary confidence in both Secretary Hegseth and Secretary Driscoll.”
Gatekeepers and NDAs
Since taking workplace, Hegseth has fired or pushed out at least 11 of the army’s most senior officers and ordered a 20% minimize in the quantity of four-star generals throughout the energetic obligation, accusing most of them of being “woke.”
Meanwhile, Hegseth has grown more and more insular, officers mentioned. His private lawyer, Tim Parlatore, now sits immediately outdoors his workplace — a gatekeeper in the literal sense, sources mentioned. And Hegseth continues to be on edge about the forthcoming outcomes of a DoD Inspector General investigation into his use of Signal to discuss classified information — the findings of which might be made public in the coming days.
His priorities additionally strike some officers as particularly misplaced given the numerous crises unfolding globally proper now — from Israeli strikes on Qatar and Russian drone incursions into Poland to a potential US army confrontation with Venezuela.
“Renaming the Defense Department to the ‘Department of War’ isn’t the kind of substantive work that actually changes things here,” a Pentagon official mentioned, referring to Hegseth’s marketing campaign to alter the division’s title. “Being a good leader is about way more than just politics.”
Privately, some Trump allies say Hegseth is conscious of his personal short-comings in relation to navigating Pentagon paperwork and overseeing efficient policy-making — which is why he has deliberately centered most his vitality towards social media and extra surface-level points, leaving extra substantive duties to his high deputies.
“He’s not dumb,” one supply aware of Hegseth’s administration fashion mentioned, including that Trump’s Defense Secretary prioritizes issues he is aware of he can do, whereas largely deferring to extra skilled officers in relation to executing coverage and fight choices.
Hegseth’s hottest initiatives internally have fallen outdoors the scope of the tradition wars, officers mentioned. For instance, a number of officers and servicemembers praised a coverage he unveiled over the summer time aimed at slicing pink tape and accelerating timelines for the army to supply 1000’s of low-cost drones. He additionally launched an interagency activity power final month devoted to growing and buying counter-drone expertise — an initiative he put Driscoll in cost of.
Other insurance policies, nonetheless, seem to stem solely from Hegseth’s personal worry of leaks and have really made folks’s jobs more durable, the sources mentioned. For instance, as a approach to stop leaks, Hegseth’s workplace carried out a brand new coverage earlier this 12 months requiring Pentagon officers throughout the companies to signal non-disclosure agreements earlier than being learn in on initiatives, initiatives and different work merchandise, based on a protection official and a replica of the settlement reviewed by NCS.
It’s a extremely uncommon requirement that the official mentioned was by no means requested below earlier administrations for day-to-day division operations, significantly for issues that aren’t categorized. In addition to categorized info, the NDA covers any materials deemed “confidential, sensitive, for official use only, and controlled unclassified information,” and states that violating it may lead to legal prosecution.
The coverage has made communication with colleagues way more tough, the official mentioned, as a result of it’s typically unclear which staff, even these inside the similar workplace, do or shouldn’t have an specific “need-to-know” the info that’s coated by a specific NDA.
Congress, in the meantime, has just about no engagement with Hegseth, Democratic and Republican congressional staffers advised NCS, which has restricted their potential to conduct oversight of the Pentagon. Following Hegseth’s lead, DoD officers throughout the board are partaking far much less with the Hill than below earlier administrations, they mentioned.
“When you fire enough people, purge enough expertise from the military, and just bully enough people into silence, you can get by with that for a while but eventually there may come a moment where the right people are gone, and there’s nobody there to make the best decision to protect American lives or keep service members out of a dangerous situation that they didn’t need to be in,” mentioned one Senate aide. “It’s exciting to break all these things and push the agenda, but there are consequences.”
A current, unprecedented US military strike on a ship the administration accused of carrying Venezuelan cartel members, for instance, was not notified to lawmakers beforehand. In a briefing practically every week later, protection officers refused to inform lawmakers who assessed the legality of the strike, a supply aware of the matter mentioned. Instead, they repeatedly claimed that the president has the inherent authority, below Article II of the Constitution, to launch such assaults.
The takeaway, this supply mentioned, was that the Pentagon’s place is now that the president can conduct “extrajudicial killings against civilians anywhere in the world without any congressional authority or oversight.”
Hegseth’s concentrate on his personal picture is obvious in the ballooning quantity of public relations employees he has employed in current months, officers mentioned. He now has greater than double the quantity of spokespeople his predecessor had, and their major duties look like posting on X in assist of Hegseth, producing movies for him, and scanning social media for any indicators of servicemembers being disloyal or out of step with the secretary’s picture for the division, officers mentioned.
Military and civilian officers throughout the companies say they continuously really feel like they’re strolling on eggshells as a result of of a small military of “watchers” each inside Hegseth’s workplace and on X, many of whom say brazenly they’re on the lookout for “wins” in getting folks fired.
Two army docs have been focused in simply the final two weeks following two such on-line stress campaigns. On August 29, an Army veteran-turned-conservative podcaster publicly accused an Army colonel and doctor of being “an activist for transgender ideology” in a publish on X.
Hours later, the podcaster posted that the doctor, an Army colonel, had been relieved of command. The podcaster thanked Hegseth for taking motion; the Army declined to reply questions on if she had been relieved, saying solely that she is presently on energetic obligation.
Last week, the similar podcaster posted a few Navy doctor who had listed pronouns on her official LinkedIn web page and described herself as a deputy medical director for transgender healthcare. The publish was amplified by the far-right Libs of TikTok account. Less than 12 hours later, Hegseth responded, “Pronouns UPDATED: She/Her/Fired.”
There had not been an investigation previous to her firing, nor was her elimination associated to any considerations about her job efficiency, an official aware of the state of affairs mentioned.
The podcaster, Chase Spears, and a quantity of different accounts in the similar ecosystem, have continued publicly calling for motion in opposition to a number of different officers and repair members in the days since, typically tagging Hegseth, the army companies and even President Trump in an effort to get their consideration. Spears mentioned in a prolonged publish on X on Tuesday that his efforts are primarily about rooting out “transgender ideology” in the army, although posts shared by him and others have additionally centered on the army’s former Covid-19 vaccine mandate, and broader variety, fairness and inclusion points.
The Army has been a specific goal of Hegseth’s ire, a number of sources mentioned, which some officers consider is a outcome of Hegseth’s suspicions of Driscoll. Hegseth can be most aware of the Army, having served in the Army National Guard for practically 20 years.
“The tension between Hegseth and Driscoll bleeds down into the staffs,” mentioned one of the sources. “Privately, it’s like, ‘Let’s find every opportunity we can to pressure the Army.’”
Quite a bit of the stress is just about messaging and optics, a high precedence for the TV-savvy Hegseth.
Hegseth’s workplace, for instance, “chewed out” the Army once more when the National Guard started deploying in DC as a result of Army officers sought to emphasise that the Guard was there primarily to assist with logistical duties, the supply mentioned. Hegseth, as an alternative, needed the Army to focus its public messaging on the troops’ lethality and energy — and, in the end, he determined they should be armed, too, as a result of he thought they appeared weak with out weapons, the sources mentioned.
Many Guardsmen have since been tasked with DC “beautification” initiatives, like gardening and trash cleanup.
Trump, for his half, has continued to face behind Hegseth, who he believes has the proper look to steer the “war department.” Trump likes Driscoll, sources mentioned, however he isn’t a full-throated tradition warrior like Hegseth — a potential vulnerability on this administration.
Still, one massive motive Driscoll has persistently been named as a potential substitute for Hegseth is as a result of as a Senate-confirmed official, he wouldn’t require a brand new affirmation listening to — a headache that the White House has needed to keep away from.
“He’s non-threatening, he’s charming, he’s not explosive like Hegseth is, he’s just a go along to get along kind of guy,” one of the sources mentioned of Driscoll. “The better Driscoll looks, the worse it is for Hegseth.”
NCS’s Kristen Holmes contributed to this report.