Has Pete Hegseth lost control of the Pentagon?

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Get more with BBC podcasts wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and You're Dead to Me with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon Music subscription. Is the Pentagon in a state of chaos? The Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, submitted his resignation after friction with the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth. A number of generals, officials from the Army and the Navy, have left the Department of Defense.

0:42And all of this at a critical time, with America still at war with Iran. So why is Pete Hegseth purging top officials from the U.S. military? and what does it mean for America's armed forces? Welcome to AmeriCast. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. Whatever you want to talk about, Abdul, keep my wife's name the hell out of your mouth because she's way out of your league. The tide is coming. And this time we intend to win it all. So he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar. When I'm not around, you're going to be broke.

1:27There's not going to be anybody to report on. Nobody gives a damn about anybody else.

1:36Wow. That's like a title. Yeah. Taste of the midterms there. Yeah. And some of the more controversial lines, of course, had J.D. Vance talking about Al-Said, Michigan Senate candidate, and the John Ossoff, that famous line that set off a whole series of discussions about Natalie Harp, Donald Trump's assistant and his flying palace. So yeah, you know, we're right on the edge of current events here with the new headlines. Great new titles, AmeriCast team. This is Sumi in the Washington, D.C. Bureau. And it's Anthony, along with Suni here. Nice to see you, Sumi. Nice to have you back. Thank you for having me back.

2:11It is another one of those weeks where there is a lot to talk about. And I think one of the issues that we've been spending a lot of time on this week is just how much turmoil there is in the Pentagon at the moment. And we saw the Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, formally submit his resignation. There had been rumors about this, hadn't there, Anthony, that he wasn't really getting along at all with the Defense Secretary, Pete Hexeth. Yeah, this has been telegraphed for a while. So it didn't come as a shock when the word finally came. But let's underscore exactly how connected Dan Driscoll is.

2:44He was a college buddy or a Yale law school buddy of J.D. Vance's. He was assigned by Donald Trump to be the top negotiator in Ukraine. He is considered the drone guy. So he's a guy who was brought in to help reshape the U.S. Army, to update them, to get them more cutting edge, to deal with the drone issue, which, as we saw in the Ukraine war and now in this Iran war, is really one of the main new developments in warfare in the past 10 years, I would say. And yet he clashed with Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, who had been confirmed by the barest of margins last year. J.D. Vance broke the tie to send him to the Pentagon and who has been trying on his own in his own ways to change the Pentagon, to change the culture in the Pentagon.

3:37But it seems like those two men, they had very different ideas of what changes need to happen and how to go about doing them. Yeah, it's interesting. Dan Driscoll is someone who was really well liked in his position in his office. I met him a few times. He would gather the press together and do these kind of off the record briefings. So I can't discuss what we said in those briefings or what was said. But certainly, you know, I talked to him then separately about drones. And it was something he was extremely passionate about. We talked about Ukraine and what the US can learn from Ukraine on drone warfare and defense against drones.

4:09And that really was at the heart of what he was pushing to do in the army. He talked also in his office a lot about kind of trimming down the fat in the army, just procurement, the way things work there. And that was, you could tell, a real passion of his in that position. He's young, right, 39. But clearly, as we've seen over several months now, he is just the latest to have a clash with the defense secretary. And this is after, as we know, the Army Chief of Staff, Randy George, who Dan Driscoll was very close with, left as well. And so you have generals who were passed over for promotions or cut loose.

4:46And now you have the Secretary of the Army. And as we said, the Chief of Staff all leaving. Yeah, the chief of naval operations, the secretary of navy, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff. There has been upheaval in the top leadership of the U.S. military at the Pentagon. And Hegseth has been behind a lot of it. You mentioned also these promotions, people who had been up for promotions, who had been struck from the list. All of this adds up to war departments during time of war that is kind of rudderless. At least it doesn't have the kind of established top leadership that you would expect just on day to day operations.

5:26But when American service members are in harm's way around Iran, it seems particularly concerning. I will say that I did speak to a Republican congressman, Pat Harrigan, who's also from North Carolina, like Dan Driscoll. He said he's a good friend. He said, look, it's not that unusual. A secretary of the army doesn't stay in that position that long. It doesn't tell us that much. He said, you, the media, are making more of this than there is to it. But, you know, I put the point to him that this is not about just someone leaving their post. This is about friction again with the very top, with the defense secretary.

6:00And he said he's not concerned more or less in those words about it. Yeah. And the other thing that's kind of interesting is how all of this is spilling out into the public. This is not a tight ship in the Pentagon. There are leaks coming from all over the place. You had articles in The Atlantic and The Washington Post and The New York Times, all of these revelations about the conflicts, the discord behind the scenes in the Pentagon. There was a report in The Atlantic about Driscoll going to the White House to meet with Donald Trump and tell him about all of the generals who hadn't gotten promotions, all of these top brass who were being held back by Hegseth.

6:39And according to The Atlantic, Trump expressed surprise at that. He didn't know that there was this many people who were not getting their promotions. And in the end, though, it's Driscoll who ends up leaving, not Hegseth. So I think you can interpret from that that when push came to shove, Trump is sticking with the guy he put in charge of the Pentagon and not the secretary of the army. So that that tells you something right there. And Trump has a lot invested in Hegseth, of course. Like I said, he fought for him to get him confirmed. He stuck by him when these revelations of past history of drinking and womanizing came out.

7:17he did like him as a talking head on Fox News, and he dismissed the concerns that he had never run a bureaucracy as big as the Pentagon, that he only made major in the National Guard, so wasn't a high-ranking military official like some past secretaries of defense have been. And so he seems somewhat committed to him, at least. Yeah. The other question, obviously, is how is all of this information leaking into the public? And that's one that the Pentagon clearly has expressed on social media and in interviews that they're concerned about. I was speaking to a former assistant defense secretary from a previous administration who said, this is really worrying that we're seeing so many leaks from the Pentagon.

7:58And we know that Pete Hegseth has vowed to go after leakers, as he says, to bring them to justice. But clearly, it is something that is vexing the Pentagon. You wonder if it is because of the culture there at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the more you have aggrieved people beneath you, the more they're going to talk. And we can talk a little bit about the number of people who have been passed over for promotions. At least 45 officers have been removed by Hegseth from the promotion list this year. That's according to The New York Times. So they're going to have some chips on their shoulders that they want to address.

8:33even with Hegseth clearing out the legacy media from the Pentagon or trying to and trying to crack down on communications in the hallways and in the press room between these beat reporters and members of the Pentagon. That clearly has not stopped the information from getting out there. And NBC News just on Tuesday reported that in recent weeks, Hegseth has blocked more than a dozen black, Hispanic and female officers. I think out of that total list of 45, about half of them were minorities or women, which also raises questions about why Hegseth, who has railed against DEI and woke culture in the Pentagon, why he seems to be singling out people of certain backgrounds for promotions.

9:18Yeah, he was asked about this during a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee in April on this issue of blocking promotions. Let's listen. Recently, Secretary Driscoll testified in front of the Appropriations Committee that he refused to strike the names of two female and two black officers from a promotion list due to their exemplary service, names which were ultimately removed. Did you order him to strike those names? I know we removed those names. I did. Why? Because we review every general officer. I would also note that under Barack Obama, 197 general officers were removed. So this is not something specific to this administration.

9:59Every officer serves at the pleasure of the president. And when they need to be removed in order to ensure we have the right leadership in those services, I will make those calls regardless of what you might say from the dais. Well, I don't know about the 197 number and the specifics behind it, but you also have to remember that Barack Obama was president for eight years. This is now one year into Trump's second term. So this does seem like a surprisingly high number. And according to people who cover the Pentagon and who are in the Pentagon, this is unusual, remarkable kind of a turnover, setting aside the fact that, again, we're at war.

10:35We have been at war for six months. The U.S. military is being strained by these deployments to Iran. So to do that when the situation is critical in a conflict zone, it makes this even more remarkable. Yeah, I think this really underlines, once again, what we've seen from President Trump in the second term, that in every government agency, they're trying to bring that agency and those who work for it in line with the ethos, this warrior ethos that we have at the Pentagon that the defense secretary has championed of this Trump administration. And that's why you're seeing perhaps generals who have not always agreed.

11:15You know, we don't really know the reasons behind some of these dismissals, but you can imagine perhaps they were not in line with some of the new policies or some of the dismissals. And that is why you're starting to see this new approach from Defense Secretary Hexeth. I just wonder what it does for the military on a whole. It is one thing to make these changes in peacetime. As you said, a completely different question in wartime. Right. You can have a military that is having these kind of significant personnel changes and culture changes. You can have a military that is engaged in a protracted conflict.

11:50And probably if it was one or the other, they would be able to manage this. Having both things happen at the same time, I think, puts additional strain on the armed forces. You remember, Sumi, back last year when when Hegseth called in all of the generals. How could you forget that? To a meeting down at Quantico and lectured them on beards and fitness and saying, if you're not on board with what we're going to be doing, then you need to get out. No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done. Simply put, if you do not meet the male level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test or don't want to shave and look professional, it's time for a new position or a new profession.

12:34It's interesting now thinking about that speech and then what the military has been doing as far as strikes on civilian boats in South America and the Venezuela operation and the airstrikes on iran last year and then now this the six-month war with iran this year i mean it did kind of set the stage for some pretty drastic changes in the way the trump administration is using american military power and to talk about people who are inside who have been connected with the defense industry and the national security apparatus here in this country and uh and national security advisor hr mcmaster he was one of the ones who has recently spoken out to our our partner cbs he did this earlier this week, talking about the upheaval in the Defense Department and these generals who have been passed over for promotion.

13:22These are officers also who were just told to retire early because they were deemed not reliable from a political perspective. And this is a real problem, Errol. And it didn't begin with the Trump administration, but it's reached, I think, again, a dangerous level of trying to politicize the military by giving a political loyalty litmus test. Hey, what people have to understand is when officers take the oath of service, it's to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Our professional military ethic, our ethos is intolerant of officers demonstrating partisan loyalty rather than loyalty to that Constitution.

14:03Pretty sharp words. Adam McMaster, of course, was a general himself. So he's not just national security advisor, but he comes from a military background. He seems to be taking that pretty personally. Yeah, I go back to that conversation I had with the Republican congressman, because I put this exact quote from H.R. McMaster to him. And he said, yeah, look, politicizing the military is never good. He says that he believes it was politicized far to the left in the Biden administration. And he said there might be some overcorrection happening now. It's an interesting way to describe the kind of culture change we're seeing in the military.

14:35But it is significant when you do have people like H.R. McMaster and other top generals. And those who have retired from the service who are really raising the alarm bells about what they see as changes that simply don't make sense and really could undermine morale in the military as well. And now we also have to remember, Hagseth was one of the primary advocates of this Iran war. And Trump himself has said that. And then all the behind the scenes reporting that we've seen of the run up to the decision to launch the war against Iran, along with the Israeli military that it was people like jd vance the vice president who were nervous cautious about moving forward and it was hegseth who was very much in favor of this intervention which trump ultimately signed off on so the two of them are kind of joined at the hip in that way too that trump is the one who started this war hegseth is the one who advocated for it i'm curious whether there might eventually be a falling out between the two men if things go on for for too long i'm not convinced of it because, as I said before, it seems like Trump really has his credibility on the line with Hegseth.

15:41But it is notable that this was the guy who was all in favor of it behind the scenes. There was some reporting when there was this cabinet meeting at Camp David, some reporting in U.S. media that there was something of a screaming match between President Trump and Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, over the Iran war saying, you know, that the options on the table aren't good and he needs to know what can be done. The White House batted that down immediately and said there was no screaming match. There is always a back and forth between the president and his cabinet on what the best options are that he has on the table.

16:13But I do think that you can sense the frustration from President Trump that Iran hasn't capitulated, that this war hasn't gone as he would have liked, although he wouldn't say that directly. He just said this week that they've been defeated and now is then striking them again. But a lot of that, of course, does have to do with the fact that he believed the military power would be enough to get Iran to buckle. And it hasn't been. And you do wonder, will Pete Hexeth carry the burden for that? Yeah, I was in the Oval Office on Monday as a pool reporter and one of the other reporters asked him if he would rule out using nuclear weapons against Iran.

16:49And he got really, really upset at that. He called it a stupid question. He hasn't ruled it out before. So I think it's a worthwhile question. But but he's a stupid question. Iran's been defeated. They don't have an Air Force. They don't have a Navy. The litany goes through every time he's talking about the military successes. Well, I would never say that, but the answer is yes. I rule that. I rule that. There's no reason for it. What a stupid question that is actually. Here they are, they're totally defeated militarily. So now I defeat him and now I should use a nuclear weapon on top of him. What a stupid question.

17:28But then just this morning in a true social post, he was speculating, wondering why the Iranian civilians aren't rising up against Iran because they've been so defeated. It's almost like he's hoping for some sort of delivering grace that would not be the U.S. military that would be coming from within Iran to resolve this, hoping for it without any kind of a clear path to get there. And all of this, of course, as there's no end in sight, not only for President Trump and his administration, but for the military in the region carrying out these operations. And there There have been reports, of course, we heard the reports about the USS Abraham Lincoln, the naval carrier there, that had been at sea for more than 250 days, which is a record.

18:15And that there had been reports about real mental health issues for the sailors on board there. There had been reports that one sailor as well had jumped overboard, that there was bad plumbing and not enough food, and that people were simply really frustrated and that the families, the home port for this ship is in San Diego, and that the families had met with naval leadership there and complained about the state of how their loved ones were living on this ship. And now it has been replaced in the region. But still, it's just made a port call, I believe, in Thailand, finally, for the first time.

18:52Yeah, I think it pulls in today. Exactly. It pulls in today. But it was so interesting when President Trump was pressed on this. He was asked about the poor conditions on the Abraham Lincoln. This is what he said. The Lincoln has been out there for a period of time, good period of time. But over the years, we've had him out there much longer. I was at a group meeting and an admiral came up to see me over the weekend. And it was at a big group and he happened to be an admiral retired. He said, I've been on ships that are out there much longer than that, sir. And I know people on the Lincoln, they say it's beautifully maintained and beautifully taken care of.

19:29And other people went out and they found out to be true. It was fake news reporting from CNN. Yeah, I mean, ships could be out there for much longer during peacetime, but to conduct war operations day in and day out. And according to reports, the facility that would have resupplied the Lincoln during this conflict in Bahrain was one of the first targets hit by Iranian missiles. And that made it much more difficult to get the kind of supplies and maintenance on the Lincoln during these operations that it needs to keep going. So there's that concern. There's also reports about the United States' defense capabilities, their anti-missile, anti-drone capabilities being degraded, the defenses that they need.

20:15All of these missiles have been used up at an astonishing clip. The air-to-surface missiles, the cruise missiles that the United States have been using to target Iranian military vehicles has been depleted. There was a report, an update that was classified that has been leaked, another document leaked, about the readiness of U.S. military around the world, which senior military leaders have to sign off on in the different theaters. And apparently the naval admiral in charge of the Pacific did not concur with the readiness update on their region, saying that they don't have enough ships, that their carrier, the George Washington, now has been sent out to replace the Lincoln.

21:03So in the Pacific, they don't have a carrier there. I think only a quarter of U.S. destroyers are ready to sail, that can leave port and sail. All of these things suggest that this military has been strained. that if something else happened, God forbid, whether it's Russia in Europe or China in Asia, there are senior military leaders who are saying now, and the word is coming out, that they don't think the U.S. military is ready. And I can understand why Trump and the administration would be really upset about that. I mean, you don't want to tell your enemies that you're not up for the fight, but it's still, I think it should play a part in people sitting here and thinking about whether an extended conflict in Iran is worth and what else this country can do to try to restore order and restore readiness.

21:53Yeah, that report you're referring to was initially in the Washington Post with the naval air force army leaders in the different theaters saying that they didn't concur with an expansion of the military operations in Iran. And the Pentagon, as you said, was absolutely furious about this. And they said not only would they be pursuing any leakers, but that most of the reporting was wrong as well. I did speak to one military analyst who said, look, it's not that unusual to have military leaders give their assessment and not agree perhaps with the strategy of one branch of the military or with the defense secretary.

22:29And that's their job as, as you know, the president's advisors are supposed to do, although we're not sure in this Trump administration if they're pushing back on President Trump, but apparently he likes that as well, is to give an honest assessment of where things stand. But it's exactly the point you just made, Anthony, which is it's not so much about the military operations on Iran. It is if some other conflict were to start, if, as we've seen, kind of mooted, if Russia is threatening NATO countries, is the US prepared to take that on? And I think that's what these military leaders in particular are pointing to.

23:00Right. Let's talk a little bit more about this, the Linka-Beta port-a-call in Thailand, because it is kind of interesting. There's a great piece up on the BBC website right now from on the ground in Thailand about the town Pattaya in Western Thailand that is going to be hosting all of these sailors, however many thousand, five thousand sailors who are in the task force and the Lincoln that are coming in there. This town has had a reputation as the party spot for U.S. military going back to the Vietnam War. It was the R &R location for the U.S. military and it has a reputation of of uh sex tourism of having go-go dancers uh having a lot of bars and there are concerns i guess that you're going to be dropping 5 000 sailors onto this this town who who have uh nine months worth of pay that they haven't been able to spend anywhere who've been cooped up and the kind of chaos that can can ensue but uh the the military says they They're prepared for it.

24:00There are parts of the town that are ruled out, including the red light district for the U.S. military who are there. The locals in the town have told the BBC that they're hoping that all these visitors enjoy the beaches and the culture and the hotels and not so much the more tawdry aspects of it. Yeah. Imagine 5 ,000 sailors being dropped in your town or city. You should watch on our website. Jonathan Head, our correspondent there, who goes to visit Pattaya and kind of gives us a look around. It's a very interesting perspective on the ground there, as you said, speaking to locals. But yeah, certainly I'm sure some of the families of those who are right now docking in Thailand would say we'd love to have them come home instead of making a port call somewhere.

24:46But it doesn't appear like that's going to happen anytime soon. Yeah, we're just this week, the renewed strikes between Iran and the U.S. And that just goes to show that there's no clear resolution here. The blockade that the U.S. has put on Iranian shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is ongoing. The Iranian military continues to target ships that are moving through. the levels of ships going through, while it's not zero, the way it was for a while, is not near the level that was pre-war. I think the price of diesel here in the United States is approaching a record high. The price of gasoline is over$4 a gallon and ticking back up again.

25:31There are political consequences for that. And I wouldn't be surprised if we get to the midterms, which are now only a few months away, and the costs of gas and costs of consumer goods are still high, that the Republicans really take it on the chin. And maybe at that point, we had talked about whether Trump would have a falling out with Hegseth. Maybe at that point, after their political consequence, and there'd be all of this pressure on Trump to change course because his party got rubbed, maybe that would be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back. And you remember back Back in 2006, when the Iraq war wasn't going well and the Republicans were drubbed, I think that was when George W.

26:13Bush finally pushed Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense who had masterminded that operation, pushed him out of office. Well, speaking of changing course, Anthony, you were specifically on a very special plane, the new Air Force One. Tell us what it was like. Yeah, we mentioned that last week that I might have the chance to fly on the plane. And in fact, we did fly on the new 747 gifted by the Qataris to Donald Trump and refurbished to serve as a temporary Air Force One on a flight from Andrew's base to Houston, Texas, where Trump had a fundraiser. And he went to NASA and spoke to the astronauts and mission control, which I also could say super cool.