Trump weighs Pentagon leadership after election losses
President Trump has been asking people around him, and others by phone, whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should keep his job, according to CBS News. The network, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter, said the conversations followed what it described as catastrophic Republican losses on Tuesday night.
CBS also reported that some White House aides have predicted that part of the blame for the midterm results will fall on two senior military leaders: Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads U.S. Central Command, and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Both, the report said, played large roles in guidance on the Iran war.
Other sources told CBS the president has not decided to replace Hegseth.
DeSantis floated as a possible successor
According to CBS News, one source said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is being floated as a possible replacement. The argument, as the source described it, is that DeSantis could go through Senate confirmation during the lame-duck period and then take over the Pentagon when his term as governor expires on Jan. 5.
The report describes only an idea circulating, and CBS did not say Trump had endorsed it. The source material includes no comment from DeSantis.
What Trump and the White House said publicly
Asked by reporters Wednesday afternoon whether he was considering replacing Hegseth, Trump said, “No, I think he’s doing a very good job.”
Trump was also asked whether he would like to see Hegseth appointed to the Senate seat that Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn will vacate when she takes office as governor. “I actually think he’d be very popular if he did that,” Trump said, “but I haven’t heard that at all.”
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement that the president “has full confidence in Secretary Hegseth.” She also praised U.S. military operations in Iran and Venezuela, and credited Hegseth with efforts to reverse the Biden Pentagon’s prioritizing of “DEI and woke ideology.”
Political fallout and impeachment pressure
Vice President JD Vance blamed the war for the party's defeat. “The reason we lost is the war,” he wrote in a lengthy post on X on Wednesday morning, according to CBS News.
CBS noted that Democrats were already trying to impeach Hegseth before the election. It said the likelihood of an impeachment effort could rise now that Democrats hold strong majorities in both chambers. Headlines from other outlets point the same way. Bloomberg reported that Rep. Thomas Massie plans to bring impeachment articles against Hegseth back next week, and CNN projected that Democrats will win at least 250 House seats.
Other coverage describes a divided Republican response. The Washington Post carried a report describing “knives out” at the Pentagon after the unpopular Iran war, and Yahoo reported that Trump is standing by Hegseth while other Republicans want him out. The summaries provided do not include the full text of those reports.
What happens next
Trump's public statements and the reporting from CBS's sources point in different directions. The president and his spokeswoman have voiced support for Hegseth, while sources describe private deliberations. No replacement has been announced.
Whether Hegseth stays may depend on how Trump weighs the political fallout from the war, and on whether House Democrats and some Republicans pursue impeachment.
