Reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may already be looking for what comes next in his career after leaving his Fox News gig to become defense secretary, where he has become a constant source of controversy, likely has the White House aggravated with him, according to a former GOP lawmaker
During an appearance on MSNBC, former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) claimed he got the impression that Hegseth’s possible plan to make a jump and run for office in Tennessee seems to have caught Donald Trump’s White House by surprise.
Speaking with MSNBC host Anna Cabrera, Dent said that Hegseth has a history of making moves without notifying the administration.
“Given all the drama of his first six months in the current job, what do you make of this new reporting that he’s thought about jumping out of the Pentagon into the political realm?” the ex-GOP lawmaker was asked.
“But he is in a job that is expressly nonpartisan and the fact that there’s discussions about him running for office really suggests that he’s behaving in a partisan manner,” Dent first suggested.
“So this is not a story he wants out there and, frankly, I would have to think that the White House can’t be too thrilled about this either, given all the drama, you know, from Signalgate, to his challenge with some of the promotions at the Pentagon to losing a lot of his key staff,” he added.
“He’s got all sorts of problems over there and now that this story is out, I’m wondering if the White House is blindsided by this, just as they were blindsided by his decision to withhold funding to Ukraine, only to be overruled by the White House,” he suggested.
Asked by the host if this is an “off-ramp” for the White House to rid itself of the problematic defense secretary, he said, “Absolutely.
“This is an exit ramp! This is a way for him to get out, too, if that’s what, in fact, they want. But of course, Pete Hegseth is out there denying that he’s running so it’s pretty clear to me that there’s some pressure on him to get out of that job.”
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