Pete Hegseth’s tenure as Secretary of Defense is spiraling — and now his top aide is in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s chief of staff, shocked attendees at an official meeting last month by bragging about a night out at a Washington, D.C. strip club. The meeting, held with a veterans’ advocacy group, quickly veered off course when Kasper began recounting the night with one of the group’s representatives. One person present described the exchange to The New York Times, calling it wildly inappropriate for the setting.
The fallout was swift. Kasper is being reassigned after mounting complaints and repeated internal missteps. At the same time, three top advisers in Hegseth’s inner circle were pushed out, reportedly accused of leaking sensitive information. The former aides told reporters they were “incredibly disappointed” by how their ouster was handled — and that the problems inside the Pentagon go deeper than anyone knows.
Chaos now defines Hegseth’s short time in charge of the Department of Defense. According to The New York Times, “Mr. Hegseth… has produced a run of chaos that is unmatched in the recent history of the Defense Department.”
Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no prior government experience, came in vowing to shake things up. What he’s delivered instead is dysfunction. His inner circle — largely made up of fellow military veterans with minimal leadership background — is collapsing. Three of them were marched out of the building last week. A fourth, former spokesperson John Ullyot, publicly accused Hegseth of “disloyalty and incompetence,” writing in Politico, “The building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership.”
Behind the scenes, sources say the Pentagon is riddled with “screaming matches,” distrust among career staff, and gridlock on major national defense priorities. One such stalled project includes the “Iron Dome for America,” a missile-defense initiative pushed by the White House. Hegseth’s team, insiders say, simply isn’t equipped to deliver.
Meanwhile, pressure is mounting from outside the Pentagon, too. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has floated plans to cut up to 200,000 civilian defense jobs. Hegseth has privately warned such cuts would “cripple” key operations, according to current and former officials quoted by The Times.
And yet, even amid all this, another scandal emerged: NBC News reports Hegseth used a private Signal group chat to share sensitive government information with 13 people, including his wife and brother.
When questioned about it during the White House Easter Egg Roll, Hegseth didn’t deny the claims — he lashed out at reporters instead. “This is what the media does,” he said. “They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations. Not going to work with me.”
But with aides being escorted out, top advisers gone, and his chief of staff boasting about strippers in front of veterans’ groups, the situation inside the Pentagon speaks for itself.
What began as a right-wing outsider’s attempt to overhaul the military has quickly turned into a leadership crisis with no clear end in sight.
