Reuters World News - Pentagon upheaval

Episode Date: May 10, 2025

Pete Hegseth came into the job as U.S. defense secretary vowing reform. The unprecedented staff cuts he says are designed to maximize "strategic readiness" have instead created an air of fear and distrust, according to insiders. Some military experts warn they could handicap operations. Pentagon reporters Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart join the podcast to discuss the state of America's military. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠here⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠here⁠. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pete Hegseth has had a rocky first few months as the U.S. Defense Secretary. There have been the high-profile missteps, but his unprecedented purges at the Pentagon have created a real air of fear and distrust. Secretary Hegseth says the goal of these cuts is to reduce bloat among senior military ranks and maximize, quote, strategic readiness. But military experts are warning that his aggressive cuts could become a handy in operations. On this weekend episode of Reuters World News,

what HECSeth is looking to achieve as defense secretary and what his reforms are doing to the Pentagon. I'm your host, Jonah Green. I'm joined now by Pentagon reporters, Idris Ali and Phil Stewart. Thanks for joining us today, guys. Hey, thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.

Are you both in the Pentagon today? I am. Oh. Yes, I'm on the way there right now, yeah. How's the office? at the Pentagon. Let's, you know, I put on these new headphones. Okay.

And they were so sticky. I have no idea where that came from. And I think that just says everything. Yeah. All right. Now, first, can we get a bit of background on Pete Hegg-Seth? We know he's a former Fox News TV personality. What else should we know about his background?

So, you know, ever since Pete Hegg-Seth was nominated, we've been really digging into his background, who he is, you know, kind of what drives him. he's got a lot out there. You know, we did a story going all way back to his days at Princeton. Even then on campus, he was, you know, a real diehard conservative. And he led a conservative newspaper that really pushed a lot of the issues that he's talking about today. Yeah. I think it's fair to say that Heggzeth is an unconventional choice to run the Department of Defense

and at least how he stands out from his predecessors in tone and style. And in his focus, he's much more public-facing. He, as you mentioned, he's very partisan. He's on TV a lot. He's tweeting pictures of himself doing push-ups. So traditionally, what has been the role of defense secretaries? You know, what's the job? Well, you know, if you think about just the vast size of the U.S. military,

it's one of the largest organizations in the world. You know, you're talking about, you know, millions of people when you combine the civilian and the uniformed workforce. and they're spread out around the world in a way that dwarfs even the U.S. State Department. And so when you are the U.S. Secretary of Defense, it's like being the CEO of a ridiculously large and powerful company. And that is why so many lawmakers were concerned about Pete Hegseth when he was up for confirmation was that he had made his name as kind of a conservative bomb thrower.

but his leadership experience was severely questioned. And so what we're seeing in these first months of the Trump administration is how Secretary Hegsseth is adapting to this, you know, gargantuan role that kind of merges, you know, this public-facing figurehead of the U.S. military with all the responsibilities of a really important overworked CEO. you know, I think it is worth also saying that, you know, a lot of the stuff that he is doing publicly, whether it's the push-ups or the videos, I think does resonate with a certain part of the military. I don't think it's sort of going over like a lead balloon across the board. You know, obviously there are parts of the military. It's not a, you know, a homogeneous body. But I think there is something that people, some people in the military at least do see. And they're like, oh, yeah, that's something different. And we can get behind that. So I think that is worth saying. And for those of us kind of outside, We know the president gives the orders and basically our understanding of how national security works comes from Harrison Ford movies. And we see the generals around the table.

What does the defense secretary do on a day-to-day basis, really? Yeah, and it's true, right? Are you on a very squeaky chair? Yeah, sorry. The wonders of sitting in the Pentagon. Yes. You know, it is true. At the end of the day, the president is the one who makes the policy.

and it is the job of the defense secretary and all of the cabinet members to enact that policy. But what it also means is that there's a certain amount of flatitude, right? So say the president has policy X. It is now up to the defense secretary to interpret it and send out a guidance to the force, to the military, about what specifically to do. So if there is a policy in Ukraine, okay, what does the Pentagon? What does the military have to do? Does it mean changes?

And, you know, where the troops are, does it mean send it? weapons, equipment, all those things, really interpreting policy. That's one side. The other side is, you know, the personnel side of it, a lot of it, which is sort of at his discretion, right? So what do you do with service members? What do you do with policy for those service members? So he has a lot of power. He has a lot of influence in how the, you know, largest organization in the U.S. government works. And he talks about his role like he's there to reform or fix the Pentagon, and he's been very aggressive in trying to change the culture of the DOD. So first, what were his main complaints going in? And what is it that he has said he wants to see under his

tenure? Before coming into the job, he had talked quite publicly, written about sort of what he saw as issues within the Pentagon. And that ranged from what he said was issues with diversity, equity and inclusion. He talked about how the senior ranks of the military, the uniformed military were quite bloated. And so there was a real internal focus for him when he took the job. We didn't know as much about where he stood on policy issues because he hadn't really articulated them. We've seen him get rid of some of the most senior military officials oversee sort of their firings, whether it was the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or the chief of naval operations. we have seen him go after what he would call DEI parts of the military.

But there's actually a lot we don't know when it comes to substantive issues. We don't know how he necessarily feels about the Indo-Pacific in the Middle East. You know, where does he stand on Iran? And I think it is fascinating to cover a defense secretary where the focus is not so much about his policy issues, but more about some of the personnel and the intelligence. internal Pentagon issues that he sort of leading the charge on. So what have been the main changes that he has implemented so far? I mean, you mentioned DEI in diversity, equity inclusion initiatives.

What has he really done in the first few months? So he has fired a senior military officials. He has gotten rid of the senior most military lawyers in the institution. He has overseen, actually on a policy side, two-month-long intensive bombing of Houthis in Yemen. And more close to home, he has also sort of overseen, you know, sending tens of thousands of personnel probably sort of closer to 10,000 or so, to the border, the southern border with Mexico. And we'll put a real emphasis on immigration, countering that, calling it a national security threat. More recently, we wrote about his sort of memo in which he said he wants to get

rid of 20% of four-star positions within the military. So that is sort of taking shape. And Adrease, you mentioned that he was getting rid of some of these lawyers who are called Jags, which stands for Judge Advocate Generals. What is it that they do? And what are the concerns about their removal? Yeah, so they are essentially the top lawyers for each of the military services. You know, they are the ones that are responsible for giving military recommendations to commanders about what they can and cannot do or should or should not do. So they're a very important part of the military. You know, Pete Hagseth has been quite vocal in criticizing lawyers that he sees as, to use his word,

roadblocks to things that he wants to pursue. And, you know, people can speculate about what those are. But in his latest book, which was published just last year, he actually made the case that America was too constrained in its overseas fights by lawyers that were more willing to prosecute. U.S. forces, then enemies, combatants or people that were U.S. adversaries. And that vision of military legal corps that's out to get military service members is something that really worries the U.S. military JAG Corps, because they are very concerned that they might be seen as adversaries when, in fact, they view the Secretary of Defense as their top client. They want to provide objective, neutral legal advice that the Secretary of Defense or any commander can take

or leave. That's their job as lawyers. And the other question, of course, is, you know, if Secretary Heg Seth is unhappy with their legal advice, what legal advice is he looking for? And that is a question that really hangs over this whole discussion. But Phil, what is behind these purges? What's the point? Well, you know, it's really interesting. There are a lot of people who are stumped by what Pete Hedgeseth is doing at the Pentagon. Why is he, you know, almost declaring war on the top brass in the military? Why is he kicking out media organizations out of their spaces? And I think, you know, if you listen to what he's saying publicly and you read his books or talk to people who know him really well, I mean, a lot of this stems from his past as a combat

veteran and as somebody who feels like the military wasn't working for folks like him and folks that he respected, folks that he looked up to. And I think a lot of this is him not settling scores necessarily, but making radical changes really in how the Pentagon operates and in doing so by incorporating these conservative culture war issues in a way that could reshape the military for decades to come. We've gotten a rare glimpse behind the scenes from Hegset's own former lieutenants. John Uliott, a former chief Pentagon spokesman, wrote an op-ed in Politico after he resigned or was pushed out, depending on who you ask. This happened last month. And he called these purges, quote, strange and baffling and overall described a month of, quote, total chaos.

From your reporting, what are you seeing? There has been a real unprecedented. shakeup in the inner office of the U.S. Defense Secretary, unlike anything we've ever seen. And I've been covering the Pentagon since 2009. I've never seen anything like this. I've never heard of anything like this before I, about, you know, periods before I got there. Because these aren't the kind of people that most Americans know about or care about. These aren't, these aren't named officials. Mostly these are officials that Pete Hagsath brought with him into the Pentagon. These are people that he's known in two cases.

These are people he's known for, you know, a decade or more. And so the fact that they are now being swept up in this purge raises real questions about his management and who he can trust. There are a lot of concerns among people outside of Hexat's inner circle about what this means for a person in such an important job who needs to have advisors he can trust. who are doing the job and aren't subject to leak probes or aren't leaving them after two months on the job. And we don't know whether the new cadre of advisors who are coming in will be more successful

or not. We just know that the upheaval is really something to watch. And we've been ahead on a lot of the reporting there, including we were actually the first to write about the removal of Dan Colwell, who had been very close to the Secretary of Defense and actually was in that position, you know, before the secretary even got into the seat. And just to add on that, being defense secretary, part of it is sort of surrounding yourself with people who can do some of the more bureaucratic stuff, getting memos to his desk so he can sign or look at them. And when you don't have people around you who are sort of paying attention to those details,

it, you know, becomes very tough for a large organization like the Pentagon to run. it really likes to run very smoothly, usually. And that can only happen if you have people who know the system, who understand sort of the intricacies of government of the Pentagon. And you sort of refer to chaos at the Pentagon. You know, I think there is a sense that things are not moving as smoothly as they could. And part of that is a lot of the people that are at the Pentagon, including Hexat themselves, haven't necessarily done the jobs that they're currently in, right?

So there might be a perception and even reality that things aren't moving as smoothly because so many of them haven't done these tasks before that are very bureaucratic and cumbersome. We haven't discussed Signal, but of course that was Pete Hexette's highest profile mishap in which he shared highly sensitive, potentially classified military secrets on a loosely controlled group chat on Signal, which accidentally included a journalist. What did that episode say to you in terms of how things are going over there? There are at least two signal chats that we're aware of where sensitive information was shared by Secretary Hexat, including one with his family members and his personal lawyer. And I think, you know, this sort of goes back to the question of something actually quite simple, which is process, right? What is the process for sharing something like this? And, you know, Phil and I have talked to many people over the past few weeks.

And, you know, this type of information, which was shared, you know, which is very specific information about when aircraft would be striking. the time windows is something that, you know, traditionally would be quite classified. The secretary, of course, it does have a lot of discretion when it comes to that, but it just sort of speaks to the lack of process, how overwhelmed in many cases it seems. People in the Pentagon are who are in these roles. Again, it's sometimes sort of seen as the boring part of the job, which is, you know, setting up committee meetings, setting up chats through official channels. When that doesn't work, it creates a lot of problems. And I think the secretary saw that firsthand with the signal gate

and sort of the issues that have come up since then. Another form of breakdown is illustrated in your recent reporting about this order by Pete Higsev to halt shipments of artillery to Ukraine, which caught the White House by surprise and had to be reversed. What went wrong there? You know, that is a fascinating case because what it happened, you know, it was over so quickly that a lot of people sort of moved on. And, and Reuters reporting went back and tried to really dissect that. From people that I spoke with,

I would say that it just kind of exemplified this chaos that we're talking about in the secretary's front office. And from what we understand, Secretary Hegstaff gave verbal orders that were passed down through junior aides, perhaps, you know, not well. And they led to this halt that cost at least a million dollars, maybe more than two million dollars in canceled flight. So I think that it was an early indication of some of the turmoil we're seeing. It was also a reflection of a Pentagon that, you know, under the Biden administration have been very strongly, ardently supporting the war in Ukraine to one that was, you know, fairly skeptical of the U.S. mission in Ukraine, whether it was really in the U.S. national security interest to be so devoted

to supporting Ukraine defend itself against this years-long invasion by Russia. I would just say that despite Signalgate, despite the chaos in Hexas front office, And despite even, you know, the way that his anti-D-EI push or his efforts to get transgender service members out of the military, the U.S. President very strongly supports Secretary Hegson because of some of those positions and doesn't mind that the media is focusing on things like his use of signal. He is standing strongly behind him, and at this point, there is, I think, some concern about the chaos, but we don't see that his job is in jeopardy. The military is a unique institution. You know, it's not the Department of Education, as important as that is. But if something goes wrong in the military, it can go really wrong. So what might be the effect of this apparent chaos?

there has not been a major crisis of the Pentagon under Hex-FSA has to deal with. There have been operations against the Houthis. There was the army helicopter that crashed with a civilian airline in Washington, D.C. So there have been things that have popped up over, you know, the last few months. There hasn't been a major crisis that is necessarily required the secretary or the Pentagon to really be tested in that way. And I think the concern amongst officials and experts really is, okay, when inevitably that time comes, is the Pentagon ready? Or is, you know, Secretary Hecks said spending too much time

on stuff that might not be as helpful in the event of a catastrophe, whether that's, you know, like a potential conflict with another country or something like that. So I think the concern is more is the Pentagon ready in case of a massive crisis. And I think, you know, time will tell what the answer to that is. Yeah. I mean, that's such a good point. I think that just to add on that if you look at any administration, the Pentagon's leadership comes under real scrutiny for things that are often kind of outside of its control. You know, how hard Iraqi jihadists fight against U.S. troops? How hard do the Taliban push, despite U.S. efforts to prop up the government in Kabul? Is the U.S. able to use its influence with Israel

in its war in Gaza? And I think administrations are judged by these things. And we really haven't seen anything like that external that has tested HexSeth yet. And like Adrease said, it's inevitable. Thanks again to Phil and Adrease for their time and expertise. Reuters World News is produced by Gail Issa, Kim Vanel, David Spencer, Sharon Reich Garson, Christopher Walsh, and me, Jonah Green. Our senior producers are Tara Oaks and Carmel Crimmons. Our executive producer is Lila DeCretzer. Sound design and musical composition by Josh Summer. This episode was engineered by Alex Summer. We'll be back on Monday with our daily headline show. Make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast player or download the

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