WASHINGTON
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing a rebellion from Republican senators who say he is mismanaging the Pentagon, forcing out experienced military leaders and failing to articulate a strategy for ending the six-month war with Iran.
The backlash erupted publicly this week when Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called for President Trump to fire Hegseth, accusing him of incompetence and using culture wars as a distraction from his core job.
"I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country," Tillis wrote on X on Wednesday. "He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force."
The departures are stacking up. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned this week. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Gen. Christopher Donahue, the top Army commander in Europe, have also left. Each exit signals frustration with Hegseth's leadership, Republican senators say.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a senior Armed Services Committee member, said he was disappointed by Driscoll's exit. "I think he's been a pretty solid guy," Rounds said, noting that Driscoll had expressed frustration over the removal of other top generals. "That points to questions we're going to be asking when we get back in terms of where's the leadership at."
Rounds emphasized the stakes: the departing generals possess "a huge amount of foundational knowledge in terms of moving us forward as far as the changing capabilities that we need to incorporate into the overall fighting force."
A former senior Republican Armed Services staffer said many GOP lawmakers want Hegseth out but are reluctant to directly challenge Trump over a Cabinet member heading into the Nov. 3 election. The staffer said Hegseth "has treated the Pentagon like his own personal playground in the culture wars."
The tension will peak this fall when the administration requests more than $70 billion in emergency national security spending to cover the escalating costs of the Iran war. That funding fight will force a direct confrontation between Hegseth and a bloc of Republican senators who now view him as a liability.
The Pentagon declined to comment on Tillis's remarks.
