Bade Reports On Hegseth Decision

Well, well, well… looks like the media’s favorite pastime is back in season: eating its own.

This week’s political soap opera comes to you courtesy of Politico’s Rachael Bade, who just discovered (read: recycled) that Pete Hegseth—Trump’s Secretary of Defense and, let’s be honest, one of the few cabinet members who actually fights—might be having some, ahem, “trouble” in the halls of power.

The problem? It’s not exactly new. In fact, it’s not even hers. Don’t you love how she starts out the post, “New deep-dive”- just ridiculous.

The Guardian apparently published most of this scoop months ago, and their own reporter, Hugo Lowell, was quick to hop on X (formerly Twitter) to wag a finger and call out Bade for copying the homework. But let’s not get distracted by the media’s backroom plagiarism drama. That’s just frosting.

The real story? A slow-burning whisper campaign to get rid of one of the most unapologetically America-first figures in Trump’s administration.

It starts with three firings. Hegseth gave the boot to a few staffers, two of them supposedly close friends. Why? Leaking. He didn’t accuse them quietly. Nope—he went public. That’s where the trouble began.

Fast forward a few months, and suddenly insiders—anonymous, of course—are walking it all back. Turns out Hegseth’s team may not have had hard evidence. Now we’ve got whispers that people from the White House, JD Vance’s orbit, and even the Pentagon have quietly reached out to the fired men to say, “Oops, maybe that was a bit premature.”

Oh, but it gets better.

Behind the scenes, there’s apparently been a knock-down, drag-out fight over who should be Hegseth’s chief of staff. He wants a guy the White House doesn’t trust. The White House blocks it. Pete pushes harder. Repeat. And as if that’s not enough dysfunction for one news cycle, there are reports he wanted to polygraph political appointees. Yes, lie detectors. Because, according to sources, he’s “paranoid.”