September 26, 2025

Pete Hegseth’s reliance on using a Donald Trump deflection as allegations of incompetence, criminality and Pentagon infighting continue to grow is starting to wear thin, according to one former Trump White House insider.

The embattled Secretary of Defense is fighting a war on two fronts this week as he fends off accusations of war crimes over the killing of two alleged drug boat survivors who were reportedly clinging to their boat after a U.S. military attack.

At the same time, a damning report from the Pentagon Inspector General (IG) stated that the Pentagon chief violated protocols with his use of the Signal app, which endangered U.S. troops during an assault on Houthi rebels.

According to a report from Jack Detsh of Politico, in order to fend off bad press and investigations into his conduct, the former Fox News personality has been taking a page out of Trump’s MAGA playbook, by criticizing the messenger and not addressing the issues head-on.

As Detch wrote, Hegseth’s strategy can be summed up as, “Attack your enemies, revamp your story and never say you got it wrong.”

Add to that, Hegseth has been quick to fall back on calling anything that portrays him in a bad light as “fake news.”

As the report notes, that may work for Trump, but it’s being overused by the Pentagon chief, who has already has a trust deficit with many less-than-supportive Republican lawmakers.

According to a former senior Trump adviser, “There’s only so many times that you can stand next to the president and label everything as fake news and deny everything. It’s worn out.”

The same official also claimed the strategy doesn’t work for the defense secretary because of his reputation.

“When he takes this approach of, ‘this is fake news,’ and then hits back with some type of a troll…that only reinforces his biggest liability, which is that he’s unqualified for the job,” they explained. “That just reinforces that he’s not serious.”

You can read more here.

After criticizing media coverage about him aging in office, Trump appeared to be falling asleep during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday.

But that’s hardly the most troubling aspect of his aging.

In the last few weeks, Trump’s insults, tantrums, and threats have exploded.

To Nancy Cordes, CBS’s White House correspondent, he said: “Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? You’re just asking questions because you’re a stupid person.”

About New York Times correspondent Katie Rogers: “Third rate … ugly, both inside and out.”

To Bloomberg White House correspondent Catherine Lucey: “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.”

About Democratic lawmakers who told military members to defy illegal orders: guilty of “sedition … punishable by DEATH.”

About Somali immigrants to the United States: “Garbage” whom “we don’t want in our country.”

What to make of all this?

Trump’s press hack Karoline Leavitt tells reporters to “appreciate the frankness and the openness that you get from President Trump on a near-daily basis.”

Sorry, Ms. Leavitt. This goes way beyond frankness and openness. Trump is now saying things nobody in their right mind would say, let alone the president of the United States.

He’s losing control over what he says, descending into angry, venomous, often dangerous territory. Note how close his language is coming to violence — when he speaks of acts being punishable by death, or human beings as garbage, or someone being ugly inside and out.

The deterioration isn’t due to age alone.

I have some standing to talk about this frankly. I was born 10 days after Trump. My gray matter isn’t what it used to be, either, but I don’t say whatever comes into my head.

It’s true that when you’re pushing 80, brain inhibitors start shutting down. You begin to let go. Even in my daily Substack letter to you, I’ve found myself using language that I’d never use when I was younger.

When my father got into his 90s, he told his friends at their weekly restaurant lunch that it was about time they paid their fair shares of the bill. He told his pharmacist that he was dangerously incompetent and should be fired. He told me I needed to dress better and get a haircut.

He lost some of his inhibitions, but at least his observations were accurate.

I think older people lose certain inhibitions because they don’t care as much about their reputations as do younger people. In a way, that’s rational. Older people no longer depend on their reputations for the next job or next date or new friend. If a young person says whatever comes into their heads, they have much more to lose, reputation-wise.

But Trump’s outbursts signal something more than the normal declining inhibitions that come with older age. Trump no longer has any filters. He’s becoming impetuous.

This would be worrying about anyone who’s aging. But a filterless president of the United States who says anything that comes into his head poses a unique danger. What if he gets angry at China, calls up Xi Jinping, tells him he’s an asshole, and then orders up a nuclear bomb?

It’s time the media reported on this. It’s time America faced reality. It’s time we demanded that our representatives in Congress take action, before it’s too late.

Invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment.

• Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
• Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org