Has Trump Waited Long Enough To Replace Pete Hegseth? His Clown Car Cabinet Is Already On Fire

The High Cost of Governing by Grievance

The MAGA Movement might not be happy, but Ole Lindsey sure its. On Monday night, Señor Trumpanzyy “overruled his skeptical Pentagon chiefs and restored U.S. weapons shipments to Kyiv in a dramatic shift of position on the Ukraine war. The president told White House reporters that the Ukrainian people ‘have to be able to defend themselves’ after ‘getting hit very hard’ by recent Russian onslaughts. ‘We’re going to send some more weapons— defensive weapons primarily.’... It’s especially painful for Hegseth, who was already damaged goods in the eyes of the White House following a series of public missteps. The warning signs were there when reports first emerged that much of the Trump administration — including Marco Rubio’s State Department — had been blindsided by his decision. Then NBC revealed the stated reason behind the halt in shipments was flimsy, at best. Things got even worse last night when the WSJ reported how Trump told Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a phone call last Friday that he had not actually signed the decision off. These briefings do not get out by accident; Hegseth has been left high and dry. And it seems unlikely his long-term career prospects have improved. ”

Let’s start with Natasha Bertrand and Zachary Cohen’s CNN report that “Hegseth did not inform the White House before he authorized a pause on weapons shipments to Ukraine last week, according to five sources familiar with the matter, setting off a scramble inside the administration to understand why the halt was implemented and explain it to Congress and the Ukrainian government. Trump suggested on Tuesday that he was not responsible for the move. Asked on Tuesday during a Cabinet meeting whether he approved of the pause in shipments, Trump demurred, saying only that the US would continue to send defensive weapons to Ukraine. Pressed again on who authorized the pause, Trump replied, ‘I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?’”

The episode underscores the often-haphazard policy-making process inside the Trump administration, particularly under Hegseth at the Defense Department. The pause was the second time this year that Hegseth had decided to halt the flow of US weapons to Ukraine, catching senior national security officials off guard, sources said.

… Trump also appears less inclined to give Russia a “win” at this moment by halting military aid to Ukraine, two of the sources said. He has soured on Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks as it has become increasingly clear that Putin is not willing to engage in peace talks with Ukraine.

“We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin,” Trump said on Tuesday. “You want to know the truth? It’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”

So… congressional hawks like Lindsey Graham were very happy… but the MAGA faithful— not so much. “Trump’s repeated pledges to end America’s involvement in overseas wars were a big part of his appeal to the MAGA base, and so his decision to start rearming Ukraine— even with purely defensive weapons— is not landing well. At all. Just check out the replies to posts like this— from a one-million-followers-plus Twitter account— when the news first broke last night… This last point takes on a greater salience when you consider where Trump’s base is currently at. Because this decision follows 24 hours of absolute MAGA outrage at the Trump administration’s announcement on Monday evening that it will not be releasing any more information on the Jeffrey Epstein case; that there never in fact was a ‘client list’ or a bunch of famous people being blackmailed— and that the case is essentially now closed.” 

Don’t forget, MAGA and QAnon are in some ways the same pile of garbage and the announcement devastated all the conspiracy nuts in both groups “who have long been convinced the U.S. government is protecting powerful pals of Epstein. Among those who must be fuming today are guys like Dan Bongino, the former MAGA podcaster who spent years demanding the truth about the so-called Epstein List ... And VP JD Vance, the former GOP senator who used to regularly throw bones to the Epstein conspiracy crowd… And Kash Patel, the former Trump aide who used to go on MAGA-friendly podcasts to rant about the Epstein List. Whatever happened to those guys, anyway? It’s honestly hard to overstate the level of MAGA rage, given these avowed truth-seekers are literally the Deep State now.”

No one is feeling the heat more than AG Pam Bondi, who blithely vowed a few months ago she would get to the truth, promising a tranche of new information. She even ended out binders supposedly packed with fresh Epstein intel to MAGA influencers… but there was little or no new information inside. “Blondi [sic] should be fired,” MAGA influencer Laura Loomer tells my Playbook colleague Dasha Burns, via text. “I think she’s trying to protect herself from her own horrible record … Blondi lied to the public.”

Back to Russia, Russia, Russia, Jordain Carney reports that  Graham claims Trump told him he now supports the big new anti-Russian sanctions bill congressional Republicans are pushing… at least as long as it includes built-in mechanisms from Trump to delay implementation and worm out of it in the end anyway. 

The real danger isn’t just Pete Hegseth’s humiliating collapse this week— it’s what his very presence in the cabinet says about the Trump regime and the inherent dangers. Once again, Trump has surrounded himself with television personalities, yes-men, and ideological extremists whose only qualifications are personal loyalty and their willingness to flatter the emperor. Hegseth’s unilateral halt of weapons shipments to Ukraine— without bothering to inform the president, the rest of the cabinet or Congress— was more than a rookie mistake. It was a vivid example of what happens when you hand the keys of the Defense Department to a Fox News pundit who thinks governing is just another culture war segment.

Trump world isn’t a government so much as a cosplay presidency. And the results are predictable: catastrophic foreign policy missteps, national embarrassment, and growing danger. While Lindsey Graham and the neocon warhawks may be relieved for the moment, Trump’s MAGA base is seething, confused and betrayed. The Pentagon is in turmoil. And the rest of the world is watching a nuclear superpower spin its wheels under the direction of amateurs and opportunists. If this is how they handle something as serious as weapons transfers in the middle of a European land war, what happens when the next crisis hits? When China moves on Taiwan? When Iran lashes out? When a domestic terrorist attack demands coordination, clarity, and calm?

Trump promised to drain the swamp. Instead, he filled it with reckless sycophants like Hegseth… proof that the biggest threat to America’s future may not be foreign enemies, but the clown car cabinet this authoritarian showman keeps dragging behind him.