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.
☀️ NEW deep-dive from me out this a.m. — Remember when SecDef @PeteHegseth fired those 3 employees (2 of them longtime friends) & publicly accused them of leaking?
At the time, the WH & top Trump allies stood by him/his allegations… But turns out that there’s now a pervasive…
— Rachael Bade (@rachaelmbade) July 28, 2025
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 Guardian reported so much of this months ago it would be nice to get credit
> Re: WH asked proof that three aides were leakers https://t.co/JYQtnVOMnY
> Re: That the evidence against the aides was flimsy https://t.co/6RricA6Wf3
> Re: WH has been at odds w Hegseth over his… https://t.co/IbeW4XJhaS
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) July 28, 2025
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.”
Cue the dramatic piano sting.
The story tries to paint a picture of a Pentagon in chaos. No Chief of Staff. No deputies. No policy director. Accusations flying. Draft letters questioning his fitness to lead. And the cherry on top? A still-unfolding “Signalgate” controversy, whatever that even fully entails—because of course they won’t explain it in detail. Gotta save something for the next breathless headline.
But here’s where it all falls apart.
Despite the mountain of drama, Trump doesn’t seem to care. At all. He likes Pete. Always has. Still does. As far as Trump is concerned, Pete’s a fighter. He delivers. Operation Midnight Hammer? Check. Sky-high troop recruitment? Check. Public loyalty? Triple check.
So while Politico tries to frame this story as the “beginning of the end,” it’s actually just the latest installment of a well-worn pattern: Find a MAGA official, feed anonymous dirt to the press, and hope the pressure gets them canned. Problem is, Trump doesn’t play that game.
Even Politico has to admit—grudgingly—that some officials in the White House feel more loyal to Hegseth when they see how much heat he takes. Why? Because they know how this works. The guy’s under siege because he’s effective. Because he doesn’t bend the knee. And because he didn’t come to D.C. to host wine tastings and lose wars politely.
The real kicker? One of Hegseth’s allies (again, unnamed, of course) gave a quote that sounds like it was written in a political rehab handbook: “If there’s any chance at Pete resetting… he’s got to do it — otherwise Pete is just doubling down on the lie.”
The lie? Funny choice of words, especially since the entire story might be built on reheated, unsourced leftovers.
And yet, here we are. The story itself is the bad headline. It’s the smear tactic in real-time. The White House is supposedly upset about bad press… while the press manufactures the bad press… and then blames the guy being attacked for attracting it.
Rachael Bade didn’t expose anything new—she just poured gasoline on an old narrative and hoped people wouldn’t notice the match already burned out.
Politico’s @rachaelmbade wrote a story saying that Pete Hegseth might not keep his job if he keeps getting bad headlines. Her story was a bad headline and stolen, old reporting from The Guardian. https://t.co/CxNiaGkWMg
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) July 28, 2025
Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth is still standing.
Which begs the question… what are they really afraid he’ll do next?
