Eighteen months into his tenure, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth finds himself at the center of a widening storm — one that has now reached across party lines, as a Republican senator publicly calls for his removal. What began as a mandate to reshape the military in the image of warrior culture has produced, by many accounts, a fractured command structure, contested battlefield decisions with mounting civilian casualties, and a Pentagon increasingly at war with the institutions — legal, journalistic, and military — designed to hold it accountable. The question being asked in Washington and b
Hegseth's Pentagon tenure marked by controversies, calls for removal
At least 397 deaths from military operations under Hegseth's tenure, including 227 from boat strikes in Caribbean and Pacific and 170+ from a US strike on an Iranian elementary school, with questions about civilian casualties and extrajudicial killings.
I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country.
Mark
So Tillis is a Republican calling for a Republican defense secretary's removal. That's significant. What's actually broken here?
Mimi
The personnel structure. Hegseth has fired or forced out the heads of the Navy, Coast Guard, and Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now the Army Secretary just left. When you lose that many senior leaders in 18 months, the institution stops functioning normally.
Luke
But we should be careful about the word "broken." The military is still operating. Strikes are happening. The question is whether it's operating *well*, and that's harder to measure from outside.
Mark
The boat strikes—227 people dead, and we don't know who they were?
Mimi
That's the core problem. Hegseth talks about "maximum lethality" and ditching what he calls "stupid rules of engagement." The boat strikes started in September 2025 under the premise of targeting narco-terrorists, but there's no public evidence against the people killed. Families in Colombia and Ecuador think they were fishermen.
Luke
Legal experts have called them extrajudicial killings. But we should note: that's the characterization of critics. Hegseth denies acting unlawfully. The administration's position is that these are legitimate counterterrorism operations.
Mark
And the Iranian school?
Mimi
A Tomahawk missile hit an elementary school on the first day of the Iran war. An estimated 170 people died, mostly children. This week there was another strike on what Iran says was a wedding.
Luke
The school strike is documented. The wedding—we have Iranian claims, but independent verification is limited. What we know for certain is that the U.S. has loosened its rules of engagement, and civilian casualties have followed.
Mark
Why is Hegseth blocking promotions for women and Black officers specifically?
Mimi
He's rolled back diversity policies. Women and Black officers are disproportionately represented among the 80-plus names he removed from promotion lists. It's part of a broader cultural shift—he's also expelled transgender service members and introduced grooming standards called "No More Beardos."
Luke
The data on who's being blocked is real. Whether that's because of their identity or their positions on other issues—that's where the interpretation gets contested. But the pattern is clear enough that it's raised concerns.
Mark
And the press restrictions?
Mimi
The Pentagon tried to require journalists to sign pledges limiting their reporting or lose credentials. A court blocked it. Then three Stars and Stripes reporters were fired for speaking about editorial independence.
Luke
The court ruling is solid—First Amendment violation. But the firings of the reporters—we should know the full context of what they said and why they were terminated. The principle is clear; the specifics matter for understanding what actually happened.
Mark
What does "maximum lethality" actually mean in practice?
Mimi
It means loosening the rules that normally constrain military action. Hegseth has said he's unleashing the military to use "maximum authorities on the battlefield." In the Iran war, that's meant strikes that have hit civilian targets. In the boat strikes, it's meant operations with no clear evidence of who the targets are.
Luke
And we don't have a clear exit strategy for Iran. Seven months in, no defined end point. That's a real concern for how this doctrine plays out over time.
El Pulso
- A Republican senator's public demand that Trump fire his own Defense Secretary signals that the political scaffolding around Hegseth is beginning to crack from within.
- The departure of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is only the latest in a cascade of senior resignations and firings that have left the Pentagon's leadership hollowed out and unstable.
- At least 397 people have been killed under Hegseth's 'maximum lethality' doctrine — including 170 children in an Iranian elementary school and fishermen whose families are still searching for answers — with no public evidence presented and no accountability offered.
- Legal experts, federal courts, and international observers are raising alarms: boat strikes characterized as extrajudicial killings, a press credentialing policy struck down on First Amendment grounds, and promotion blocks targeting women and Black officers without clear legal authority.
- Hegseth has responded to every challenge — congressional, judicial, journalistic — with defiance, framing critics as unpatriotic and doubling down on a doctrine that has yet to produce a coherent strategy for the wars it has escalated.
Eighteen months into his tenure, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth finds himself at the center of a widening storm — one that has now reached across party lines, as a Republican senator publicly calls for his removal. What began as a mandate to reshape the military in the image of warrior culture has produced, by many accounts, a fractured command structure, contested battlefield decisions with mounting civilian casualties, and a Pentagon increasingly at war with the institutions — legal, journalistic, and military — designed to hold it accountable. The question being asked in Washington and beyond is not merely whether one man is fit for office, but what it means when the machinery of national defense operates beyond the boundaries of law, transparency, and restraint.
Pete Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon in January 2025 as a former Fox News host and National Guard veteran, confirmed after a bruising Senate vote and armed with a mandate to remake the military around lethality and warrior culture. Eighteen months later, he is facing something he did not anticipate: a member of his own party calling for his head.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis broke ranks this week, urging President Trump to replace Hegseth and accusing him of creating a 'leadership void' at the top of the armed forces. The senator's rebuke came days after Army Secretary Dan Driscoll's resignation — the latest in a long series of departures that have left the Pentagon's command structure visibly fractured. Earlier, Hegseth had fired the first women ever to lead the Navy and Coast Guard, removed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and blocked as many as 80 promotions — a move critics say lacks legal grounding and one that has fallen disproportionately on women and Black officers.
The operational record has drawn equal scrutiny. In March 2025, Hegseth was caught sharing strike details in a Signal chat that accidentally included a journalist — an inspector general later found the leak could have endangered troops. Since September 2025, US military boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific, framed as counter-narcotics operations, have killed 227 people whose identities remain largely unknown. Families in Colombia, Trinidad, and Ecuador fear their relatives — fishermen — were among the dead. Legal experts have called the strikes extrajudicial killings. In at least one instance, Hegseth reportedly ordered a follow-up strike to kill survivors.
The Iran war, now in its seventh month, has compounded the toll. On its first day, a US Tomahawk missile struck an Iranian elementary school, killing an estimated 170 people, most of them children. This week, Iranian officials accused the US of hitting a civilian wedding. Hegseth has spoken openly of loosening the rules of engagement designed to protect civilians, offering no exit strategy even as oil prices rise and regional instability deepens.
At home, the Pentagon has grown hostile to the press — restricting access, demanding journalists sign restrictive pledges, and firing Stars and Stripes staff who spoke out about editorial independence. A federal court blocked the credentialing policy on First Amendment grounds. Hegseth has dismissed all criticism as unpatriotic.
Meanwhile, the cultural transformation he has pursued — expelling transgender service members, rolling back diversity programs, introducing testosterone testing and new grooming standards, and leading Christian prayer services at the Pentagon — has reshaped the institution's identity in ways that extend well beyond policy. Congress is now weighing a record $1.5 trillion defense budget request, with $37.5 billion already spent on the Iran war alone. Critics have called the ask 'unhinged.' The question hanging over all of it is whether the institutions meant to check this kind of power still have the will — or the tools — to do so.
Pete Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon in January 2025 as a former Fox News host and Army National Guard veteran, confirmed after a contentious Senate vote. Eighteen months into his tenure as Secretary of Defense, he is now facing calls for his removal from within his own party—a remarkable turn for someone who came to the job with a clear mandate to reshape the military according to his vision of lethality and warrior ethos.
On Wednesday, Republican Senator Thom Tillis broke ranks to urge President Trump to fire Hegseth, accusing him of creating a "leadership void" at the top of the armed forces. "I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country," Tillis said. "He is intimidated by competence." The senator's statement came days after Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned on Monday, the latest in a long line of high-ranking departures that have left the Pentagon's leadership structure fractured and unstable.
The exodus has been sweeping. Shortly after Hegseth took office, he fired Navy Admiral Lisa Franchetti, Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan, and Charles Q. Brown, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Both Fagan and Franchetti were the first women to serve in their respective roles; the Trump administration cited "leadership deficiencies" and an "excessive focus" on diversity when explaining Fagan's termination. Others have chosen early retirement or been forced out. Hegseth has also removed as many as 80 names from promotion lists for top military positions—a rare and controversial move that critics say lacks clear legal authority. Women and Black officers are disproportionately represented among those blocked from advancement.
Beyond personnel upheaval, Hegseth's tenure has been marked by a series of operational and governance controversies. In March 2025, just two months into his role, a Trump administration official accidentally included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, in a private Signal chat where officials discussed an impending attack on Yemen. Hegseth's messages contained details about aircraft launch timing and strike plans. Though he insisted no "war plans" had been shared, an inspector general's report later found that any leak from the chat could have endangered service members. Experts disputed his characterization, noting that operational details are typically classified. He faced no formal punishment.
Hegseth has also pursued what he calls a doctrine of "maximum lethality," pledging to discard what he terms "stupid rules of engagement." Since September 2, 2025, the U.S. military has conducted a series of boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, ostensibly targeting "narco-terrorists." The campaign has killed 227 people, with the latest strikes occurring in August. The identities of those killed remain largely unknown, and no public evidence has been presented against them. Legal experts have characterized the strikes as extrajudicial killings. Families in Colombia, Trinidad, Ecuador and elsewhere fear their relatives—fishermen, they believe—were among the dead. In at least one case, Hegseth reportedly ordered a "double-tap" attack to kill survivors from an initial strike. When pressed on the legality of these operations, he denied acting unlawfully and attacked media coverage as "fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory."
The doctrine has extended to the ongoing war with Iran, which began in February and has now stretched into its seventh month. On the first day of the conflict, a U.S. Tomahawk missile struck an Iranian elementary school, killing an estimated 170 people, mostly children. This week, Iranian officials accused the U.S. of hitting a civilian wedding in Kuhestak, killing at least five and wounding more than 60. Hegseth has boasted of unleashing the military to use "maximum authorities on the battlefield"—language understood to mean a loosening of combat rules designed to protect civilians. The war has contributed to broader instability across the Middle East and driven up oil prices, yet Hegseth has offered no clear exit strategy.
The Pentagon has also grown increasingly adversarial toward the press. Hegseth's department restricted reporter access to the Pentagon press office and in September 2025 unveiled a policy requiring journalists to sign pledges restricting their news gathering or lose credentials. A district court blocked the policy in March on First Amendment grounds. Last month, three members of the Stars and Stripes newspaper sued the Defense Department after being fired for speaking out about editorial independence. Hegseth has publicly attacked media coverage as "unpatriotic."
Meanwhile, Hegseth has pursued what amounts to a cultural reorientation of the military. He has rolled back policies designed to promote diversity, overseen the expulsion of transgender service members, and embraced what he frames as a return to traditional masculinity—including plans for testosterone testing among troops over 30 and new grooming standards under the slogan "No More Beardos." He has also blurred the line between church and state, leading regular Christian prayer services at the Pentagon and framing military actions in religious terms. All of this has unfolded as the Pentagon requested a record $1.5 trillion from Congress for fiscal year 2027, with $37.5 billion already spent on the Iran war alone. Critics have called the budget request "unhinged," noting that the military is asking for a blank check without accounting for a 42 percent budget increase.
Citas Notables
He is intimidated by competence.— Senator Thom Tillis, on Hegseth's leadership
Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them.— Hegseth, defending lethal boat strike campaign
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