Pete Hegseth’s Group Chat Scandal Ramps up Disaster Inside Pentagon

Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon is in shambles after an explosive power struggle saw the secretary of defense’s top civilian advisers dismissed, Politico reported Wednesday.

Donald Trump’s laughably unqualified pick to lead the Department of Defense may have thought he was bringing in advisers to help supplement his blatant lack of experience—but the situation at the Pentagon quickly detonated into a bitter battle of personalities as his top aides competed for influence.

At the center is Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s departing chief of staff who reportedly counseled the secretary to fire three of his other top advisers last week over leak concerns, according to Politico, which spoke with nine current and former DOD officials.

Hegseth’s senior adviser Dan Caldwell, chief of staff to the deputy defense secretary Colin Carroll, and deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick were all put on the chopping block—and apparently, it was because Kasper had it out for them when they were brought in to help supplement his unprofessional leadership.

“When Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick took on many of his responsibilities at Hegseth’s direction, a rift deepened between Joe and them,” one source told Politico. “After several weeks, Joe began trying to move them out apparently by bad-mouthing them to the secretary.”

“Kasper did not like that those guys had the secretary’s ear,” another person familiar with the dynamic told Politico. “He did not like that they had walk-in and hanging-out privileges in the office. He wanted them out. It was a knife fight.”

For his part, Kasper has claimed that his scrutiny of the advisers was the result of his direction to investigate a spate of leaks about Hegseth’s allegedly sharing classified material in unsecured group chats. Hegseth suspected the leaks were a result of the severe infighting, someone close to him told Politico.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson Monday, Caldwell claimed that individuals with “personal vendettas” against Hegseth’s three ousted advisers had “weaponized” the investigation against them.

“There’s just a lot of tension, there’s a lot of bad blood,” said one person with knowledge of the matter. “And there’s a lot of people trying to assert dominance in an area where it’s very hard to do without cutting somebody else.”

“There is a complete meltdown in the building, and this is really reflecting on the secretary’s leadership,” another person familiar with the feud told Politico. “Pete Hegseth has surrounded himself with some people who don’t have his interests at heart.”

Last week, Politico reported that Kasper would be stepping away from his role for a new position at the agency.

Hegseth himself may not be long for the DOD, with one anonymous source saying that the secretary may “implode on his own,” while another suggested that Trump could get tired of the distractions from the former Fox News host’s tenure at the Pentagon. But on Sunday, the president criticized Hegseth’s detractors.

Elon Musk, a self-described free speech absolutist, has been targeting people who are mean to him on X, according to The New York Times.

The Times reported that three X users who engaged in public online feuds with the billionaire were essentially shadow-banned shortly after, with their views and reach falling off a cliff.

In December, popular right-wing X commentator Anastasia Maria Loupis got into it with Musk over the H-1B visa fiasco, in which the more white ethno-nationalist section of MAGA chided the billionaire for supporting foreign workers in America. She had her check removed and stopped going consistently viral.

“It’s been 4 weeks since @elonmusk deliberately destroyed my once very viral X account. In 4 weeks, I’ve had ZERO viral posts. I used to have at least 5-10 a day. This happened right after Elon Musk got himself into the White House,” she wrote on X in January. “To me, this is 4 years of work against corrupt governments down the drain, and 3 Medical Boards ‘investigations’ as punishment for telling the truth about Covid, climate scam, transgender ideology, Ukraine, Gaza, Israel. This is exactly what Elon Musk promised not to do when he took over Twitter.”

Full-time Trump muse Laura Loomer had a similar experience.

“Is DOGE a way to ‘cut spending’ or REDIRECT the spending toward the pet projects of tech bro billionaires? It’s looking like the latter TBH,” she said on X in December, a sharp take from one of the worst people the MAGAverse has to offer. “‘Hey let’s convince the peasants that we are saving them money as we enrich ourselves! Then when they find out and speak out, we will have the Indian Mods Ban them!’”

“Loomer is trolling for attention. Ignore,” Musk replied. Loomer’s reach and platform shrank dramatically shortly after that interaction. She had her X Premium status revoked, which eliminated her ability to monetize. She alleges she lost about $50,000 in that time, but she did later regain access to X Premium.

“I think it’s wrong to say it’s a free speech platform and then shut off people’s ability to monetize,” Loomer said at the time.

The third popular right-wing victim of Musk’s free speech suppression was Infowars host Owen Shroyer, who also piled on in the foreign workers beef and had his X Premium access swiftly revoked with no explanation.

​​“My theory is that someone is manipulating reach based off of personal, political or issue based bias,” Shroyer said in an email to the Times, stopping short of directly naming Musk.

It isn’t clear exactly how each of these accounts were shadow-banned. It’s also unclear how many people Musk has done this to, as smaller accounts may not be as noticeable. For a man who laments the intolerance of the left and bemoans cancel culture, he sure has thin skin.

Bill Owens’s shocking exit from 60 Minutes was akin to a soldier pulling the pin on their last grenade, according to current employees at the serial magazine show.

The chief producer stepped aside Tuesday after 24 years on the show, amid network turmoil related to a $20 billion lawsuit brought by Donald Trump, who has repeatedly alleged that 60 Minutes’ sit-down interview with Kamala Harris prior to Election Day had “defrauded” the American public.

“The lawsuit was baseless. He wouldn’t apologize, he wouldn’t bend,” one 60 Minutes source anonymously told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “He fought for the broadcast and for independent journalism, and that cost him his job. It’s shameful.”

A second internal source said that Owens had “dedicated his life to CBS and the broadcast.”

“It’s like a guy who has been battling for months against an attack—unable to defend the broadcast from inappropriate corporate influence. He pulled the pin from his last grenade. He sacrificed himself hoping it might make our corporate overlords wake up and realize they risk destroying what makes 60 Minutes great,” the source said.

“It’s clear now, in a quest to sell the company, Shari Redstone and others will bow to presidential pressure,” the source told CNN, referring to the nonexecutive chairwoman of CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global.

“60 Minutes is one of the crown jewels of American broadcast journalism, and they have no problem crushing it in their race to make a deal and make themselves richer,” the source continued.

Trump and his allies have claimed that CBS should lose its broadcasting license for what they view as selectively editing Harris’s answers to a question regarding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Two of the network’s shows—60 Minutes and Face the Nation—cut and aired different portions of her answer on different days. But a Federal Communications Commission review of the segment found that Harris’s answers had not been sliced and diced together—instead, they had been trimmed from the former vice president’s extended 21-second response.

“Over the past months, it has also become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it,” Owens wrote Tuesday, in a memo to staff obtained by The Washington Post. “To make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience.”

Owens further wrote that he was departing so that the show—which he described as “my life”—could “move forward.”

The wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration, was forced to move to a safe house with her children, after the government posted their home address to social media.

White House officials have spent weeks trying to justify their deportation of Abrego Garcia, even after admitting in court that sending him to El Salvador was an “administrative error,” claiming with no evidence that he is a violent criminal and gang member.

At one point, the Department of Homeland Security posted online an order of protection that Jennifer Vasquez Sura had sought, but later abandoned, against her husband. That order contained Vasquez Sura’s home address, unredacted.

“I don’t feel safe when the government posts my address, the house where my family lives, for everyone to see, especially when this case has gone viral and people have all sorts of opinions,” Vasquez Sura told The Washington Post. “So, this is definitely a bit terrifying. I’m scared for my kids.”

Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, is now staying in an undisclosed location with her three children while Abrego Garcia remains thousands of miles away, despite a Supreme Court order requiring the U.S. government to facilitate his return. Both the Trump administration and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele say that Abrego Garcia will not be coming back to the U.S., and Vasquez Sura has received hateful comments and taunts on social media.

“I didn’t even think it would become this big—it just happened,” Vasquez Sura said. “But if God threw me in this, I know he’s going to take me out of it. So this is God’s battle. And I’m going to fight it—for Kilmar and for everyone.”

The government has not commented on the decision to leave the family’s address in the document it posted online. Even after the Supreme Court ruling, the Trump administration has fought against returning Abrego Garcia and been admonished by several lower courts, most recently on Tuesday. To this White House, neither Abrego Garcia nor Vasquez Sura’s well-being matter at all.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is attempting to pull Donald Trump back from the proverbial cliff by presenting his own interpretation of the president’s “America First” economic policies.

“I wish to be clear: America first does not mean America alone. To the contrary, it is a call for deeper collaboration and mutual respect among trade partners,” Bessent said Wednesday morning during an address at the Institute of International Finance.

Bessent’s careful remarks portray a notably different position than Trump, who has continually insisted that the U.S. doesn’t actually need economic partnerships with some of its largest trading partners. Perhaps that messaging wasn’t attracting the attention of foreign leaders, who Trump is hoping will approach him to cut new economic deals.

Bessent said that instead, the U.S. was hoping to “rebalance” the international financial system.

“America first means we’re doubling down on our engagement with the international financial system,” he said.

Bessent’s blatant attempt to walk back Trump’s trade war came shortly after the president indicated he was considering reducing tariffs on China. “145 percent is very high and it won’t be that high,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday. “It won’t be anywhere near that high. It’ll come down substantially. But it won’t be zero.”

Bessent had told investors Tuesday that Trump’s steep tariffs on China had effectively imposed a trade embargo between the two countries, and that he expected things to deescalate soon.

Bessent’s statements Wednesday were part of meetings between the International Monetary Fund and World Bank taking place in Washington this week.

The IMF said Tuesday that Trump’s tariffs would significantly slow economic growth, both domestically and globally. The IMF’s chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas told reporters that the odds of a recession in the U.S. had increased from 25 percent in October 2024 to 40 percent.

Bessent took a moment to hit back at the global lender of last resort during his remarks. “The IMF once focused on global monetary cooperation and financial stability. Now, it spends excessive time and resources on climate change, gender, and social issues, which are not its mission,” Bessent said.

While answering questions, the Treasury secretary also insisted that the dollar would remain the reserve currency, despite the rapid de-dollarization that has resulted from Trump’s sweeping “reciprocal tariff” policy. On Monday, the ICE U.S. dollar index—which measures the dollar against foreign currencies—sank more than one percent to its lowest level since March 2022.

Americans at large disapprove of President Trump’s performance on virtually every key issue, according to recent polling from Reuters/Ipsos.

About 48 percent disapprove of his performance regarding the “rule of law,” 49 percent disapprove of his performance on the environment, 51 percent disapprove of his handling of the economy, 52 percent disapprove of his performance on international trade, and a whopping 57 percent disapprove of his performance on the cost of living.

Trump has overhauled the government, upturned the economy, and completely eroded any sense of security or power that the United States offered as a global trading partner. His wantonly placed tariffs will keep the cost of living high (so much for those grocery prices he campaigned on) while doing nothing to reduce inflation. While it’s unusual for performance ratings to be this paltry this soon in a presidential term, the speed at which Trump has undertaken his chaotic policies certainly explains the numbers. And it’s far from over.

“There’s a big risk for Trump that it’s only going to get worse from here,” said the libertarian CATO Institute’s Scott Lincicome.

Even Donald Trump’s former chief strategist believes that taxing the rich is a good idea.

In an effort to advance the president’s tax bill and defang Democratic attacks on the administration, Steve Bannon is urging Trump to propose a tax hike on multimillionaires, The Washington Post reported Tuesday night.

“One proposal would allow the top tax rate to revert to its level before the 2017 tax law, from 37 percent to 39.6 percent. (This would raise taxes for those with more than $626,350 in earnings),” according to the Post.

The pitch also suggests adopting a new tax bracket for people earning more than $1 million, as well as an additional tax bracket for individuals earning more than $3 million or $5 million.

“This guts the AOC-Bernie ‘oligarchy tour,’” Bannon told the Post, referring to anti-Trump rallies hosted by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders that drew tens of thousands of people.

“Politically, it’s game, set, match—it’s a no-brainer. This would destroy the Democrats,” Bannon said.

Republicans have had a difficult time penciling out Trump’s massive tax plan, which would massively benefit corporations and billionaires and add an estimated $6.8 trillion to the deficit.

But Bannon has been trying to convince conservatives to tax the rich since at least Trump’s first term, and other members of the party are less than convinced that the idea could advance through a Republican-controlled legislature.

“I don’t see it getting through the Senate Finance Committee—there’s not a chance,” Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the right-leaning American Action Forum research group, told the Post. Holtz-Eakin also predicted that the House would “deflect and say they want to consider all possibilities, but it won’t have the votes.”

“They’ll see this as a punitive tax on rich people for no reason,” Holtz-Eakin said. “They don’t like the politics. They don’t like the economics. They’re not interested.”

A federal judge slammed the Department of Justice for refusing to provide answers about the government’s efforts to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador.

In an eight-page filing Tuesday evening, U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis overruled several of the government’s objections to answering questions or providing documents, writing that their failure “reflects a willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.”

Lawyers for the DOJ failed to respond to a court-ordered request for information Monday, arguing that it had been made on a “false premise” that the government was required to secure Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador. The Supreme Court had ordered the government to “facilitate” his return. Crucially, Abrego Garcia has no criminal record, and the government has failed to provide any compelling evidence of his alleged gang affiliation.

In her filing, Xinis said that the government had “stubbornly” refused to provide “any basis” for the privileges it was attempting to invoke in its evasion of her questions.

For weeks, lawyers for the government had attempted to hide behind “vague and unsubstantiated assertions of privilege” to “obstruct discovery and evade compliance,” Xinis wrote. “Defendants have known, at least since last week, that this Court requires specific legal and factual showings to support any claim of privilege. Yet they have continued to rely on boilerplate assertions. That ends now.”

Xinis told the lawyers that they would have only 24 hours to assert any final privileges in the requisite detail.

“If Defendants want to preserve their privilege claims, they must support them with the required detail. Otherwise, they will lose the protections they failed to properly invoke,” she warned.

Xinis excoriated the government’s refusal to provide additional names of those involved in Abrego Garcia’s deportation as “willful and intentional noncompliance,” and overruled the lawyers’ claim that information about how he was placed in CECOT, the prison in El Salvador notorious for human rights abuses, was “outside the scope” of expedited discovery.

“This is particularly relevant to Abrego Garcia’s custodial status today, if for nothing else, the Plaintiffs are entitled to discover all relevant and probative evidence that undermines the Defendants’ incomplete and evasive answer that Abrego Garcia is in the ‘sovereign, domestic custody’ of El Salvador,” she wrote.

In a meeting with Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen last week, Abrego Garcia said he had since been moved to a different prison.

Donald Trump is backtracking on some of his wild economic moves.

The president said Tuesday that has “no intention” of firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, after days of insults and threats over whether Powell would cut interest rates. It’s quite a reversal from Trump saying Powell’s “termination cannot come fast enough,” the week before. Still, Trump would like those rate cuts.

“I would like to see [Powell] be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates,” Trump said Tuesday while swearing in the new Securities and Exchange Commission chair. “It is a perfect time to lower interest rates.”

Trump also backed down from threatening China on Tuesday, saying that he wouldn’t seek to punish China any further in the Oval Office and telling reporters that tariff rates against the country would be lowered.

“[The rates] will come down substantially, but it won’t be zero,” Trump said, adding that “we’re going to be very nice, and they’re going to be very nice, and we’ll see what happens.” China appears to be reciprocating, with a spokesperson for the country’s Foreign Ministry telling reporters Wednesday that “the door for talks is wide open.”

It seems that the struggling stock market and panicked U.S. executives have persuaded Trump to modify whatever concepts of a plan he has for the economy, as every economic indicator spells disaster. Trump’s tariff whiplash, where he has alternated between raising and lowering tariffs, has caused market chaos for several weeks.

Instituting an astronomical tariff rate of 145 percent against China, one of the country’s largest trading partners, has not inspired confidence from American businesses, and China is holding firm on getting Trump to back down. Tuesday’s shift from the president indicates that he is fearful of what will happen if his current approach backfires.

Vice President JD Vance admitted outright on Wednesday that the United States is prepared to completely abandon Ukraine. 

“We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say yes, or for the U.S. to walk away from this process,” he said from India. “We’ve engaged in an extraordinary amount of diplomacy, of on-the-ground work.

“The current lines, somewhere close to them is where you’re ultimately, I think, going to draw the new lines in the conflict,” Vance added, making it clear that Ukraine would have to give up territory to Russia.

This comes as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff decided not to attend the planned meeting between the U.S., Ukraine, and other European leaders, due to what Rubio’s spokesperson called “logistical issues.” 

The U.S. has been unilaterally trying to strong-arm Ukraine into a ceasefire with Russia, while the Europeans try to support Ukraine’s attempts to fight off the Russian invasion. These talks were supposed to be an attempt to bridge the gap between the U.S. and Europe and to make Putin negotiate on more equitable terms that don’t see him retaining large chunks of Ukrainian territory. But Vance just gave the Kremlin yet another green light.