Pete Hegseth's Pentagon faces 'full-blown meltdown,' warns ex-spokesman

The warning from John Ullyot, who resigned last week after initially serving as Pentagon spokesman, followed statements by three top officials who were reportedly fired amid inquiry into leaks

By Derek Wallbank

 

Pete Hegseth’s former spokesman said the Pentagon has been overwhelmed by staff drama and turnover in the initial months of the second Trump administration, calling it a “full-blown meltdown” that could cost the defense secretary his job. 

 

The warning from John Ullyot, who resigned last week after initially serving as Pentagon spokesman, followed statements by three top Defense Department officials who were reportedly fired amid a inquiry into leaks and said they weren’t told what they were being investigated for or if there was even a leaks probe ongoing at all.  

 

Hegseth, a 44-year-old former Fox News host and National Guard officer, had already been under scrutiny for sharing confidential information detailing an imminent attack against Houthi militants in Yemen in a Signal chat group. The group included top Trump officials as well as journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who wrote about the episode for The Atlantic.

 

“President Donald Trump has a strong record of holding his top officials to account,” Ullyot wrote Sunday in a column for Politico. “Given that, it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer.”

 

Trump declined to remove Hegseth or National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who set up the Signal chat, over the episode. The Pentagon’s inspector general is probing that incident, at the request of two top senators.

 

The New York Times reported Sunday on a second Signal chat, in which the newspaper said Hegseth shared sensitive information about military strikes in Yemen to a group that included his wife and brother.

 

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, in a statement posted to X, said the Times and others “are enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article. They relied only on the words of people who were fired this week and appear to have a motive to sabotage the Secretary and the President’s agenda.”

 

“There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story,” Parnell said. 

 

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment placed Sunday evening.