A War Department official walked over to two reserved seats in the Pentagon press briefing room and flipped over the place cards: the names of Penelope and Brian Hegseth, the secretary’s parents.
Reporters started to whisper.
In just a few minutes, War Secretary Pete Hegseth would take the podium for his first press conference since May, as lawmakers moved to impeach him. Now, it seemed his family would be watching.
Security officials had already issued an unusual alert, announcing that any reporter who was disorderly or unprofessional would be removed from the briefing. Aggressive questioning, they clarified, didn’t count. When reporters pressed for the reason behind the warning, a communications official offered to give an explanation off the record; several reporters declined to accept that condition.
At the two-minute warning, the room went silent. It lasted just long enough for all of us to wonder why we were really there.
Was Hegseth about to resign?
He wasn’t, we’d learn minutes later. Still, I found myself holding my breath through his opening statement, my phone opened to X, ready to post, record and film whatever came next.
Instead, the secretary made it clear he was there to fight the impeachment effort led by outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and that he wouldn’t be deterred.
“It’s a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment,” Hegseth said. “Time for one man’s final days in Congress to try to do damage to this president, this country, and most irresponsibly, the warriors who defend it.”
After a lengthy opening statement, he took questions. I asked whether he had started calling allies on Capitol Hill for support.
Hegseth said he had a “ton of support” and that his legislative affairs team was working with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Whip Tom Emmer.
“What people misunderstand is the depth of partnership and work that we have done with House Republicans and Senate Republicans and others that are willing to reach across the aisle,” Hegseth told me.
He dismissed the effort as work of “one disgruntled guy who drew up some really flimsy [impeachment] articles” that weren’t grounded in the Constitution and did not include actual “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
“Whether they love everything that’s been done, or they don’t want to vote for something that isn’t real,” Hegseth said, “I’m grateful that Republicans have been taking a real look at this, and the Speaker has led on it, and I appreciate that.”
It was the same confidence he had shown a day earlier, far from Washington.
Twenty-four hours before the briefing, I traveled with Hegseth to the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, on a trip he said was 18 months in the making. Later that day, Massie introduced the articles of impeachment.
Founded in 1884, the Naval War College is the oldest naval war college in the world. That made it a fitting stage for Hegseth’s announcement: 33 new directives overhauling how the military’s war colleges train their leaders.
“For years, our war college mission statements have been choked with gauzy academic platitudes,” Hegseth told nearly 700 students and faculty at the Naval War College. “The word ‘win’ is entirely absent. The word ‘defeat’ does not appear.”
It wasn’t the type of announcement an outgoing secretary of war makes. Hegseth seemed defiant. He told reporters he wasn’t the slightest bit worried about the effort to remove him.
Back in the briefing room, his parents sat alongside his brother and his chief of staff, Ricky Buria. They were stone-faced, eyes fixed on the secretary as he swatted down questions about his future.
His staff lined the walls behind them, some with their arms crossed as reporters shouted questions.
“Mr. Secretary, are the Iran war losses your fault?” one reporter yelled.
Hegseth just shook his head at the disruption.
Moments after the secretary left the podium, the most important judge of his performance weighed in.
“‘A’ PLUS, PLUS, PLUS,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
