Pete Hegseth's Most Embarrassing Moments In The Trump Administration (So Far)
Making a mistake at a job is embarrassing. Making it in front of 300 million Americans, plus the rest of the world? That amplifies errors exponentially. This is what Pete Hegseth, the United States Secretary of Defense, has quickly learned since he was sworn in on January 25, 2025. You'd think proudly proclaiming he hasn't washed his hands in a decade and doesn't believe in germs because he can't see them would be the biggest public blunder Hegseth would make, but the world is full of surprises. (Especially when he has former co-workers like Ainsley Earhardt to blast his nasty habits on the air.)
The military veteran has had an unusually high number of embarrassing moments so far during President Donald Trump's second term in office that the internet can't stop talking about and obsessing over. From leaked highly confidential war plans to bad tweets and quitting staff members, the controversial Hegseth has already made quite a name for himself in American politics.
When private war plans were leaked to a journalist on Signal
About two months into Pete Hegseth's job, "Signalgate" happened. Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, published an article that quickly spread like wildfire across the internet. It was appropriately (and bluntly) titled, "The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans." March 24, 2025, was a bad day to be Pete Hegseth.
In the piece, Goldberg shared how he was accidentally added to a Signal group chat that, he quickly realized, involved several high-ranking government officials, including Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and National Security Advisor of the United States Mike Waltz, aka the person who created the Signal group chat and mistakingly added Goldberg. The people in the chat discussed highly confidential war plans, which, according to The Atlantic, were not approved to be discussed on Signal. The entire messaging system was actually a threat to national security if an enemy had gotten access to it. Also, because some of the messages were set to eventually disappear, Goldberg wondered if that action violated federal records law, since records like that should be preserved, not erased.
Signalgate did not make the U.S. government look good or competent, chiefly Hegseth, since he's the Secretary of Defense. Being sloppy with confidential plans, especially ones involving war, is not the behavior someone with that kind of governmental clearance should have. It makes Hegseth come across as not only incompetent but also as someone so excited to be included with the big dogs that he has to tell everyone he knows about it.
When more private war plans leaked to Hegseth's family on Signal
Pete, Pete, Pete. What are you doing? About a month after the first Signalgate fiasco happened, a second one hit the news cycle. Per the New York Times, Pete Hegseth allegedly shared information about strikes happening in Yemen to a Signal group chat that included Hegseth's wife, Jennifer Rauchet, as well as his brother, lawyer, and others. Supposedly, the information that was shared with that group chat was similar to the other Signal group chat that included The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg.
The NYT noted how this second Signal group chat was created by Hegseth himself, unlike the first one. To make matters worse, Hegseth accessed the chat through his personal phone, not his government-issued one. Rauchet and the others on the chain weren't authorized to know about the Yemen strikes, so it's unclear why Hegseth organized a text chain to include them.
In an interview with the BBC, President Donald Trump was asked about the second Signal leak, to which he shrugged it off and said, "Try finding something new." The outlet also reported how Trump stood by Hegseth and was confident in his abilities to do his job as defense secretary. When Hegseth was asked about the Signal drama, he quickly blamed the media for aiding in ruining people's reputations. It should be noted that the rant he went on was done in front of Hegseth's own children, his massive blended family, during the White House's annual Easter Egg Roll. Not a great look, Dad.
When his staff either quit or were fired, and Hegseth threw them under the bus
Shortly before Pete Hegseth's rant in front of his children about the media and Signalgate(s), Politico reported that Joe Kasper, Hegseth's chief of staff, was quitting his job. The outlet also shared that senior adviser Dan Caldwell, Hegseth's deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, were let go after being placed on leave to investigate a leak. Though none of the four people spoke with Politico themselves, it was revealed that Carroll and Selnick are allegedly going to sue for unlawful firing.
Losing your job is tough, but it's even tougher when your former boss blasts you to the media and suggests that your termination was the reason his name is now being dragged through the mud for the second Signalgate. Also in that interview with the BBC, Hegseth said, "You know, what a big surprise that a bunch of, a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out." Trying to bash someone else's credibility while building up your own is a strange tactic, but it's what Hegseth did — again, in front of his own children — and it was just embarrassing to watch.
When he tweeted something cringey and then it backfired on him
Around the same time as Signalgate Part II and the subsequent media rant, Pete Hegseth dug his hole deeper when he broke the internet's number one rule (after don't read the comments): Don't feed the trolls. On X, the verified Democrats' account wrote on April 20, "[Pete Hegseth] needs to go," and tagged the Secretary of Defense. Taking the bait, Hegseth responded, "Your agenda is illegals, trans & DEI — all of which are no longer allowed [at] DoD." Presumably, DoD stands for Department of Defense.
The Democrats' X account then commented with a fatal blow and tweeted out a blurry picture of an iPhone app screen with the caption, "Pete's POV." Oof. It's been long rumored that Hegseth has issues with alcohol, a behavior that even concerned his former Fox News coworkers. Making the fake iPhone screen blurry was a not-so-subtle way of suggesting that Hegseth was drunk at the time of his tweet.
Pete's POV: pic.twitter.com/xJo81xCcaP
— Democrats (@TheDemocrats) April 21, 2025
Late last year, The New Yorker reported that though Hegseth resigned from his job at Concerned Veterans for America in 2016 because he wanted a change, the real reason was that he was pressured to remove himself after he allegedly abused alcohol at work. Even Hegseth's former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth, didn't think he was fit to be Secretary of Defense, having previously told the FBI that her ex-brother-in-law drank so much alcohol, he once passed out from it at a holiday event (via NPR).