Senate Republicans are standing by embattled Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, but they are privately wondering how much time he has left atop the Pentagon amid ongoing turmoil within the Trump administration, which resulted in the replacement of national security adviser Mike Waltz on Thursday.
Republican senators expressed disappointment over the initial news that Waltz would step down as national security adviser. They viewed him as well qualified for the job and a steady hand to work with Hegseth, who has less national security policy experience.
Hours after news broke of Waltz’s impending departure, Trump nominated him to be United Nations ambassador and added the national security adviser role to the portfolio of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“He did a very good job as national security adviser. It’s the prerogative of the president to decide who his team will be, but I was sorry to see that news,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said of Waltz.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who wavered on voting to confirm Hegseth, called Waltz’s departure “disappointing.”
“He’s a good guy,” he said.
GOP lawmakers view Hegseth less favorably, and several Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), said the Defense secretary needs to surround himself with a better team.
One Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment about Hegseth’s status in the Trump administration said he could be next on the chopping block.
“Hegseth is next in line not because he’s a jerk, but because I think they’re concerned about his management and that his team is a mess,” the source said.
Three senior officials from Hegseth’s inner circle were ousted last month: Dan Caldwell, a senior aide; Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg; and Darin Selnick, Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff.
The bigger problem for Hegseth was the disclosure over Congress’s Easter recess that he had shared sensitive details about a pending strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen in a Signal chat group that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer.
Hegseth’s brother and personal lawyer have official positions at the Defense Department, but his wife does not.
Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, has received press attention in recent weeks for her active role in his day-to-day activities, including traveling with him on overseas trips and attending meetings with foreign leaders.
The GOP senator said that Trump doesn’t like “distractions” coming from senior officials in his administration.
“If he continues to be a big distraction, I bet they will” get rid of Hegseth, the senator speculated, adding the president’s “tolerance level for distractions from anybody else” is a lot lower than it was in his first administration.
At the same time, the source pointed out that Hegseth “is a lot higher profile” than Waltz, and Trump “has sunk a lot of [political] capital” into his secretary of Defense, whose nomination would have likely failed in the Senate without Trump’s strong support. Vice President Vance cast the tiebreaking vote to confirm Hegseth in January.
Three Republicans opposed his nomination — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.) — and a fourth Republican, Tillis, was on the fence until the last moment.
Tillis only voted to confirm Hegseth after the nominee wrote a letter to him responding to allegations of frequent drunkenness and abusive behavior made by his former sister-in-law.
Tillis hedged when asked Thursday whether he has confidence in Hegseth continuing to lead the Pentagon.
“For now, we’re looking [for] the IG report,” he said, referring to a Defense Department inspector general’s report that the chair and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee requested in response to Hegseth’s use of Signal, a commercial messaging app, to communicate information about a military attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Tillis also expressed concern about a recent staff shake-up at the Pentagon.
“I am a bit concerned with the number of long-term colleagues who have apparently left recently. So we’re getting information on that,” he said, adding he’s in “wait-and-see mode.”
Thune on Monday told reporters that Hegseth needs a stronger team around him.
“He’s just got to make sure that he’s got the folks around him that enable him to succeed,” he said.
He later said “these things always take some time, and we’re a hundred days in” to Trump’s second term.
Thune said he “believes” Hegseth’s use of Signal to communicate details of military strikes “has been addressed.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said he wants Hegseth to remain in place.
“I still have confidence in Secretary Hegseth, and I’m not at all interested in talking about a replacement,” he said.
But Wicker said he was glad that several members of Hegseth’s inner circle departed from the Pentagon last month.
“I think his staff needed improvement, and he’s about to be surrounded by better staff,” he said. “I don’t mind that those people are no longer in positions of authority.”
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called Waltz’s departure as national security adviser “a pretty significant modification” and “a pretty significant change” to Trump’s national security team.
Some Republicans saw a personnel shake-up as likely after Hegseth and Waltz became embroiled in a major controversy over their use of the commercial app Signal to discuss sensitive details about a military strike against Houthi rebels.
The story gained national attention after Waltz inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, to a text chat in which Hegseth shared key details of the strike before it happened.
Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the top-ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, spoke on the Senate floor Thursday about what he called the “chaos that is roiling the Department of Defense.”
“Secretary Hegseth is failing the mission President Trump gave him,” he said. “His actions over the past 100 days have done nothing but distract the Pentagon and undermine its warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness.”
Other Democrats on Thursday said Waltz had become the “fall guy” and called for Hegseth to step down as well.
“He’s the fall guy. The one who should go is the secretary of Defense,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Armed Services Committee.
