"Becoming a distraction": White House looking to replace Hegseth at Pentagon, per reports

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may soon have to walk the path he laid for legacy media outlets: packing up his office and leaving the Pentagon.

That's according to a report from NPR, which shared that the chaos of Hegseth's tenure atop the military is becoming too much for President Donald Trump and that the administration is in the process of vetting a potential replacement. The outlet cited an unnamed U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The report comes after weeks of embarrassing stories from the executive branch's largest department. Hegseth leaked the details of planned strikes on Houthis in Yemen to the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, who had been added to a Signal group chat in error. Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that Hegseth shared sensitive information about the operation in a separate chat that included his wife and brother.

That news capped off a chaotic weekend that began with the termination of several senior DoD officials, who called their unexplained termination "unconscionable" in a joint statement.

"We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended," they shared. "Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door."

Former Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot said in an op-ed for Politico that Hegseth's tenure can best be described as "total chaos" and said that his own advisers might be ready to see him go.

The White House has denied any plans to give the former Fox News host his walking papers.

This [NPR] story is total FAKE NEWS based on one anonymous source who clearly has no idea what they are talking about," spokesperson Karoline Leavitt shared on X. As the President said this morning, he stands strongly behind [Hegseth]."