One Republican senator used the fired former Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, as a point of comparison for how poorly Pete Hegseth is doing his job.
Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis said that Hegseth’s tenure as Defense Secretary makes even the embattled ICE Barbie look good.
“Do you think the president has been advised well by Secretary Hegseth on this war?” host Jake Tapper asked the 65-year-old senator.
“No. I actually—if you take a look at the assessment that Hegseth gave, at the end of the day, regardless of who collected the information, Hegseth owns it by being Secretary of Defense,“ Tillis said.
”When you tell the president that you have obliterated Iran, and you’re in a position to pretty much dictate terms, and now you see what we have," he continued. “When you see Hegseth pull back on operations in Poland—when... Russia is raping, killing, torturing countless people in Ukraine—when you see these mistakes made by Hegseth... with all these mistakes in total, it’s beginning to make Kristi Noem look like a five-star recruit."
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Pentagon and Noem for comment.
Since announcing his retirement last year, the rebel GOP senator has made it clear he is no fan of the second Trump administration, often butting heads with other Republicans over issues like the Iran War and Trump’s “anti-weaponization fund.”
“As I said earlier, I stand by it, it’s stupid on stilts,” Tillis told Tapper, 57, about the $1.8 billion fund later in his Sunday interview. “Look, you’re talking about people who assaulted Capitol police officers on January the 6th, were then convicted. Many of them pled guilty, or they were convicted by a jury of their peers. They could be eligible for this.”
He said that though the fund could be helpful if it were for people who had “lawfare used against them” and were “found innocent,” the current intention of the taxpayer-supported slush fund is “horrible politics” and “horrible timing.”
Hegseth, 45, has faced nonstop criticism for his performance as the self-styled “Secretary of War,” including his religious rants, mass firings of top brass, and military helicopter joyrides with MAGA icon Kid Rock.
Insiders said that the former Fox & Friends Weekend host’s abrupt cancellation of a 4,000-troop deployment to Poland apparently even sparked the ire of the president.
Trump attempted to correct Hegseth’s mistake on Thursday via a head-scratching message on Truth Social, invoking the election win of Polish President Karol Nawrocki that had already happened a year ago.
“Based on the successful Election of the now President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, who I was proud to Endorse, and our relationship with him, I am pleased to announce that the United States will be sending an additional 5,000 Troops to Poland,” the 79-year-old president wrote.
