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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is reportedly having to quell a “rebellion” from Pentagon staff, who are increasingly leaking more embarrassing details in an effort to force Donald Trump to fire him. The FCC’s sole Democratic commissioner says late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel declining to air his interview with Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico proves the White House’s efforts to chill free speech are working. Yet another senior member of the Trump White House is quitting, adding their name to what’s become a massive staff exodus ahead of a midterm election likely to throw the GOP out of power. And several Republicans are dismissing Trump’s last-minute proposal of $5,000 checks for voters as a desperate political gambit that’s dead on arrival.
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Trump biographer Michael Wolff is now reporting there’s a quiet “rebellion” happening at the Pentagon and among multiple White House staffers. They’re hoping that they can force Trump to fire Pete Hegseth by relentlessly leaking more and more embarrassing details about the former part-time Fox News weekend host’s tenure as defense secretary.
According to Wolff, one of the particularly damaging details that’s been leaked to the media is Hegseth’s wife all but moving into the Pentagon full-time to serve as his unofficial second-in-command. The Trump biographer also said several members of the president’s inner circle confided to him that Hegseth should have been fired long ago. One unnamed adviser anonymously said “yesterday” would’ve been the best day to cut Hegseth loose.
Wolff’s sources add that the people who are around Hegseth on a daily basis are highly alarmed by his incompetence, and that the defense secretary has basically no supporters left save for the president himself
Hegseth is also being given offensive nicknames behind his back. Wolff noted that the nickname “Colonel Vodka” has made a comeback after first being coined by former Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who apparently enjoyed mocking Hegseth over his drinking habits. Pentagon staff have apparently started calling Hegseth “No Tab Pete,” which refers to the fact that Hegseth never actually earned any combat patches, or tabs, when he served in the military.
But as Wolff reported, Hegseth’s lack of experience managing massive organizations like the DoD may actually be why he was appointed to the job in the first place. Trump apparently wanted a defense secretary who wouldn’t push back on his orders like his past defense secretaries during his first term, and “No Tab Pete” is a loyal follower if nothing else.
It isn’t just Hegseth who is under heightened scrutiny. Wolff reported that Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg is also under the microscope over his links to a former CIA officer who has been accused of skimming millions of dollars in federal money.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member Anna Gomez — the lone remaining Democratic appointee on the five-member commission — is lamenting that ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel decided to not air his interview with Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico on his live broadcast last night.
Kimmel told viewers he’d decided against airing the Talarico interview on TV and that he would opt instead to show it on his official YouTube channel out of fear that Trump’s FCC would crack down. Trump-appointed FCC chairman Brendan Carr has been threatening retribution against TV hosts by enforcing “equal time” violations for political candidates, meaning that if the Talarico interview aired live, Carr’s FCC could feasibly require Kimmel to air an interview with Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton as well.
Gomez, who former President Joe Biden appointed to the FCC, released an official statement calling Kimmel’s “self-censorship” a clear-cut example of how the Trump administration’s FCC is now influencing editorial decisions on major networks. She added that there’s no way to know how many other TV hosts decided against airing interviews with political candidates due to threats from Carr.
Gomez’s argument is pretty clear: any effort by an administration to pressure networks to not air certain content is a clear-cut violation of the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech and free press. And she noted that those fundamental rights are now under attack by this president and his appointed FCC chair .
Gomez has cheered on the lawsuit Disney and ABC filed against the FCC, which cites First Amendment grounds to push back on the agency’s demand for early TV license renewal reviews. She says examples like Kimmel declining to air his interview with James Talarico will only strengthen Disney’s case, as it’s one more example of a broadcaster experiencing a credible threat from the administration.
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Trump is now losing Paige Willey, who until today served as deputy assistant to the president for economic policy and as deputy director of the National Economic Council (NEC).
In a post to her official X account, Willey called her exit the “end of an era” and thanked Trump along with NEC director Kevin Hassett and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. She’ll be leaving the White House for a job in the private sector at the firm Invariant.
Willey got warm praise from both Both Hassett and White House spokesperson Kush Desai, who complimented her for her service. But when taken in the proper context, Willey’s departure is an alarming sign that the White House is bleeding out more and more senior staffers as the midterms draw closer and Democrats are threatening to turn Trump into a full lame duck president.
Just in August, Trump’s White House lost press secretary Karoline Leavitt, deputy national security adviser Andy Baker, and legislative affairs director James Braid, who was tasked with making sure Congress stayed in the White House’s good graces. Earlier this year, spokesperson Abigail Jackson left along with top policy strategist Emily Underwood, cabinet affairs director Lea Bardon and media affairs director Sonny Joy Nelson.
That’s eight people with lots of valuable experience walking away from a White House right when the president is gearing up for the biggest fight of his political life. Democrats are salivating at the opportunity to take back the majorities in both chambers of Congress and launch a wave of investigations into the executive branch.
During his keynote speech at the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas, Texas last night, Donald Trump told the crowd that if Republicans keep their majorities in Congress this November, he’ll send every adult U.S. citizen a check for $5,000. But he seemed to have forgotten to tell top Republicans in Congress, or the bevy of conservative think tanks tasked with fleshing out and selling such a proposal. And Republicans are bearish on the idea, to put it mildly.
One person close to the planning process told the Washington Sun the prep work behind the president’s proposal was “not very vigorous.” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director, was more direct, calling the checks a laughably bad idea that “looks desperate politically.”
The price tag isn’t insignificant. If Congress were to approve funding to send every adult American $5,000, that would amount to roughly $1.2 trillion, according to calculations from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Republicans Congressman Chip Roy of Texas, a noted fiscal hawk, pushed back hard against the proposed checks, though other Trump loyalists like Vice President JD Vance and Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio insisted Trump should be given a chance to sell the proposal to Americans.
Last night’s promise of a check was the fifteenth such promise of free money since Trump was reelected to a second term, according to the Sun. None of those previous proposals have ever led anywhere, including Trump’s half-baked idea of sending Americans a $5,000 “DOGE dividend” in 2025, or his promise to send Americans a $2,000 tariff “rebate” check. The only ones made whole in response to Trump’s tariffs have been the corporations that passed along those higher costs to consumers like us.
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I’m John Byrne, in for British Chris. Once again, be sure to click the ❤️ and restack this post so we can reach the people who need to read these stories the most. Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting independent media.
Here are a few stories you may have missed:
Joe diGenova, who has been leading President Donald Trump’s efforts to prosecute his political enemies, suddenly quit on Thursday. According to ABC News, both Trump and other top officials at the Justice Department had been expressing frustration with diGenova over his lack of progress despite him issuing dozens of subpoenas. To date, diGenova’s work has led to zero indictments filed against any defendants.Prosecutor Heading Up Trump’s Revenge Campaign Abruptly Quits.Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said Thursday that Iran “blew the hell” out of the U.S. Naval base in Bahrain in an attack carried out in a February drone attack. Cao’s claim directly contradicts Trump’s claims that the U.S. has decimated Iran’s military capabilities, and suggests that other American resources in the region could be at greater risk than previously believed. The Iran war is now in its seventh month with no sign of slowing down until at least 2027, according to officials.Navy Secretary Admits Iran ‘Blew the Hell’ out of American Base in Middle East.A coalition of voting rights groups are now filing a lawsuit in federal court with the goal of having a federal judge prevent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from sending armed agents to polling places. The lawsuit, which was filed by the group Democracy Forward, has been joined by a slew of other groups including League of United Latin American Citizens, Common Cause, UnidosUS and the city of Denver, Colorado. The suit names the Department of Homeland Security and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin as defendants, along with ICE Director David Venturella.Groups Sue to Stop Deployment of ICE Agents to Polling Places.
