Veteran newsman Paul Waldman thinks he knows which of President Donald Trump's officials will be ousted next.
Thus far, Trump has fired two Cabinet secretaries during his second term: Kristi Noem, who was removed as Homeland Security secretary after a slate of scandals, and Pam Bondi, whom Trump dismissed as attorney general in April 2026 amid mounting criticism of the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer left this year too, but it was of her own accord after a number of sexual harassment claims from her staff.
The turnover has fueled concerns about loyalty-driven personnel decisions and instability across Trump’s administration, and Waldman thinks that the Cabinet bloodbath isn't over yet.
"In a Cabinet full of grifters and nincompoops, [Pete] Hegseth stands out for his combination of belligerent buffoonishness and rampaging incompetence," Waldman wrote on Substack Tuesday. "As ill-advised as it is to make predictions in politics, we’ll offer this one: Hegseth will be the next Trump Cabinet secretary to be fired or forced to resign, and it won’t be long."
The firing has been speculated over the past several months after Trump's war in Iran turned into an outright disaster, a number of top military officials have been pushed out and the secretary continues to be mocked for his photo opportunities doing push-ups or pull-ups while the U.S. is at war.
But Waldman doesn't think any of the important reasons will lead to the firing. "Being bad at your job won’t get you the boot in Donald Trump’s government; for that, you have to become enough of a public embarrassment that he decides you’re reflecting poorly on him. And Hegseth is just about there."
Hegseth's war on women, gay and transgender soldiers started early on in his tenure. Waldman recalled three months into the term when The New York Times ran a story headlined, “Under Hegseth, Chaos Prevails at the Pentagon.”
Meanwhile, one of Trump's former Pentagon aides wrote in Politico that “the building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership.”
Waldman said that things have only gotten worse.
In the last few weeks, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned very publicly. On his way out he told Trump Hegseth is “hurting the force and shrinking the pool of officers available for future senior commands,” ABC News reported.
Meanwhile, Hegseth has ousted 24 top military officials. "Many appear to have been dismissed for no reason beyond their race, sex or associations with officers Mr Hegseth disliked," The New York Times reported. There are half as many four-star generals as there were under President Joe Biden, "the fewest in decades." It's led to a huge brain drain at the Pentagon and has “left the Army essentially rudderless."
When Hegseth expanded deployments to the Middle East it became a PR disaster. Top leaders communicated their objections, said Walden. Then for weeks, reporters covered the agony of soldiers and sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, who were on an extended deployment as food began to run out and the ship arrived to port covered in rust.
Then there's Hegseth's obsession with leaks. Anger from military officials has led to many giving stories to the media that continue to humiliate Hegseth publicly. It has been reported for months that Hegseth's paranoia has reached a fever pitch. The DOD "is subjecting dozens of members of the Joint Staff to polygraph tests to see if they’ve been talking to the media, the kind of move that always raises morale."
At one point earlier this year, Hegseth was so angry about "unflattering" photos of himself that he banned photographers from the press briefing room. Hegseth ultimately gave up on doing press briefings altogether.
Meanwhile, Democrats alleged last week that Hegseth's failure to manage the military budget has resulted in an attempt to seize money "appropriated to the National Institutes of Health for medical research." Waldman explained that it's illegal.
Some of that money for defense, it turns out, is also paying a crew of far-right social media influencers to promote Hegseth. The scheme hasn't worked out for the secretary, one columnist wrote.
Hegseth then cut a new battalion that was to be trained to use drones and robots. Driscoll told Trump that a key part of the future of the American military is deploying new defense technology. Previously, Trump's administration ordered that military ships return to the way they looked in World War II, while drones and robots would be phased out.
Finally, Hegseth "set out to destroy Stars and Stripes, the venerable news outlet focused on service members, firing its top leadership and eliminating its editorial independence in order to make it more of a propaganda mouthpiece," wrote Waldman.
He closed by noting that even Republican lawmakers who supported Hegseth's nomination to lead the Pentagon have made it clear that it was a huge mistake.
Outgoing U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) is calling on Trump to fire him.
