White House struggles to find qualified people willing to work for Pete Hegseth

NBC News

2 days ago

Vance, Wiles and others have looked for job candidates in some of the traditional places, including inside the White House and on Capitol Hill, according to the second former U.S. official, a defense official and a congressional aide.
Some candidates have been judged politically problematic, the former U.S. official and others familiar with the process said. For example, the White House personnel office has disqualified some for not being MAGA enough, according to the former U.S. official and a current U.S. official familiar with the process.
In addition to trying to assist him with hiring, the White House has taken multiple other steps to help — and manage — Hegseth.
'Vice President Vance has had Secretary Hegseth's back since the day President Trump nominated him, and he fully supports the incredible work Pete's doing at the Pentagon to improve military readiness and drive recruitment numbers to record highs,' Vance spokesman William Martin said in a statement.
Another White House official it was typical for the White House to be involved in staffing for key roles across government. Anna Kelly, a spokeswoman for the White House, said Hegseth enjoys 'the full support' of Trump.
But last month White House officials directed Hegseth to cancel a trip to the Middle East after they learned he planned a stop in Israel, according to a current and a former official.
Instead, they put Hegseth on Air Force One to travel with President Donald Trump, who did not include Israel in his itinerary.
A different Cabinet official, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, visited Israel several weeks later and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Trump's request. A person familiar with Hegseth's planning said Noem's trip reflected the White House's desire to have Netanyahu meet with a trusted messenger.
An unexpected purge
When they arrived at the Pentagon early this year, two senior advisers to Hegseth, Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick, were seen as his close allies — previous colleagues of his, even friends, whom he had brought in to staff key roles. Caldwell was a senior adviser to Hegseth; Selnick was Hegseth's deputy chief of staff.
But in April, security escorted Caldwell and Selnick, as well as Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, out of the Pentagon in connection with an investigation into allegations of a leak of sensitive information.
In a joint statement, the three men called the way were treated 'unconscionable' and argued that they were not given any information about the investigation, any leak allegations against them or any evidence that had been found.
A little less than a week later, the turmoil around Hegseth worsened. The New York Times reported that he had shared sensitive information about an ongoing U.S. military operation in Yemen on a Signal chat that included his wife, his personal attorney and his brother, along with others close to him.
The revelation came a month after national security adviser Mike Waltz mistakenly added the editor of The Atlantic to a separate Signal group chat with Hegseth, Vance and other senior administration officials focused on the same military operation in Yemen.
Two days after the Times' story was published, Hegseth went on Fox News and accused Caldwell, Selnick and Carroll not only of leaking information while they were employed at the Pentagon, but also of having given the paper the information about the Signal chat. Hegseth did not publicly describe the evidence against them.
The drama continued in May when White House officials removed Hegseth and his personal attorney, Tim Parlatore, also a Navy official, from overseeing the investigations into the three suspended aides, according to a current official and a person familiar with the probe.
White House officials shifted responsibility for the probe to the deputy defense secretary, Stephen Feinberg, with whom such an investigation would normally reside. That move, according to two sources familiar with the investigation, was a sign that there is a growing lack of confidence in Hegseth's ability to objectively oversee the investigation of his former aides.
After no evidence against the former aides emerged and it became increasingly clear that the three men were not guilty of leaking, administration officials began to question whether their firings had been hasty, two former administration officials and a current official said.
Infighting among the Hegseth advisers who remain continued, meanwhile, according to the defense official and a former administration official. And Hegseth himself remains largely isolated, relying on a small group of advisers, the defense official said.
Hegseth now leans heavily on a former military aide, Ricky Buria, who retired from the military in April hoping he could serve as Hegseth's chief of staff, a civilian position. But White House and Pentagon officials view Buria as a political novice who had reportedly been critical of Trump and Vance in private. (A Defense Department spokesman did not respond to a request for comment from Buria.)
As a result, White House officials rejected Hegseth's plan to hire Buria as his chief of staff, one of the defense officials and an administration official said. Despite that, Buria was seen with Hegseth during his recent trip to Asia in a workout video posted on social media.
Successes and setbacks
Since Hegseth joined the administration in January, he has had successes.
He expunged diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs from the Pentagon and the military services. Recruiting, particularly in the Army, is up on his watch, continuing a trend that began before Trump's inauguration but gained strength under Hegseth, according to Trump administration officials.
And during his recent trip to Asia, Hegseth was seen as effective in messaging to Beijing to stop any potential aggression in the region, according to current and former administration officials.