A vicious rivalry at the Pentagon could be the reason Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's job is in jeopardy. We explore the drama in this video collaboration between Politico and Business Insider.
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00:00What if I told you that a lot of the chaos at the Pentagon right now actually boils down to a simple mano-e-mano cockfight?
00:06Defense Secretary Hegseth's inner circle has been embroiled in this ugly rivalry that has led to firings, accusations of leaks and worse,
00:14and now these sort of revenge power plays that we're starting to see that are a huge distraction from Donald Trump's agenda.
00:19Things got so bad that Hegseth actually suspected his inner circle was leaking stories to make each other look bad and ultimately just made the Pentagon look like fools.
00:28At the center of this brouhaha is a guy named Joe Casper. He's Hegseth's chief of staff, or at least he was.
00:33Now, I covered Joe back in the day on Capitol Hill when he worked for a lawmaker who was, number one, accused of drinking on the job regularly,
00:40number two, was indicted and actually convicted of misusing taxpayer funds,
00:44and number three, investigators actually questioned him about a young woman who he was paying even though she didn't show up for work.
00:50Needless to say, I was a bit surprised to learn that Casper was now running the Pentagon under Hegseth.
00:55Now, Casper denies all of that and he pushes back on these accusations saying people are just trying to smear him because they lost their jobs.
01:02That may be true, but still, can you believe this drama?
01:05So what does this all mean for Hegseth's job?
01:07There are a lot of Democrats who are currently calling for him to go,
01:10but the only person whose opinion actually matters is Donald Trump's.
01:13And let's get one thing straight.
01:15Donald Trump loves this guy.
01:17It's going to take a lot for him to get canned.