Hamza Adam 
President Donald Trump has vehemently denied any plans to get rid of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth — but that resolve already appears to be cracking, former NBC anchor Chuck Todd told a CNN panel on Wednesday evening, as the scandals continue to mount and his position becomes less and less tenable.
Hegseth faced a fresh wave of pressure to step down this week following the revelation of a second “Signalgate” chat leaking highly sensitive military battle plans, as well as reports that his senior staff are in complete chaos and uncontrollable.
“Is there ever a more straightforward sign in Trumpworld that you are on your way out the door than the president suddenly starting to ask the people around him about you?” anchor Kasie Hunt asked Todd.
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Todd agreed. “By the way, for some of us in the press who have had an on-again, off-again relationship with the president, I’ve been on the receiving end of that myself,” said Todd. “What do you think of so and so? I’m thinking about getting ready. You’re just like, really? You know, it’s the strangest thing when he does because he — he’ll reach out to anybody on this stuff, right? Like, not just, you know, supporters. He — because he wants to know what the press thinks.”
A further “very bad sign” for Hegseth, continued Todd, is that “to also translate what JD Vance wants to say, the media can’t make up a story without sources.”
“What’s really the issue for Pete Hegseth is there are a lot of Republicans who never thought he was qualified, aired their dirty laundry. A lot of Republicans and a lot of people in the Pentagon who are just military folks who do not believe he knows what he’s doing, airing their dirty laundry, and then have some people who even go on the record and write op-eds. And I have to say, there’s a lot of shocking things. That was one of the more shocking. Wow. Like, within 48 hours of leaving the Pentagon, you decided — and can you imagine, Politico? Really? You want to do this on the record? Okay, you know, here you go, we’ll give you a byline and everything.”
“This has all the hallmarks of, Trump doesn’t want to give a scalp to the media … give the media a win, so it’s not going to happen probably within the next 96 hours,” Todd added. “But you know, I’d be on a month-to-month lease if I worked for him right now.”
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