Hegseth Is So Paranoid He’s Now Bringing His Wife to Pentagon Meetings
Pete Hegseth has turned the United States Department of Defense into something closer to a family business than a war-fighting institution. According to a new report, the Defense Secretary has begun bringing his wife, Jennifer Rauchet, a former Fox News producer, into meetings with Pentagon staff, where she sits quietly in the back of the room with no clear official role.
The move comes as Hegseth has grown increasingly isolated inside the building he is supposed to be running. Sources indicate he is gripped by fear that President Trump could fire him at any moment, and he has responded by drawing his inner circle so tight it now includes his brother Phil, who holds a senior advisory position, and attorney Tim Parlatore, who has represented both Hegseth and Trump.
Meanwhile, the actual business of running the Pentagon has quietly shifted to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, a billionaire private equity executive who now oversees roughly three million military and civilian employees while Hegseth focuses on personal pet projects, including restructuring chaplain services.
The chaos at the top has come at a steep cost to the institution. Hegseth has fired or forced the retirement of 24 generals and senior commanders since taking office. About 60 percent of those removed have been Black or female, a fact that tracks directly with the administration’s sweeping rollback of diversity and inclusion programs. Experts warn this is not reform. It is a purge.
“They want to create ideologically pure armed forces that will be pliant to the president,” retired Army Major General Paul Eaton told The Guardian. “Whose oath will be more to a person than to the constitution.”
Former Army Colonel Kevin Carroll put it more bluntly, saying what is happening at the Pentagon now bears no resemblance to the professional disagreements he witnessed during the Iraq War era. “This is just disarray,” Carroll said. “It’s crazy.”