09/01/2026
Heather Cox Richardson
August 31, 2026 (Monday)
Alex Horton and Tara Copp of the Washington Post reported on Sunday, August 30, that military leaders are warning Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that a plan to continue large-scale operations in Iran is unsustainable and is weakening their ability to protect U.S. interests in other places, including at home.
The warning is in the classified Secretary of Defense Orders Book of August 14 and is laid out by the heads of the Army, Navy, and Air Force and the four-star commanders who oversee U.S. operations in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Trump’s insistence that he must keep all options open, including the ability to launch major attacks, has forced more than 50,000 troops to be kept on alert for months. Plans to extend that alert made the Navy’s top admiral, along with leaders of the U.S. European Command, the U.S. Pacific Command and the U.S. Southern Command, register that they did not concur with those plans, although their disagreement does not mean they will not execute the order.
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle warned that the Navy, which has borne the brunt of operations against Iran, cannot sustain its current level of support for the war. Barely a quarter of the Navy’s destroyer fleet is currently able to deploy, while delays in maintenance are threatening the readiness of other ships.
Leaders of the Army and Air Force concurred with the plan to extend force deployments but warned that there would be significant risk to such an extension.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell took to social media to push back against the story, saying, “Publishing highly classified assessments from the Secretary’s orders book is a crime. It’s a betrayal of the force…. We are in great shape around the world. This story isn’t about readiness. It’s TDS [Trump Derangement Syndrome] and PDS [Pete Derangement Syndrome]—they hate President Trump and Secretary Hegseth more than they love America.”
Charlotte Clymer of Charlotte’s Web Thoughts pointed out that Hegseth has either fired or forced into early retirement several admirals and generals whom he considered insufficiently loyal in what appears to be “an ongoing, blatant campaign of intimidation to keep senior brass in the Pentagon toeing the line and not pushing back against administration officials.” And yet, a broad range of military leaders are speaking out against the administration’s plans in Iran.
“If any of the defense secretaries under Presidents Biden, Obama, or Bush had gotten this degree and range of pushback from top uniformed personnel, there would be immediate congressional hearings, calls for resignations, and talks of impeachment,” Clymer writes. “Moreover,” she notes, “someone had to leak the information contained in this classified briefing and did so knowing that it would further confirm the extraordinary weakness the Trump administration has exhibited in its apparently dead-on-arrival ‘negotiations’ with the Iranian regime to end the war.”
National security scholar Tom Nichols commented: “This is a good time to note that Hegseth is terrible at his job, that the Pentagon is a mess, that he should never have been confirmed, and that he should be fired first thing in the morning. But in this administration, sycophancy is more important than competence.”
At 10:18 last night, Trump posted an AI video of military strikes and fires on what appears to be Iran’s Kharg Island, a major storage facility for Iran’s oil and the seaport for about 90% of its oil exports. The caption read: “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT.”
The Defense Department this morning clarified that the U.S. had not attacked Kharg Island. The U.S. did claim to have launched attacks on two Iranian rocket launchers yesterday as they attempted to mine the Strait of Hormuz. Iran claimed to retaliate with strikes against Jordan, which the Jordanian military said were all intercepted. The price of oil rose again.
At 8:09 this morning, Trump posted: “Iran is officially a Failed Nation. IT IS DEAD! They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no currency, they are not paying their soldiers or police, Inflation is at 300%, and their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country. The only thing they have is FAKE NEWS from the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters (now over 100,000 people dead. They must be tried for war crimes against humanity!), and a good line of “BULLSH*T.” Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
Trump continues to try to sell an image about Iran that does not reflect reality. In that, he appears to have the support of Defense Secretary Hegseth, who has restricted journalists’ access to the Pentagon and last week oversaw the firing of three staffers at the military publication Stars and Stripes.
In January the Pentagon tried to take away protections for the paper’s editorial independence, and last week it fired Erik Slavin, editor-in-chief of Stars and Stripes, and Lara Korte, a reporter who covers the Middle East. Max Lederer, the paper’s publisher, announced he would retire at the end of September but was pushed out immediately.
The three are suing Hegseth, the Defense Department, Principal Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Andrew Brey, and Defense spokesperson Sean Parnell, saying they were being attacked “for speaking up as private citizens in support of the press’s freedom to cover military operations, its need to reach all servicepersons, and in retaliation for their publication of a news report on deteriorating conditions aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln during its extended tour of duty in the Mid-East.” They called the firings a "blatant violation” of the First Amendment and called out the “extraordinary censorship efforts” of the Defense Department.
But it appears Hegseth is doing more than just trying to stop negative press. Last week, Will Sommer of The Bulwark reported that the Pentagon has hired right-wing social media influencers as special government employees, using taxpayer money to amplify Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack anyone who tries to hold the Trump administration to account. Sommer also noted that an active-duty U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, Adam D’Ortona, posts pro-Hegseth and anti-Democratic material during working hours in violation of the military’s traditional nonpartisanship.
Sommer reported on a video by former representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who commented: “How many more people that are blue checkmarks on X, that are putting out information on behalf of the federal government and Donald Trump and the Republican Party…are actually special government employees being paid by your tax dollars?”
A story in the Washington Post by Dan Lamothe and Tara Copp yesterday found more. They report that the Pentagon has secretly hired several right-wing military veterans with large social media accounts, including Rob Maness, Kurt Schlichter, and Thomas Anderson, to boost Hegseth’s positions. A Pentagon spokesperson would not comment on the content of their jobs, whether they are receiving a taxpayer-funded salary, or how long their employment is expected to last.
In Public Notice today, Paul Waldman notes that Trump intended to show strength when he made a show of changing the name of Lake Ontario last week, but it really shows he is “weak and getting weaker.” He is still trying to shore up his fantasy world even as the real world is asserting its power.
On Saturday, Trump made an exception in his war on the media, praising CNN’s pollster Harry Enten “because he was willing to show that Donald J. Trump is six times more popular than Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, or any other President,” a reference to Trump's standing among Republicans alone.
Tonight Michael R. Gordon and Marcus Weisgerber of the Wall Street Journal reported that Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has submitted his resignation after struggling with Hegseth for months over Hegseth’s firing of senior Army officers and over the direction of the military.
Driscoll's departure, the journalists note, leaves the Army without any Senate-confirmed civilian or military leaders.
