Pete Hegseth is being mercilessly mocked behind his back in the Pentagon, according to insiders.
Staffers have reportedly furnished the self-proclaimed “secretary of war” with a brutal new moniker that leans on his insatiable appetite for war: “Dumb McNamara.”
Current and former U.S. officials have told Zeteo that the former Fox and Friends host is being painted as a dumb version of Robert McNamara, the defense secretary who became a symbol of America’s failures in the Vietnam War.
The businessman turned statesman is often credited with bringing the U.S. into the war, a conflict that killed between 1.4 million and 3.5 million people. He pushed so hard for more U.S. involvement in the conflict that it was eventually dubbed “McNamara’s War.”
Hegseth, for his part, has acted as one of the main cheerleaders of President Donald Trump’s war in Iran. The president has even credited, or blamed, him for promoting it so ardently. “Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up. You said, ‘Let’s do it,’” Trump said during an engagement in Tennessee earlier this week.
McNamara, who was defense secretary under both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, repeatedly gave glowing assessments about the U.S. military’s performance in Vietnam, despite knowing full well, as declassified papers later revealed, that the conflict had turned into a disaster.
He famously reversed course midway through his tenure and began to openly advocate against the war by 1967. That year, he commissioned what became known as the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret investigation that questioned the wisdom of American involvement in the war.
Hegseth appears to have no such inclination. “We negotiate with bombs,” he said Tuesday. “You have a choice, as we loiter over the top of Tehran.”
A day later he used the Pentagon’s first monthly worship service since the start of the Iran war to pray for “overwhelming violence.”
In what should perhaps serve as a warning to Trump, Hegseth’s purported new nickname hints at other parallels. McNamara is widely believed to have helped destroy Johnson’s administration. Trump’s polling, as Hegseth continues to salivate over war in the Middle East, is in the gutter.
The most recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted between March 20-23 among 1,272 U.S. adults, shows just 36 percent of Americans approve of the president’s job performance, down from 40 percent last week.
On the strikes in Iran specifically, just 35 percent of Americans approve, down from 37 percent last week. A massive 61 percent now disapprove.
Indeed, officials have told Zeteo that they fear a war will destroy the Trump administration, like it did with Lyndon Johnson’s. “Everything has gone to s--t,” one official said.
The Department of Defense has been contacted for comment.
