Thom Tillis's man at the Pentagon

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is a disaster and threat to national security.

Thom Tillis could have stopped Pete Hegseth. He knew that he was incompetent. He went so far as to tell his fellow Republican Senators that he would vote against Hegseth’s nomination for Secretary of Defense. And then he folded, like he always does.

Hegseth is in trouble again. Last we heard about Hegseth, he was disclosing classified information about a strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen to an unsecured Signal group that inadvertently included a reporter. Now, we learn that there was a second Signal group where he shared pretty much the same information, only this time the group included a bunch of people with no need to know anything. Hegseth was just bragging to family and friends about his first military strike.

Last night, the former chief spokesperson for the Pentagon wrote a scathing and highly personal account of chaos at the Defense Department. John Ullyot, who resigned his position a month ago, called on Trump to fire Hegseth, saying, “The last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon — and it’s becoming a real problem for the administration.”

Ullyot went through the recent debacles under Hegseth. First, Signalgate caused embarrassment and exposed a level of incompetence within the administration. Then, Hegseth took his wife to “two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed.” He also tried to set up a briefing with the Joint Chiefs of Staff for Elon Musk even though Musk has extensive business contracts in China. Last week, Hegseth fired his three top advisors and his chief of staff resigned, leaving a void of leadership at the Department of Defense. Now, we learn of Signalgate 2.0. He’s only been Secretary for three months.

All of this mess was both predictable and preventable. Thom Tillis knew that Pete Hegseth was not qualified to run the Department of Defense. He told people Hegseth was a problem. Then, he voted for him anyway under pressure from Trumpworld. He put his political career before the well-being of our country. More importantly, though, he put himself before the men and women who serve our country.

Thom Tillis knows what is right and does what is wrong. He will put his personal ambition and political career first every time. He shows us over and over again that he knows what he should do and even gets right to the line of doing it, but then folds under pressure. He’s a man who lacks the courage of his convictions.