Accused Pentagon Leaker Opens Up to Megyn Kelly About ‘Agitated’ Pete Hegseth: ‘Honestly, I Don’t Know’ If He’s OK
Collin Carroll, the ousted chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, spoke to Megyn Kelly over the weekend about his suspension after he was accused of leaking to the press.
Kelly’s exclusive interview with Carroll came days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went on Fox News and raised eyebrows for blaming “leakers” for his recent scandals. “Disgruntled former employees are peddling things to try to save their ass, and ultimately, that’s not going to work,” said Hegseth in the animated morning interview while noting the accused leakers may end up being totally exonerated. Carroll was one of three top Pentagon officials recently let go over alleged leaks.
Carroll told Kelly at one point that Hegseth “was very focused on the leaks. And I think it’s kind of consumed the team a little bit. Like if you look at a pie chart of the secretary’s day, at this point, 50% of it is probably leak investigations to the press– that can’t be. That’s a bad thing for America, it’s a bad thing for the presidents objectives. And in order to combat that image, it’s ‘hey, I’m gonna go work out with the troops.’”
Kelly asked Carroll what he thought about the interview. Carroll responded that he believed it was a mistake and Hegseth looked “unprepared,” but argued it ultimately is unimportant as Hegseth only has “an audience of one” – President Donald Trump.
“Do you think he’s okay? Do you think Pete is okay?” Kelly went on to ask, showing concern.
“Yeah, honestly, I don’t know. I’m not sure. I have observed a Pete that is one Pete and crushes it in meetings. For example, this is out in the press. They did like a little blog post on it, but the House Freedom Caucus came to talk to us about budget. It was a breakfast,” Carroll replied, adding:
They all came. It was super interesting. Their bus hit like a signpost on the way in and shattered some windows.
They were super late, but they all came in. They’re super excited to be there. A lot of them have never been in the Pentagon before.
These are people that want to spend less. They want a strong national security, they want a strong defense, but they don’t want us to have a big budget. They’re afraid if we go up, domestic spending goes up and everything falls apart from their ability to balance the budget.
The secretary crushed that meeting. I’ve never seen a meeting like that. There is not a secretary in living memory that could have done as good a job with those guys.”
It was informal, he was super direct, he was very transparent, and they left. I could tell you it was the best trip they’ve probably ever been on in all year.
“At the same time, I’ve seen the secretary in more internal meetings where he is super focused on very, in my opinion, weird details and very agitated and kind of like yelling and just nothing’s good.
So, it’s like a tale of two Peets and, I’ll be honest, I’m not the person to ask about what he was like before and all that. I don’t know. I’m just telling you what I observed in the 90 days that I was there.
“Was there like a particular point at which his agitation stepped up?” Kelly followed up.
“Yeah, I think, you know, roughly, it was around the time of Signalgate, maybe before, when some of these leaks started. There was a focus on the leaks. So, don’t get me wrong, like leaking is bad and there are leakers and we should try to catch them, especially when it comes to classified things,” Carroll replied.
Watch the clip above.
