Trump White House Has Reportedly ‘Begun Process’ Of Replacing Pete Hegseth

NPR is reporting that despite public votes of confidence from President Donald Trump and Karoline Leavitt, the White House has begun the process of looking for a new Secretary of Defense to replace Pete Hegseth.

According to NPR, “The White House has begun the process of looking for a new secretary of defense, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly.”

Throughout the morning on Monday, the White House has publicly gone all out to defend Hegseth despite a tough 24 hours for the embattled defense secretary. Late Sunday, scorching op-ed written a former Pentagon official alleged “total chaos” has broken out on Hegseth’s watch, and new reporting emerged revealing that Hegseth shared details of a sensitive attack against the Houthis in a Signal group chat with his family.

Still, Trump went to bat for Hegseth while speaking to reporters outside the White House.

“Pete’s doing a great job,” Trump told reporters during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll on Monday. He added, “It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories. It sounds like disgruntled employees.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt went so far as to make a stunning claim that the “entire Pentagon” was working to take down Hegseth.

“The president stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth, who is doing a phenomenal job leading the Pentagon,” Leavitt said. “This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change that you are trying to implement. Secretary Hegseth was nominated for this position because he is standing up for the war fighter — the men and women in uniform who are putting their lives on the line to protect our country and our homeland. And unfortunately, there have been people at that building who don’t like the change the secretary is trying to bring, so they are leaking and they are lying to the mainstream media.”

The White House is emphatically denying the NPR story.

“This ⁦@NPR story is total FAKE NEWS based on one anonymous source who clearly has no idea what they are talking about,” Leavitt wrote in a Monday afternoon post on X. “As the President said this morning, he stands strongly behind ⁦@SecDef.”