Pete Hegseth Defiantly Blames ‘Deep State’ for Pentagon Dysfunction and Leaks: ‘They’ve Come for Me Since Day 1!’

A defiant Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appeared on Fox & Friends, the morning show he used to co-host, and seemingly blamed everyone else for the current dysfunction unfolding at the Pentagon since he took over.

Hegseth is coming off a string of tough news cycles that started with the apparent firing of some top aides he brought in to help run the Defense Department on Friday: a damning Politico column written by one of the outgoing and now-former staff members, which called Hegseth’s tenure “total chaos” and a stunning New York Times report that he had shared classified information with his wife, brother, and lawyer on the commercial app, Signal.

Hegseth’s Fox & Friends interview Tuesday morning with Brian Kilmeade could have been scripted in advance by anyone familiar with the “best defense is a good offense” playbook that President Donald Trump consistently employs, as do so many of his top advisers who are always eager to please their boss.

The Defense Secretary reiterated his claim that any information he shared in a Signal group chat was not classified, nor did he break any security protocol, insisting that the data he shared was  “informal and unclassified.”

“We take classification very seriously,” he said, reiterating a prior claim made during the first SignalGate storyline involving The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that no one was texting war plans.  He also blamed the new allegations on people “trying to get at” the Trump agenda and trying to sabotage the administration. The new allegations are “not based in reality.”

He also noted that the ongoing leak investigation continues and that “everything we do” at the Pentagon is to safeguard information to protect soldiers, and that the people let go came as a result of an internal investigation, defiantly blasting the crew he had fired. “Once a leaker, always a leaker.”

“Mr. Secretary, do you think you take this job, you come in with war experience and all your great background?” Kilmeade asked, “Do you think there are a lot of people who don’t want you there, and there are some type of steep deep state forces that want to make sure you don’t stay there?”

“They’ve come after me from Day 1, just like they’ve come after President Trump,” Hegwseth replied, seemingly happy to have the question asked.  “I mean, I’ve gotten a fraction of what President Trump got in that first term. What he’s endured is superhuman,” he added sycophantically,

“It’s not hard for me to do this job. I know exactly why I’m here, to bring war fighting and the war fighting ethos back to the Pentagon, to rip out the insidious ideologies and not compromise and not back down,” he continued, playing the hero’s role wrapped in victimhood. “To bring in new press voices into the Pentagon, which we’ve done, to reestablish standards and accountability, to not tolerate leakers, to treat 100 percent operational control of our border, to get rid of trans lunacy in the military. We haven’t backed down.”

“So here’s the thing, a lot of people come to Washington and they just play the game, and it’s you punch their ticket, and get along to go along and start doing Meet the Press and going to the Council on Foreign Relations and spending time with all the new cocktail-sipping crowd. That’s not why I’m here,” he continued. “I’m because President Trump asked me to bring warfighting back to the Pentagon every single day. That is our focus. And if people don’t like it, they can come after me. No worries. I’m standing right here.

“The warfighters are behind us. Our enemies know they’re on notice. Our allies know we’re behind them. And that, in this dangerous world for the American people, is what it’s all about.”

Again, the three individuals he fired from the Pentagon were not holdovers from the previous administration or lifetime employees. They were close allies that Pete Hegseth brought with him, so if they are part of the “deep state” and are to blame for the dysfunction, then who is responsible for that?

Watch above via Fox News.