Pete Hegseth: The Personal Life That Tells You Everything About His Leadership

The Recklessness You Tolerate at Home Will Follow You to the Front Lines

Pete Hegseth: The Personal Life That Tells You Everything About His Leadership

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #390

When a man burns through marriages like cheap cigars, you don’t need a PhD to figure out what you’re dealing with. You’re staring straight at a walking…talking impulse control problem.

A man like that doesn’t stop wrecking things just because you hand him a government badge.

Let’s get one thing straight: If a man can’t keep his house in order, he damn sure can’t keep the Pentagon in order.

This isn’t about gossip. This isn’t about who’s in his bed. This is about what kind of operator you’re dealing with.

Pete Hegseth isn’t a “bold leader”—he’s a crash test dummy in a leadership suit. He chases what he wants when he wants it and leaves the wreckage for someone else to clean up.

Serial cheater? Yes. Drinks too much? Yes. Throws emotional tantrums? Ask his ex-wives. Has the keys to the Pentagon anyway? You better believe it.

This is not the kind of man who leads with discipline. This is the kind of man who leads with whatever emotional sugar rush hits him that morning.

And if you think that’s going to work out well when we’re playing nuclear chess with adversaries who don’t blink…well…you’ve already signed up to lose.

Let’s Drill Into It. The Facts Don’t Lie.

In 2008, Pete Hegseth admitted to five affairs. Not one. Five. That’s not a slip. That’s a lifestyle.

That’s someone whose word is worth less than a broken slot machine. He torched his first marriage…moved on…and guess what? Round two went up in flames, too.

By 2010 he was married again. By 2017 he was out…same story…different year. But the ink wasn’t even dry before he was wrapping marriage number three—this time to a Fox News producer. The kind of marriage that raises more eyebrows than a rigged election.

What does this tell you?

It tells you he’s addicted to the hit—the new thing…the next thing…the shiny object that makes him feel like a big deal for five minutes before it burns out and he’s chasing the next thrill.

And you think that stops at home? It never does.

The same recklessness bleeds into everything else. Family sources say he drinks too much. That he rages behind closed doors. That he’s emotionally volatile.

Let’s call that what it is: a man who can’t control himself.

And if you can’t control yourself…you can’t lead anybody…you can only drag them into your mess.

The Dangerous Blueprint

Let’s put this in plain English. When you let a man like this run defense policy…you’re not getting strategic command. You’re getting a bar fight in a suit.

This is a man who doesn’t have brakes. He’s driven by gut…emotion…and ego. He makes decisions like he makes life choices…on the fly…in the moment…for whatever feels good right now. The future? Collateral damage.

Leadership—real leadership—is built in the boring trenches of consistency. It’s built in the hard…quiet choices that don’t make headlines. The people you trust to make nuclear decisions can’t be men who treat loyalty like a disposable razor.

You don’t get to compartmentalize this. You don’t get to say, “Well, that’s just his personal life.”

No. His personal life is the blueprint for how he makes decisions.

The man who can’t honor a marriage can’t honor an alliance. The man who can’t lead at home can’t lead in a war room. The man who runs when life gets uncomfortable is going to run when the pressure really hits.

You either have personal discipline…or you don’t. There’s no halfway. And Pete Hegseth has proven…by his own choices…that he’s got all the discipline of a raccoon in a dumpster.

What You Tolerate Today, You Normalize Tomorrow

This is the part that matters: what you tolerate today, you’ll normalize tomorrow. You start accepting leaders who live like this…and you’re going to get more of them.

And when the next crisis hits? When the pressure mounts? When the decision comes down to steady leadership or ego-driven chaos?

Don’t be surprised when it all burns down.

Don’t be surprised when the people making the calls are the same people who’ve spent their lives running from responsibility.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And Pete Hegseth’s past is a billboard.

You want to know if someone’s built for leadership? You don’t start by asking what they’ll do on the big stage.

You start by asking how they handled the little things—the promises no one else was watching, the commitments that didn’t make them famous.

Because that’s where character lives.

And in Pete Hegseth’s case…that’s where character died.

Remember this the next time you hear someone call him a leader.

Because what they’re really describing is a cautionary tale.

Why I Wrote This

I didn’t really write this because I thought there was something we could do to speed his removal along…or because I thought there was some path to “fixing” him. I wrote it as an example to make the following points clear:

People show you who they are early.

The signs are almost always there if you’re paying attention.

Patterns matter more than apologies.

When someone keeps making the same messes…their words mean nothing. Watch their track record.

Impulse control is a preview of every decision they’ll make under pressure.

If they can’t handle personal temptation…they won’t handle professional power well either.

Discipline is non-negotiable.

You can’t borrow it. You can’t fake it. And if someone doesn’t have it…they’ll eventually burn everything around them.

You can use this example for something far closer to home. These same tools will help you better screen who you allow into your own life…your home…your workplace…and your circles of trust.

Look for the patterns. Watch what they do when no one’s looking. Pay attention to how they treat people when the pressure is low.

Because that is exactly who they will become when the stakes are high.

When you learn to see the red flags early…you’ll save yourself a lifetime of pain… wasted time…and unnecessary cleanup.

And that’s the lesson worth walking away with.

Have a great night.

Jack