Why I’m Predicting Pete Hegseth Is Well On His Way To Being Fired
The off-ramp is being paved. The only question left is whether Trump walks him down it — or pushes.
Why I’m Predicting Pete Hegseth Is Well On His Way To Being Fired
The off-ramp is being paved. The only question left is whether Trump walks him down it — or pushes.
The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #873: Monday, April 20th, 2026.
A Pattern, Not A Headline
Let me be clear about something.
Cabinet secretaries are not fired in a single news cycle. They are fired across them. Slowly. Then…all at once.
What we have witnessed over the past three weeks is not noise... it is the architecture of an ouster being assembled in public view. And…if you know what to look for…you can see every load-bearing beam.
The firings. The leaks. The paranoia. The rival quietly accumulating institutional weight. The party beginning…carefully…deniably…to move.
This is how it happens.
Not with a tweet. With a pattern.
What Hegseth Did On April 2
On April 2, with American forces actively engaged in a war with Iran…the Secretary of Defense fired the Chief of Staff of the Army.
Gen. Randy George. Forty-two years in uniform. Purple Heart. Three years into a four-year term. Confirmed by the Senate. Fired…and told to retire, effective immediately.
On the same day, Hegseth also fired the Army’s top chaplain, Maj. Gen. William Green Jr….and Gen. David Hodne…commander of Army Transformation and Training Command.
Three senior officers. One day. During a shooting war.
Consider what that sentence actually means.
Consider what it would have meant in 1942. In 1968. In 2003.
An Axios source…a defense official…said it plainly: here is a four-star general actively working to get equipment and people into theater, to protect U.S. forces, and you fire him? In the middle of a war?
That is not the question of a hostile press. That is the question of the Pentagon itself.
And…no one inside the building has an answer they are willing to put their name to.
The Name You Need To Know Is Dan Driscoll
Every Cabinet firing in a presidency like this one requires two things.
A reason. And a replacement.
The reasons have been accumulating for a year…Signalgate…the second Signal chat that included his wife and brother…the fired advisers…the vanished chief of staff…the parade of ousted flag officers…the war plans shared in unsecured channels.
Until recently, what was missing was the replacement.
His name is Dan Driscoll.
He is 40 years old. Iraq combat veteran. Secretary of the Army. Yale Law School classmate…and close personal friend…of Vice President J.D. Vance.
Last fall, when Trump wanted someone to run point on Ukraine cease-fire talks in Kyiv, he did not send the Secretary of Defense.
Daniel P. Driscoll, United States Secretary of the Army.
He sent the Secretary of the Army.
Think about that for a moment. A sitting Defense Secretary was sidelined during the most consequential diplomatic mission of the administration...and the man sent in his place now has the Vice President as a personal patron…the Army’s flag officers as political allies…and House Republicans publicly praising him on the record.
That is not a subordinate. That is an understudy.
And Hegseth knows it.
The Tell: Paranoia In Public
When a Cabinet secretary begins firing the allies of his perceived rival, he is not managing a department... he is fighting a succession battle. And he is losing.
The White House has already told Hegseth he cannot fire Driscoll. Cannot. That is not a courtesy…that is a leash.
Unable to remove the man himself…Hegseth did what cornered men do. He fired the people around him. Gen. Randy George was not merely the Army Chief of Staff.
He was Driscoll’s closest partner at the Pentagon. They had traveled to Ukraine together. They were overhauling the Army together. They were in the eyes of the building the future.
Firing George was not a personnel decision. It was a message.
The message was received.
And…the reply came within six days...when Driscoll went on the record with the Washington Post and said…in a sentence that would only be necessary if his removal were actively being discussed…he had no plans to depart or resign.
Cabinet secretaries do not say that when their position is secure.
They say it…when the knives are out...and they want the record to show who was holding them.
When The Party Begins To Move
On April 16, something happened in a hearing room on Capitol Hill that should have received more attention than it did.
House Republicans…not Democrats, Republicans…publicly backed Dan Driscoll and publicly lamented the firing of Gen. Randy George.
A rare public break with the Defense Secretary. From his own party. During a war.
That is not a policy disagreement. That is a vote of no confidence…taken by voice…in the open…with cameras rolling.
When members of a president’s own party begin to openly defend the rival of a Cabinet secretary, they are not defending a man...they are signaling what they can live with. And…what they cannot.
They can live with Driscoll replacing Hegseth.
They cannot live with Driscoll being fired.
That is the quiet part. And they said it out loud.
What The Pattern Looks Like
Here is what the pattern looks like when a Cabinet secretary is being moved toward the door.
First...
…the insider leaks begin. Not the partisan attacks…those have always been there. The insider leaks. The ones sourced to “a senior White House official” and “three people close to the situation.”
They began months ago…with reporting that Trump was frustrated with the chaos swirling around Hegseth and had ordered him to get his act together.
Second...
…the replacement gains stature. Sent to Kyiv. Praised by the White House. Protected by the Vice President. Defended in open hearings by the president’s party.
Third...
…the loyal circle collapses. Three advisers fired in a single stretch. A chief of staff resigns. The people closest to him are the ones he cannot trust…and the ones he cannot keep.
Fourth...
…the mistakes compound. Signalgate. A second Signal chat. A weapons-shipment decision to Ukraine made without informing the White House…which according to MSNBC’s Jonathan Lemire left Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and others inside the building exasperated.
Fifth...
…and this is the one you watch for... the president stops defending him personally and begins defending him institutionally. “I stand behind him” becomes “the White House stands behind him” becomes silence.
We are somewhere between step four and step five.
Why I’m Making The Call
I am predicting Pete Hegseth is on his way out.
Not tomorrow. Not next week. Perhaps not even next month.
But…the architecture is built. The replacement is in place. The party has signaled. The Vice President has a horse in the race. The leaks are coming from inside the West Wing.
The only variable left is Donald Trump’s timing…and Donald Trump’s pride.
In his first term, he kept failed Cabinet officials long past the point his advisers wanted them gone. In his second term…he has moved faster. The calculus is not loyalty. The calculus is cost.
And…every week the cost of keeping Hegseth grows...while the cost of replacing him shrinks.
That is the crossing point. That is where Cabinet secretaries go from indispensable to disposable.
Hegseth crossed it sometime in early April.
He just doesn’t know it yet.
What To Watch
Three signals. Watch them in this order.
The first:
Driscoll continuing to receive public praise from House Republicans without Hegseth publicly pushing back. That is the political insulation being stripped.
The second:
Trump moving from “I stand behind Pete” to “we’ll see what happens.” The shift from first person to third person is the shift from loyalty to distance.
The third:
A single White House source…described as “senior”…going on the record…not on background…with a critical quote. Once the Wiles operation decides he is leaving, the quotes will not be anonymous anymore.
When you see those three...the clock is not ticking.
It has already stopped.
#HoldFast
Back soon.
-Jack
Jack Hopkins
P.S. There is one more thing to understand about this moment. And…it has nothing to do with Pete Hegseth.
It has to do with the precedent he set.
When a Secretary of Defense fires the Chief of Staff of the Army during an active war …without explanation, without cause publicly given, without the Senate that confirmed him even being notified…he establishes something that will outlast his tenure.
He establishes that uniformed leadership serves at political pleasure. That forty-two years in uniform can be ended…by a single phone call. That proximity to a previous administration is sufficient grounds for removal…no matter the war being fought.
Hegseth may be gone by summer. The precedent he set…will not be.
And…the officers currently serving…the ones watching Gen. George walk out of the Pentagon for the last time…are learning a lesson the United States military has historically been protected from learning.
That what they say inside that building...can cost them everything.
The question is not whether Pete Hegseth survives.
The question is whether the institution he leaves behind does.
#HoldFast
Sources
CNN — Hegseth ousts US Army chief of staff and two other generals amid Iran war (April 2, 2026)
NBC News — Pete Hegseth forces out Army’s top officer and two other generals (April 2, 2026)
CNN — Army secretary praises general who was fired by Hegseth (April 16, 2026)
ABC News — Army secretary calls fired general ‘transformational’ after Hegseth ousted him
The Hill — Dan Driscoll stays Army secretary despite Pete Hegseth clashes
TIME — What to Know About the Army Chief Hegseth Ousted — and the General Who’s Taking Over
I can't help but try to imagine who/what...maybe serve as his replacement. Sort of along the lines of ' how low can Trump go'. That is not to say that I will be sorry to see him go. It's interesting to watch Trump's desperation as he does all of these panicked pending amputations as it were..as tho' he can somehow prevent the sepsis of accountability from reaching the true source of systemic infection... Himself.
These headlines brought an immediate smile to my face…haven’t even read the article yet! It’s well past time for this unqualified, ignorant poser to be removed!!! Thank you Jack for brightening my morning…now to the article!