President Trump has been asking advisers whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should keep his post after Republican midterm losses, even as he and the White House publicly back him.
Multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News that Trump has raised the question with people around him and on the phone after the party’s setbacks Tuesday night. The report landed from Washington on Nov. 4, 2026.
By Wednesday afternoon, reporters put the replacement question to Trump directly. He did not hedge in public.
“No, I think he’s doing a very good job,” the president said.
"No, I think he's doing a very good job."
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly matched that line in a statement, saying the president “has full confidence in Secretary Hegseth.” She also credited him for military operations in Iran and Venezuela and for rolling back what she called the Biden Pentagon’s focus on DEI and woke ideology.
Vice President JD Vance offered a blunt political diagnosis Wednesday morning in a lengthy post on X. He did not name Hegseth. He named the conflict.
“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance wrote.
"The reason we lost is the war,"
That framing matters inside a White House sorting midterm wreckage. Some aides have already predicted that blame will fall on senior military leaders who played a major role in guidance on the Iran war, Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Hegseth has drawn heat for months from the left and from some on the right over war powers and personnel fights, including when Thomas Massie filed impeachment articles tied to the Iran dispute. Democrats were already pushing to impeach him before Election Day. With Democrats now holding strong majorities in both chambers, that threat does not shrink.
Other sources stressed that Trump has not decided to remove Hegseth. Still, succession chatter has started. One source floated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a possible replacement, arguing he could clear Senate confirmation in the lame-duck window and take the job when his governor’s term ends Jan. 5.
None of that is a signed order. It is the kind of private inventory presidents run when a midterm goes badly and a Cabinet job sits at the center of a war voters just punished.
Hegseth’s public profile has stayed loud on and off the Pentagon beat, from protesters branding him a war criminal at an Army conference to his own moves against leaks and leadership he did not trust. He removed a Joint Staff strategy chief over alleged classified leaks and dismissed Navy Reserve leader Nancy Lacore, a firing Democrats tried to weaponize in a House race.
Asked about the idea of Hegseth filling the Tennessee Senate seat that opens when Sen. Marsha Blackburn becomes governor, Trump was complimentary and dismissive in the same breath.
“I actually think he’d be very popular if he did that,” he said, “but I haven’t heard that at all.”
"I actually think he'd be very popular if he did that," "but I haven't heard that at all."
That answer keeps Hegseth in the Defense lane for now. It also shows Trump treating him as a political asset, not a finished product on the way out the door.
Kelly’s statement leaned on the same point: operations abroad and a Pentagon culture fight at home. For conservative voters who wanted the Defense Department dragged out of social engineering and back toward war-fighting, that record is the case for keeping him. For Democrats hunting a scalp, it is the case for ending him.
Hegseth has also kept one eye on a longer runway, including an Iowa fundraiser trip that stirred succession talk. That does not answer Trump’s private questions this week. It does explain why his name moves markets inside the party whenever the Cabinet deck gets shuffled.
Personnel cleanups have been part of the Hegseth tenure, not a side show. His decision to remove a Joint Staff strategy chief over leak allegations fit a pattern of insisting the building answer to elected leadership. Allies call that accountability. Critics call it score-settling. Midterm losses raise the volume on both arguments.
What remains clear is the split screen. Privately, Trump is testing options with advisers after a rough night for Republicans. Publicly, he says Hegseth is doing a very good job, and his spokeswoman says the president’s confidence is full. Vance says the war cost them seats. Aides eye generals who shaped the Iran campaign. Democrats smell impeachment oxygen. DeSantis’s name floats in the background.
Cabinet secretaries serve at the pleasure of the president. After a midterm shellacking tied to a live war, asking the hard question is not disloyalty. Pretending the question does not exist would be.
