President Trump dismissed a question Tuesday about whether he has complete confidence in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as the Pentagon chief faces mounting scrutiny of his leadership.
“I don’t have 100 percent confidence in anything, okay? Anything. Do I have a hundred percent? It’s a stupid question,” Trump said in an interview with ABC News’s Terry Moran.
“It’s a pretty important position,” Moran responded.
“No, no, no,” Trump added. “You don’t have a 100 percent. Only a liar would say, ‘I have 100 percent confidence.’”
In the Oval Office interview on Tuesday, the president addressed the controversies that have surrounded his defense chief after reporting revealed he used the discrete messaging app Signal on at least two separate occasions to share sensitive military information to groups that included top administration officials as well as his wife, brother, personal lawyer and inadvertently The Atlantic’s top editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
Trump signaled an optimistic tone about Hegseth and confirmed they spoke recently.
“I had a talk with him, and whatever I said I probably wouldn’t be inclined to tell you,” Trump told Moran. “But — we had a good talk. He’s a talented guy. He’s young. He’s smart, highly educated.”
“And I think he’s gonna be a very good defense, hopefully a great defense secretary,” he added.
The president told The Atlantic in an interview earlier this week that he thinks Hegseth will “get it together.”
The comment came after Hegseth reportedly ordered a makeup room to be set up at the Defense Department, which he has denied, and he has been at the center of controversy around his use of Signal and over his management of the department after several top staffers were ousted.
Hegseth defended his use of the app in both cases, claiming the information shared was “unclassified” and “informal.” He has also blasted the media and former employees for the turmoil.
