Acting chief of staff to the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has tried and failed to remove the White House recruiter at the Pentagon, The Washington Post reported, citing its sources.
According to the newspaper, acting chief of staff to the US Secretary of Defense Ricky Berria “tried and failed to remove White House coordinator Matthew McNitt“. As the publication notes, Berria was probably “unhappy with the White House's resistance to his efforts to filled the vacant positions on Hegseth's staff.
US administration officials “intervened when Beria tried to get rid of McNitt, effectively blocking such a move“, explains The Washington Post. Earlier, the newspaper notes, the White House refused to appoint him as the chief of staff of the Secretary of Defense permanently.
The publication quotes a statement by the deputy press secretary of the White House, Anna Kelly, who noted that US President Donald Trump “fully supports“ Hegseth in “his efforts to restore the Pentagon's focus on service members“, and “McNitt and other officials share the administration's overall mission“ to strengthen the US armed forces.
In turn, the assistant to the Pentagon press secretary for public affairs, Sean Parnell, called the newspaper's information "nonsense" and "click-through gossip."
On July 30, NBC News reported, citing sources, that Hegseth was considering running for governor of Tennessee in 2026, which would require him to leave his post as head of the Pentagon. This would be the largest shake-up in the leadership of the US Department of Defense, NBC News noted.
If Hegseth announces his candidacy for governor, Trump could temporarily hand over his responsibilities to Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll or Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, his sources said.