COLUMN: Trump Blames Hegseth, While 5,000 Sailors Have Been Waiting at Sea for 266 Days

The Ejection Seat

There is a man on the deck of an aircraft carrier, somewhere between the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Day 266. He doesn’t know when he’ll be returning. His wife, meanwhile, is reading the newspapers.

There is another man in an office at the Pentagon. Pete Hegseth, U.S. Secretary of War. On August 17, 2026, the South China Morning Post published an exclusive article: according to several anonymous sources, Hegseth was on the verge of losing his job. Trump was reportedly growing impatient. The war against Iran had yielded no solid breakthroughs, and someone would have to pay the price.

None of this has been confirmed.

The White House has denied it—twice over. The Hong Kong daily stands by its story. An outspoken American columnist, Thom Hartmann, came up with a more brutal theory the very next day: Trump would fire Hegseth to make him take the fall for a lost war. An appealing theory. An unverifiable theory, as of yet.

What is verifiable is the rest. A destroyer without power for four days in the South China Sea. Families of sailors who speak of men ready to jump overboard. A Congress that has voted four times against this war. A president who has already fired a Secretary of Homeland Security, an Attorney General, and more than a dozen generals since the start of his second term.

This column tells both stories at once. That of a Secretary of War who has made a string of documented mistakes. And that of a commander-in-chief who decided on this war, who funds it, who prolongs it, and who may already be looking for a name to pin the failure on.

The secretary’s seat is ejectable. The president’s seat, never.

January 24, 2025: A Single Voice

Let’s start from the beginning, because the beginning explains the end.

On January 24, 2025, the U.S. Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Fifty votes in favor, fifty votes against. Vice President J.D. Vance’s vote is needed to break the tie—a move recorded in the Senate’s official tally of tie-breaking votes. No Pentagon chief before him had ever needed that to take office.

Three Republican senators voted against their own party that evening: Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins. A former Fox News host—with no experience managing an organization of three million people and facing allegations of personal misconduct that he denied—took the helm of the world’s leading military by the narrowest margin permitted by the Constitution.

A single vote.

Let me put it bluntly: the choice was Donald Trump’s, and he defended it to the very end. That was his right as president-elect. It is also, nineteen months later, his sole responsibility. No one appoints a man against the advice of half the Senate and then pretends to be surprised by his limitations.

March 2025: War in a Chat Group

The first warning comes quickly. Too quickly.

In March 2025, the Associated Press reveals that U.S. attack plans against the Houthis in Yemen were circulated on Signal, a commercial messaging app, in a chat group comprising top national security officials. By mistake, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine was added to the group. He read the strike schedules before the strikes took place.

Takeoff times. Aircraft types. Fire sequences. It was all there, on a phone that any foreign intelligence service would dream of hacking.

Trump downplayed the incident at the time, calling it a mere hiccup in his first two months in office. Hegseth remained in his post. No sanctions. The message sent to the military is crystal clear: loyalty protects better than rigor.

I want us to consider what this means for the guy at the bottom of the ladder. A twenty-two-year-old sailor who leaves a procedures manual lying around in a Norfolk bar loses his security clearance, his bonus, and sometimes his career. His secretary accidentally shares strike schedules with a reporter, and he keeps the nicest office on the Potomac River. Two systems of justice, one army. The crews figure this out long before the editorialists do, and this realization erodes trust faster than any Iranian missile.

Remember this line about loyalty. It comes up again later, in a bigger way.

December 3, 2025: The report on the table

The Pentagon’s Inspector General submits its findings on December 3, 2025. Reuters summarizes them in a single line: Hegseth violated the rules by sharing details about the strikes in Yemen on Signal. The report is there. Documented, dated, official.

What happens next?

Nothing.

No resignation, no public censure, no revocation of security clearance. Trump keeps his man, just as he did in March. At that precise moment, in December 2025, Donald Trump has all the information necessary to judge his secretary. He chooses to keep him. Every decision Hegseth makes after that date is therefore also a decision by Trump. This is the very principle of command, and no anonymous leak from August 2026 can rewrite it.

Try this exercise with any human organization. A plant manager receives an internal audit finding that a foreman violated safety protocols; he keeps the foreman on without condition, and the plant burns down eight weeks later. In court, no one would accept the manager’s claim of surprise. The report existed. So did the decision to ignore it. In Quebec labor law as in U.S. military strategy, it goes by the same name: managerial negligence.

The report was still sitting on the table when the bombers took off.

February 28, 2026: War Without Permission

On February 28, 2026, everything escalated. The United States and Israel launched a so-called preemptive strike against Iran. Reuters reported explosions in the heart of Tehran; the region plunged into open military conflict, and nuclear diplomacy was buried overnight.

Congress had authorized nothing. No declaration of war, no resolution, no prior vote. The operation was given a Hollywood-style name, “Epic Fury,” and the Strait of Hormuz—through which, according to Al Jazeera, one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes in peacetime—closed in like a trap.

Trump publicly states the objectives: to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, to shatter Tehran’s ability to strike its rivals, and to create the conditions for the regime to be overthrown by the Iranians themselves. He says so himself. It is his war—claimed, signed, and sealed.

A word about this strait, because everything that follows stems from it. Thirty-three kilometers wide at its narrowest point, between Iran and Oman. When Hormuz coughs, marine insurers pull their ships out, oil tankers take detours of thousands of kilometers, and the price ripples all the way to the liter of gas purchased by a delivery driver in Trois-Rivières. Closing the Strait of Hormuz was the most predictable card in Iran’s hand. It had been lying there, face up, for forty years. The Joint Chiefs of Staff knew it. So did the Commander-in-Chief.

I support the idea that a president must be able to strike quickly when America is threatened. I do not support the idea that a war lasting several months against a country of 90 million people can proceed without Congress. The Constitution is not an administrative formality. It is the contract.

And that contract contains a provision written in 1787: the commander-in-chief is the president. Not the secretary.

March 5, 2026: The First Casualty

Five days after the first strikes, a secretary is ousted. Not at the Pentagon. At the Department of Homeland Security.

Kristi Noem is ousted on March 5, 2026, replaced by Senator Markwayne Mullin, as reported by American public radio. The official reason is vague. The timing, however, is not: the White House faces its first criticism of the war, and a head rolls.

On the same day, the House of Representatives votes on a war powers resolution demanding the withdrawal of U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities against Iran. It fails, 212 to 219. The House Clerk’s Register keeps a record of it, Vote No. 85. The Republican majority holds, but the margin is narrow for a war that has been going on for five days.

Look at the mechanics of the replacement—it speaks volumes. Mullin, a loyal senator, takes Noem’s seat. They aren’t looking for crisis management skills; they’re looking for crisis obedience. And every secretary still in office has just received the real message of spring: in this administration, survival doesn’t depend on the issues; it depends on the mood of a single man.

One secretary fired, one vote wrested away. Week one.

Spring 2026: “Pete said it first”

On March 19, Hegseth and General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held a press briefing, the official transcript of which was released by the Department of War. The objectives were reaffirmed with confidence: destroy the Iranian navy, reopen the strait, win.

According to Rolling Stone magazine, four days later, Trump utters a line in front of the cameras that, in hindsight, is worth its weight in gold: “Pete, I think you were the first to say, ‘Let’s do it.’” At the time, it sounds like a compliment. In retrospect, it sounds like an acknowledgment. Here is a president who is already crediting others with the authorship of his own decision.

On April 2, two heads rolled on the same day. Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, the second cabinet member ousted in a matter of weeks, according to CNN. And Hegseth, for his part, pushed Army Chief of Staff General Randy George—who had been in office since August 2023—toward the exit. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell gave no reason and noted, almost proudly, that this was the thirteenth or fourteenth forced departure of a general or admiral since Hegseth took office.

More than a dozen generals dismissed. In the midst of a war.

Let’s pause to consider this figure, because it tells the rest of the story better than any poll. An army whose senior leadership is being decapitated at the rate of one general per month learns one thing and one thing only: to keep quiet. The colonel who sees his four-star boss leave without explanation won’t write the memo announcing that missile stocks have run dry. He’ll round the numbers up. His superior will round up the rounded figures. And six months later, a president discovers at Camp David shortages that his own firing machine had prevented him from seeing coming. This is called an information system poisoned at the source. A direct product of management by fear—and it didn’t start in August.

The House votes again on April 16. Another defeat for the anti-war camp: 213 to 214. A margin of one vote. On April 29, Hegseth submits his written testimony on the 2027 budget to the Armed Services Committee—a posturing document in which victory is always just around the corner. The official document is still online on the Congress website. The public, however, has never changed its mind.

June 3, 2026: The House says no—twice

Then came May 5: The Pentagon renamed the naval effort “Project Freedom,” a defensive operation intended to protect commerce and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as documented in the official transcript. The name sounded good. The strait remained closed.

On June 3, history is made: the House of Representatives passes a war powers resolution against a president from its own party, 215 to 208. Four Republicans cross the aisle, including Thomas Massie and Brian Fitzpatrick, reports The Guardian. It’s a rebuff that the American press describes as astounding.

Let’s be clear about the legal implications, so as not to overstate the case. A resolution of this kind has no force of law; the president can treat it as mere paper. Its value lies elsewhere: it records in black and white, in the Congressional archives, that the legislative branch has withdrawn its consent to this war. When Republicans elected in Trump-leaning districts vote for this five months before the midterms, they aren’t engaging in constitutional philosophy. They’re reading their constituents’ emails.

On June 11, Tehran officially announced the total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which commercial traffic had already been avoiding for months, according to Al Jazeera. The Senate followed the House on June 23: Concurrent Resolution 86, demanding the withdrawal of U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran, was adopted by both chambers of Congress. The text is available on Congress.gov.

On that same day, June 23, Reuters and Ipsos released a poll: one in four Americans believed the war was worth it. One in four. The president’s approval rating hit a low for his term.

A president can ignore a poll. But he can hardly ignore both chambers of his own Congress. Trump ignored both.

June 24, 2026: The bill grows heavier

The day after the vote in both chambers, the White House’s response arrived in the form of a bill. As early as June 24, the administration requested $87.6 billion in additional appropriations from Congress, most of which was earmarked for the war in Iran, according to Reuters. The message in a nutshell: your resolution is symbolic; my checkbook is not.

About 70 billion of that amount is directly earmarked for the conflict, as The Hill, the Capitol Hill newspaper, would later specify. To put that in perspective, it’s more than the Department of Veterans Affairs’ entire annual budget for healthcare. For a war that Congress had formally disavowed the day before.

Who signed this funding request? Not Hegseth. Donald Trump.

And when the funding request reached the Senate in August, the reception was frosty—even within his own party. Republican senators criticized the handling of the emergency request and warned that the Pentagon would have to justify every line item, according to the same Capitol newspaper. These men have voted for every military budget increase for the past twenty years. When they start asking for receipts, it’s no longer opposition—it’s pure and simple fiscal concern.

July 2026: The Blockade, the Bill, the Pump

July transforms the distant war into a domestic one.

On the 13th, Trump declares a naval blockade against Iranian ships in the Gulf, while a Reuters-Ipsos poll reveals that four out of five Americans expect a prolonged conflict. On the 16th, The Guardian reports the prices at the pump: a gallon of gas is nearing $4, diesel is over $5—nearly a dollar and a quarter higher than a year ago. Every time you fill up, it becomes a referendum.

On the 20th, Time magazine publishes profiles of the eighteen U.S. service members killed since February. Eighteen names, eighteen families. On the 26th, The Guardian revealed that the Pentagon had quietly updated its database: more than 600 wounded, and four names removed from the list of the dead without any public explanation. Even the tally of coffins became the subject of an accounting dispute.

On the 23rd, the House passed a second resolution calling for a ceasefire, 214 to 208, with four Republicans still in the “no” majority, according to Reuters and public radio. On the 27th, Republican Senator Thom Tillis dropped the bombshell in front of the press on Capitol Hill: “I no longer have any confidence in him. ” He was referring to Hegseth.

A senator from North Carolina—a state teeming with military bases—withdrawing his confidence in the head of the Pentagon while his constituents are burying sergeants: that’s the real barometer. Tillis doesn’t read the left-wing press. He reads the funeral records in Fayetteville.

Twenty days earlier, this kind of statement was being whispered. Now, it’s in print.

Late July: A Destroyer in the Dark

The night of July 24, South China Sea: the four generators on the destroyer Benfold shut down. Not a simulation, not a drill. The warship drifted without propulsion or electricity for four days, until it was towed on the 28th.

Four days without running drinking water, without working toilets, without air conditioning, without a kitchen—in tropical heat—on a U.S. combat vessel. The USS Robert Smalls approached to supply food to the crew. All of this was confirmed to the Washington Post by Commander Matthew Comer, spokesperson for the 7th Fleet. This isn’t a forum rumor. It’s the Navy’s official account.

Here is a destroyer that has been operating at full operational capacity for months, in a fleet stretched thin by two simultaneous theaters of operation, and which breaks down like an old car that no one wants to take to the shop.

A navy, at its core, is a floating budget. Every additional month at sea comes at the cost of postponed maintenance, parts cannibalized from the ship next door, and mechanics getting only four hours of sleep. The Washington Post notes that the fleet is undergoing an intensity of use unprecedented in recent history under this administration, stretched thin between the Gulf and the Pacific. The Benfold is not an anomaly. It is a case in point. The question every logistics officer has been asking since July 28 can be summed up in a few words: How many other ships are running on fumes?

The sea had just sent its first written warning. The second bore the name of a president assassinated in 1865.

The Lincoln: 266 days

Since the fall of 2025, the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and its approximately 5,000 sailors have been deployed continuously. When the scandal broke in mid-August, the crew had spent more than 250 consecutive days without a single port call—a pace that Navy veterans described to The Guardian as beyond any modern standard.

Two hundred sixty-six days in total, the Navy itself would eventually admit.

What the families are saying is even more distressing than the numbers. According to the BBC and the Guardian, loved ones report food shortages on board, broken plumbing, reduced meal portions, and several sailors who allegedly attempted to jump overboard. Democratic Representative Mike Levin, citing families in his district, mentions rations that had been cut to half a cup of rice and two tortillas. One sailor is said to have lost 65 pounds—nearly 30 kilograms—since departure.

Annabelle Loma, the wife of a Lincoln sailor placed under medical observation, told the press something I cannot bring myself to repeat: “He’s afraid. Thirteen years of his career, ruined.” Another wife, Maria Rodriguez, recounts that her husband physically restrained a fellow sailor who was about to take his own life.

Let’s clarify each source, because precision is the only dignity possible here. These accounts are testimonies from families, reported by reputable news outlets, not official documents. The Navy denies any increase in suicidal thoughts on board. It does, however, acknowledge that resupply operations were disrupted by combat actions. Then there’s August 3: a sailor from the Lincoln did indeed fall overboard, was recovered by helicopter, and then evacuated—a fact confirmed by the U.S. military command.

On August 14, Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao issued an official statement consisting of one and a half sentences: the crew has completed its deployment—266 days at sea—and will soon return as part of a scheduled rotation. A relief aircraft carrier is on its way, the BBC confirms.

Put 266 days into the context of an ordinary life. A child born when the ship set sail has almost learned to walk. The seasons have turned twice above the same steel deck. The port call, aboard the ship, has become a legend told to the new recruits. And the only official promise consists of two bureaucratic words—“planned rotation”—which not a single family dares to translate into a date on the kitchen calendar.

The Wall Street Journal detailed why these extended deployments grind down crews: maintenance that piles up without a technical stopover, resupply that depends on supply chains under fire, and the mental strain on men locked away for months in an overheated steel hull with no end in sight. There’s nothing mysterious about any of this. It can be modeled, predicted, and budgeted for. But first, a military leadership team must dare to speak the truth to those above, and we’ve seen above what it costs to speak the truth to those above in that particular Pentagon.

266 days. To describe this, the institution chose a term from sports victory.

Crushed—what, exactly?

August 5: The Camp David Dispute

Let’s go back ten days, because that’s when the issue of the “scapegoat” became public.

Then, on August 5, the Washington Post published a detailed investigation: during a summit at Camp David, Trump reportedly demanded an explanation from Hegseth regarding extreme shortages of missiles and ammunition caused by five months of war. The argument was reportedly heated. And Hegseth, according to the newspaper, shifted the blame onto his own deputy, Stephen Feinberg.

A secretary suspected of becoming the president’s scapegoat, who is already looking for his own scapegoat one floor below. The chain of blame, laid out in a single paragraph.

An immediate, fiery response. Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt calls the article 100 percent fake news; Parnell declares it just as fictitious; and on August 6, Trump defends his secretary by calling these reports “treason,” promising that the leakers will be hunted down, Axios reports. Leavitt even swears that “the president loves the secretary.”

Note the mechanism—it runs like clockwork. They don’t address the substance of the matter. They respond to the leak itself. The word “treason” isn’t a communications term—it’s a criminal law term—and seeing it brandished against journalists who are counting missiles should worry any conservative committed to the First Amendment. I am one of those conservatives, and I write this with a steady hand: it worries me.

On August 13, Vice President Vance went to the Capitol to defend the $70 billion request and told Republican senators that talk of shortages is a diversion that emboldens the enemy, according to the Capitol press corps. Lawmakers emerged skeptical. When the White House treats its own senators as enemies of the press, it’s rarely a sign of a strong case.

August 17: The leak from Hong Kong

Then comes the article that sparked this column.

The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong daily with genuine connections in defense circles, publishes its exclusive: according to several sources, Hegseth is on the verge of being fired, his position is in jeopardy, and Trump is losing patience due to a lack of progress in a stalemated war. The newspaper questions the future of Sino-American military relations, which had warmed since the summit between Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing this spring.

No sources are named. No documents are provided. The administration had already denied this scenario ten days earlier. So I repeat—as a columnist, not a parrot—this is an allegation, not a fact.

The source of the leak deserves a sentence of its own. The fact that the political health of the Pentagon chief is better covered in a Hong Kong daily than in the Washington press speaks volumes about who is watching what. Beijing is following this story very closely: bilateral military channels have reopened since the spring summit, and the Chinese military leadership will want to know if its American counterpart will still be there by Christmas. An administration that leaks information abroad is one where no one is talking to each other anymore on the inside.

On August 18, Thom Hartmann amplified the story in the American activist press with a bold, conditional headline: “Trump Could Fire Hegseth and Make Him Take the Blame for the Defeat.” Hartmann is an avowed left-wing polemicist on a crusade against this administration. His piece doesn’t introduce any new facts; it simply compiles those reported by others. That doesn’t make his question illegitimate. It simply requires us to verify it line by line—which this column has done.

At the same time, the backdrop is becoming clearer: Trump’s approval rating has slipped to 33 percent—his all-time low—with 64 percent of the public dissatisfied, and 80 percent of Americans expect the war to become bogged down, including 71 percent of Republicans, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll reported by Al Jazeera.

71 percent of his own voters no longer believe in a quick withdrawal. That is the real figure threatening a secretary.

With a 33 percent approval rating, a president no longer has any political capital left to spend on covering for anyone. Yet he needs it to survive until November. He’ll look for it wherever it remains, even if it means taking the fall for a subordinate.

What’s Proven, What Isn’t

Let’s lay out the facts clearly, column by column, because a column that mixes different levels of evidence is no better than a rumor.

Confirmed by official documents or spokespeople: the 51-50 confirmation vote, including Vance’s vote. The Inspector General’s investigation into Signal. The four votes on war powers: 212–219, 213–214, 215–208, 214–208, and Resolution 86 adopted by both chambers. The request for 87.6 billion. The Benfold’s four-day breakdown, confirmed by the 7th Fleet. The Lincoln’s 266 days, the official figure from Cao’s statement. The sailor who fell overboard on August 3 and was recovered. Resupply disrupted by combat, acknowledged by the Navy. The eighteen American deaths and more than 600 wounded, in a database that the Pentagon itself altered.

Reported by credible news outlets, denied by the administration: the Camp David dispute over missile shortages. The shifting of blame onto Feinberg.

Testimonies from families, not independently verifiable: attempts to jump overboard, rations of rice and tortillas, the 65 pounds lost. His superiors dispute the overall narrative, not every detail.

Allegation based on anonymous sources, with no primary confirmation: Hegseth’s imminent dismissal. This is the core of the South China Morning Post article and Hartmann’s passionate follow-up. As long as no executive order, letter, or presidential statement exists, this scenario remains hypothetical. It could happen tomorrow morning. It might never happen.

This classification is not a stylistic exercise. It determines who has the right to be angry—and about what. The anger over the 266 days is based on a Navy document. Anger over a token dismissal is based, for now, on anonymous sources from Hong Kong. The two forms of anger do not carry the same weight, and a columnist who confuses them is deceiving his readers.

An honest column exists in this uncomfortable middle ground, between the proven and the imagined.

November is approaching

So why this rumor now? Look at the calendar, not the stars.

The midterm elections are on November 3, 2026. Democrats lead in the generic poll 42 to 37, and for the first time in nearly ten years, Americans view them as better at managing the economy, according to Reuters-Ipsos. Gas prices have risen by a quarter since February. A war disavowed by Congress, an aircraft carrier turned into a symbol of exhaustion, a majority that knows it’s in danger: the need for an alternative narrative has become a physical necessity.

And this president has a ritual for bad spells. First, Kristi Noem, dismissed on March 5 at the first sign of headwinds. Pam Bondi, fired on April 2 with eulogies and a smile. General George, pushed out without a word of explanation. In total, more than a dozen generals and admirals ousted in eighteen months. In this system, failure flows down the chain of command; it never flows back up.

This ritual didn’t start with this administration. Jim Mattis left the Pentagon, slamming the door behind him, in December 2018. Mark Esper was fired via tweet in November 2020. John Bolton was pushed out in 2019 and turned into a public enemy the following week. Each time, the official narrative followed the same pattern: the man who left becomes the cause of the problem he was managing. Hegseth knows this story better than anyone. He was commenting on it on television as it was happening to others.

My generation of supporters long believed that this reflex punished incompetence. I applauded some of these departures—I write this without embarrassment. The problem lies elsewhere. When all the mistakes always belong to others, the presidency becomes a place where mistakes teach no one anything. And a presidency that never makes mistakes is a presidency that never corrects anything.

Let me be clear. I’m not saying Hegseth is innocent—that would be a farce. The man from the Signal Group, the man behind the inspection report, the man who decapitated his own staff in the middle of a war, the man who blamed his deputy at Camp David—that man has built his own case, piece by piece. If he falls, it won’t be for nothing.

But let’s not confuse the trial.

This war with Iran was not started by Pete Hegseth. It was decided by Donald Trump on February 28, 2026, without Congress, claimed by him, funded at his request, and prolonged despite four votes against it and a blockade that is strangling the global economy. On the 267th day at sea, a sailor does not serve the ambitions of a secretary. He carries out the order of a commander-in-chief.

Firing Hegseth might be justified. It would not be a settling of scores; it would be a down payment. The balance, however, belongs to the one who signed the order.

We don’t lose a war. We lose a secretary.

This is the doctrine taking shape before our very eyes, and I refuse in advance to endorse it. I supported this president when he promised to end wars instead of starting them. My judgment will focus on the contract, not the scapegoat.

If Hegseth is fired next week, who will command the same war the next morning? If his replacement inherits the same depleted stockpiles, the same worn-out ships, and the same closed strait, what will the dismissal have changed? If the Lincoln’s crew “screwed up their deployment,” why doesn’t anyone dare repeat that phrase in front of Annabelle Loma? If the blame always trickles down one level—from Hegseth to Feinberg, and from Feinberg to a colonel—at what level does the truth reside?

And when the polls deliver their verdict on this war on the evening of November 3, whose name will voters have in mind: that of the ousted secretary, or that of the man who never leaves his chair?

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

COLUMN: Trump Blames Hegseth, While 5,000 Sailors Have Been Waiting at Sea for 266 Days