Kayfabe at the Pentagon

A fake job offer at the White House, a highlight reel at the Pentagon, and a Congress that doesn’t have to follow the script

Good morning! Saturday, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that “the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior,” had been offered the job of White House press secretary. He nominated a staff of UFC fighters as assistants, posted their photos, and closed with a plea: “Dana, please take the job!” Communications Director Steven Cheung, himself a former UFC spokesman, reposted it with an enthusiastic “Hell yeah!”

The announcement ricocheted around the world. From London to Sydney to Abu Dhabi, newsrooms scrambled to determine whether the president of the United States was seriously proposing to staff his press operation with cage fighters. Was it an actual appointment, an elaborate joke, or an attempt to change the subject after Tuesday’s election? Even the White House wasn’t providing answers. Trump kept the spectacle going Sunday by sharing a cartoon of White’s proposed fighter-assistants attacking reporters in the briefing room.

White, who had been attending a boxing event in London, posted an image of himself at the briefing-room podium captioned “On to the next chapter,” then announced he was flying to Washington for a Monday meeting. By Sunday, Trump was saying he was “only kidding, but Dana loves the idea,” and insisting the meeting had been scheduled earlier for unrelated business. Nothing says unrelated like a podium selfie.

By Monday, White had arrived from London, and what might have been an impulsive presidential announcement had acquired the makings of a carefully staged exit. Trump escorted his longtime friend into the James Brady Briefing Room, where White tried out the podium, entertained questions, and eventually received another public offer to become press secretary. Would he take the job or “stay with this ridiculous UFC”? White politely declined; he did not want to be in politics. Trump declared himself “devastated.”

Whether the whole thing had been a joke from the beginning or White had helped devise an elaborate rescue operation over the weekend, the result was remarkably convenient. The president didn’t have to withdraw an embarrassing offer. His friend got to turn it down. Everyone played his part, nobody lost face, and the world’s reporters had spent three days following the production.

The real press secretary’s job has sat empty since Oct. 16, when Katie Zacharia departed after five days and a single briefing at which she answered three questions, the shortest tenure in modern White House history.

Trump did offer one revealing explanation for the entire episode: “We were having a very bad press day, and I said — I don’t know why — I thought of his name.”

Apparently, the remedy for a bad press day was three more days of headlines and a professional fight promoter to deliver the final bell.

In professional wrestling, kayfabe is the shared agreement to treat the scripted as real. A work is the staged performance. A shoot is when something real breaks through, and nobody can script what happens next.

Monday’s White House briefing had all the makings of a work: a presidential job offer that became a joke, followed by a conveniently public refusal, staged in a room built for answering questions.

This morning, across the Potomac, the Pentagon hosted its own production. Facing eight articles of impeachment, Pete Hegseth delivered a sixteen-minute highlight reel of military victories and presidential praise.

Congress, thankfully, isn’t obliged to follow the script.

AFP photographer Roberto Schmidt caught the moment the Guardian ran: Hegseth frozen mid-word beneath the Pentagon seal, one eye clamped shut, the other narrowed, mouth twisted sideways. All that’s missing is a corncob pipe and a can of spinach.

“I yam what I yam, and what I yam is lawful.”

This was his first Pentagon press conference since May. He held none when a Navy commander died in a helicopter crash on July 1, or when an Iranian missile killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan on July 17. He held one when his own job was on the line. Before he took the podium, a press officer warned reporters that anyone lacking decorum would be removed.

The eight articles, filed by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., accuse Hegseth of launching the Iran war without congressional authorization, continuing hostilities after both chambers voted in June to direct withdrawal, and exceeding the War Powers Resolution’s statutory deadlines. They also charge unlawful boat strikes, the unlawful capture of Nicolás Maduro, unauthorized operations in Yemen, disregard for laws meant to minimize civilian casualties, and retaliation against Sen. Mark Kelly for protected speech.

Hegseth answered with the president’s greatest hits. A few highlights, with the record:

“In the 250 years of our American republic, no Secretary of War or Secretary of Defense has ever been impeached for carrying out lawful military operations.”

That qualifier is doing heavy lifting. The House did impeach Secretary of War William Belknap, unanimously, in 1876, over a kickback scheme. Not for military operations, admittedly. The absence of a previous impeachment for a particular offense hardly establishes that the offense is permissible.

Midnight Hammer left Iran’s nuclear sites “obliterated.” Epic Fury left “more than 80% of their nuclear industrial base gone.”

After declaring Iran’s nuclear sites obliterated in 2025, Hegseth now says another war destroyed 80 percent of its nuclear industrial base. How much survived the first obliteration? And what, precisely, does “obliterated” mean?

“We control the Strait of Hormuz.”

Hold that thought.

“More than 70 narco vessels sunk, 218 narco terrorists dead.”

His figure falls below independent tallies. Task & Purpose tallied at least 240 killed as of Oct. 27, including two survivors killed by a follow-up strike as they clung to wreckage in September 2025.

Every operation was “notified to Congress.”

Notification is not authorization. The War Powers Resolution requires notice and withdrawal after 60 days without congressional approval, and the House voted to direct an end to the Iran war. Those questions sit at the heart of three articles.

“The only people who target civilians are the terrorists that we hunt, and I will dignify this claim no further.”

He never mentioned the Iranian school struck on the war’s first day, killing as many as 168 people, including more than 120 children. Senior U.S. officials have privately acknowledged American responsibility to the New York Times; publicly, no one has, and the investigation’s findings remain unreleased. Massie’s articles allege Hegseth dismantled Pentagon safeguards Congress established to minimize civilian casualties. Whether those deaths reflect negligence or something worse is exactly what an investigation should establish. Refusing to “dignify” the question is the opposite of one.

Hegseth told reporters that “the disgruntled congressman even admitted this himself yesterday. No failure here, just impeachment for success.”

Here is what Massie actually said on CNN Monday night. Hegseth, he said, “was effective at killing 200 school children,” effective at bombing fishing boats, effective at an unconstitutional kidnapping, “and that’s what we’re impeaching him for, his effectiveness in breaking the law.” Hegseth took sarcasm about dead children and presented it as a confession.

Massie saw the whole performance coming. Hegseth would try “to convince people he’s been effective and that he’s likable,” he predicted. “That’s not what’s at issue here.” Or more simply: “This isn’t a popularity contest.”

If it were a popularity contest, Hegseth would have another problem. Trump called him “perhaps the most popular and successful military official in the Country.” Quinnipiac’s September poll found 32 percent approved of his performance, while 57 percent disapproved, his lowest rating yet.

Trump also called Massie a “stone cold loser” whom he beat “easily, with a man that never ran before.” Except Ed Gallrein had run before, in a 2024 Kentucky state Senate primary, and lost.

On the subject of losers, Massie lost his primary in May. Trump spent last Tuesday watching his party lose both houses of Congress.

The script began to fray in the Q&A. Pressed on reports that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was rearming during the ceasefire, Hegseth acknowledged that “they’ll attempt to reconstitute.” He insisted Iran’s capabilities were severely diminished, but the prospect of rebuilding complicated the picture of an enemy he had just declared ruined.

Then came JD Vance, who wrote the morning after the election that “the reason we lost is the war.” Asked whether he agreed, Hegseth declined any “fingerpointing” and explained that “politics is not really my thing.” This from a man who had just spent sixteen minutes attacking Democrats, the press, and a Republican congressman.

Instead, he borrowed Marco Rubio’s formulation that the war was “not necessarily popular but it may have been necessary.” The historic military victory had been downgraded in under twenty minutes.

And then there was Stephen Miller. According to the New York Times, Miller’s pitch for the White House chief of staff job included telling Trump he needed to wind down the Iran war. Hegseth had just praised Miller as an “incredible American patriot” and the Pentagon’s great friend. But when a reporter asked whether they’d discussed ending the war, Hegseth said only that Miller was “busy in his new role” and that he looked forward to meeting with him.

The prepared remarks celebrated a war won. The questions revealed a war whose military, political, and diplomatic consequences were still being worked out.

While Hegseth puffed his chest and claimed control of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said two tankers caught fire there, one after striking a mine. That is Tehran’s account and has not been independently confirmed. Qatar warned that the strait’s continued closure, with winter approaching, is doubling the cost of the crisis.

Iran’s armed forces chief promised “many surprises” in any future war, and its first vice president said the confrontation continues with or without peace. The Gulf states approved a new military command headquarters in Kuwait, preparing for threats that apparently haven’t disappeared with Washington’s declaration of victory.

Brent crude slipped below $90 a barrel for the first time since August on hopes that the fighting is ending. Trump, meanwhile, says the war is “effectively over” and is already talking about sending the bill to the Gulf allies and Israel that he says America protected.

Hegseth called Massie’s articles “sabotage.” He cast the congressman as “a single rogue legislator” attempting to “veto national security decisions made by the duly elected commander-in-chief,” and warned that Congress would “undermine their missions in real time.” The impeachment itself he dismissed as a “circus,” “one small thing over here.”

Then he turned to the sort of congressional action he was eager to see. His department, he said, is “flooding the zone” during the lame duck in pursuit of “350 billion at a minimum” through reconciliation. “My job is not to litigate all of this every day,” he said. “It’s to ensure we’re funded.”

The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war and control the purse. It gives the House the power to impeach and the Senate the power to try impeachments. Hegseth welcomes the appropriations and condemns the scrutiny.

Earlier, while arguing that previous defense secretaries had not been impeached for lawful military operations, he tossed in a remarkable aside: “War Powers Resolution or not.” But whether his operations complied with that very law is central to Massie’s allegations. Hegseth never explained how they did.

The proper remedies for policy disagreements, he argued, are legislation, debate, and “the next presidential election.” But Massie’s articles allege violations of the Constitution and federal law, not merely disagreements over policy. And voters held a congressional election just last Tuesday, changing who will control both chambers in January. Apparently, that election doesn’t figure into his understanding of accountability.

Republicans, in his telling, should be “delivering wins” rather than asking questions.

The War Powers Resolution and the impeachment clause are not obstacles to his job. They establish legal limits and mechanisms of accountability, and his oath runs to the Constitution, not to the president.

He accepts Article I when it writes checks and calls it treachery when it asks questions.

The Pentagon wasn’t the only place where the script ran into the record. Trump had been doing some character work of his own on 60 Minutes, playing the billionaire who barely notices his billions.

Asked about Forbes’s estimate that his net worth had risen nearly $3 billion, Trump replied that “so did everyone’s” and told the correspondent he “should have had stock.”

Forbes senior editor Dan Alexander took that as an invitation to actually run the numbers.

Only about 10 percent of Trump’s roughly $415 million in liquid assets sat in the stock market. Apply the S&P 500’s roughly 14 percent gain, and you get a few million dollars.

The $3 billion, from fall 2024 to fall 2025, came from elsewhere:

• About $1.4 billion in cash from World Liberty Financial and the Trump memecoin

• About $1 billion in crypto he kept for himself

• Roughly $400 million from an overseas licensing business he had promised not to expand during his first term, whose income rose about tenfold

• Nearly half a billion when a New York appeals court vacated his civil fraud penalty, while upholding the finding that he committed fraud

Trump also told 60 Minutes he devotes “almost no time” to his net worth and leaves the money to his son. Alexander recalls Trump Organization staff phoning a Forbes colleague nonstop for two weeks to push his number higher, and Eric Trump telling him in 2017 that he’d brief his father quarterly. Forbes editors once kept an informal “Donald Trump rule”: divide whatever he tells you by three.

At the rate his estimated fortune grew that year, Trump accumulated the equivalent of his entire $400,000 presidential salary every 70 minutes, including while he slept.

In fairness, Forbes says his fortune dipped slightly this past year as Trump Media and the crypto tokens slid. The golf and club business boomed, though, and a seven-figure Mar-a-Lago membership remains the simplest way to buy dinner near the president. All the while, the crypto buyers are losing heavily, and Trump has already cashed out.

The president says he doesn’t think about his money. Fortunately, Forbes does.

House Republican leaders have told members to expect a procedural vote as early as 5:30 p.m. Eastern, 2:30 Pacific. The likely move is to table Massie’s articles or bottle them up in committee. Massie has already warned what a referral would mean under the current leadership: “A referral to committee is to kill this.”

The math is tight. With a razor-thin Republican majority, as few as three defections could change the outcome. Massie sees two groups worth watching: a “retirement caucus” with little left to lose, and reelected Republicans who felt their “political mortality” on Nov. 3 after winning by a few hundred votes instead of their customary thousands. Attendance could matter, too, particularly among departing lawmakers.

The clock doesn’t necessarily run out on January 3. Impeachment proceedings can continue from one Congress into the next, although a resolution killed tonight would not automatically return. Democrats will control both chambers, and Massie expects hearings, sworn testimony from officials who served under Hegseth, and disclosures from people who “know some things that aren’t even public yet.” That’s his prediction, not a preview of established evidence. He also thinks Hegseth won’t make it to Dec. 31.

Some officials inside the Pentagon appear to have their own doubts about his future. The Intercept reports that current and former defense officials have discussed possible replacements, including Ron DeSantis and Mike Waltz. Asked about DeSantis, one official offered this assessment: “Anything is better than Hegseth.”

Trump, of course, says he’s standing by his secretary. Massie isn’t impressed: “They stand by them until the day they don’t.”

Tonight’s first vote may not be about whether Hegseth should be impeached. It may be about whether House Republicans are willing to let that question come to a vote at all.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day. Hegseth claimed the impeachment articles tell every service member “that their service was a crime.” They don’t. They accuse the civilian official who gave the orders of violating the law, not the people who carried them out.

“If they want to come for the warriors, they’re going to have to come through me,” he declared.

What a load of hogwash! Nobody is proposing to impeach the warriors. Congress is asking questions of Hegseth. He has placed the men and women under his command between himself and those questions.

It is precisely because we love and respect the men and women willing to put their lives on the line for this country that I believe Hegseth should go. They deserve leadership worthy of their courage and sacrifice, leadership that puts their welfare and the Constitution ahead of personal ambition. The Pentagon does not exist to protect its secretary. The secretary exists to serve the country and the people entrusted to his command.

Asking who decided what, and under what authority, isn’t sabotage. It’s Congress’s job, whichever party holds the gavel. Governing and investigating were never rival duties.

Hegseth says he’s standing up for the troops. This morning, he looked remarkably like a man barricaded behind them.