Petey's been a bad boy

 

Trump's been snarling about Natasha Bertrand lately, so I expect publicly, he'll say this is fake news by that evil, stupid woman, but privately, he'll rake Pete over the coals and put him on the list of short timers.  After all, Pete's only there because he'll do whatever Trump tells him to do.  Nothing more and nothing less.  

Also, it made him look bad in the televised conference.

President Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday that he was not responsible for the move. Asked on Tuesday during a Cabinet meeting whether he approved of the pause in shipments, Trump demurred, saying only that the US would continue to send defensive weapons to Ukraine. Pressed again on who authorized the pause, Trump replied, “I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?”

[...]

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did not inform the White House before he authorized a pause on weapons shipments to Ukraine last week, according to five sources familiar with the matter, setting off a scramble inside the administration to understand why the halt was implemented and explain it to Congress and the Ukrainian government.

[...]

The pause was the second time this year that Hegseth had decided to halt the flow of US weapons to Ukraine, catching senior national security officials off guard, sources said.

  CNN

Fool me twice, shame on me, eh Donny?

It first happened in February and the decision was quickly reversed, three of the sources said — mirroring what happened on Monday night, when Trump announced that the weapons shipments would continue despite Hegseth signing off on the pause.

The US special envoy to Ukraine, Ret. Gen. Keith Kellogg, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also Trump’s national security adviser, were also not told about the pause beforehand and learned about it from press reports, according to a senior administration official and two of the sources.

[...]

Asked whether Hegseth informed the White House prior to approving a pause on the shipments, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the Pentagon conducted a review “to ensure all support going to all foreign nations aligns with America’s interests,” and added that Trump “has made the decision to continue providing defensive weapons to Ukraine to help stop the killing in this brutal war, which the Pentagon has said they are actively working on.” She added that “the President has full confidence in the Secretary of Defense.”

The magic words. Pete's on the list now for sure.

Shortly after learning of the pause last week, Trump told Hegseth to restart the shipment of at least some of the munitions — specifically, interceptor missiles for Patriot air defense systems, which have been critical to protecting Ukrainian civilians from relentless missile and drone attacks by Russia.

[...]

The Pentagon did not announce until late Monday night, however, that it would restart shipments at the direction of the president — after Trump had said publicly earlier in the evening that the Ukrainians needed the defensive weapons to protect themselves.

[...]

[The recommendation to halt weapons shipments] came from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, all five sources said, who has long been skeptical of sending large quantities of US military aid to Ukraine.

He's on the list, too.

Colby then provided his recommendations to Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg, who approved of the move...

Him, too.

... particularly because of his longstanding concerns that the defense industry is not moving fast enough to replenish US stockpiles, two of the sources said. Hegseth provided the final signoff, thinking it would align with Trump’s “America first” priorities, one of the sources familiar with his thinking said.

[...]

Pentagon officials have argued to congressional staffers in recent days that the move was necessary because of US stockpile shortages, according to two sources familiar with the matter. But the sources said Congress has not been briefed on or given any information from the Pentagon that would suggest a critical and imminent shortage of weapons.

More importantly, Trump wasn't consulted. And, did they not hear him lately complaining that Putin was killing too many people? Maybe they weren't so attuned to being aligned with Trump's priorities after all.

UPDATE 02:18 pm:  Say what?