This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.

I'm your host, Greg Sargent.

The knives are out for Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth.

Politico reports that White House and Pentagon insiders are increasingly questioning Hegset's judgment and see him as the culprit in the disastrous

news that Trump's top advisors discussed war plans in an insecure chat, a scandal that continues

to shake the administration. This comes as a poll finds that 74% of Americans see the leak

as a serious problem, including 60 percent of Republicans.

And here's another striking number. Only 42 percent of Republicans say the media is making too

big a deal about the scandal, suggesting that MAGA's effort to blame the fake news for this

fiasco is going belly up, even with GOP voters.

Surprisingly, though, there's no indication that Trump world is ready for the next Heg-Seth Viasco, and there surely will be one.

We're talking about all this today with Jennifer Rubin, co-founder and editor-in-chief

of the contrarian substack, who has a piece arguing that this scandal reveals the sheer arrogance

and sense of untouchability that's consumed Trump and his team.

Jen, thanks for coming back on.

It's a pleasure.

So this new Politico piece really gets at an undercovered aspect of the whole Signalgate

scandal, which is the likelihood that things are going to get worse with

HegSeth. As one person close to the White House puts it, quote, what happens when Hexeth needs to

manage a real crisis? Jen, that's a damn good question. I mean, the immediate consequences of the

Signalgate fiasco were somewhat limited, but it also revealed that Hegset is completely

incompetent, and that's not going away, which means much more serious screw-ups are coming. Your

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