Within Pete Hegseth's divided inner circle, a 'cold war' endures

An enduring rift among Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's cadre of senior advisers has divided the Pentagon's front office and fueled internal speculation about his long-term viability in the Cabinet post after several episodes that attracted White House scrutiny, according to numerous people familiar with the matter.

The conflict within Hegseth's inner circle persists even after he purged several political appointees in April and attempts to portray a sense of unity among his remaining brain trust. His claims, however, are belied by continued behind-the-scenes dysfunction, brought on by unresolved personality conflicts, inexperience, vacancies in key leadership roles and a steady-state paranoia over what political crisis could emerge next, current and former officials said. They described the situation on the condition of anonymity because of its sensitivity and fear of retaliation.

"There's a cold war that exists in between flash points," said one person, recounting numerous instances when tempers have flared among key figures on the secretary's team. "It's unsettling at times."

Perhaps the most combustible relationship among Hegseth's aides is that of Eric Geressy and Ricky Buria, said several people familiar with the matter. Geressy, a retired soldier whom Hegseth has credited with mentoring him when they served together in Iraq, has voiced repeated concerns that Buria — until recently a military assistant to the defense secretary — has sought to marginalize colleagues to boost his own standing within the Trump administration, these people said.

The tension boiled over in March, when Geressy learned he had been excluded from joining some of Hegseth's meetings during a multiday trip across the Pacific. He blamed Buria for the perceived slight and told colleagues that he had upbraided the Marine Corps colonel during the trip, according to people familiar with their standoff.

The clash occurred just after the Atlantic revealed that its top editor had been accidentally included in a group-chat where several top Trump administration officials, including Hegseth, coordinated a bombing campaign in Yemen on the unclassified app Signal. Geressy confided to colleagues that he was troubled by how administration officials were using the free messaging platform.

Geressy has also voiced disgust about complaints emerging from the White House. He told fellow Pentagon staff that military aides working closely with President Donald Trump's inner sanctum have come to view Buria as self-important and quick to bigfoot others to get more time with Hegseth and other senior administration officials.

Geressy and Buria did not respond to several requests for comment.

Friction between the two senior advisers remains palpable, those familiar with the situation say, and is emblematic of the instability that reigns at the Pentagon as Hegseth attempts to regain his footing after several scandals that irked the White House, alarmed Congress and left the former Fox News personality on the defensive.

At the outset of his Memorial Day address Monday, the president said the defense secretary has "devoted his life to service members and veterans" and "is doing really well," while acknowledging that he has "went through a lot."

"He's a tough cookie," Trump said. "That's what we want, is a tough cookie."

But current and former defense officials who have witnessed the upheaval say it is unclear how long the polarizing defense secretary can survive in his role without imposing order on his own staff.

This account of Hegseth's attempt to reset his team is based on interviews with seven current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the fraught dynamic that has taken hold at the Defense Department under his stewardship.

Sean Parnell, a senior adviser and chief spokesman for Hegseth, minimized the tension, saying in a statement to the Washington Post that "workforce adjustments are a natural and necessary feature of any highly effective organization." The defense secretary, Parnell said, is "committed to ensuring the Department of Defense has the right people in the right positions to execute President Trump's agenda."

Parnell dismissed the significance of disagreements on Hegseth's staff, saying that Americans outside Washington "don't care about 'palace intrigue' or sensationalized, mainstream media gossip — they care about action." Hegseth's team, he said, is "working in unison" to focus the Defense Department on "its core mission of warfighting and to deliver results."

Personality clash

The clash between Geressy and Buria, which has not previously been detailed, is seen as especially notable in the Pentagon given their backgrounds and Hegseth's frequent claim that he wants to bring a "warrior ethos" to the Pentagon.

Geressy, a retired command sergeant major, was a no-nonsense first sergeant and enlisted adviser to Hegseth during their Iraq deployment from 2005 to 2006 and has been praised by the defense secretary for his leadership under fire.

In March, Hegseth upgraded a Silver Star award that Geressy received for combat valor to the Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor in the hierarchy of military decorations recognizing battlefield bravery. During a ceremony at the Pentagon lauding Geressy, Hegseth said the retired soldier had "changed my life" and now works "right down the hall from me, and that's exactly the kind of voice we need."

Since joining the Trump administration, Geressy has run a little-known organization called the Joint Service Interagency Advisory Group (JSIAG) that includes numerous Special Operations troops and representation from other government agencies. A core focus of the group has been how to counter Mexican drug cartels, two people familiar with the matter said, a highly sensitive subject that has exacerbated the uneasiness between Trump and his counterpart in Mexico City, President Claudia Sheinbaum. A third person said the group's work has been coordinated with the Mexican government.

Buria, who was a pilot in the Marine Corps before moving to the Pentagon, has a good relationship with Hegseth that bloomed more recently. He served as a junior military aide — a "body man" — for President Joe Biden's defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, and was held over by Hegseth at the outset of the Trump administration. Such nonpartisan roles often bridge administrations.

Buria's responsibilities — and power — quickly expanded when, in February, he temporarily took on the role of a three-star general after Hegseth fired his senior military assistant, Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short, without disclosing any reason. Hegseth has removed several top military leaders, including a disproportionate number of women, since his arrival at the Pentagon in January.

Hegseth's decision to temporarily elevate Buria, and Buria's handling of his newfound clout with the secretary, irritated numerous senior military officers in the building, people familiar with the matter said. As the temporary assignment came to a close, rather than return to his role as a junior military assistant, Buria submitted a request to retire from the Marine Corps and became a senior civilian adviser to the defense secretary. Among those who have advocated for Buria is Hegseth's wife, Jennifer, who has fulfilled an unofficial and unorthodox role shaping Pentagon affairs that has unnerved defense officials.

Around that time, Hegseth fired three senior defense officials, all political appointees he accused of leaking sensitive information to the news media. Shortly after their removal, the three — Dan Caldwell, Darin Selnick and Colin Carroll — issued a scathing statement saying that they had been slandered and that the claims leveled against them were baseless.

Hegseth's first chief of staff, Joe Kasper, also departed his role in April as Pentagon officials privately questioned his ability to keep the front office organized and manage disputes among aides. Kasper left on good terms with Hegseth, the defense secretary has said. Hegseth then moved to have Buria installed as his chief of staff. Other Republicans appealed to the White House to prevent that from happening, citing Buria's warm relationships with officials in the Biden administration, people familiar with the matter said.

Despite the concerns of some administration officials, Buria is functioning for now as an acting chief of staff, these people said, and is increasingly frustrated that the White House doesn't appear to be willing to allow him to do the job permanently. It is unclear whether the Trump administration intends to appoint someone else to do the job. No deputy chief of staff has been announced since the firing of Selnick, who held the job last.

Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, declined to answer direct questions about who will fill the chief of staff and deputy chief of staff jobs at the Pentagon long-term and whether the White House may send another appointee or two to do so.

"While the media is focused on gossip, President Trump is confident in the Secretary's ability to ensure top leadership at the Department of Defense shares their focus on restoring a military that is focused on readiness, lethality, and excellence," Kelly said.

On Sunday, Trump was asked about Buria and a report that he had bad-mouthed Trump and Vance on occasion, a detail reported by the New York Post. The Post has not independently verified that reporting.

Trump said that he has "no idea" who Buria is, but "I would recommend that we don't take him" if the reporting is true.

"I'll take a look," Trump said. "Buria? I'll check it out."

Geressy has become so frustrated by the chaos engulfing the front office that he has openly contemplated resigning, officials said, a detail CNN first reported in April. He has stayed on so far out of loyalty to Hegseth and the team he has working for him, several people said.

New blood

The feud between Geressy and Buria has persisted as Hegseth attempts to demonstrate he can find replacements for the advisers he pushed out or who have otherwise departed. Last month, in the aftermath of the firings, the Pentagon announced the appointment of Buria and three others to senior adviser roles. The choices surprised some Pentagon officials, several people said, considering each person's background.

Among those named to a senior advisory role was Parnell, an Army veteran and longtime friend of Hegseth who ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania. The move has increased the workload he already had as Hegseth's primary spokesman and manager of the Pentagon's sprawling public affairs operation — though Parnell has held just one news briefing, on March 17, since joining Hegseth's staff and none since Hegseth has faced scrutiny for Signalgate and other turmoil.

Parnell said during that briefing that he wanted to follow through on Hegseth's "vision to make this the most transparent Department of Defense in history," but he and other senior Pentagon officials have failed to do so. Beyond the absence of routine news conferences, Hegseth has pointedly shunned interviews with much of the mainstream media, favoring instead interviews with his former colleagues and personal friends at Fox News.

Officials familiar with the matter say that Parnell has told numerous colleagues that he wants to begin briefing again, but defense officials collectively decided to wait until at least June, after Hegseth returns to Capitol Hill for hearings about the Pentagon's budget request. He is widely expected to face a hostile reception from Democrats, who have expressed incredulity with his judgment since being confirmed in January. The hearings are certain to be televised, too — meaning Trump likely will be scrutinizing his answers, people familiar with the matter said.

Kingsley Wilson, an acting Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement that since becoming a senior adviser to Hegseth, Parnell has increased his involvement in Defense Department "operations, recruitment, acquisitions, and foreign negotiations" in addition to his spokesman duties. Hegseth said last week that Parnell also will oversee a new review of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which remains a hotly contested political subject nearly four years later.

Wilson said Hegseth's office has "begun onboarding additional political appointees to assist with Mr. Parnell's expanded portfolio." She did not elaborate.

Hegseth also has cracked down on media access in the Pentagon, issuing a memo just ahead of Memorial Day weekend that said reporters were allowed to roam too freely and would now require government escorts in most of the building. He cast the move as an effort to protect national security.

The Pentagon Press Association, which includes dozens of journalists credentialed in the building, including from the Washington Post, issued a statement decrying the move. Credentialed journalists for decades have had access to unclassified sections of the Pentagon, where tourists, custodial staff, and foreign military visitors also are commonly present.

"There is no way to sugarcoat it," the statement said. "Today's memo by Secretary Hegseth appears to be a direct attack on the freedom of the press and America's right to know what its military is doing."

On Friday, Parnell also said that Wilson will become the next Pentagon press secretary. Since joining the administration, she has been dogged by scrutiny of her past commentary on social media, including a claim she made last year that the "Great Replacement" theory — which baselessly posits there is an organized plan to overwhelm predominantly Western countries with immigrants — "isn't a right-wing conspiracy theory... it's reality."

Wilson also has drawn backlash for a social media post attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling him an "entitled midget," and for insisting that Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was lynched by a mob in 1915, had "raped & murdered a 13-year-old girl." He was later pardoned, and historians generally believe he was the victim of antisemitism. She has not responded to questions about her past comments, which have been denounced by the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee.

Two others who also have recently joined Hegseth's inner circle as senior advisers, Justin Fulcher and Patrick Weaver, come to their jobs with a shortfall of relevant experience, people familiar with the matter said.

Fulcher, 32, was part of billionaire Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service, which has sought to drastically slash government spending and flatten the federal workforce. After he had a falling out with DOGE colleagues in the Pentagon, Hegseth's team gave him workspace and then rapidly promoted him after Hegseth's staff purge, said people familiar with the matter.

Fulcher is a computer programmer. In 2012, after dropping out of college, he co-founded RingMD, a start-up telehealth company in Singapore. After a dispute with investors, the company declared bankruptcy and restructured in 2018, a development previously reported by Forbes.

Fulcher, who did not respond to requests for comment, said in a recently uploaded podcast episode that the crisis at his company was trying. He attributed the dispute to a disagreement over whether to charge users in the developing world for RingMD's service. Many were receiving health care for the first time, he said. Fulcher sold the majority stake in the company before shifting to public service, he said, though he did not explicitly mention his work for DOGE or at the Pentagon.

Weaver, 32, has worked as an aide for Republican Reps. Dan Bishop (North Carolina) and Brandon Williams (New York), and served as an aide in the first Trump administration on both the White House's National Security Council and in the Department of Homeland Security. He is seen as loyal and diligent, but unlikely to take a leadership role within the Pentagon's front office, people familiar with issue said. He also did not respond to requests for comment.

Hegseth said in a recent interview on Fox News with his friend and former colleague, Will Cain, that he "very much" feels like he has the right team around him.

"Personnel are going to change," he said. "You learn some things. We made some changes, no doubt."

Hegseth characterized the scrutiny of his actions and judgment as being part of broader plot to undermine Trump.

"Because I support him fully and I'm willing to be strong and bold in that proclamation, they're going to come at me in any way possible," he said. "To that, I say, bring it on."