Hegseth dreams of the White House, but the Force isn't with him

A man polling at 1 percent within his own movement is setting his sights on the highest office in the country, and the mirror isn't arguing with him. Pete Hegseth, 46, Secretary of Defense and, since his department was renamed, Secretary of War, is said to have told close friends that he is considering a run in 2028. That's what multiple sources in his circle are reporting. The dream has the advantage of not needing any votes to exist; it is enough for itself as long as nobody starts counting. An office you've already handed yourself in your own head doesn't require a majority, just a quiet morning and the silence of the numbers. The counting happens anyway, and the result appears further down.

For months, both he and his wife have believed that his toughness and his popularity with Trump's base could translate into a campaign. They also count his firmly conservative views among his strengths. On television, he convincingly played the determined guy, and now the same act is supposed to carry a campaign, as though governing were simply the continuation of the show by other means. The camera forgives the determined man for not actually having to make decisions; the office does not. Between playing the strong man and carrying the weight of actually being one lies the entire distance he has never traveled.

The idea isn't his alone; Jennifer, 49, is pushing it too. She is considered his most influential adviser, according to 20 current and former staffers. She prepares him for appearances and sits in on meetings with reporters. She interviews applicants for jobs in the department and suggests ideas for its videos. She is frequently around the Pentagon, also because there are concerns about his relationship with alcohol. So a woman in the background is helping run both the department and the campaign that hasn't even been born yet, and the candidate already comes with his minder. A department whose boss needs someone watching over him hardly recommends that boss for the office above it.

Hegseth credits the turnaround in his life to 2 Js, Jennifer and Jesus. Of the two, one handles the schedule. "She saved me," he said of his wife, and for a campaign for the White House, a savior with a calendar is worth more than a redeemer. Jennifer is his third wife; the two began an affair in 2016 while both were still married to other people and working at the same right-wing network. The divorces followed in 2017, the wedding in 2019. The man who likes to talk publicly about values found the love of his life at a workplace where 2 existing marriages stood in the way.

On June 14, 2015, Pete Hegseth was on Fox & Friends in New York and was supposed to throw an axe at a target for a segment about lumberjack sports. He missed the target badly, the axe sailed over it and hit Jeff Prosperie, a drummer with the West Point Hellcats, in the arm. Prosperie was injured, but later said it could have been much worse.

Particularly troubling: Prosperie later said his unit had been explicitly told beforehand that no axe would be thrown. Hegseth apparently threw one anyway. That shows pretty impressively just how qualified this man would be for the office of President of the United States.

If the candidacy really is part of his plans, he would have plenty to answer for from his time as secretary. There is the war against Iran, which he has now been fighting for 7 months after it was announced as something that would last only a few weeks. It is unpopular in the polls and has already cost $37.5 billion. Hegseth then asked Congress for another $70 billion, as though a blown timetable were simply a question of getting another helping. 18 American service members have died in it, and every one of those numbers weighs more heavily than any poll. Then there are the attacks on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean, which some have described as war crimes, and planning for strikes on Yemen that was conducted over a messaging app and turned into a scandal. A campaign that was supposed to be finished in weeks is now counting months and dead bodies, while the man responsible is already collecting ideas for the next step.

He nearly failed to win confirmation in the first place because of his history with alcohol and his November 2024 statement that women should not serve in combat roles. That kind of start in office hardly reads like the prelude to a coronation. A Trump-aligned operative with connections to the White House summed up the dilemma: the base may like his style, but a war secretary is judged by whether he wins wars. So the man who renamed his department one for war still owes the language a victory. So far, he has mainly changed the name and raised the bill. The fact that a man like this is reaching for even more power should be less amusing than alarming.

The numbers aren't going along with the dream. In a Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll, JD Vance came in at 53 percent and Marco Rubio at 35, while Hegseth landed at 1 percent, just below the 3 percent who couldn't make up their minds. If even the most loyal gathering barely notices him, the country isn't suddenly going to discover him. National polls this summer paint the same picture, with Vance and Rubio far ahead, 39 to 22 percent in one of them. Behind them are Ron DeSantis at 10 and Donald Trump Jr. at 8 percent. Even Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reached 3, the same neighborhood where the secretary who dreams of the very top is hanging around. Another poll has Vance and Rubio almost tied, 39 to 38, with a large share of voters still undecided.

Read also our articles: Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon and God by script

Faith, Power and Chains - Joshua Haymes, Pete Hegseth and the Return to Slavery

God’s Work, Trump’s Will – How Pete Hegseth Turns the Culture War into Government Policy

Hegseth denies all of it. The report was "100 percent false," he wrote, and his only job was to make the Department of War great again. His spokesman Sean Parnell called any other suggestion nonsense and said the secretary is not running. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly praised his work without addressing the question of 2028. At the same time, the man who isn't running keeps traveling suspiciously often to the places where presidencies begin, to the Iowa State Fair, where he campaigned for Rep. Zach Nunn, and to Kentucky in May, where he campaigned against Rep. Thomas Massie. A denial that spends its weekends in the first caucus state convinces nobody who knows how to read a map. A candidate without a candidacy already seems remarkably familiar with the road ahead.

Above all of it hangs the image he himself projects. The suit sits on him like the borrowed armor of a dark enforcer, black and too big everywhere. The tougher the appearance, the louder the fabric argues back, and the ambition fits the man wearing it about as badly as the helmet someone else put on his head.

Trump, 80, cannot run again, and the party is already lining itself up for the time after him. The old man in the hooded cloak has already spoken about possible heirs, which fuels ambitions without ennobling any of them. Vance and Rubio are standing ready, the field is sorting itself out, and there are still more than 2 years until the 2028 election, plenty of time for a lot to change. Meanwhile, the secretary who stretched a war to 7 months that he wanted to win in weeks dreams of succeeding the master, while the country watches him dream with gas above $4 a gallon. So far, the power he is seeking has mostly found its way into the title of his department. The mirror keeps its promise, the map keeps its distance.