Pete Hegseth picks wrong week to stop drinking

ARLINGTON, Va. — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's pledge to stop drinking, first made to senators during his January 2025 confirmation, officially took effect at 0001 Tuesday after spending 21 months in the Pentagon staffing process, roughly 19 hours before the polls closed.

"The pledge was submitted on time," said Lt. Col. Brandon Kessler, the secretary's executive officer. "But it needed chops from Legal, Public Affairs, the Joint Staff, and three offices that no longer exist because he fired everyone in them. Then it sat in a SIPR inbox for eight months. By the time it routed back to the front office, the effective date was election night. Nobody could have predicted that."

What followed, according to staff, was the longest 48 hours in the E-Ring since the leaked Signal chat that plagued Hegseth earlier this year.

By 2100 Tuesday, Democrats had taken the House. By 2300, they had flipped the Senate. Shortly after midnight, Texas turned blue, an event the secretary's staff initially reported to him as a cyberattack.

Then came South Carolina's 1st District, where voters elected retired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, whom Hegseth fired in 2025 after 35 years of service. Lacore will now help oversee the budget of the department that fired her, a career progression Navy detailers have quietly begun recommending to other flag officers.

"The secretary just stared at the map for a while," said one staffer. "Then he asked if anyone had a nonalcoholic beer. Then he asked if 0.5% was technically a violation. Then he asked Legal to put that question in a staffing package, and Legal said they'd have an answer in roughly 21 months."

Wednesday brought no relief.

By midmorning, reports surfaced that President Donald Trump had been asking advisers whether Hegseth should keep his job, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis floated as a replacement.

The president then told reporters Hegseth was doing "a very good job," a phrase Pentagon historians say carries roughly the same weight as a negative counseling statement.

Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie has promised articles of impeachment as soon as Congress returns next week, and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who cast the pivotal vote to confirm Hegseth, said the secretary now faces "a reckoning."

Officials say Hegseth responded the way he responds to all adversity: 300 push-ups, a rapid review of DEI in the Army Field Band, and a demand that the J-3 develop courses of action.

The resulting brief, which leaked via Signal chat, offered three:

COA 1: Weather the storm. Assessed risk: HIGH.

COA 2: Secure appointment to the Tennessee Senate seat being vacated by Marsha Blackburn. Assessed risk: MODERATE, pending Blackburn replying to his texts.

COA 3: Bourbon. Assessed risk: LOW. Not recommended (pledge in effect as of 0001 03NOV26).

The secretary also asked whether the election results could be revised the same way the department has revised its Iran war casualty figures, and was gently informed that the Associated Press does not report to him.

He spent much of the afternoon refreshing the Mississippi Senate race, where the Republican incumbent trailed by 65 votes, with the focus of a man who has not had a drink in 36 hours.

By late Wednesday, however, Legal had finally returned something useful: the pledge, as written, applies only while Hegseth serves as secretary.

"So he's in a unique position," Kessler said. "Every hour he survives in this job is another hour he can't have a drink. He's the first cabinet secretary in history with a personal stake in his own impeachment."

At press time, Hegseth had called Massie's office to ask whether the articles could be expedited.