Jennifer Hegseth holds unorthodox role shaping Pentagon affairs

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/04/30/jennifer-hegseth-pentagon-trump/

Jennifer Hegseth holds unorthodox role shaping Pentagon affairs
Her activities have included coordinating her husband’s media appearances and meeting with job candidates, say people familiar with the arrangement.
April 30, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
By Dan Lamothe

Hours after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon on his first full day in office, his wife, Jennifer, made a request. Would the defense secretary’s staff, she asked, edit and post a video to the Defense Department’s social media accounts of his initial remarks to reporters?

The ask felt to some like a directive, according to people familiar with the matter and messages reviewed by The Washington Post. Though defense officials were aware of Jennifer Hegseth’s quiet yet omnipresent role in her husband’s bruising Senate confirmation process and her background — like his — at Fox News, she had no experience working in government and — importantly, these people said — had not been appointed to any official role in the Trump administration.

“We would always hear that she was saying what kind of videos he should be doing, and what kind of statements he should be doing, and how the press should be handled,” recalled one person, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a dynamic viewed inside the Pentagon as unorthodox and sometimes problematic.

The role of Jennifer Hegseth, 40, throughout her husband’s budding tenure in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet has snapped into focus in recent weeks, after damaging news reports about Pete Hegseth’s stumbles as his on-the-job training plays out in public view — including the revelation that she was among a group of people with whom he shared advance notice of a U.S. military operation in Yemen. Others in the unclassified group chat, created by the defense secretary using the commercially available Signal app, included his brother and personal lawyer.

She met with potential political appointees as the Trump administration scrutinized people for positions at the Pentagon, two people familiar with the issue said. The role effectively had her conducting job interviews, they said.

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The drunk finds her useful because she has a higher IQ than him?