Michael Scherer

And he's earned the president's trust during that process.

But he's also very deferential.

He's not the guy saying, no, you can't do this, slamming the table.

That's not his role in this process.

Hegseth had a very rough first year.

And, you know, when we interviewed Trump last spring, Trump was talking about Hegseth as like a kid who's trying to do well but just hasn't figured it out yet.

You know, that was sort of the tone of the conversation.

I think Trump likes Hegseth on TV.

He likes the aggression from Hegseth, like the sort of anti-woke reformism, the machismo that Hegseth's trying to bring to the Pentagon.

But I don't think Hegseth is much of a senior advisor on this stuff.

I think, you know, the head of the Joint Chiefs, General Kane, is—

is probably more in Trump's ear when it comes to those things.

But Hagseth has earned his place as sort of a cabinet member in good standing.

Tulsi Gabbard is different.

I mean, she really lost her place early on.

She ends up at an agency, the DNI, that the president's been skeptical of.

It's a post-9-11 agency that others in government have said, we're not really sure it's the right structure anyway.

She had some missteps last year.

And because of her tensions with the CIA, she's been cut out of a lot of these national security discussions.

You know, she's off doing investigations of election technology in Puerto Rico and things like that, or showing up in Fulton County.