Notes from Camp Kotok: Hegseth, go home
An informal survey of elite investors identifies the most incompetent Trump Cabinet members.
During a panel discussion on national security at Camp Kotok in northern Maine, I raised my hand to ask a question. The Trump administration is asking Congress for $1.5 trillion in annual defense spending, and will probably get at least $1 trillion. I’ve said repeatedly that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is one of the worst public servants in American history.
“He’s a farce,” I said. “Is there some way to withhold this money until there’s somebody better in the job?”
“Hegseth is one of the least effective secretaries of defense I’ve seen,” defense analyst Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners, one of the panelists, concurred. “His interactions with Congress tend to be toxic. His inability or unwillingness to communicate information to Congress is a detriment to getting things done.”
As Callan was answering, another Camp Kotok attendee texted to say thanks for asking the question the way I did. Then after the panel, David Kotok, patron saint of Camp Kotok, reminded me of a survey of camp attendees, asking their views of certain Trump Cabinet members.
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The question listed five Cabinet secretaries with three possible answers. Should the Cabinet official should stay or be replaced? “Not sure” was also a choice.
Here are the stay/replace results (with “not sure” omitted):
Pete Hegseth:
Stay: 3
Replace: 26
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.:
Stay: 6
Replace: 23
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick:
Stay: 5
Replace: 26
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent:
Stay: 21
Replace: 10
Secretary of State Marco Rubio:
Stay: 24
Replace: 7
Since these shareholder-class people sound so anti-Trump, they must be bleeding heart lefties, right?
I asked David to clarify. “Does this group lean left?” he said. “Decidedly not. Politically, this group is center right. This is not an AOC crowd. It’s a fiscally conservative group and only three people would have Hegseth stay.”
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Jim Bianco of Bianco Research, another panelist leading the national security discussion, told me afterward that Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg would probably be a much better steward of a trillion-dollar budget and the careful decision-making needed to transform the US military for the drone era. As the former CEO of private-equity firm Cerberus, Feinberg is deeply experienced at running large organizations. “Plus he’s a billionaire,” Bianco pointed out. “Trump obviously loves billionaires.”
But Hegseth and Feinberg seem to be feuding. Recent reporting suggests Hegseth blames his deputy for a shortage of missiles and other weapons that has become an embarrassment for the Trump administration. “Hegseth is a political animal,” Callan told me. “He’d probably win a scorpion shootout with Feinberg. And losing Feinberg would be very detrimental.”
So instead of better management of the Pentagon’s massive budget, it’s possible Hegseth may vanquish the one competent person at the top of his organization and become even more unfettered. 😠
After the national-security panel ended, we all started chatting and a couple of other attendees argued that Hegseth might be bad, but at least one other Trump Cabinet official was worse: RFK Jr. We debated which job entailed greater responsibility—overseeing defense or health policy—and whether a worst-Trumper rating should be weighted to account for the gravity of the job.
Then we debated whether we should expand the Trump worst list to incompetents who have already left, such as Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, former Attorney General Pam Bondi, and of course, ICE Barbie, Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem.
Conclusion: There are too many stinkers in the Trump cabinet, past, present and undoubtedly future, to single out just one as the worst.
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