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Welcome back to Foreign Policy<\/em>\u2019s Situation Report. John is extremely excited that Liverpool FC is one point away from securing the Premier League title. Rishi, however, is not. But in spite of this\u2014and the fact that his beloved Manchester United will finish the 2024-25 season with its lowest points total of the Premier League era\u2014Rishi is admirably soldiering on to deliver you the week\u2019s most essential national security news. (Co-author\u2019s note: John wrote this intro while Rishi was eating lunch.)<\/p>\n Alright, here\u2019s what\u2019s on tap for the day: Pete<\/strong> Hegseth<\/strong> is in hot water (again), Steve<\/strong> Witkoff<\/strong> goes to Russia<\/strong> (again), and negotiations on Iran<\/strong>\u2019s nuclear program move forward.<\/p>\n Chaos has been swirling around Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He\u2019s at the center of the escalating Signalgate scandal, his inner circle at the Pentagon recently imploded, and there\u2019s growing speculation that he could soon be out of a job. In what may have been a Freudian slip, Hegseth\u2019s ex-colleague at Fox News, Brian Kilmeade, inadvertently referred to him as the \u201cformer<\/a>\u201d defense secretary at the start of an interview on Tuesday. Ouch.<\/p>\n Hegseth is drowning in negative headlines. And though Hegseth recently had a makeup studio installed<\/a> at the Pentagon, no amount of concealer could cover all of this up.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve been struggling to follow the rapidly evolving course of events surrounding the embattled Pentagon chief\u2014don\u2019t worry, we\u2019ve got you covered.<\/p>\n Hegseth and Signalgate.<\/strong> The Signalgate controversy first emerged last month<\/a> when it was reported that Hegseth shared sensitive military information on upcoming U.S. strikes against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in a Signal group chat with other top officials that accidentally included a journalist.<\/p>\n Then, on Sunday, it was reported that Hegseth shared essentially the same sensitive information on the Yemen operation in a separate Signal group chat<\/a> with his wife (who is not a Pentagon employee) as well as his brother and personal lawyer. The latter two are Pentagon employees, but it\u2019s not clear why they\u2019d need to be aware of upcoming U.S. strikes.<\/p>\n Communicating about U.S. military actions in an unsecured group chat on an app like Signal, despite the fact it\u2019s encrypted, is a big no-no. Hegseth and the White House have maintained that there was nothing improper about these communications and no classified information was shared.<\/p>\n But national security veterans<\/a> say there\u2019s virtually no way that the information, which included operational details such as the schedule of the strikes, was not classified. Moreover, some of the details Hegseth reportedly shared were first sent to him<\/a> by Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command, via a system for sensitive and classified information.<\/p>\n Hegseth was also reportedly warned by an aide<\/a> against sharing sensitive information on an unsecure messaging platform just days ahead of the Yemen strikes.<\/p>\n Despite the Trump administration\u2019s best efforts to portray Signalgate as a nothingburger, the scandal refuses to go away. The Pentagon\u2019s acting inspector general is investigating Hegseth\u2019s use of Signal. There are also rising calls from Democrats for Hegseth to resign<\/a> or be fired. And GOP Rep. Don Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, suggested President Donald Trump should fire Hegseth\u2014calling the Pentagon chief an \u201camateur person<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Pentagon pandemonium.<\/strong> Hegseth is also dealing with internal strife at the Pentagon and is now without some of his closest advisors. Along these lines, he dismissed the latest Signal story as emanating from \u201cdisgruntled former employees<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Three top Pentagon aides were recently ousted amid an investigation into leaks: Dan Caldwell, who was a senior advisor to Hegseth; Darin Selnick, who was Hegseth\u2019s deputy chief of staff; and Colin Carroll, who was the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg.<\/p>\n Caldwell, Selnick, and Carroll issued a joint statement<\/a> on Saturday expressing incredible disappointment at the manner of their dismissals. They said unnamed Pentagon officials \u201cslandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.\u201d In an interview with Tucker Carlson on Monday, Caldwell fervently denied involvement in leaks.<\/p>\n Their dismissals reportedly came in the face of heated infighting that was largely driven by another Hegseth hire, Joe Kasper, who until recently served as the defense secretary\u2019s chief of staff. Hegseth initially Kasper would be reassigned. But Kasper on Thursday announced<\/a> he\u2019s exiting the Pentagon.<\/p>\n Former Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot, a longtime supporter of Trump who worked in his first administration, also recently resigned (the Pentagon says he was asked<\/a> to resign).<\/p>\n Ullyot raised alarm over the \u201cdisarray\u201d in the Pentagon under Hegseth in a blistering op-ed<\/a> for Politico<\/em> published Sunday and said it was \u201chard to see\u201d the defense secretary \u201cremaining in his role for much longer.\u201d Ullyot also accused Pentagon officials of falsely smearing the recently axed aides as leakers.<\/p>\n Will Hegseth keep his job?<\/strong> The White House this week denied<\/a> reports that it\u2019s considering replacing Hegseth, who was a controversial pick for Pentagon chief from the start and widely seen as a profoundly unqualified choice<\/a> to oversee the world\u2019s most powerful military.<\/p>\n Trump on Monday said<\/a> Hegseth is doing a \u201cgreat job\u201d and that \u201ceverybody\u2019s happy with him.\u201d<\/p>\n Given it was so hard to get Hegseth confirmed, Trump is likely reluctant to let him go\u2014and also probably doesn\u2019t want to be seen as caving to all of the bad press his Pentagon chief is receiving. But Trump and those around him also have a record of expressing confidence in people shortly before they\u2019re fired<\/a>. If Hegseth is ultimately pushed out, it will follow a broader trend surrounding Trump, whose first administration saw a historic level<\/a> of cabinet turnover.<\/p>\n Kristina Wong<\/strong>, a reporter for the right-wing news outlet Breitbart, has been appointed chief spokesperson for the U.S. Navy, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan announced<\/a> in a post on X.<\/p>\n What should be high on your radar, if it isn\u2019t already.<\/em><\/p>\n Witkoff heads to Russia. <\/strong>Trump\u2019s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is scheduled to travel<\/a> to Moscow for yet another round of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine, with the two men expected to meet on Friday. Yet peace negotiations remain contentious, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday rejecting<\/a> a U.S. proposal to recognize Russia\u2019s control of the Crimean Peninsula\u2014which Putin invaded and annexed in 2014\u2014and bar Ukraine from joining NATO.<\/p>\n Trump slammed Zelensky\u2019s response in a post<\/a> on Truth Social, saying the Ukrainian leader had \u201cno cards to play\u201d and should sign a deal to end the war. But the U.S. president also directed some criticism toward Putin for Russian airstrikes on Kyiv on Thursday that people and injured dozens more. \u201cNot necessary, and very bad timing,\u201d Trump posted<\/a> about the strikes. \u201cVladimir, STOP!\u201d<\/p>\n Putin has previously told Witkoff he would be willing to halt fighting at the war\u2019s current front lines as part of a deal, the Financial Times <\/em>reported<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio skipped a Wednesday negotiation<\/a> in London that was instead attended by Trump\u2019s Russia and Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg.<\/p>\n A way out for Iran? <\/strong>Rubio and Witkoff are also involved in another major negotiation with Iran on the fate of its nuclear program, with Rubio suggesting in a podcast<\/a> interview that Washington might allow Tehran to retain its civilian nuclear program if it imports uranium rather than enriching it. \u201c[T]here\u2019s a pathway to a civil, peaceful nuclear program if they want one,\u201d Rubio said.<\/p>\n But the Trump administration also slapped fresh sanctions<\/a> on Iran this week, targeting a key exporter of Iranian natural gas who is a source of millions of dollars of revenue for Tehran\u2019s regime. Iran\u2019s foreign ministry spokesperson criticized<\/a> those sanctions as showing a \u201clack of goodwill and seriousness\u201d from Washington in their ongoing negotiations, which are set to resume in Oman on Saturday.<\/p>\n Caine visits the border. <\/strong>The new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Dan Caine, made his first visit to the U.S. southern border in Arizona over the weekend, where he was briefed<\/a> on the military\u2019s border security operations, the joint staff said in a social media post on Tuesday.<\/p>\n The Trump administration has deployed thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border this year to aid enforcement and stop migrants from crossing.<\/p>\n