Sen. Jack Reed Calls for Hegseth's Resignation, Citing Fired Generals and USS Lincoln's Record Deployment

Since Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned on August 31 after months of friction with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the political fallout has moved fast. On Tuesday, September 1, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, appeared on MS NOW's "On the Line with Alicia Menendez" and called on Hegseth to resign outright.

"Hegseth, as I said from the very beginning, was unqualified to be Secretary of Defense, both operationally, experientially, and also temperamentally," Reed said, according to MS NOW. "He's turned it into a political operation, not a strategic and national security operation."

Reed tied his demand directly to Driscoll's departure, saying the Army Secretary "had the concerns of the nation and the army first, not political agendas," and was "immediately in conflict with Hegseth" as a result. Reed cited firing generals "without explanation" and conducting operations "without explaining the rationale or the effects to Congress on both sides of the aisle" as evidence Hegseth is "doing great damage to the national security of the United States."

Asked directly whether it's time for Hegseth to resign, Reed didn't hedge: "I believe he should never [have been Defense Secretary] in the first place. So yes, it is time for him to resign."

The USS Lincoln backdrop

The immediate flashpoint driving Democratic criticism is the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that has set a modern-day record for consecutive days at sea, deployed for nearly nine months as part of the Iran conflict, according to MS NOW host Alicia Menendez. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has said Hegseth "must be fired immediately" over conditions facing sailors and Marines aboard the ship, per Menendez's on-air account.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), a veteran, told Menendez on a prior broadcast that an impeachment inquiry "should be" a priority if Democrats retake Congress. "We need oversight and investigations," Auchincloss said. "And if the facts yield an impeachment recommendation, we need to pursue that vigorously." No impeachment inquiry has actually been launched. These are calls from individual lawmakers, not a formal House proceeding, and no charges or findings against Hegseth have been made public.

Reed also referenced a helicopter ride Hegseth took with musician Kid Rock as an example of what he called inappropriate political activity for a sitting Pentagon chief, saying, "The Secretary of Defense has to be removed from politics."

The pushback

Breitbart's coverage took a different angle, seizing on Menendez's own framing of the story rather than the substance of Reed's allegations. Breitbart highlighted Menendez asking Auchincloss about impeachment as evidence that "Democratic candidates have made Secretary of War Pete Hegseth the new boogeyman on the campaign trail," and noted political reporting that Democrats plan to "shift their attacks from President Trump to Hegseth" heading into the midterms. That framing suggests the resignation push is at least partly a campaign strategy, a point Reed's own remarks don't directly address.

On the deployment itself, Fox News reported that Marine Corps veteran and Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer pushed back hard on characterizing Lincoln's crew as victims of a hard deployment. "The media narrative trying to turn these Sailors and Marines into victims because this deployment was hard is exactly the problem," Meyer wrote on X, according to Fox News. "Service is hard. Combat is hard. Go tell the World War II generation that service was supposed to be comfortable." Meyer argued the oath service members take is unconditional, regardless of hardship or personal agreement with the mission.

Reed and Schumer say the length and conditions of the Lincoln deployment reflect mismanagement traceable to Hegseth's decisions and his clashes with career officers like Driscoll. Meyer and Republican defenders say grueling deployments are inherent to military service and shouldn't be weaponized into a political indictment of the Pentagon's civilian leadership.

No independent investigation into Hegseth's conduct or the Lincoln's deployment conditions has been announced by Congress or the Pentagon's inspector general as of this writing. Whether Driscoll's resignation triggers a formal Senate Armed Services Committee inquiry, something within Reed's own power as ranking member to push for, remains the next thing to watch.