A senior administration official subsequently confirmed to Business Insider that Hagel would resign. They said Hagel would announce his decision alongside the president at 11:00 a.m.
"A successor will be named in short order, but Secretary Hagel will remain as Defense Secretary until his replacement is confirmed by the United States Senate," the official said.
The official characterized Hagel's decision to step down as normal administration turnover in the wake of the midterm elections earlier this month.
That is the official response to why Hagel is leaving, however the unofficial response is much different:
Senior defense officials confirmed to NBC News Monday that Hagel was forced to resign.
The officials say the White House has lost confidence in Hagel to carry out his role at the Pentagon. According to one senior official, “He wasn’t up to the job.”
Another senior administration official said that Hagel has been discussing a departure from the White House "for several weeks."
As we know President Obama is incredibly loyal to his people, so for Hagel to be "forced out" is a real recognition of his lack of confidence in the Defense Secretary's abilities.
Apparently there will be a press conference in about an hour so there will be more to add to this post then.
So I guess Monday's starting off with a bang.
Update: I just watched the Hagel press conference, and my take away is that he might have been forced from his job for incompetence, but his friendship with the President and Vice President Joe Biden seems quite genuine and deeply affectionate.
At times it almost looked like the President and Chuck Hagel were both there against their will, and Joe Biden simply looked pissed off.
I think in the weeks ahead we will learn more about what instigated this resignation, but I am pretty confident that it was not due to any friction between Hagel and the President.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment