Driscoll, who has been well regarded by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, is a close associate of Vice President JD Vance.
Page A6From§Eachthe midnight edition — 1 September 2026
Pentagon quietly hires influencers to sell Hegseth's agenda; Army Secretary quits rejecting it.
As it ran on the front
Let's be clear about what's happening at the Pentagon, because the coverage has gotten ahead of itself. Secretary Hegseth runs a lean shop, a modern shop, and modern shops use modern communications tools — paid partnerships with independent voices, what some outlets are calling 'quietly hired influencers,' though I'd call it public engagement contracting. There is nothing unusual about an agency wanting its message carried by messengers people actually listen to. That's just good outreach. Did I say 'quietly hired'? That's not — that's not how procurement works, there's no quiet about it, it's on a spreadsheet somewhere, I'm sure.
As for Secretary Driscoll's resignation, I want to be careful not to characterize what was clearly a personnel decision as some kind of rift. The Army Secretary serves at the pleasure of the administration, and resignations happen. People move on. Careers evolve. This has nothing to do with 'monthslong tension,' a phrase multiple newsrooms apparently landed on independently, which, if you think about it, is actually a remarkable coincidence for something that isn't a story.…
…(cont) Look — the Secretary of Defense does not need an influencer program to be popular with the building. He is popular with the building. The building loves him. That's why they had to pay people to say so, which, now that I've said it out loud, doesn't sound like the flex I meant it to be.
What I will say, on the record, is that a Cabinet-adjacent post going empty while the guy who ran the messaging shop stays put is not a crisis. It's bandwidth reallocation. The Secretary is simply consolidating decision-making closer to himself, which is what leaders do, and if the last guy in that chair couldn't get comfortable with that, well. Some people aren't built for modern shops.
So no, there is no story here beyond a routine transition and a routine communications contract that happened to become public at the same time, for reasons I am not going to speculate about, because speculating about reasons is exactly the kind of thing that turns a nothing-burger into a pattern. And there is no pattern. I want that in writing. Please don't quote the part about the spreadsheet.
“You don't pay influencers to sell a boss everybody already respects — you pay them because the guy who actually worked next to him just walked out the door. Five outlets ran the same resignation the same week, and the Pentagon's answer was a comms budget, not an explanation. That's not leadership, that's a publicist standing where a general used to stand.”
“This is a routine transition dressed up as drama by people who don't understand modern public affairs contracting — Secretary Driscoll simply pursued other opportunities, and outreach spending is completely normal for any large agency. Did I just call five independent resignation reports 'dressed up'? I mean — the timing is coincidental, that's all I'm saying.”
The receipts
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll submitted his resignation this week after disagreements with War Secretary Pete Hegseth seeped into the public eye. Driscoll, who is a college friend of Vice President JD Vance, is expected to leave the Pentagon…
‘Answering this call was my duty and the fulfillment of my oath’
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.