“highly effective”
Page A5From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 1 September 2026
Army Secretary resigns amid Hegseth clash, leaving Army without confirmed leader during two wars.
As it ran on the front
Let's be clear: personnel changes at the Department of Defense happen every administration, and Secretary Driscoll's departure is no different — a routine transition, nothing more. He simply decided, after months of — well, after what several outlets are calling 'tensions with Secretary Hegseth' — that it was time to pursue other opportunities. That's not a crisis. That's not... okay, three separate news organizations reported it as a resignation amid conflict, so maybe it is exactly what it looks like.
The timing, I'll grant, could be better. The country happens to be engaged in what one report flatly calls 'two wars,' and the Army — the largest branch of the United States military — will now proceed without a confirmed civilian secretary. That's standard operating procedure. Deputies exist. Chains of command exist. Everything continues to function normally, the same way it always does when the person legally required to run the Army is not there to run the Army.…
…(cont) I want to be careful not to overstate the disagreement with Secretary Hegseth. Multiple outlets independently characterized it as 'tensions.' That's a word reporters use. It doesn't mean anything happened. Did I say nothing happened? That's not what I — there were clearly tensions. I said that. I'm agreeing with my own talking point now, apparently.
Here's what matters: the Pentagon has weathered leadership gaps before. Confirmation processes take time. The Senate has a calendar. Wars, generally speaking, do not wait for the Senate's calendar, but that's a separate department's problem, not mine.
What I will not accept is the implication that this represents instability. Instability would mean the institution can't function. This is merely the Secretary of the Army — again, the person constitutionally answerable for the Army — stepping down during active combat operations, with no successor confirmed, amid reported friction with his own Defense Secretary, days before anyone in the building had to explain it to a reporter. That's not instability. That's Tuesday.
I'll note for the record that I did not say this was fine. I said it was normal. Those are different words. I stand by the distinction, even if I can no longer remember which one I meant to make first, and I'd appreciate it if that last sentence didn't make it into the column.
“Watch the sequence: 'tensions with Hegseth,' then 'resigns,' then 'without confirmed leadership' — that's not a transition, that's a vacancy at the top of the Army during two active wars. The soldiers don't get a resignation letter; they get a chain of command with a hole in it.”
“This is a routine personnel matter, full stop — Secretaries come and go, that's how administrations work. There's no crisis here, there's just an unconfirmed vacancy at the top of the Army during two wars, which, look, that's a scheduling issue for the Senate, not a leadership issue for us.”
The receipts
The resignation of Daniel P. Driscoll, the secretary of the Army, had been expected but comes at a tumultuous time for the service.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is stepping down after 18 months on the job, the White House said Monday, in the latest departure of a top military leader during the Trump administration.
Driscoll has submitted his resignation to President Donald Trump amid growing tension between him and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, sources told ABC News.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.