‘The View’: Alyssa Farah Griffin Predicts Pete Hegseth Will Be Ousted as Defense Secretary

Amanda Bell April 22, 2025, 12:00 pm

Comments

The View returned on Tuesday (April 22) after a brief spring break hiatus, and the first “Hot Topic” up for discussion was one the panelists had previously been harping on for quite a few episodes: SignalGate. Only this time, it’s SignalGate 2.0, as there’s been an update to the national security crisis that surrounds Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth‘s use of the chat app Signal while discussing strike plans in Yemen. This time, it’s been revealed that he had a second chat about the imminent attack — including, reportedly, specific flight schedules for the military aircraft involved — that included his wife and brother. This stunning revelation has caused at least one Republican lawmaker to call for Hegseth’s ouster from the role, and one The View cohost thinks it’s just a matter of time before that comes to fruition.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, who worked in the Pentagon and for Donald Trump‘s first administration criticized Hegseth for blaming anonymous sources for the issue, saying, “One of his senior aides, John Ullyot, who I actually worked with — he was at the NSC when I was at the White House — penned an op-ed in Politico, saying, ‘The Pentagon is in chaos. I respect Pete Hegseth, but he needs to step aside.’ He put his name to it, which I give him a lot of credit for.”

'The View' Cohosts on Trump's Tariffs Turnaround: 'No Strategy'

She then went on to offer her own analysis of the situation, saying, “Listen, this individual was always underqualified for this role. Yes, he served our country in uniform, but he did not have the years of experience it takes to run this big of a department. And the cracks are showing, and there are going to be more stories like this, and what I would say to people, whether they support the president or don’t, national security is above politics. You should want the most qualified person in this role… When I was working at the Pentagon, there were days that I couldn’t tell Justin [Griffin, husband,] what I was doing at work because it was classified, because I was working on something that was sensitive. That was just a simple agreement, and my role was not nearly as sensitive as this individual. He just seems to lack this sort of judgment. And there are people who are imminently qualified that could do this. I think it’s Senator Joni Ernst on the Armed Services Committee; if you want the Fox News personality, General Jack King, a retired four-star general who supports Donald Trump, but is qualified to run the biggest, the most powerful military on the planet.”

The cohost then made her prediction that Hegseth won’t last much longer as Secretary of Defense, saying, “I think that people smell blood in the water. Advisors are going to get to Trump and say, ‘This guy is too big of a distraction,’ and his days will be numbered.” She also predicted that Trump’s public showing of support for Hegseth after the news is merely a delay tactic, saying, “I think he wants to get through the first 100 days.”

However, Joy Behar had a different interpretation of Trump’s reaction to the scandal, saying, “I don’t get the impression that Trump even knows what goes on in these Signal meetings. It’s like Hegseth’s wife knows more than the president.”

Sara Haines then questioned why Hegseth would include his family members in the discussion to begin with and theorized, “The only thing that could come to, I guess, a reasonable mind is you’re trying to say, ‘Look at my big job.'”

Sunny Hostin then reiterated Griffin’s point about having to conceal sensitive information about her work for the federal government from her own spouse and then turned to Trump’s blase reaction to the matter and said, “Trump seems to be behaving as if this is nothing. There’s quite a double standard because he’s standing by Hegseth, but if you remember, he sang a different tune when he called for America’s first Black defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, appointed by President Biden in 2021, to resign after he failed to disclose that he had undergone a surgeon for operation to treat prostate cancer, and he was kind of gone for about four days. I’m not saying that that was good either, but I don’t think those two things are the same because Trump said Austin should be fired immediately for improper professional conduct and dereliction of duty.”

Behar then asked why Republicans in Congress aren’t speaking out, and Griffin pointed to the one rep who’d already done so and predicted more will follow suit in the immediate future.

The View, weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC