'Draw a red circle': Author predicts this cabinet official will be 'first to go'

An author who has written four books about Donald Trump predicted on Thursday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will be the first of Trump's cabinet officials to depart the administration because he broke a cardinal rule of Trump World.

Michael Wolff, who most recently authored "All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America," discussed Trump's cabinet secretaries on a new episode of "Inside Trump's Head," a podcast he co-hosts with The Daily Beast's Joanna Coles. Wolff remarked that it was noteworthy that Trump had not had a cabinet secretary depart yet, and said that was likely because Trump finally learned how to hire "total lackeys."

"You get fired for two things, maybe only one thing, and that is for getting too much press yourself for taking credit," Wolff said. "For being out front of Donald Trump."

Hegseth has come under fire over a September 2 attack against an alleged drug boat near Venezuela, where the military attacked survivors of a previous strike. The incident has come to be known as the "double-tap strike." Experts have warned that the U.S. may have committed a war crime and have called on the Defense Department to publicly release video of the attack.

"These people are all sub-competent in their own particular egregious way, but that doesn't get you fired," Wolff said.
"Although we might be getting to that point [with] Pete Hegseth. Let's draw a red circle around around Pete. And I would tend to think that Pete would be the first person to go."