U.S. President Donald Trump failed in his first term to bend the Pentagon to his will, facing delays and defiance from a group of military leaders who were determined to uphold its reputation for staying out of politics.
Ten days into his second term, that barrier has washed away.
In a break with his predecessors, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has become a major driver in Trump’s agenda with leaders carrying out actions that were seen as unthinkable in the first term, including deploying military planes to deport migrants and studying whether to detain as many as 30,000 of them at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
