{"id":13064,"date":"2025-11-26T19:14:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T22:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/11\/26\/pete-hegseth-upstaged-by-ascendant-army-power-player-flexing-key-white-house-alliance\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T19:14:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T22:14:00","slug":"pete-hegseth-upstaged-by-ascendant-army-power-player-flexing-key-white-house-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/11\/26\/pete-hegseth-upstaged-by-ascendant-army-power-player-flexing-key-white-house-alliance\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Hegseth ‘upstaged’ by ascendant Army power player flexing key White House alliance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By ELINA SHIRAZI, US SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER<\/a> <\/p>\n

Published:<\/span>

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What could and should have been a job fit for a Secretary of War was handed to US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll an unofficial envoy emerging as a key figure in Trump’s diplomatic world.<\/p>\n

Driscoll has reportedly been playing an important role in securing peace between Russia<\/a> and Ukraine, overshadowing Pete Hegseth<\/a>‘s continuously diminishing role on the world stage.<\/p>\n

‘Hegseth has been upstaged, in a sense, by Army Secretary Dan Driscoll,’ punchbowl reported.<\/p>\n

Driscoll, a Yale Law School graduate, has close ties to a key figure in the White House<\/a> who may also be boosting his rising star: Vice President JD Vance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The two are reportedly friends from Yale, with Vance helping handselect him to be sent to Ukraine for the peace mission.<\/p>\n

Axios calling Driscoll the new ‘Trump 2.0 power player’ known in military circles as the ‘drone guy’ an homage to his extensive work on bringing the military into the 21st century.<\/p>\n

At 39, he is the youngest ever Army Secretary.<\/p>\n

‘We got Driscoll, who’s wellliked, who’s welltrusted. He’s connected with US government leadership,’ a US official explained to Axios.<\/p>\n

The Vice President and Army Secretary will reportedly meet privately at Fort Campbell Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Driscoll was chosen to officially delivered the 28point peace plan to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After that, he conducted a series of meetings in Kyiv, accompanied the US delegation in Geneva and then traveled to Abu Dhabi to hold talks with Russian officials.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, President Trump announced that he was sending Steve Witkoff to Moscow to further diplomatic conversations and assigning Driscoll to lead the next phase of discussions with Kyiv<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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US Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll speaks with US staff after a closeddoor talks with the Ukrainian delegation on a US plan to end the war in Ukraine at the US Mission in Geneva, on November 23<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Trump, Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speak with soldiers after Trump arrived at Pope Army Airfield on June 10<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Driscoll has reportedly been playing an important role in securing peace between Russia and Ukraine, overshadowing Pete Hegseth ‘s continuously diminishing role on the world stage<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ukrainian servicemen of the 43 Artillery Brigade fire a 2S7 Pion selfpropelled cannon towards Russian positions at a front line in the Donetsk region on September 27, 2024<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In recent days, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has drawn sharp criticism after ordering the United States Navy to open a formal investigation into comments by Mark Kelly<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This all comes amid mounting tensions within the administration, where both Hegseth and FBI Director Kash Patel are facing growing scrutiny on several fronts.<\/p>\n

In recent days, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has drawn sharp criticism after ordering the United States Navy to open a formal investigation into comments by Mark Kelly a sitting US Senator and retired Navy captain characterizing them as ‘potentially unlawful.<\/a>‘<\/p>\n

Hegseth demanded a full briefing by early December and accused Kelly of undermining military discipline.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the FBI has begun contacting several Democratic lawmakers who appeared in the same video<\/a> prompting bipartisan concern over what many view as an aggressive use of military and lawenforcement power to target political opponents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/ad-slot> <\/ad-slot> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By ELINA SHIRAZI, US SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER Published: 17:08 EST, 26 November 2025 | Updated: 17:14 EST, 26 November 2025 What could and should have been a job fit for a Secretary of War was handed to US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll an unofficial envoy emerging as a key figure in Trump’s diplomatic world. Driscoll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}