McConnell calls out Trump for hiring 'amateur isolationists' at Pentagon, firing NSA director
Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is questioning President Trump’s decisions to pick “amateur isolationists” for senior policy jobs at the Pentagon and to fire Gen. Timothy Haugh, the head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command without explanation.
“If decades of experience in uniform isn’t enough to lead the N.S.A. but amateur isolationists can hold senior policy jobs at the Pentagon, then what exactly are the criteria for working on this administration’s national security staff,” McConnell said in comments to The New York Times.
“I can’t figure it out,” he said.
McConnell and other Senate Republican defense hawks have signaled their concern about the Trump administration’s decisions to hire Michael DiMino to serve as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and Andrew Byers to serve as deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia.
DiMino has come under scrutiny by pro-Israel advocates because of his past statements that the U.S. doesn’t face vital or existential threats in the Middle East.
And Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said at a recent hearing that Byers “believes thinking about communist China through the lens of deterrence is wrong” and “thinks maybe we should give up what he calls belligerent policies toward China.”
McConnell made his comments to The Times after President Trump abruptly fired Haugh, a four-star Air Force general with 33 years of experience in intelligence and cyber operations, without providing any explanation.
Trump this past week also fired six National Security Council officials after meeting with conservative activist and social media influencer Laura Loomer in the Oval Office. Loomer presented a list of officials to Trump that she argued were not loyal to the president.
Loomer in a social media post criticized Haugh, the N.S.A. director, for being picked for his job by Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who reportedly called Trump “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country,” according to a book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.
Loomer called Milley a traitor and in a social media post on Saturday declared that “there are a lot of bad actors embedded all over the FBI, DOJ, NSZC, NSA, DOD, and State Department.”
“It’s going to take time to hunt these people down, publicly expose them and have them fired and removed from their positions,” she posted on the social media platform X.