Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell was at a loss when it came to the president’s bizarre staffing moves in his second term.
The former Senate majority leader made his exasperation apparent after President Donald Trump this week canned National Security Agency Director Timothy Haugh and six National Security Council officials at the urging of far-right influencer Laura Loomer.
“If decades of experience in uniform isn’t enough to lead the NSA 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?” he told The New York Times on Saturday. “I can’t figure it out.”
The White House and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
While McConnell didn’t name the “amateur isolationists” he was referring to, he has previously indicated concern about a pair of Pentagon staffers—Michael DiMino and Dan Caldwell—for statements expressing reticence for the American military to support Israel.
“It’s alarming that people can clear vetting after claiming U.S. interests in the Middle East are ‘minimal to nonexistent,’ suggesting that America should ‘militarily retrench’ from the region, or claiming that providing Israel even defensive assistance against Iran-backed terrorists is escalatory,” McConnell, 83, told Jewish Insider in January shortly after Trump was inaugurated.
DiMino is a deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, and Caldwell is a top adviser to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Timothy Haugh speaks during a Senate Committee on Intelligence Hearing on March 25, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Haugh’s firing was widely denounced by Democrats. He was a four-star general who had served in his role since February 2024.
The move made clear the influence that fringe figures can hold over White House decision-making. Loomer, 31, a MAGA activist who has claimed that 9/11 was an inside job, met with Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday. She brought a list of top national security officials whom she believed were disloyal, including Haugh.
The next day, the six NSC officials were out. The day after that, Haugh was gone too.
