Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — a former Fox News host and Army National Guard veteran narrowly confirmed to lead the Pentagon in January 2025 after Vice President JD Vance broke a Senate tie — has worked to project a "tough guy" image as he builds ambitions for a potential 2028 presidential run, but Michael Wolff, who chronicled Donald Trump's political career as the president's one-time biographer, says the Cabinet ally is in reality a "doormat" doing his best work as a lackey in order to keep his job.

Wolff, a longtime reporter and author best known for the bestselling "Fire and Fury" and his extensive coverage of Trump's political career in several books about the chaotic first term, discussed Hegseth's situation with co-host Joanna Coles on the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head." Coles raised emerging rumors that Hegseth might be fired after the midterms — the 2026 elections that will determine control of Congress — if the GOP performs poorly, and Wolff responded that the defense secretary has found himself "at the center of the worst crisis of the many crises of the Trump administration," referring to the Iran war.

"He's the point person for an enormous part of the world's pain right now," Wolff said.

Echoing claims he has made previously, Wolff said Hegseth will "certainly" run for president in 2028, using his time as defense secretary as a jumping-off point. "That very well could make him someone who is attractive to the Trump base, which, you know, certainly is capable of getting someone elected," he added.

In Wolff's assessment, Hegseth's main "credential" with Trump was being a "suck-up" who would be "willing to do" whatever the president asked of him — a characterization that undercuts the "tough guy" image Hegseth has sought to project. "But what [he] really [is] is a doormat, is a weak guy," Wolff said. "I mean, this is a guy who is willing to accept all manner of humiliation before Donald Trump."

Wolff argued that launching a presidential bid is likely "what he has to do at this point."

"First thing, he has to try to protect his current job," Wolff explained. "But even if he can't protect this current job, or can't continue to hold this current job, he kind of steps over that by then declaring his run for president, raising an enormous amount of money. I'm sure that he actually has a money base that he's put together, as he has been running the Department of Defense and he, you know, he's in business. He's put himself into business as a person of high political standing in the Republican Party." Whether Hegseth weathers the post-midterm period Coles described, and whether any formal campaign apparatus emerges around his 2028 ambitions, will be the concrete markers against which Wolff's assessment can be judged.

Wolff's remarks were reported by Alternet.