A former White House staffer suggested that mounting stories about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could be creating concern inside President Donald Trump’s administration, as the Pentagon faces a public dispute involving senior military leadership.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll submitted his resignation directly to the president after clashing repeatedly with the Pentagon chief, and former George W. Bush staffer Ashley Davis told "CNN This Morning" that Trump officials were likely paying close attention to the dynamic inside the Defense Department.

"Well, I'm just watching this slow drip of Pete Hegseth stories," Davis said. "So whether it's – I have met the secretary of the Army and he's a great guy. He's very close with JD Vance. I think that he had a lot of integrity, and, you know, supposedly he did brief the president before resigning and why he resigned, but – which is very unusual for someone to go around the chain of command to do that."

Driscoll, who had been seen as a potential replacement for Hegseth, reportedly stepped down because of frustrations over the defense secretary pushing out other military leaders, including Navy Secretary John Phelan. The episode adds another layer of scrutiny around how personnel changes are being handled at the top of the Defense Department, where chain-of-command discipline is especially important.

"It's significant criticism of the secretary, but also the drip, drip, drip of Hegseth talking about running for president is also probably not sitting well with this administration," she said. "Yeah. Well, and he's supposedly there's inside sources that say that he wants to run for president."

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