Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faces the worst approval ratings of any senior Trump administration figure and a growing crisis aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, yet bettors are wagering he keeps his job.
Prediction market traders on Kalshi put the odds of Hegseth leaving the administration before September 1 at just 4.8 percent as of Thursday afternoon, a figure that ticked up less than a point amid a week of damaging headlines. Earlier contracts asking whether he would be gone by July 1 or August 1 both resolved as "no." On Polymarket, the chance of a Hegseth departure by August 31 sat at 3 percent, and even the longer-horizon contract, out by December 31, drew only 24 percent odds on $324,000 in trading volume, Newsweek reported.
The numbers reflect a straightforward bet: whatever the press coverage looks like, the president has not moved against his Pentagon chief, and the White House has said so plainly. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt called accounts of internal friction "100 percent fake news" and said Trump has "the utmost confidence in Secretary Hegseth."
But confidence from the boss and confidence from the public are two different things, and on the second count, Hegseth is underwater by every available measure.
CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten released an analysis this month finding Hegseth's net approval rating at -22, the worst of any senior administration figure the network tracked. Enten called Hegseth "the lowest of the low" and said the -22 figure has turned up "in every single poll" he could find covering Hegseth's time leading the Pentagon.
A Marquette Law School poll conducted July 22, 29 confirmed the picture. Hegseth's net favorability landed at -22, 23 percent favorable, 45 percent unfavorable, tying him with Trump for the lowest score among the figures tested. Thirty-two percent of respondents said they had not heard enough about Hegseth to form an opinion, which means his numbers could still move in either direction.
For comparison, Secretary of State Marco Rubio registered a net approval of -8. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came in at -9. Vice President JD Vance sat at -17. None of them face the kind of operational crises now piling up on Hegseth's desk.
Polymarket's broader contract on the next Trump Cabinet official to leave gives a 46 percent chance that nobody exits before 2027. FBI Director Kash Patel draws the largest individual share at 31 percent, not Hegseth. A separate Polymarket contract pegs the chance of Hegseth being impeached by year's end at 4 percent, though at least one House Democrat has pledged to pursue impeachment if his party wins the midterms.
The most acute pressure on Hegseth centers on the USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that left San Diego in November and was rerouted from the Pacific to the Middle East ahead of the U.S. war with Iran that began February 28. The ship has now spent more than 200 consecutive days at sea, described as the longest deployment on record for a carrier of its kind.
Complaints about conditions aboard the Lincoln first surfaced in April. Hegseth dismissed the reports as "fake news." The Navy denied them as well. But this week, California Representative Mike Levin said sailors lacked basic hygiene supplies and access to working showers and toilets. At least two service members reportedly attempted or appeared to prepare to go overboard.
A Navy spokesperson told Newsweek that the service has "not identified an increase in reported suicidal ideation or suicide attempts aboard the ship," adding that "religious, medical and mental health professionals" are available to address concerns. The careful phrasing, "based on information available to the command", leaves room for incidents the command has not classified or confirmed.
Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote a letter to Hegseth this week arguing that extended deployments compound the risks already inherent to carrier life through fatigue and deferred maintenance. Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego called on the Navy to allow bipartisan congressional oversight visits to the ship. Both are Democrats, and the administration has given no public indication it will grant the request.
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told families that the Lincoln will eventually be relieved by the USS Theodore Roosevelt but did not specify a timeline. For families who have watched the deployment stretch past every normal benchmark, "eventually" is not an answer. The lack of a firm date leaves the Lincoln's crew, and the political fallout, in limbo.
Separate from the Lincoln crisis, reports emerged that Trump confronted Hegseth at Camp David over declining munitions stockpiles during the Iran conflict. Hegseth reportedly deflected blame toward his deputy, Stephen Feinberg. The White House flatly denied the account. Leavitt called it "100 percent fake news," and Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell also denied the reporting.
Hegseth has publicly insisted the country is not facing a shortage. "Our stockpiles of defensive and offensive weapons allow us to sustain this campaign as long as we need to," he said. Whether that statement holds up against classified inventory data is a question Congress has not yet forced into the open. We previously covered the reported confrontation over munitions shortfalls in detail.
The munitions dispute sits in a gray zone: officially denied by every administration voice on the record, yet persistent enough to drive prediction market movement and media coverage. Newsweek noted that munitions stockpiles had "fallen sharply" during the Iran war, a factual backdrop that gives the denied account at least circumstantial plausibility.
MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough reacted sharply on-air Thursday to renewed attention on the Lincoln, saying the Pentagon under Hegseth was failing at "job one", military readiness, and losing track of its own munitions stockpiles. The criticism landed from the left, but it echoed a concern that crosses party lines: if the defense secretary cannot account for the readiness of a deployed carrier strike group or the state of the nation's ammunition reserves, the operational questions dwarf the political ones.
Hegseth's tenure has drawn fire from unexpected quarters as well. Retiring Republican Senator Thom Tillis publicly criticized Hegseth's performance, saying the defense chief's missteps exceeded those of other embattled administration officials. That kind of intraparty dissent matters more than any cable-news monologue, because it signals that the political cost of defending Hegseth may be rising even among Republicans.
Meanwhile, Hegseth has also been navigating legal battles on other fronts, including a pledge to take the fight over transgender troop expulsions to the Supreme Court after a D.C. appeals panel blocked the policy. The volume of simultaneous controversies would test any Cabinet secretary. For one whose approval ratings already sit at the bottom of the administration, the margin for error is effectively zero.
Adding an unusual footnote to an already turbulent stretch, Hegseth flew with Trump aboard a covertly rerouted aircraft out of Turkey following last month's NATO summit. Secretary of State Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and several senior aides remained on the publicly identified decoy flight. Trump said the switch followed a security threat ordered by the military and Secret Service. The episode underscored that even amid their reported friction over munitions, Hegseth remained physically close to the president, a detail the prediction markets may be pricing in.
Hegseth's broader trajectory within the administration has shifted noticeably. He stepped back from the Iran spotlight as Trump pivoted toward diplomacy, a move that suggested the defense secretary's influence had narrowed even before the Lincoln and munitions stories broke wide open.
The gap between Hegseth's public standing and his job security tells a familiar story about this administration. Approval ratings, editorial boards, and congressional letters do not drive personnel decisions, the president's confidence does. And on the record, that confidence remains intact.
Kalshi's contract on a pre-September departure has drawn just under $1 million in trading volume, a modest sum that reflects how few traders see a realistic path to removal in the near term. The market is not saying Hegseth is performing well. It is saying Trump is unlikely to fire him over bad press.
That calculation could change if the Lincoln deployment produces a casualty that commands sustained national attention, or if classified munitions data surfaces that contradicts Hegseth's public assurances. But as of now, the bettors are reading the same White House they have watched for years: loyalty runs long, and public pressure alone rarely ends a tenure.
Sailors on a carrier that has been at sea for more than 200 days do not have the luxury of waiting for prediction markets to settle. Someone in Washington ought to remember that readiness is measured on the ship, not on a betting platform.
