CNN
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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did not inform the White House before he authorized a pause on weapons shipments to Ukraine last week, according to five sources familiar with the matter, setting off a scramble inside the administration to understand why the halt was implemented and explain it to Congress and the Ukrainian government.
President Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday that he was not responsible for the move. Asked on Tuesday during a Cabinet meeting whether he approved of the pause in shipments, Trump demurred, saying only that the US would continue to send defensive weapons to Ukraine. Pressed again on who authorized the pause, Trump replied, “I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?”
The episode underscores the often-haphazard policy-making process inside the Trump administration, particularly under Hegseth at the Defense Department. The pause was the second time this year that Hegseth had decided to halt the flow of US weapons to Ukraine, catching senior national security officials off guard, sources said.
It first happened in February and the decision was quickly reversed, three of the sources said — mirroring what happened on Monday night, when Trump announced that the weapons shipments would continue despite Hegseth signing off on the pause.
The US special envoy to Ukraine, Ret. Gen. Keith Kellogg, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also Trump’s national security adviser, were also not told about the pause beforehand and learned about it from press reports, according to a senior administration official and two of the sources.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told CNN in a statement that said in part, “Secretary Hegseth provided a framework for the President to evaluate military aid shipments and assess existing stockpiles. This effort was coordinated across government.”
Asked whether Hegseth informed the White House prior to approving a pause on the shipments, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the Pentagon conducted a review “to ensure all support going to all foreign nations aligns with America’s interests,” and added that Trump “has made the decision to continue providing defensive weapons to Ukraine to help stop the killing in this brutal war, which the Pentagon has said they are actively working on.” She added that “the President has full confidence in the Secretary of Defense.”
Two of the sources attributed Hegseth’s not informing the White House to the fact that he has no chief of staff or trusted advisers around him that might urge him to coordinate major policy decisions better with the interagency partners.
Shortly after learning of the pause last week, Trump told Hegseth to restart the shipment of at least some of the munitions — specifically, interceptor missiles for Patriot air defense systems, which have been critical to protecting Ukrainian civilians from relentless missile and drone attacks by Russia.
Many of the munitions are already in Poland and could be transferred to Kyiv quickly, the senior administration official said. The weapons package had been allocated by the previous administration and was already en route to Ukraine when it was stopped. In a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, Trump downplayed his role in the decision to halt the flow of weapons, CNN has reported.
The Pentagon did not announce until late Monday night, however, that it would restart shipments at the direction of the president — after Trump had said publicly earlier in the evening that the Ukrainians needed the defensive weapons to protect themselves.
Trump reiterated that position on Tuesday at the White House.
“I will say this — the Ukrainians, whether you think it’s unfair that we gave all that money or not, they were very brave, because somebody had to operate that stuff,” he said. “And a lot of people I know wouldn’t be operating it, they wouldn’t have the courage to do it.”
Trump also appears less inclined to give Russia a “win” at this moment by halting military aid to Ukraine, two of the sources said. He has soured on Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks as it has become increasingly clear that Putin is not willing to engage in peace talks with Ukraine.
“We get a lot of bulls**t thrown at us by Putin,” Trump said on Tuesday. “You want to know the truth? It’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.”
A European official told CNN that Trump’s frustration with Putin was clear during the NATO summit in the Netherlands last month, and that their understanding was that the pause in weapons shipments to Ukraine “genuinely did not originate” with Trump.
The Pentagon’s decision to suspend the shipments of weapons — including Patriot interceptor missiles and artillery ammunition — came after Trump asked Hegseth last month during their trip to the NATO summit to provide him with an assessment of US weapons stockpiles, one of the sources told CNN. Iran and Israel were bombing each other, and Trump wanted to be sure US troops in the region had sufficient munitions to defend themselves if necessary.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed last week that the department was conducting “a capability review … to ensure US military aid aligns with our defense priorities.”
But Trump did not specifically direct Hegseth to halt weapons shipments to Ukraine as part of that review, three of the sources said. That recommendation came from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, all five sources said, who has long been skeptical of sending large quantities of US military aid to Ukraine.
“A Europe first policy is not what America needs in this exceptionally dangerous time. We need to focus on China and Asia – clearly,” Colby wrote on X last year.
Colby then provided his recommendations to Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg, who approved of the move — particularly because of his longstanding concerns that the defense industry is not moving fast enough to replenish US stockpiles, two of the sources said. Hegseth provided the final signoff, thinking it would align with Trump’s “America first” priorities, one of the sources familiar with his thinking said.
After the White House learned about the pause, White House officials told Hegseth and DoD that they would temporarily provide “cover” for the decision, two of the sources said. But the White House emphasized that the Pentagon had to explain the move to Congress, which also had not been informed of the pause beforehand.
Pentagon officials have argued to congressional staffers in recent days that the move was necessary because of US stockpile shortages, according to two sources familiar with the matter. But the sources said Congress has not been briefed on or given any information from the Pentagon that would suggest a critical and imminent shortage of weapons.
“Congress would be glad to work with DoD if credible evidence was presented that the Pentagon stockpiles were critically short, requiring them to take unilateral action like they did last week,” one of the sources said. The Pentagon routinely requests additional funding and authorization from Congress for long-term weapons procurement. “But there have been no new urgent requirements submitted to Congress from DoD for any of these munitions,” this person added.
CNN’s Kylie Atwood and Nick Paton Walsh contributed reporting.
