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 tripscan 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.”
