Hegseth’s Bruising 72-Hour Debut Overseas

• Feb. 15, 2025, 10:44 a.m. ET

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has had a rocky trip to Europe this week.

In his debut on the world stage, Mr. Hegseth told NATO and Ukrainian ministers in Brussels on Wednesday that a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders was “an unrealistic objective” and ruled out NATO membership for Kyiv. A few hours later, President Trump backed him up while announcing a phone call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to begin peace negotiations.

Facing fierce blowback the next day from European allies and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, Mr. Hegseth backpedaled, denying that either he or Mr. Trump had sold out Ukraine or taken bargaining chips with Russia off the table. “There is no betrayal there,” Mr. Hegseth said.

That’s not how even Republican supporters of Mr. Hegseth saw it. “He made a rookie mistake in Brussels,” Senator Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, told Politico on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, referring to the secretary’s comment on Ukraine’s borders.

“I don’t know who wrote the speech — it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool,” said Mr. Wicker, referring to the conservative media personality and former Fox News host.

Mr. Hegseth sought to recover on Friday, saying in Warsaw that his goal had simply been to “introduce realism into the expectations of our NATO allies.” How much territory Ukraine may cede to Russia would be decided in talks between Mr. Trump and the presidents of the warring countries, he said.

In all, it was a bruising, 72-hour crash course in the geopolitical realities of a job that critics complain Mr. Hegseth, a 44-year-old former National Guard infantryman and Fox News host, is unqualified to hold.