A White House official on Monday said that US President Joe Biden is not considering firing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after his failure to disclose a hospital stay drew bipartisan criticism.
The scandal emerged late last week when the Department of Defense revealed Austin had been hospitalized since Monday after complications from a recent surgery. The decision had been made not to share the information outside the Pentagon, with the president only being informed Thursday afternoon.
“The president continues to have confidence in Secretary Austin,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday. “The number one thing is we want to see him get well and back at the Pentagon.”
“There is no plan for anything other than for Secretary Austin to stay in the job,” said National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby of the retired four-star general and former Raytheon board member. Kirby added that Biden “respects the fact that Secretary Austin took ownership for the lack of transparency.”
Lawmakers from both major political parties criticized the lapse in traditional protocol. “We are concerned with how the disclosure of the Secretary's condition was handled,” read a joint statement from Reps. Mike Rogers (R-AL) and Adam Smith (D-WA) Sunday.
“Several questions remain unanswered,” the statement continued, “including what the medical procedure and resulting complications were, what the Secretary’s current health status is, how and when the delegation of the Secretary’s responsibilities were made, and the reason for the delay in notification to the President and Congress.”
“Sec. Austin must provide these additional details on his health and the decision-making process that occurred in the past week as soon as possible,” the congressmen concluded.
Former President and GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump said, “Failed Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin should be fired immediately for improper professional conduct and dereliction of duty,” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Austin, who is 70, returned to work remotely from the hospital on Friday.
Kirby said the White House would investigate the situation and consider changes in protocol. “As you might expect, we’ll take a look at process and procedure here and try to learn from this experience and if there’s changes that need to be made in terms of process and procedure, we’ll do that,” he said.