Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is on the mend after a week-long hospital stay that no one told us about. News dropped yesterday that Secretary Austin was hospitalized for days for a medical condition that hasn’t been specified. The Pentagon only said that Mr. Austin chose to have an "elective medical procedure" of some sort and complications arose. We also don’t know why the Biden administration opted to keep this development a secret (via Washington Post):
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was hospitalized earlier this week for unspecified reasons but is recuperating, the Pentagon said late Friday, after withholding the information for days.
Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said that Austin, who is 70, was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington on Monday “for complications following a recent elective medical procedure.”
Ryder did not provide additional details, but said that Austin, a former Army general who was nominated for the high-profile post by President Biden and became the nation’s first African American defense secretary in 2021, was “recovering well and is expecting to resume his full duties today.”
It was not clear when he could be discharged, or why the Pentagon did not disclose Austin’s hospitalization when it occurred earlier in the week.
We have a war in Gaza, Houthi rebels firing ballistic missiles at American warships in the Red Sea, a gross disruption of international trade in the process, and countless other national security situations that need monitoring, and the man tasked with supplying the president with the best assessment for addressing threats to the homeland and keeping our military prepared for any scenarios regarding deployment was hospitalized—and they buried it.
Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin was aghast, commenting that such a development is one you’d expect to see in China, not the United States.
This is the type of behavior you expect from the Chinese government. https://t.co/e0Zclvnmhw
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) January 6, 2024
THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DID NOT INFORM THE WHITE HOUSE HE WAS IN INTENSIVE CARE FOR THREE DAYS WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???? https://t.co/ZlrDbjbqq2
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) January 6, 2024
