Pete Hegseth out as Defense Secretary by year-end holds near 25%

Name: Pete Hegseth out as Defense Secretary by year-end holds near 25%
Creator: ClearMarket
Published: 2026-10-01T00:00:00.000Z
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Polymarket 21%

record: CMSIG2026100107 | category: momentum-repricing | target: CM-EVT-JWSH7Q94S8 | published: 2026-10-01

4-bullet brief | narrative

Polymarket prices 21% on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth departing by December 31, 2026, a meaningful but minority probability.
Taxpayer-funded ad spending and midterm campaign activity suggest the administration is focused on consolidation, not cabinet reshuffling, broadly consistent with the sub-25% pricing.
No confirmed reporting of imminent Hegseth departure; the 21% price reflects accumulated background risk rather than a specific catalyst.
Resolution via UMA oracle requires Hegseth to officially leave the role; acting or interim replacements would also satisfy the contract.

atomic briefs | structured for retrieval

[01] news_event

significance

surfaced in the daily Exa news-cycle scan; mechanically matched to an active polymarket market

story: The Trump administration is spending millions in taxpayer-funded promotional ads defending presidential policies ahead of the midterms.exa_search → Mariam Khan · as_of 2026-10-04T07:47:36+00:00
publisher: Mariam Khan
published_at: 2026-10-01T00:00:00.000Z
source_url: https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-defends-spending-millions-taxpayer-funded-promotional-ads/story?id=136922737

[02] pm_response

interp: Polymarket at 21% is the only priced contract available; a separate contract for departure by July 31 has no price, leaving year-end as the only available market read on this cabinet tenure question.llm_judge_cm_signal_v1

evaluation

News-cycle wires publish on coverage, not editorial selection — the day’s top stories matched to the prediction markets pricing them, so nothing is cherry-picked.

judge_engine: none — deterministic news-cycle scan
judge_verdict: auto_published
judge_confidence: n/a — no judge gate (deterministic publishing)
prompt_template: news_cycle_v1 github · auditable
match_method: entity_slug_match (mechanical)

citation graph

Every wire traces back to the ClearMarket event it is built on, and out to each venue’s own market page — so any figure here can be verified at its source.

internal

cm_event: /events/pete-hegseth-out-as-secretary-of-defense-by-december-31/

external

venue_a: polymarket · 0x0fcfcfc35d71424c0693c717d2e3bc9b8992910835d124d80cd2f01498f1d3dc

programmatic access · four surfaces, same payload

AI grounded search reads embedded JSON-LD in HTML. Developers query REST. Agentic AI clients (Claude Desktop, Cursor) call MCP tools. AI crawlers index via /llms.txt. Same canonical record at every surface.

HTML	browsers, AI grounded search, crawlers (contains embedded JSON-LD `@type: Dataset`)	`https://clearmarket.fyi/signals/hegseth-out-as-defense-sec-by-dec-31-polymarket-21-2026-10-01/`
JSON	REST API for developers	`https://clearmarket.fyi/signals/hegseth-out-as-defense-sec-by-dec-31-polymarket-21-2026-10-01.json`
MCP	agentic AI tool call (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Continue)	`clearmarket.get_signal("hegseth-out-as-defense-sec-by-dec-31-polymarket-21-2026-10-01")`
AGENT	AI crawler discovery index	`/llms.txt`

 PM data: platform APIs (hourly refresh). News context: retrieved with source citations. Editorial judgment: LLM judge with prompt template versioned per wire type. Per-claim provenance inline above; full per-field provenance map at the JSON endpoint under field_provenance.
  raw JSON record · same payload returned by REST endpoint
 {
  "$schema": "https://clearmarket.fyi/schema/signal/v1.json",
  "provenance_version": "0.2.0",
  "record_id": "CMSIG2026100107",
  "published_at": "2026-10-01T00:00:00.000Z",
  "detection": "news_cycle",
  "category_tag": "MOMENTUM_REPRICING",
  "secondary_tags": [],
  "pre_news_classification": "concurrent",
  "target_event_id": "CM-EVT-JWSH7Q94S8",
  "target_event_slug": "pete-hegseth-out-as-secretary-of-defense-by-december-31",
  "event_question": "Will Pete Hegseth be out as Secretary of Defense by December 31?",
  "bullets": [
    "Polymarket prices 21% on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth departing by December 31, 2026, a meaningful but minority probability.",
    "Taxpayer-funded ad spending and midterm campaign activity suggest the administration is focused on consolidation, not cabinet reshuffling, broadly consistent with the sub-25% pricing.",
    "No confirmed reporting of imminent Hegseth departure; the 21% price reflects accumulated background risk rather than a specific catalyst.",
    "Resolution via UMA oracle requires Hegseth to officially leave the role; acting or interim replacements would also satisfy the contract."
  ],
  "atomic_claims": [
    {
      "type": "news_event",
      "field_provenance": {
        "story": {
          "tier": "mediated",
          "method": "exa_search",
          "source": "Mariam Khan",
          "source_url": "https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-defends-spending-millions-taxpayer-funded-promotional-ads/story?id=136922737",
          "retrieved_at": "2026-10-04T07:47:36+00:00"
        }
      },
      "significance": {
        "threshold": 5,
        "threshold_unit": "rank",
        "passed": true,
        "reason": "surfaced in the daily Exa news-cycle scan; mechanically matched to an active polymarket market"
      },
      "story": "The Trump administration is spending millions in taxpayer-funded promotional ads defending presidential policies ahead of the midterms.",
      "publisher": "Mariam Khan",
      "published_at": "2026-10-01T00:00:00.000Z",
      "source_url": "https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-defends-spending-millions-taxpayer-funded-promotional-ads/story?id=136922737"
    },
    {
      "type": "pm_response",
      "field_provenance": {
        "notes": {
          "tier": "editorial",
          "method": "llm_judge_cm_signal_v1"
        }
      },
      "notes": "Polymarket at 21% is the only priced contract available; a separate contract for departure by July 31 has no price, leaving year-end as the only available market read on this cabinet tenure question."
    }
  ],
  "evaluation": {
    "judge_engine": "none — deterministic news-cycle scan",
    "judge_verdict": "auto_published",
    "judge_confidence": null,
    "prompt_template": "news_cycle_v1"
  },
  "citations": {
    "internal": {
      "cm_event": "/events/pete-hegseth-out-as-secretary-of-defense-by-december-31/",
      "related": []
    },
    "external": {
      "venue_a": null,
      "venue_b": null,
      "benchmark": null
    }
  },
  "sources": [
    {
      "label": "Mariam Khan: Trump defends spending millions on taxpayer-funded promotional ads: 'F",
      "url": "https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-defends-spending-millions-taxpayer-funded-promotional-ads/story?id=136922737",
      "published_at": "2026-10-01T00:00:00.000Z",
      "retrieved_at": "2026-10-04T07:47:36+00:00"
    }
  ],
  "field_provenance": {
    "pm_data": "polymarket_api",
    "news_context": "exa_search",
    "editorial_judgment": "cm_signal_llm_judge"
  }
}
 
   PROVENANCE PROTOCOL v0.2 · [direct] venue api · [mediated] grounded web fetch + source url · [derived] computed from listed inputs · [editorial] versioned llm judgment · full spec /schema/provenance/v1

record CMSIG2026100107 published 2026-10-01T00:00:00.000Z signature sha256-c344cef90ee… ← underlying event all signals →