Hegseth out as Defense Secretary by year-end holds near 30%

Name: Hegseth out as Defense Secretary by year-end holds near 30%
Creator: ClearMarket
Published: 2026-10-29T20:00:00.000Z
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Polymarket 31%

record: CMSIG2026102904 | category: momentum-repricing | target: CM-EVT-JWSH7Q94S8 | published: 2026-10-29

4-bullet brief | narrative

The Polymarket contract on Hegseth departing as Secretary of Defense by December 31 stands at 31%.
Hegseth firing the Pentagon's top military planner is a significant escalation of his authority, but the market puts only about one-in-three odds on his own departure this year.
The market is not pricing in the dismissal as a precursor to Hegseth's own removal, the probability stays well below 50%.
With the December 31 deadline weeks away, the Kalshi contract on his June 30 departure (CM-EVT-L20R2VDVG3) has no price available; the Polymarket year-end read is the primary signal.

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: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the Pentagon's top military planner as President Trump considers new strikes on Iran.exa_search → Konstantin Toropin, Associated Press · as_of 2026-10-30T07:48:00+00:00
publisher: Konstantin Toropin, Associated Press
published_at: 2026-10-29T20:00:00.000Z
source_url: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/hegseth-fires-the-pentagons-top-military-planner-even-as-trump-considers-new-iran-strikes

[02] pm_response

interp: Polymarket at 31% reflects meaningful but minority odds of Hegseth's departure by year-end, even as his aggressive personnel moves intensify scrutiny.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-secdef-by-dec-31-polymarket-31-2026-10-29/`
JSON	REST API for developers	`https://clearmarket.fyi/signals/hegseth-out-as-secdef-by-dec-31-polymarket-31-2026-10-29.json`
MCP	agentic AI tool call (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Continue)	`clearmarket.get_signal("hegseth-out-as-secdef-by-dec-31-polymarket-31-2026-10-29")`
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": "CMSIG2026102904",
  "published_at": "2026-10-29T20:00:00.000Z",
  "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": [
    "The Polymarket contract on Hegseth departing as Secretary of Defense by December 31 stands at 31%.",
    "Hegseth firing the Pentagon's top military planner is a significant escalation of his authority, but the market puts only about one-in-three odds on his own departure this year.",
    "The market is not pricing in the dismissal as a precursor to Hegseth's own removal, the probability stays well below 50%.",
    "With the December 31 deadline weeks away, the Kalshi contract on his June 30 departure (CM-EVT-L20R2VDVG3) has no price available; the Polymarket year-end read is the primary signal."
  ],
  "atomic_claims": [
    {
      "type": "news_event",
      "field_provenance": {
        "story": {
          "tier": "mediated",
          "method": "exa_search",
          "source": "Konstantin Toropin, Associated Press",
          "source_url": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/hegseth-fires-the-pentagons-top-military-planner-even-as-trump-considers-new-iran-strikes",
          "retrieved_at": "2026-10-30T07:48:00+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": "Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the Pentagon's top military planner as President Trump considers new strikes on Iran.",
      "publisher": "Konstantin Toropin, Associated Press",
      "published_at": "2026-10-29T20:00:00.000Z",
      "source_url": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/hegseth-fires-the-pentagons-top-military-planner-even-as-trump-considers-new-iran-strikes"
    },
    {
      "type": "pm_response",
      "field_provenance": {
        "notes": {
          "tier": "editorial",
          "method": "llm_judge_cm_signal_v1"
        }
      },
      "notes": "Polymarket at 31% reflects meaningful but minority odds of Hegseth's departure by year-end, even as his aggressive personnel moves intensify scrutiny."
    }
  ],
  "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": "Konstantin Toropin, Associated Press: Hegseth fires the Pentagon's top military planner even as Trump consid",
      "url": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/hegseth-fires-the-pentagons-top-military-planner-even-as-trump-considers-new-iran-strikes",
      "published_at": "2026-10-29T20:00:00.000Z",
      "retrieved_at": "2026-10-30T07:48:00+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 CMSIG2026102904 published 2026-10-29T20:00:00.000Z signature sha256-4ceed1699a2… ← underlying event all signals →