What’s the value of having a civilian SecDef if he blathers on like this?

It's a self-soothing performance of self-importance, like everything else this administration does.

This is not an administration run by adults who model consequences.

Everything happens to reassure the Commander in Chief - and the people behind him, like Miller and Vought - that they're exceptionally special and gifted people who can have anything they want and do anything they want, to anyone, without limits.

There's pretty clearly negative value in having civilian leader whose most notable accomplishments are being a TV opinion host, and quitting the Army because they decided he was too dangerous to be allowed to serve as a guard for a presidential inauguration.