Calls are growing louder for the immediate resignation or firing of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, after the former Fox News host reportedly shared potentially classified information via a second undisclosed Signal chat.
According to reporting by the New York Times confirmed Monday by additional outlets, Hegseth shared the pre-attack details of a mid-March airstrike on Houthi rebels in Yemen via the Signal chat application, an end-to-end encrypted messaging tool not typically used or authorized for the communication of classified information.
The second chat group the U.S. Defense chief allegedly created and titled “Defense | Team Huddle” apparently included his wife, fellow Fox alum Jennifer Rauchet, his brother Phil Hegseth, and his personal lawyer Tim Parlatore, among others. Both of the latter two are currently serving in the Trump Administration.
This is at least the second Signal chat Hegseth apparently took part in, after news broke last month of a similar group created by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz through which the same sort of military plans were shared with Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of Atlantic magazine. In both chats Hegseth was the Trump Administration official apparently responsible for disclosing upcoming bombing runs by U.S. forces stationed in or near the Red Sea.
According to one Bay State lawmaker, a disturbing pattern is emerging.
“This is insane. Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has now leaked classified military plans TWICE—this time through a[n] unsecured Signal chat on a personal device to friends and family. He’s a walking national security disaster and needs to resign or be fired,” Bay State Congressman Jim McGovern said via social media.
“Resign,” fellow U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton wrote while sharing the Times’ piece.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Hegseth’s frequent use of an unauthorized communications tool is putting U.S. troops in harm’s way and should result in his removal from office.
“Yet another security breach that put American troops and lives at risk. Pete Hegseth has no business serving as Defense Secretary. Donald Trump must fire him,” Warren wrote.
Trump, in comments to pool reporters on Monday, dismissed the breach as “fake news” and said that he’s very pleased with the work Hegseth has done.
“We have the highest recruitment numbers I think we’ve had in 28 years. No, he’s doing a great job. It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories. I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees. He was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people and that’s what he’s doing so you don’t always have friends when you do that,” the U.S. President said.
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, concurred with his Bay State counterparts.
“More and more damning information just keeps pouring out about Pete Hegseth’s chaotic leadership. It endangers our servicemembers. Hegseth must resign or be fired,” Warner said.
U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska and retired U.S. Air Force general who chairs the House Armed services committee, followed his liberal colleagues somewhat, suggesting he wouldn’t stand for the Defense Secretary’s apparent behavior if he were in charge, but not going so far as to call for his resignation.
“If a Democrat did this we’d be demanding a scalp. I don’t like hypocrisy. We should be Americans first when it comes to security,” he told Axios.
The Times cited “four people with knowledge of the chat” in their reporting, which Hegseth brushed off as “fake news” during an appearance at the White House on Monday while blaming the disclosure on a few recently dismissed high-level Pentagon staffers.
“What a big surprise, that a bunch of a…a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax,” Hegseth said.
“This is what the media does, they take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people, and ruin their reputations. It’s not going to work with me,” he said.
Hegseth said that he and President Donald Trump have spoken about the incident and that they remain “on the same page.”
But Warner said in an interview with MSNBC that the situation shows a man “in way over his head in a job that’s much too big for him.”
“I wish Pete Hegseth had to explain to servicemembers on the USS Truman — the carrier from which the Houthi strikes were launched — how exactly his careless handling of sensitive info didn’t endanger them. He wouldn’t be able to,” Warner said.
There is no doubt, Warner said, that the allegedly shared attack plans were or should be classified.
Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement that the story “relied only on the words of people who were fired this week,” — an apparent reference to Hegseth’s former deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, former aide Dan Caldwell, and Colin Carroll, the former chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, all of whom were escorted out of the Pentagon after being fired last week.
“Another day, another old story — back from the dead. The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda. This time, the New York Times — and all other Fake News that repeat their garbage — are enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article,” Parnell said in the statement.
