Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth faced a fresh torrent of calls for his resignation or firing on Sunday after The New York Times revealed that he shared plans for a U.S. military attack on Yemen in a second private group chat—which included members of his family and his personal attorney.
The Times, citing four unnamed people with knowledge of the chat, reported Sunday that "the information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen—essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic."
The group chat, which Hegseth created, included his wife—a former Fox News producer who is not a Defense Department employee—and brother, who works at the Pentagon.
Congressional Democrats swiftly demanded Hegseth's ouster as the Pentagon tried to discredit the Times story by claiming it "relied only on the words of people who were fired this week and appear to have a motive to sabotage the Secretary and the president's agenda."
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), an Iraq War veteran who has publicly clashed with Hegseth, said late Sunday that "every day he stays in his job is another day our troops' lives are endangered by his singular stupidity."
"How many times does Pete Hegseth need to leak classified intelligence before Donald Trump and Republicans understand that he isn’t only a f*cking liar, he is a threat to our national security?" Duckworth asked. "He must resign in disgrace."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called the second Signal chat "yet another security breach that put American troops and lives at risk."
"Pete Hegseth has no business serving as defense secretary," Warren added. "Donald Trump must fire him."
"Pete Hegseth has no business serving as defense secretary. Donald Trump must fire him."
But the White House is standing by Hegseth for now, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declaring in a "Fox & Friends"appearance early Monday that he "is doing phenomenal leading the Pentagon."
That assessment runs counter to an insider account provided by a former top Defense Department spokesman who, in an op-ed published in Politico on Sunday, wrote that "the last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon—and it's becoming a real problem for the administration."
"The latest flashpoint is a near collapse inside the Pentagon's top ranks," wrote former chief Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, who resigned last week. "On Friday, Hegseth fired three of his most loyal senior staffers—senior adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to the deputy secretary of Defense. In the aftermath, Defense Department officials working for Hegseth tried to smear the aides anonymously to reporters, claiming they were fired for leaking sensitive information as part of an investigation ordered earlier this month."
"Yet none of this is true," Ullyot continued. "While the department said that it would conduct polygraph tests as part of the probe, not one of the three has been given a lie detector test. In fact, at least one of them has told former colleagues that investigators advised him he was about to be cleared officially of any wrongdoing. Unfortunately, Hegseth's team has developed a habit of spreading flat-out, easily debunked falsehoods anonymously about their colleagues on their way out the door."
Hegseth was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in January with near-unanimous support from the Republican Party. He and the president are currently pushing for a nearly $1 trillion Pentagon budget for the coming fiscal year, despite the administration's purported goal of slashing waste and abuse—both of which are rampant at the Defense Department, which has never passed an independent audit.
