Seeking to combat questions about whether he shared confidential military plans and put service members in potential danger, Hegseth and his team were on the offensive Wednesday.
While the White House and its allies have sought to downplay the sensitivity of the information shared, Hegseth’s deflections and denials are not going over well with current and retired troops and officers, nor Democrats and even some on the right.
National security adviser Mike Waltz apparently invited The Atlantic’s editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, into a chat group with more than a dozen top Trump administration officials. But it was Hegseth who shared specific details of imminent U.S. attacks against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Both Waltz and Hegseth have faced growing calls from Democrats for their ouster, as Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the Senate Armed Services chair, pushes for an inspector general to promptly probe what happened.
“The so-called Secretary of Defense recklessly and casually disclosed highly sensitive war plans,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a letter to President Trump on Tuesday, calling for the Pentagon chief to be “fired immediately.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) later Tuesday told reporters, “He should be fired. I agree.”
Hegseth insists that no “war plans” or confidential information was included in the chats, but he has left many questions unanswered, notably, why the plans weren’t confidential and whether he was using Signal to relay other sensitive operations.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) did not mince words in her response to Hegseth’s defense, calling him "a f---ing liar."
"This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could’ve gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately,” said Duckworth, a former Black Hawk pilot who lost both her legs when a rocket-propelled grenade hit her aircraft during the Iraq War.
National security experts say the prior details of such attacks should have been more closely guarded, as officials typically are only meant to provide such information through classified conversations, documents, or over secure email.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
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