Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth lashed out at Democrats on social media, rejecting calls for his resignation after reports emerged accusing him of leaking sensitive national security information in another Signal group chat.
Late Sunday, Hegseth took to X to respond to a post from the Democrats who declared Hegseth “needs to go” after the New York Times reported the top defense official shared information about U.S. military strikes in a group chat with his brother, personal lawyer and wife.
“Your agenda is illegals, trans & DEI — all of which are no longer allowed @ DoD,” Hegseth snapped back on X.
It was the defense secretary’s first public response related to allegations that he shared information about the U.S.’s strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen in March with non-Department of Defense officials.
The news of the newest leak arrived days after three Pentagon officials were fired and accused of leaking unauthorized information, and a former chief Pentagon spokesperson wrote an op-ed for Politico, detailing chaos inside the Pentagon under Hegseth’s leadership.
The Sunday report claimed Hegseth shared details of an attack on Signal with a group including his wife and brother. It happened around the same time as another Singal chart where he and other Trump administration officials communicated about the attack in a group chat that unknowingly contained the editor in chief of The Atlantic.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, revealed Mike Waltz, the national security adviser to President Donald Trump, had inadvertently added him to a group chat about the Houthi strikes with other cabinet-ranking officials.
But Hegseth’s separate group chat, called “Defense | Team Huddle,” did not include cabinet-level officials. Rather it included his wife, Jennifer Rauchet, who is not a defense official; his brother, Phil Hegseth, who is serving as a senior adviser and Department of Homeland liaison in the Pentagon; and his personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, who is serving as the Navy commander in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
Although Phil and Paralatore have jobs in the Pentagon, it is unclear why either would need to know about the military strikes.
The “Defense | Team Huddle” group chat was initially created to be used as a method of discussing administrative or scheduling information and contained about a dozen other people in Hegseth’s personal and professional inner circle.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement, “No matter how many times the legacy media tries to resurrect the same non-story, they can’t change the fact that no classified information was shared.”
“Recently-fired ‘leakers’ are continuing to misrepresent the truth to soothe their shattered egos and undermine the President’s agenda, but the administration will continue to hold them accountable,” Kelly said.
But the revelation has spurred further concern about the Trump administration’s use of Signal to share sensitive information.
Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, a veteran who serves on the Committee on Armed Forces, called on Hegseth to resign saying, “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***ing liar, he is a threat to our national security?” Duckworth wrote.
Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, criticized the New York Times for recycling an “old story” to paint Hegseth badly.
“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.
Parnell claimed the story “relied only on the words of people who were fired this week and appear to have a motive to sabotage” Hegseth and Trump. He said no classified information was shared in “any Signal chat.”
On Monday, Hegseth also blamed the recently fired leakers for giving the story to the New York Times, which he characterized as untrustworthy.
