White House voices support for Hegseth as a new Signal chat revelation
stirs fresh Pentagon turmoil
[April 22, 2025]
By TARA COPP and ERIC TUCKER
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House expressed support Monday for Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth following media reports that he shared sensitive
military details in another Signal messaging chat, this time with his
wife and brother.
Neither the White House nor Hegseth denied that he had shared such
information in a second chat, instead focusing their responses on what
they called the disgruntled workers whom they blamed for leaking to the
media and insisting that no classified information had been disclosed.
“It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories,” President Donald
Trump told reporters. "I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees. You
know, 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,”
Trump said.
The administration's posture was meant to hold the line against
Democratic demands for Hegseth’s firing at a time when the Pentagon is
engulfed in turmoil, including the departures of several senior aides
and an internal investigation over information leaks.
The White House also tried to deflect attention from the national
security implications of the latest Signal revelation by framing it as
the outgrowth of an institutional power struggle between Hegseth and the
career workforce. But some of the recently departed officials the
administration appeared to dismiss as disgruntled were part of Hegseth’s
initial inner circle, brought in when he took the job.
“This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you
and working against the monumental change that you are trying to
implement,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in remarks
amplified by a Pentagon social media account.
The latest news added to questions about the judgment of the embattled
Pentagon chief, coming on top of last month’s disclosure of his
participation in a Signal chat with top Trump administration leaders in
which details about the military airstrike against Yemen’s Houthi
militants were shared.
“Pete Hegseth must be fired,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer
said.
Latest reports of Hegseth's Signal use
The New York Times reported Sunday that the information shared in a
Signal messaging chat with Hegseth's wife, brother and others was
similar to what was communicated in the already disclosed chain with
Trump administration officials.
A person familiar with the contents and those who received the messages,
who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters,
confirmed the second chat to The Associated Press. The person said it
included 13 people and was dubbed “Defense ' Team Huddle.”
White House officials first learned of the second Signal chat from news
reports Sunday, according to an official familiar with the matter who
spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.
Hegseth, talking to reporters while attending the White House Easter Egg
Roll, didn't address the substance of the allegations or the national
security implications they raised but assailed the media.
“They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees and then
they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations," Hegseth
said. "Not going to work with me. Because we’re changing the Defense
Department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of warfighters. And
anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news doesn’t
matter.”
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, struck a similar tone, writing on Sunday night on X:
“Secretary Hegseth is busy implementing President Trump’s America First
agenda, while these leakers are trying to undermine them both.
Shameful.”
The Trump administration's response on the use of Signal
The Trump administration has struggled in its public explanations about
senior officials' use of Signal, a commercially available app not
authorized to be used to communicate sensitive or classified national
defense information.
The first chat, set up by national security adviser Mike Waltz, included
a number of Cabinet members and came to light because Jeffrey Goldberg,
editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was added to the group.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives on the South Lawn of the
White House before President Donald Trump and first lady Melania
Trump participate in the White House Easter Egg Roll Monday, April
21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Officials have repeatedly insisted that the information shared on
Signal was not classified, though the contents of that chat, which
The Atlantic published, shows that Hegseth listed weapons systems
and a timeline for the attack on the Iran-backed Houthis last month.
Multiple current and former military officials say launch times and
munitions drop times are classified information and putting those
details on an unsecured channel could have put those pilots at risk.
The Trump administration has faced criticism for failing to take
action so far against top national security officials who discussed
plans for the strike in Signal, and the latest report fueled
additional calls for Hegseth's ouster.
“The details keep coming out. We keep learning how Pete Hegseth put
lives at risk. But Trump is still too weak to fire him,” Schumer
posted Sunday on X.
The New York Times reported that the group in the second chat
included Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, who is a former Fox News
producer, and his brother Phil Hegseth, who was hired at the
Pentagon as a Department of Homeland Security liaison and senior
adviser.
The Times said the second chat had the same warplane launch times
that the first chat included.
Hegseth’s Signal use is under investigation by the Defense
Department's acting inspector general at the request of the
bipartisan leadership of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The
senior Democratic member, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, urged the
watchdog Sunday to look into the reported second chat as well.
Wider turmoil inside the Pentagon
The Pentagon has confronted a wave of turbulence stretching beyond
Signal. Defense officials have faced scrutiny over a seemingly
haphazard and disjointed campaign to purge online content that
promoted women and minorities, in some cases scrambling to restore
posts after their removals came to light.
Over the past week, five officials in Hegseth’s inner circle have
departed.
Last week Dan Caldwell, a Hegseth aide; Colin Carroll, chief of
staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg; and Darin
Selnick, Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff; were escorted out of the
Pentagon as the department hunts down leaks of inside information.
While those three initially had been placed on leave pending the
investigation, a joint statement shared by Caldwell on X on Saturday
said they “still have not been told what exactly we were
investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if
there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with."
Another close Hegseth aide, chief of staff Joe Kasper, also was
leaving, according to two officials. They didn’t say why.
Caldwell and Selnick had worked with the defense secretary during
his time leading the nonprofit Concerned Veterans for America.
Kasper was the one who sent a March memo saying the Pentagon was
investigating what it called leaks of national security information
and that Defense Department personnel could face polygraphs.
Former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot announced he was resigning
last week, unrelated to the leaks. The Pentagon said, however, that
Ullyot was asked to resign.
And on Monday, three U.S. officials said another staff member, Sean
Parnell, was shifting temporarily from his job as Hegseth’s chief
spokesman and instead will spend more time in Hegseth’s front
office.
The officials all spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide
details of personnel moves.
___
Associated Press writers Chris Megerian and Zeke Miller contributed
to this report.
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