Amid demands for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s resignation due to a leaked Signal chat containing information about a military strike in Yemen, President Donald Trump supported Hegseth on Wednesday.
After Hegseth sent administration officials information about the strike in a Signal chat that unintentionally included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, who published the full messages on Wednesday morning, the president discussed the controversy.
In the aftermath of the controversy, when a number of Congressional Democrats called for Hegseth to resign, reporters asked Trump if he should think about doing so.
He has nothing to do with this; Hegseth is doing a fantastic job. Hegseth. How is Hegseth involved in this? Trump answered.
The president acknowledged to DailyMail.com that Mike Waltz, his national security advisor in the White House, accepted responsibility for Goldberg’s unintentional inclusion in the Signal chat.
“Mike Waltz” I suppose he claimed responsibility. Nobody else had anything to do with it. When questioned about the probe, Trump remarked, “I guess, I don’t know, I was told it was Mike.”
Trump once more downplayed the controversy surrounding Hegseth’s sharing of classified information that might have jeopardized the operation, focusing instead on the mission’s success.
“The attack was incredibly successful that night, so there was no harm done,” Trump claimed.
The president questioned whether the Signal app was functioning properly and why Democrats were demanding Hegseth’s resignation.
It’s all a witch hunt, you see. Trump stated, “You want to know if Signal works or not. To be honest with you, I don’t know if Signal works. I think that Signal could be defective.”
Although it is not regarded as a secure platform for classified information, the encrypted app that removes messages after they have been received is widely used for communications in Washington, DC.
“You, we, and everyone else use Signal, but we’ll need to determine whether it’s a functioning platform or not.” Trump stated.
Hegseth’s resignation was demanded by Democratic Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of Arizona for disclosing information about the operation on the platform.
Kelly wrote on X that the Signal incident was the result of having the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in history.
“We’re fortunate that no service members lost their lives, but Secretary Hegseth must step down for the sake of our nation and our military,” he continued.
“This might have resulted in the deaths of our men and women!” Social media posts were made by Gallego.
He went on. “The Defense Secretary must step down.” It’s embarrassing how inept they are and how they covered it up.
In response, Hegseth blasted The Atlantic on Tuesday for misrepresenting his texts as “war plans” and insisted he did not divulge any classified material during the conversation.
The so-called “war plans,” which were made public by the Atlantic, include: No names. No targets. No places. No units. No paths. No references. No techniques. “No classified information, either,” he added. “Those war plans are really shit.”
On March 15, Hegseth texted a ‘Team Update’ to the Signal group of top Trump administration officials, giving them advance notice of the scheduled military strikes’ times and weaponry.
Hegseth texted, “This is when the first bombs will definitely drop,” revealing the timing of the operations, which involved the use of sea-based Tomahawk missiles and F-18s.
However, Hegseth maintained that he was merely giving a “team update” and that he had not disclosed any “war plans.”
My responsibility is to provide real-time updates to the team. “Everyone is kept informed with general updates in real time,” he said. What I did was that. That’s what I do.
Sen. Marco Rubio also addressed inquiries regarding the incident on Wednesday.
“Clearly, there was a mistake—a significant one—and a journalist was added,” Rubio stated. “I have nothing against reporters, but you shouldn’t be on that thing.”
Rubio referenced the Pentagon’s claim that the text thread contained no classified material.
“The operation and the lives of our servicemen were never in danger due to any of the information on there,” he stated.
