WASHINGTON 鈥� 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 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 claiming no classified information was 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."
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.
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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.
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.
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, 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.
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 social media: "Secretary Hegseth is busy implementing President Trump's America First agenda, while these leakers are trying to undermine them both. Shameful."
Trump administration's response
The Trump administration struggles 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.
Officials claim 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.
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 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 social media.
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.