The revelation that Pete Hegseth shared classified military information over a Signal chat that accidentally included a literal journalist and was rife with embarrassing emoji usage should have been career-ending. Nonetheless, he managed to coast by after comical promises from the administration that Elon Musk would investigate what went wrong—as if it were some complex system error from Signal and not just pervasive incompetence across Trump administration officials. But now, here we are, not one month later and Hegseth is back in form: that is, caught inappropriately sharing state secrets with more people on Signal, an unauthorized, not-secure platform. Welcome to SignalGate Part 2, everyone!
Over the weekend, the New York Timesreported that, in March, Hegseth also shared the classified plan to airstrike Yemen with his wife, his brother, a former Fox News producer, and his personal attorney. The chat had about a dozen other people in it, as well. Per the Times, Hegseth shared “the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen—essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic.” If I had a nickel for every time Pete Hegseth got caught sharing state secrets in a non-secure chat full of randos, I’d have two nickels.
Hegseth is now in full-on attack mode. In a series of heated remarks bizarrely given in front of the White House while using his own children as props, Hegseth decried the NYT reporters as “hoaxsters,” a very Trumpian word I’ve not heard before, and said, “These kids right here, this is why we’re fighting the fake news media.” The NYT described his kids as “gathered awkwardly behind him.” But if you want to talk about awkward, don’t even get me started on his hair-do.
Before that, when the Democratic Party tweeted from its official account that Hegseth should step down, he offered the unhinged reply, “Your agenda is illegals, trans & DEI—all of which are no longer allowed.” Hegseth didn’t even bother denying wrongdoing; his only defense of his egregious incompetence, misconduct, and addiction to sharing state secrets was transphobia—which is very much a microcosm of the Trump administration’s approach to… everything.
Pete Hegseth has one sideburn. did the other one get shaved off as a prank or what?
Thus far, the administration and the Pentagon’s responses have been the usual gaslighting bullshit. Sean Parnell, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, said in a tweet Sunday night that “there was no classified information in any Signal chat.” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News on Monday that “the president stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth” and claimed Hegseth “is doing a phenomenal job leading the Pentagon.” That… seems contrary to Leavitt’s own insistence that “the entire Pentagon is working against” Hegseth. I’d think if he were, indeed, “doing a phenomenal job” leading the department, the entire department wouldn’t be working against him.
Trump, too, said the NYT was wrong: “It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories. It sounds like disgruntled employees. He was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people and that’s what he’s doing. You don’t always have friends when you do that.” But the sources aren’t disgruntled employees—they’re four different members of the group chat who shared its contents with the outlet.
What can any of us really say, at this point? There are clearly no standards for professionalism or conduct to which this administration holds anyone; any admission of fault or wrongdoing or error is weakness or, worse, wokeness. So, therefore, Hegseth, a man who has reportedly shown up drunk to every job he’s held in the last decade, can’t be fired—not even for actively damaging the Trump administration by sharing its secrets on a platform that can be readily hacked by hostile foreign actors.
Of course, while President Trump and the Pentagon are publicly standing by their guy through yet another scandal, Politicoreports there are fissures starting to form. Three top Pentagon officials were mysteriously fired last week and the Defense Department is reportedly in the throes of “total chaos,” per the outlet. Former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot resigned last week and wrote for Politico over the weekend: “The building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership. The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president—who deserves better from his senior leadership.”
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), a veteran, didn’t mince words on the matter of whether Hegseth should remain in his position: “How many times does Pete Hegseth need to leak classified intelligence before Donald Trump and Republicans understand that he isn’t only a fucking liar, he is a threat to our national security?” Duckworth, who sits on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, wrote on Sunday. “Every day he stays in his job is another day our troops’ lives are endangered by his singular stupidity,” she continued. “He must resign in disgrace.”
I, personally, think Hegseth should have been disqualified due to the allegations of his violence against women, or his storied history of racism, Islamophobia, and vile misogyny, in which he (very recently)accused women of being fundamentally unfit to serve in key military roles. Then, of course, there’s the fact that someone with a proven history of severe workplace unprofessionalism was inevitably going to do everything he now appears to be doing.
On Monday afternoon, NPR reported that the White House is starting to look for a new secretary of defense. The White House quickly denied the report. So stay tuned, I guess?
