According to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, he was merely fulfilling his responsibilities when he disclosed plans regarding an impending attack on Yemen in an unclassified group chat on the Signal messaging app. “My job,” he informed reporters during a trip to Hawaii, “is to provide updates in real time.”
The underlying message: There’s nothing to worry about.
However, the response within the Pentagon to Hegseth’s communications—revealed this week by The Atlantic after editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently included in the chat—painted a different picture, as security specialists hurried to emphasize the correct procedures for handling classified information.
“Incidents like this complicate my job immensely,” a Department of Defense operations security (OPSEC) official shared with us this week, requesting anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the issue. “When senior leadership disregards OPSEC and security protocols without facing consequences, it undermines our efforts to uphold these standards.”
The OPSEC official further commented, “Now we must invest hours retraining and restating rules to personnel who observe these double standards and question why they should be held accountable when leadership does not.”
In the days following The Atlantic’s release of the group chat contents, a rift has emerged between the public stance of senior administration figures and the private concerns of rank-and-file national-security staff, shocked by the gravity of the breach and the absence of consequences. This divide is likely to widen if Donald Trump continues to resist accountability measures.
The president instructed his team this week to focus on attacking Goldberg and The Atlantic, rather than “producing a scalp” by dismissing any Cabinet members, according to one outside adviser consulted by the White House. Senior Democrats have urged that both Hegseth and national security adviser Michael Waltz, who created the Signal group and added Goldberg, should resign or be dismissed.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not dismiss the possibility of firings but stated this week that Trump “continues to have confidence in his national-security team.” Yesterday, in the Oval Office, Trump remarked about his defense secretary, “Hegseth is doing a great job. He had nothing to do with this.” Additionally, the White House confirmed Waltz’s planned visit to Greenland alongside Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, signaling confidence in the national security adviser.
Reactions in Congress largely mirrored partisan divides, with some notable exceptions.
Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, joined the committee’s leading Democrat, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, in urging the Defense Department’s acting inspector general to investigate the incident. The acting inspector general, Steven A. Stebbins, was appointed principal deputy inspector general in 2023 under President Joe Biden and took over the office’s leadership in an acting capacity following Trump’s dismissal of inspector general Robert Storch in January, part of a widespread removal of inspectors general.
It is unclear whether or how quickly an investigation will occur. A spokesperson for the inspector general’s office confirmed receipt of the request and indicated it is under review.
It also remains uncertain whether there will be other investigations. When questioned this week before the Senate and House intelligence panels, FBI Director Kash Patel did not clarify whether he would initiate an investigation. Earlier today, at an unrelated news conference, Attorney General Pam Bondi dismissed the likelihood of an investigation. Bondi echoed Trump administration talking points, describing the chat’s contents as “sensitive information, not classified,” and attempted to shift focus to the successful mission in Yemen. She also placed blame on Hillary Clinton and Biden for mishandling classified information, both of whom faced inquiries into their actions from the Justice Department, the agency traditionally responsible for upholding the Espionage Act and regulating national defense information.
Wicker, while speaking to reporters this week, expressed his view that the information shared in the chat should have been classified, contradicting claims from senior Trump administration officials that they followed classification protocols. However, Wicker refrained from calling for resignations. Similarly, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska regarded the actions as an “egregious security breach” warranting a “wake-up call.” Republican Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska also provided a candid assessment, labeling the Signal chat a “gross error.”
Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, indicated that his Republican colleagues are more worried about the breach than they show publicly.
“I believe they are much more concerned behind the scenes, as they witnessed the text messages just as I did,” he stated in an interview. “They saw the unredacted messages, and they are astonishing.”
Krishnamoorthi also mentioned that the breach has reached the public awareness level in a manner that necessitates accountability. “They want to see that laws are applied uniformly,” the lawmaker conveyed. According to a YouGov poll released this week, 60 percent of Republicans consider the conduct of Trump officials in the Signal chat to be somewhat or very serious, with nearly 90 percent of Democrats agreeing.
Some conservative influencers have diverged from the party line to caution against public perceptions regarding the incident. In a lengthy video shared with his more than 3.6 million followers on X, Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, urged Trump to dismiss someone. “Somebody has to go down,” he stated. Tomi Lahren, another well-known conservative media figure, criticized the administration’s attempts to draw a distinction between “war plans” and “attack plans,” implying that the latter is less sensitive. “Trying to wordsmith this signal debacle is making it worse,” she expressed on X. “It was bad. And I’m honestly fatigued by the whataboutisms from my own side. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
Trump has been frustrated by negative news coverage that he perceives as portraying his administration as disorganized, which has diverted attention from his plans to impose further tariffs on American trading partners, according to two aides. Within the White House, this incident has evoked memories of the scandal involving Mike Flynn, Trump’s national security adviser early in his first term, as aides are determined to ensure a different outcome this time. Flynn was compelled to resign in February 2017 after it was revealed that he had misled then-Vice President Mike Pence about conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Trump, who detests acknowledging mistakes or making apologies, has privately expressed regret about Flynn’s ousting and has told advisers over the years that he believes he gave up too readily. Some of those around the president prefer not to see another national security adviser thrown under the bus so quickly.
Nevertheless, some of Trump’s allies feel that Waltz may be more susceptible to backlash than the defense secretary. The contentious battle to confirm Hegseth reminded the president’s supporters of the successful push to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which became a notable win for the MAGA movement. Hegseth is also facing the most criticism from Democrats, which may prompt the GOP to rally around him. In contrast, Waltz is viewed with more skepticism by some of Trump’s loyalists, who attribute blame not for initiating the Signal chat but for possessing a journalist’s contact details in his phone. (He has denied this while failing to explain how Goldberg came to be added to the chat.)
Trump advisers have expressed irritation towards Wicker and other Republican dissenters in Congress. In contrast, they have highlighted Senator Lindsey Graham, the longstanding national-security advocate from South Carolina, who argued that no one should be terminated due to the Signal incident.
Graham’s reward came last night in the form of a presidential endorsement on Truth Social for his reelection campaign, which is still more than a year away: “Lindsey has been a wonderful friend to me, and has always been there when I needed him.”
