The White House hit back at recent news reports detailing Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s reported involvement in a second Signal group chat where he discussed military strikes on Yemen as a ‘nonstory’ while also slamming recently fired Department of Defense staffers.
‘No matter how many times the legacy media tries to resurrect the same nonstory, they can’t change the fact that no classified information was shared,’ White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital Monday morning. ‘Recently fired ‘leakers’ are continuing to misrepresent the truth to soothe their shattered egos and undermine the president’s agenda, but the administration will continue to hold them accountable.’
Kelly’s response followed Fox News Digital inquiring about media stories Sunday reporting that Hegseth was part of another Signal group chat that allegedly included his wife, personal attorney and brother, where he discussed upcoming military strikes on Yemen. The chat was reportedly created by Hegseth, the New York Times reported Sunday, citing four people with knowledge of the chat.
The White House ‘stands strongly’ behind Hegseth, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, despite a week of dramatic high-level firings in addition to Signal chat reports.
‘The president stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth, who is doing a phenomenal job leading the Pentagon,’ Leavitt said on Fox News Monday.
‘This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change that you are trying to implement.’
Hegseth also brushed off the reporting on the Signal chat Monday, blaming it on ‘disgruntled employees’ and ‘anonymous smears.’
‘This is why we’re fighting the fake news media,’ he said when pressed on the chat by reporters at the White House Easter Egg roll. ‘This group right here is full of hoaxsters.’
Hegseth gestured to his wife and children and said he was there to enjoy the day with them. He added that he had spoken to Trump and planned to keep fighting all the way.
The Trump administration came under scrutiny from Democrats and other critics after the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, revealed in an article published March 24 that he was added to a Signal group chat with top national security leaders, including Hegseth, national security advisor Mike Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, discussing upcoming military strikes in Yemen.
Signal is an encrypted messaging app that operates similarly to texting or making phone calls, but with additional security measures that help ensure communications are kept private to those included in the correspondence.
The Atlantic’s report characterized the Trump administration as texting ‘war plans’ regarding a planned strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The Trump administration has maintained, however, that no classified material was transmitted in the chat, with Trump repeatedly defending Waltz amid the fallout. The strikes on Houthi rebels unfolded on March 15.
Leavitt told the media in March that the White House considered the Signal group chat leak case ‘closed’ while continuing to offer support to Waltz, whose office allegedly mistakenly added the journalist to the chat.
‘As the president has made it very clear, Mike Waltz continues to be an important part of his national security team,’ Leavitt told the media in brief remarks during a gaggle outside of the White House’s press room March 31. ‘And this case has been closed here at the White House, as far as we are concerned.’
‘There have been steps made to ensure that something like that can obviously never happen again,’ she continued. ‘And we’re moving forward. And the president and Mike Waltz and his entire national security team have been working together very well, if you look at how much safer the United States of America is because of the leadership of this team.’
Reports of a second Signal chat involving Hegseth follow highly publicized departures at the Pentagon last week following leaks.
Top aides to Hegseth were placed on leave and escorted out of the building as the Pentagon probed unauthorized leaks: senior advisor Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Secretary Stephen Feinberg.
On Friday evening, those three employees were fired, two defense officials confirmed to Fox News Digital, along with chief of staff Joe Kasper.
Another press aide, John Ullyot, parted ways with the Pentagon because he did not want to be second-in-command of the communications shop.
Officials denied that the three men were placed on leave because of their foreign policy views and said they saw no connection to their positions on Iran and Israel – even as reports surfaced that President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the Pentagon would not intervene if Israel attacked Iran.
Ullyot notably published a scathing opinion piece in Politico Sunday predicting Hegseth would not remain as secretary of defense.
‘It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon,’ he wrote. ‘From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president – who deserves better from his senior leadership.’
‘Trump has a strong record of holding his top officials to account,’ he wrote. ‘Given that, it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer.’