On Sunday, President Donald Trump defended Pete Hegseth after NBC News reported the Defense Secretary used his phone to send sensitive data about Yemen strikes to an encrypted chat group that included his brother and wife.
“He’s doing a great job. Ask the Houthis how he’s doing. Everybody’s happy with him. We have the highest recruitment number, I think we’ve had in 28 years,” Trump said Monday.
“It’s fake news. It sounds like disgruntled workers. He was placed there to get rid of a lot of bad people, and that’s exactly what he is doing. You don’t always make friends when you do this,” he said.
Hegseth’s revelations about his use of the unclassified message system Signal for sharing highly sensitive security information for the second time come at a difficult time for both him and the Pentagon. Senior officials were removed last week following an internal leak investigation.
The second chat, which included about 12 people, was set up during Hegseth’s confirmation process. It focused on administrative issues and not detailed military planning. Hegseth’s brother was among them, as he is a Department of Homeland Security Liaison to the Pentagon.
According to photos posted by the Pentagon, Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News Producer, attended sensitive meetings with counterparts from foreign militaries.
People familiar with the situation said Hegseth was warned against sharing information over insecure systems such as Signal before he shared it last month.