President Donald Trump stands “strongly behind” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday, despite new reports that he discussed highly sensitive military information on a Signal chat with family and friends.
Hegseth is “doing a tremendous job, and he is bringing monumental change to the Pentagon,” said Leavitt.
“There’s a lot of people in the city who reject monumental change, and I think, frankly, that’s why we’ve seen a smear campaign against the Secretary of Defense,” she added.
The latest defense of Hegseth came after NBC News reported Monday that U.S. military plans the defense secretary shared over Signal had originally been sent to him using a secure government line for highly sensitive information.
Within 10 minutes of receiving the plans on March 15, Hegseth had shared them in a 13-person Signal group chat that included his wife and brother.
The White House insists that nothing Hegseth shared on Signal was classified.
Hegseth earlier on Tuesday blamed “leakers” who no longer work at the Pentagon for the latest revelation about his use of Signal to discuss military information.
“Once a leaker, always a leaker, often a leaker,” Hegseth said on Fox News. “I don’t have time for leakers, I don’t have time for the hoax press that peddles old stories from disgruntled employees,” he added.
Hegseth also defended his communication on Signal, saying that “what was shared … however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordinations, for media coordination and other things.”
The latest reporting comes about one month after initial revelations about Hegseth discussing details of pending military strikes in Yemen on a different Signal text thread that inadvertently included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of “The Atlantic.”
Trump has so far stood behind Hegseth amid the controversy, saying on Monday that he was “doing a great job.”
White House officials have also dismissed reports that they have started looking for a replacement for Hegseth.
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