A plurality of Republicans believe Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth should resign after he shared sensitive military attack plans in a Signal group chat with other top Trump administration officials and journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, according to a new poll.
Newsweek reached out to the Defense Department via email for comment on Saturday.
Why It Matters
Criticism erupted in the aftermath of reporting of the communications in a Signal group chat—which included Vice President JD Vance, Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz and other top administration officials—regarding imminent military strikes in Yemen, including attack plans. Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was inadvertently added to the chat and saw the whole discussion play out, later reporting on the incident via the magazine.
The journalist reported that the text exchange included U.S. military plans involving airstrikes against the Houthis, Iran-backed rebels in Yemen who’ve been launching attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea amid a clash over control of shipping routes.
The handling of private military discussions among top officials in President Donald Trump‘s Cabinet has triggered significant U.S. security concerns, including from some Republican lawmakers.
What To Know
New polling released by J.L. Partners in conjunction with The Daily Mail on Friday showed that a plurality of Republicans believe Hegseth should resign in the wake of the scandal. Thirty-eight percent of GOP respondents said he should resign while just 33 percent said he should stay.
Among independents, a majority said the Trump administration official should step aside, with 54 percent backing his resignation and just 20 percent saying he should remain. The independent results largely aligned with the overall results—with Republicans and Democrats included—which showed 54 percent backing Hegseth’s resignation and 22 percent saying he should stay as the Pentagon chief.
The poll was carried out from March 25 to 27 among 1,001 registered voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
Hegseth, according to Goldberg’s reporting, was the individual in the chat who shared the attack plans, including information about targets, timing and weapons. However, Waltz is reportedly the Trump administration official who accidentally added the journalist to the group chat.
National security experts have said sharing such sensitive information may violate the law and have also raised concerns about the use of Signal for these types of communications. They have warned that U.S. adversaries can easily hack and potentially monitor an individual’s personal phone, which is why the government has specific rules about how to handle classified information.
The National Security Council (NSC) has confirmed the authenticity of the message chain, stating it “appears to be authentic” and that they are “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
Hegseth and the administration have said the information shared was not classified, but analysts have pushed back against those statements.
“What Hegseth shared two hours ahead of the strikes were time sensitive ‘attack orders’ or ‘operational plans’ with actual timing of the strikes and mention of F18s, MQ9 Reapers and Tomahawks. This information is typically sent through classified channels to the commanders in the field as ‘secret, no forn’ message. In other words the information is ‘classified’ and should not be shared through insecure channels,” Fox News‘ chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.
What People Are Saying
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X on Wednesday: “I see war plans every single day. No one is texting war plans.”
Hegseth also told reporters: “You’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again…This is a guy who peddles in garbage…Nobody was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say.”
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic during a recent MSNBC interview: “The Secretary of Defense seems like a person who is unserious and is trying to deflect from the fact that he participated in a conversation on an unclassified messaging app that he probably shouldn’t have participated in.”
President Donald Trump in comments to reporters about the incident on Wednesday: “I think it’s all a witch hunt. That’s all. I think it’s a witch hunt. I wasn’t involved with it.”
Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, told Fox News on Thursday: “The Democrats are just trying to change the subject and trash Hegseth because Trump is on a roll.”
Representative Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, told reporters on Wednesday: “The White House is in denial that this was not classified or sensitive data. They should just own up to it and preserve credibility.”
J.L. Partners co-founder James Johnson told The Daily Mail: “The Signal drama seems to have cut past the usual battle lines, and the public think it a sackable offense regardless of their politics.”
What Happens Next?
It’s unclear if any official involved in the chat will face consequences or resign, but thus far nobody has stepped aside.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt indicated no changes are expected to the president’s national security team, noting that “President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team.”
Meanwhile, some analysts have said that lower-level government employees would likely face prosecution if they shared sensitive information in a similar way, but that appears highly unlikely to happen to Hegseth or anyone else involved in the chat given current political realities.
The post More Republicans Want Pete Hegseth to Resign Than Want Him to Stay—Poll appeared first on Newsweek.
