Embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is fighting for his political life and insists he “won’t blink” amid speculation he’s in the firing line over a second Signal scandal.
Hegseth defended himself in a Fox News interview Tuesday after new details emerged about his alleged misuse of the messaging app.
According to NBC News, the Pentagon chief was sent information about an impending strike on Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen from Army General Michael Erik Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, via a secure government system.
Then he reportedly switched the information onto his personal phone and sent it to two group chats on Signal.
One group included his Cabinet colleagues and Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic magazine. The other included Hegseth’s wife and his brother.
Talking for the first time about the latest developments in the simmering Signal scandal, Hegseth told Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade that he wasn’t worried about losing his job over the debacle.
“I haven’t blinked and I won’t blink because this job is too big and too important,” he said. “No one’s texting war plans.”
He insisted that the information shared in the group chats was “unclassified” and blamed “left-wing reporters” for the crisis.
Hegseth also alleged that leakers from within the DOD sought to smear him, wreck President Donald Trump‘s agenda, and “save their a–”.
“Now, at the defense department, I want this to be clear, we take the classification of information very important. It’s very significant to us to safeguard it,” he added.
He claimed he took action after information leaked about plans for the Panama Canal and a scheduled visit to the Pentagon by Elon Musk to see “war plans.”
“When we have leaks, we did a serious investigation and through that leak investigation we found folks we believe were not holding to protocols that we hold dear at the defense department. They have been moved on and that investigation continues,” he said, referring to at least three aides who have been suspended in the past week.
He claimed the alleged leakers will be prosecuted if the inquiry finds proof that information was passed to the media.
Kilmeade asked the DOD boss if he believed that “deep state” forces were to blame. “They have come after me from day one, like they have come after President Trump,” he continued.
“I’ve gotten a fraction of what President Trump has endured.”
“It is not hard to do this job, I am here to bring war fighting back, to not tolerate leakers, 100 percent operational control of the border, to get rid of trans lunacy in the military.
“We have not backed down,” he said. “People come to Washington and play the game and punch their ticket and get along to go along and do Meet the Press and go to the Council on Foreign Relations with the cocktail sipping crowd.
“That is not why I’m here. I’m here because President Trump asked me to bring warfighting back to the Pentagon every day. If people don’t like it, come after me, no worries, I’m standing here, war fighters are behind us, enemies are on notice, and allies know we are behind them. That is what it is all about.”
The New York Times reported on Sunday that Hegseth had shared “detailed” information on the March 15 airstrikes before they happened to a second chat group, this time including his wife, brother, and even his personal lawyer.
On Monday, the ex-Fox News host berated reporters in front of his children during the White House Easter Egg Roll for reporting on his actions.
“Hoaxsters—this group right here—full of hoaxsters that peddle anonymous sources from leakers with axes to grind, and then you put it all together as if it’s some news story,” he said, demurring to directly respond to the reporting.
Three staffers close to Hegseth were purged last week, and his chief of staff reportedly moved into a different role within the Pentagon.
Hegseth still has the president’s support, at least publicly. “Pete’s doing a great job,” Trump told reporters at the Easter event on Monday. “Everybody’s happy with him.”
“Are you bringing up Signal again? I thought they gave that up two weeks ago. It’s the same old stuff from the media. Try finding something new,” he added.
The president reduced the Times’ sources to “disgruntled employees” and batted away the latest scandal as “fake news.”
However, some reports suggest that Pentagon insiders are now turning against the under-fire Hegseth. Reuters cited anonymous officials within the agency, one of whom said Hegseth’s staff culls have created “a climate of uncertainty within the Pentagon.”
“The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president,” John Ullyot, who was the Pentagon spokesperson for all of two months before he was axed, wrote in a blistering op-ed for Politico.
“Anybody that knows John knows why we let him go,” Hegseth told Kilmeade. “He was moved along and asked to move along and misrepresented a lot in the press. We did right by him, tried to help, but he was spinning it otherwise. Too bad. Politics, I guess,” he added.
A second damning report from the New York Times, published Tuesday, detailed “screaming matches in his inner office among aides.”
It comes after another Signal mishap last month, when The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg claimed that he had been mistakenly added to a chat with top Trump administration national security officials. In that group, too, they discussed sensitive planning details for the Houthis’ military operation.
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