Amid demands for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s resignation due to a leaked Signal chat containing information about a military strike in Yemen, President Donald Trump supported Hegseth on Wednesday.
After Hegseth sent administration officials information about the strike in a Signal chat that unintentionally included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic, who published the full messages on Wednesday morning, the president discussed the controversy.
In the aftermath of the controversy, when a number of Congressional Democrats called for Hegseth to resign, reporters asked Trump if he should think about doing so.
He has nothing to do with this; Hegseth is doing a fantastic job. Hegseth. How is Hegseth involved in this? Trump answered.
The president acknowledged to DailyMail.com that Mike Waltz, his national security advisor in the White House, accepted responsibility for Goldberg’s unintentional inclusion in the Signal chat.
“Mike Waltz” I suppose he claimed responsibility. Nobody else had anything to do with it. When questioned about the probe, Trump remarked, “I guess, I don’t know, I was told it was Mike.”Trump once more downplayed the controversy surrounding Hegseth’s sharing of classified information that might have jeopardized the operation, focusing instead on the mission’s success.
The president questioned whether the Signal app was functioning properly and why Democrats were demanding Hegseth’s resignation.
It’s all a witch hunt, you see. Trump stated, “You want to know if Signal works or not. To be honest with you, I don’t know if Signal works. I think that Signal could be defective.”
Although it is not regarded as a secure platform for classified information, the encrypted app that removes messages after they have been received is widely used for communications in Washington, DC.
“You, we, and everyone else use Signal, but we’ll need to determine whether it’s a functioning platform or not.” Trump stated.
Hegseth’s resignation was demanded by Democratic Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of Arizona for disclosing information about the operation on the platform.
Kelly wrote on X that the Signal incident was the result of having the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in history.
“We’re fortunate that no service members lost their lives, but Secretary Hegseth must step down for the sake of our nation and our military,” he continued.
“This might have resulted in the deaths of our men and women!” Social media posts were made by Gallego.
He went on. “The Defense Secretary must step down.” It’s embarrassing how inept they are and how they covered it up.