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3471Less than a week after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boasted that America was no longer being embarrassed on the world stage, his actions have sparked one of the most humiliating national security scandals in recent memory.
“We looked like fools before—not anymore,” Hegseth said on March 21 during a high-profile announcement about the U.S. military’s new sixth-generation fighter jet.
But now, that same defense chief is facing intense backlash for sending sensitive military strike plans to a Signal group chat that included a journalist.
At the center of the controversy is a message Hegseth reportedly sent at 11:44 a.m. on March 15, labeled a “TEAM UPDATE.” It included detailed operational plans for forthcoming airstrikes on the Houthis in Yemen, such as timing, aircraft involved, and attack sequencing.
“It was Hegseth who moved classified information to a commercial text app that could have been intercepted by our adversaries,” former Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh wrote in an MSNBC column. “It was Hegseth who put our brave service members… in mortal danger.”
The Signal chat, created by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, also included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg—a fact the White House has yet to fully explain. Trump defended Waltz, saying he had “learned a lesson,” but stopped short of commenting on Hegseth’s role.
Hegseth denied discussing war plans over text, telling reporters: “Nobody was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say about that.”
But messages authenticated by the National Security Council and first reported by The Atlantic paint a different picture. According to those reports, Hegseth outlined precise details about the strike in a thread that was not only unclassified but vulnerable.
Just days before the leak, the Pentagon had issued a warning about a vulnerability in the Signal app, noting that Russian hackers were actively trying to exploit it.
Singh also pointed out that all modern U.S. military operations are planned under strict classification. “That means Hegseth had to open his classified email or binder, and manually type the military strike details into Signal,” she wrote.
Intel Officials Dodge Responsibility
Top intelligence officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, tried to downplay the breach during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on March 25. Both denied the group chat contained any classified information from their agencies, but when pressed about the military data Hegseth shared, they deferred to the defense secretary.
“As I’ve understood from media reports, the Secretary of Defense has said the information was not classified,” Ratcliffe testified. Gabbard said she would defer to Hegseth and the National Security Council on that determination.
Congress Pushes Back
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton attempted to draw a line between intelligence community information and military data, clarifying, “There’s no intelligence community classified information.” Ratcliffe and Gabbard agreed.
Still, Democratic lawmakers weren’t buying it. One senator pointed out the contradiction: Ratcliffe and Gabbard testified there was no classified information in the texts, yet refused to say whether the strike plans should have been classified.
Some lawmakers aren’t waiting for the spin to settle. Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican and former Air Force Brigadier General, told CNN, “I think the most accountable, or the most guilty person, is the secretary of defense because he put in all the highly classified information.”
The episode is also raising concerns among U.S. allies. If America’s top defense official is leaking strike details in a group chat with a journalist, how secure is any shared intel?
During his Oval Office remarks on March 21, Hegseth said the Trump administration was “reviving the warrior ethos” and “reestablishing deterrence.” He declared that the newly unveiled F-47 fighter jet sent a clear message: “We can, we will be able to project power around the globe unimpeded.”
Instead, they’ve projected something else entirely: chaos, carelessness, and a breakdown in basic operational security.
The fallout has only just begun.
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