Republicans Come to Hegeseth’s Defense Amid Calls to Resign

Republicans are defending Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth amid calls for him to resign.

The controversy began when Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, was added to a Signal chat with Hegseth. Hegseth was not aware of Goldberg’s addition to the group.

National Security Advisor Matt Waltz appears to be the one who added Goldberg to the chat. Waltz says the addition of Goldberg was an accident.

In the chat, Goldberg saw a discussion of attacks on Houthis in Yemen. Goldberg posted messages from Signal, an encrypted messaging app, that detailed an attack on the Houthis.

Here is one of the messages:

Hegseth argued that the text messages do not contain the exact place, time, and dates of the attack against the Houthis, and therefore, the information was not classified. CIA Director John Ratcliffe also said the information was not classified.

Since the controversy broke, Democrats and some Republicans have called for Hegseth and Ratcliffe to resign or be fired. One of those Democrats is Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who said on X,

“Donald Trump knows how to say “you’re fired.”

Time to say it to Pete Hegseth.”

While Democrats have asked Hegseth to resign, Republicans have called for an investigation but downplayed the need for Hegseth to resign.

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) told Fox News Digital that the attacks against Hegseth come in the wake of successful attacks against the Hourthis and Hegseth’s mission to reshape the military into a more lethal force. Here is Lee’s statement to Fox News:

“In the wake of successful strikes against Houthi terrorists, it’s amusing to see two political camps attack the Secretary of Defense: radical progressives who are angry that he’s getting rid of woke DEI ideology and focusing on lethality, and armchair generals who are mad that he wants to keep America out of unnecessary foreign wars,”

President Donald Trump said he was not going to be firing anyone and that classified information was not shared in the texts. On The Vince Show, Trump told the host,

“There weren’t details, and there was nothing in there that compromised. And it had no impact on the attack, which was very successful.”

Trump went on to say,

“Maybe there’s a staffer, maybe there’s a very innocent staffer, but we’ll get — I think we’ll get to the bottom of it very quickly, and it’s really not a big deal.”

Do you think the Signal chat disclosure to Goldberg is worth Hegseth or others being fired? Or is the concern over the Signal chat overblown?

Let us know what you think in the comments below.