White House is looking to replace Pete Hegseth

The White House has begun the search for a new Pentagon leader to replace Pete Hegseth, according to an unidentified American official. This comes as Hegseth is once more in the news for talking about military operations in a group chat. The defense secretary is under fire after revelations that he shared classified information in a group chat with his wife, brother and lawyer, according to the official.

According to the source, Hegseth detailed classified information about airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen minute by minute using the Signal messaging app on his personal smartphone. In March, around the same time, Hegseth shared similar details with high-ranking White House officials in a different Signal chat group that included a journalist by accident. If adversaries of the United States intercepted that information regarding the timing of strikes, it could have put the United States in danger hours before air strikes were scheduled. Already the Houthis have twice shot down American predator drones. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, stated on X that President Trump "stands strongly" in support of Hegseth and denied that a plan exists to replace him. Trump said that worries about the Signal conversations are a "waste of time" when he spoke to reporters at the White House. He backed Hegseth. "He's doing a great job — ask the Houthis how he's doing," Trump said. At an earlier Easter event at the White House on Monday, Hegseth had denied any wrongdoing. "The media attempts to slash and burn people and damage their reputations by using disgruntled former employees as anonymous sources. He stated, "It won't work for me." Hegseth was likely referring to four senior advisers who left the Pentagon abruptly last week. John Ullyot, a former spokesperson for the Defense Department, quit and wrote an opinion piece describing the past month at the Pentagon as a "full-blown meltdown" of disagreements that are hurting President Trump.

Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll, and Darin Selnick, three more advisers at the Pentagon, were led out of the building and accused of leaking information to the media. The trio then released a joint statement on X, describing their dismissal as "unconscionable" and claiming that they have not even been informed of the allegations against them. "We all donned the uniform to honorably serve our nation; for two of us, this included deployments to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Additionally, they wrote, "Based on our collective service, we understand the significance of information security and work daily to protect it."

Caldwell and Selnik have known Hegseth for a long time and worked with him at Concerned Veterans for America, a right-leaning policy group. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic member of the Armed Services Committee from New Hampshire, suggested that Hegseth accept responsibility in a statement. She stated, "But we must not forget that the ultimate responsibility here lies with President Trump for selecting a former weekend TV host without any experience successfully leading a large and complex organization to run our government's biggest department and make decisions that will affect our military and country's survival." NPR's CEO, Katherine Maher, is on the Signal Foundation's board of directors.