Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared on “Fox and Friends” Tuesday morning, as the administration actively tries to clean up days of damning reports about the Defense Department’s handling of sensitive and possibly classified information.
Hegseth’s defense: Disgruntled former employees and the media are trying to tarnish President Donald Trump’s name.
“They peddle old stuff,” Hegseth said on Fox News of the reports, returning to a playbook he used during his confirmation hearings, when he faced allegations of sexual misconduct, alcohol abuse and poor leadership. “This is what it’s all about: trying to get at President Trump and his agenda.”
“Fox and Friends” teased the interview as an opportunity for Hegseth to “set the record straight” and introduced him as a former Fox News host.
Hegseth and the White House started the week doing damage control after a weekend of bad headlines for the defense secretary. On Sunday, The New York Times reported that Hegseth allegedly shared typically classified information in a second Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer. The same day, former Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot penned a scathing Politico op-ed questioning how much longer Hegseth could stay in the job. Ullyot resigned from his position last Thursday.
“Anybody that knows John knows why we let him go,” Hegseth said Tuesday. “We did a lot of favors for John. He did some good work up front.”
Hegseth brushed off concerns about the handling of classified information Tuesday morning. He denied that any classified information was ever shared in Signal chats (timing and details of strikes are typically classified). He focused on Ullyot and other former employees’ concerns, dismissing them as the gripes of bitter ex-aides.
“Once a leaker, always a leaker,” Hegseth said. “Those folks who are leaking, who have been pushed out of the building, are now attempting to leak and sabotage the president’s agenda and what we’re doing,” Hegseth said.
As NOTUS reported Monday, former and current officials are expecting more revelations to come out about Hegseth’s leadership at the Pentagon.
Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to Hegseth, Darin Selnick, Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff, and Colin Carroll, Hegseth’s chief of staff, have all been placed on suspension after an investigation into leaks about the possibility of Elon Musk being privy to briefings on China. The investigation is ongoing, and the employees claim they haven’t been told the extent of their own involvement.
“There’s an investigation ongoing that will have to complete itself,” Hegseth said Tuesday. “But we had sufficient evidence to believe that they or others near them were party to leaking.”
Hegseth told Fox News that he intends to pass the investigation over to the Department of Justice for prosecution.
“I haven’t blinked,” Hegseth said. “And I won’t blink because this job is too big and too important for the American people.”
The handling of the current controversy rings similar to Hegseth’s scandal-plagued nomination process. The result of that was one of the most partisan confirmation votes in history for a secretary of defense. Currently, only one Republican, Rep. Don Bacon, has called for Hegseth to step down.
Trump continues to support Hegseth, saying that the most recent Signal controversy is just old news. “He’s doing a great job,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories. I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees.”
The administration’s use of Signal has been central to the controversy after the Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally included on a group chat with high-ranking officials discussing a bombing campaign in Yemen.
That incident appears to have only opened the doors to much more scrutiny.
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John T. Seward is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.