Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had the most difficult confirmation battle of any Trump cabinet member, earning confirmation following a tie-breaking vote from Vice President J.D. Vance. This followed a weeks-long process in which questions were raised about Hegseth’s qualifications, his history of drinking, and even a past sexual assault accusation that he denied, and there were times when his nomination appeared doomed.
Best known before he was nominated as a Fox News host, following stints at the helm of a pair of veterans organizations and a failed political campaign in his native Minnesota, Hegseth assumed the helm of one of the largest bureaucracies in the federal government.
Now, Hegseth is under fire for his part in the Signalgate controversy.
Attack Plans and Signalgate
The Atlantic’s story on Monday revealed that top Trump Administration officials had discussed plans to attack Yemen on the non-secure messaging app Signal and that they had accidentally added a journalist seen as hostile to the Trump Administration, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the chat.
After Goldberg published the story on Monday, much of the heat fell on Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, who is the person who invited Goldberg into the chat.
Then, on Wednesday, Goldberg published parts of the chat that hadn’t been included in the Monday report. This revealed that Hegseth had listed details of the attack plan, on the Signal chat, about a half hour before the attack was launched.
As Goldberg wrote in the Wednesday story, “The U.S. secretary of defense texted a group that included a phone number unknown to him—Goldberg’s cellphone—at 11:44 a.m… If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests—or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media—the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds.”
Why It’s Bad For Pete Hegseth
After the Monday report, the Administration’s line had been that no classified information had been shared on the Signal chat.
But that’s pretty self-evidently untrue, as pointed out Wednesday in a New York Post op-ed by Andrew McCarthy, a conservative legal commentator who usually (but not always) defends the legal positions of the Trump Administration.
While making clear that he approves of the military strike itself, and that “I like Pete Hegseth,” McCarthy argues that the Administration has no leg to stand on when it comes to the information not being classified.
“The blunder of discussing the details on a Signal group chat that is not authorized for the communication of national defense information — to say nothing of top secret intelligence — was an unconscionable security breach,” McCarthy writes.
Pressure From Congress
Multiple Democratic members of Congress have called on Hegseth to resign; Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), himself a Navy veteran, went on MSNBC Wednesday and called for Hegseth to go, although he stopped short of demanding the same of Waltz.
Meanwhile, per The Hill, Republicans in Congress have placed Hegseth “under close scrutiny,” with some GOP Senators questioning the Pentagon chief’s judgment.
Bad Polling
Most of the time, unless there’s an active war going on and there’s a nationally televised daily Pentagon briefing, the majority of Americans probably don’t know the name of the current Defense Secretary. But there are indications that the story is breaking through, and not in a way that’s good for Pete Hegseth.
CNN polling analyst Harry Enten said in a segment Wednesday that there’s major interest in the Atlantic Signal story- and that Hegseth, with a favorability rating of 30 percent and unfavorability of 42 percent, is now the least popular Defense Secretary since Donald Rumsfeld. And this was in February, prior to the Signal scandal.
Will Hegseth Go?
The biggest question will be how long this scandal stays in the news. If it continues to have legs, it could conceivably lead Hegseth to become the first cabinet secretary of the Trump II era to exit.
If that happens, those who deemed Hegseth blatantly unqualified all along will claim vindication- which is one reason to think Trump wouldn’t allow that to happen.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter
