President Trump issued a strong statement of support for Pete Hegseth as the defense secretary faces heat from the media and former staff.
In an exclusive interview with The Atlantic published Monday, Mr. Trump confirmed that he spoke to Mr. Hegseth about the mounting tension at the Pentagon and said he remains confident he will turn things around.
“I think he’s gonna get it together,” Trump told The Atlantic’s Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer. “I had a talk with him, a positive talk, but I had a talk with him.”
Mr. Trump added that he had not lost confidence in National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who inadvertently added Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal group chat last month. In the chat, Mr. Waltz, along with Mr. Hegseth and other prominent White House officials, discussed sensitive attack plans against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The revelation that Mr. Hegseth discussed possibly classified plans in an unsecured Signal chat led to a series of uproars at the Pentagon, with the secretary firing several senior advisers for purportedly leaking information to the media.
One fired official denied the secretary’s allegations, penning an op-ed that accused Mr. Hegseth of paranoia. Meanwhile, the secretary’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, resigned Thursday.
Additionally, reports from last week found that Mr. Hegseth discussed sensitive information in another Signal chat, which included his wife, personal lawyer, brother, Mr. Kasper and since-fired advisers. Mr. Hegseth has denied the allegations that he discussed sensitive information in the chat, asserting he used it only for coordinating staff.
A separate report from last week found that the secretary established a so-called dirty network within his office, letting him bypass the center’s cybersecurity restrictions to use apps like Signal.
