White House Confirms President Trump Stands Behind Hegseth

President Donald Trump supports U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, following accusations that he communicated specifics of a March raid on Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis in a chat group with his wife, brother, and personal lawyer.

The revelations of a second Signal chat raise more questions about Hegseth’s use of an unclassified messaging system to share highly sensitive security details, and they come at a particularly sensitive time for him, with senior officials removed from the Pentagon last week as part of an internal leak probe, Newsmax noted.

This is the second time recently that Trump has clarified that he’s standing by Hegseth, as some Democrats have called for him to resign because of a leaked Signal chat that contained information about a military strike in Yemen.

Last month, the president discussed the controversy following Hegseth’s accidental transmission of details about the strike to members of the administration in a Signal chat, which also included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Goldberg published the full messages.