Pete Hegseth, the United States Secretary of Defense, has reportedly released sensitive information for a second time and is now facing backlash.
Before the most recent release of information, there was an incident that occurred on March 15, 2025, which left the internet in an uproar. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was mistakenly added into a group chat on the messaging app Signal by the United States’ very own National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz. Aside from the idea of adding a journalist to an unclassified chat with some of the most powerful people in DC, war plans were discussed in a shocking turn of events.
The original chat members included the likes of Hegseth, Waltz, Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and, of course, Goldberg. Once Goldberg was unknowingly invited into the chat, he learned two hours in advance that the United States was planning to bomb targets in Yemen, specifically the Houthis, who operate there and have been widely accused of being backed by Iran. Nearly ten days after Goldberg was added to the Signal chat, he released an article in The Atlantic, titled, “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.” This article detailed the course of events that would soon attract a flurry of media attention.
More recently, however, it has reportedly come out that Hegseth, around the same time as the original set of leaks took place, was messaging in a separate Signal chat, releasing much of the same information on the military strikes in Yemen. The main members of this second group chat consisted of Hegseth’s wife, his brother, Hegseth himself and his personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore. It has also been reported that this second chat was created by Hegseth, while the first Signal chat with Vance and Goldberg was not.
The Trump administration is currently backing Hegseth and his fellow members of both group chats. Following the aftermath of the original security breach, the White House claimed that the information shared by Hegseth, Vance, Waltz and others was already unclassified, confirming the existence of the first Signal chat. Now, as of the annual Easter celebration at the White House, the Trump administration has chosen to talk around the issue of the second group chat leak, instead doubling down on their support for Hegseth. President Donald Trump is now expected to sit in for an interview with Goldberg and The Atlantic regarding the Signal chat catastrophe.
One Coles County voter, when asked about the situation, commented, “[Hegseth] needs to be fired.” He then went on to say, “All of them need to be fired.” His wife then chimed in, mentioning, “I think that they don’t care about the people that they say they care about. If you cared about the American people, or you cared about people in the military or even innocent people from other countries, you would not spread things like that over text,” bringing light to the danger that members of the American military stationed in Yemen could have potentially been put in had the strike plans been sent to the wrong hands.
The Hegseth Signal chat story is still developing in real time, with new developments around the corner. Still, the political impact of these group chats is unmistakable.
