Is Pete Hegseth Getting Fired or Just Embarrassing the Pentagon Again?

Another Signal chat leak, a drunken Easter denial, and growing calls for accountability—just another week under Trump’s defense secretary.

If your Secretary of Defense is leaking military operations in a family group chat and your top response is, “Ask the Houthis how he’s doing”—maybe it’s time to reevaluate your chain of command.

According to a U.S. official speaking anonymously (because apparently that’s the only way anyone feels safe telling the truth these days), the White House has started looking for a new leader at the Pentagon. That would mean replacing current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who’s now facing scrutiny—again—for casually sharing classified military strike details over Signal.

And this isn’t just one rogue message. The report says Hegseth used his personal smartphone to send minute-by-minute updates on upcoming U.S. airstrikes in Yemen—directly to a private Signal chat that included his wife, his brother, and his lawyer. You know, standard wartime protocol.

Even worse? This came around the same time Hegseth shared similar details with another Signal group that, oops, accidentally included a journalist. That leak happened hours before the actual airstrikes hit. And while the Pentagon hasn’t confirmed any damage, the stakes are clear: if intercepted, that intel could’ve endangered U.S. pilots. The Houthis have already shot down two American predator drones. Imagine what they'd do with a strike schedule.

Despite that, the Trump White House insists everything’s fine.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Twitter that President Trump “stands strongly” behind Hegseth. When asked about the group chat scandal, Trump brushed it off entirely:

That’s…one way to measure job performance. “How’s my Defense Secretary doing? Just look at our enemies.”

Trump then scolded a reporter for “bringing up Signal again”. God forbid anyone ask the president why his defense secretary used a chat app to copy and paste strike plans to his wife, his brother, his lawyer—and, oh yeah, a journalist.

Hegseth also denied any wrongdoing during the White House Easter Egg Roll. He sounded a bit...tipsy, like the kind of guy who pre-games a children’s event with “just one bourbon” and then slurs through national security talking points between egg tosses.

As he rambled, his wife Jennifer Rauchet and their seven children stood awkwardly behind him. Gesturing toward them like props in a campaign ad, Hegseth shouted, “This is why we’re fighting the fake news media! This is why we’re fighting slash-and-burn Democrats! This is why we’re fighting hoaxsters!”

Now, Hegseth didn’t name names, but we probably don’t need to guess. Four senior advisers just left the Pentagon last week. One of them, former Defense Department spokesperson John Ullyot, resigned and immediately published an op-ed calling the last month inside the Pentagon a “full-blown meltdown.”

That’s not a great Yelp review for your Department of Defense.

The other three—Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll, and Darin Selnick—were literally escorted out of the building. They were accused of leaking info to the press but claim they were never told what they supposedly leaked.

In a joint statement, they defended their service and accused the Pentagon of acting in bad faith: “All three of us served our country honorably in uniform…we understand the importance of information security and worked every day to protect it.”

Caldwell and Selnick have worked closely with Hegseth before, including at the Koch-backed advocacy group Concerned Veterans for America. So if this was a loyalty test, it might’ve just blown up the entire study group.

Meanwhile, outside the Trump bubble, there are real concerns. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who serves on the Armed Services Committee, made it clear who she thinks deserves blame: “Ultimate responsibility here lies with President Trump for selecting a former weekend TV host, without any experience successfully leading a large and complex organization, to run our government's biggest department.”

And let’s be honest—the first red flag wasn’t the Signal leaks. It was years ago, when Hegseth nearly took someone’s head off with an axe on live TV during a Fox News segment. That’s not a metaphor—he literally missed the target and almost nailed a West Point drummer. Most people would lose a job for that. Hegseth got promoted.

And yet, here we are—again—dealing with a Trump official who treats Signal like Snapchat.

So what happens next?

Publicly, Trump says he’s sticking by Hegseth. Privately, the White House appears to be exploring replacements. Maybe they’ll promote someone else from cable news. Or maybe they’ll just keep winging it and hope the group chats don’t end up on WikiLeaks.

But the bigger problem is this: When your government is leaking its own operations before they happen—and nobody at the top seems to care—that’s not just bad management. That’s a national security risk.

And if the only person who seems worried is a senator from New Hampshire, we’ve got a much bigger problem than Signal encryption.