The official X account for the Democrats called for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's firing amid revelations that Hegseth shared details about U.S. military operations in Yemen using his personal phone in a 13-person Signal group chat that included his wife and brother—despite a prior warning from an aide advising him not to share sensitive information over an unsecure channel ahead of the operation.
That news comes just weeks after Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he was invited into a Signal chat with high-level Trump administration officials, particularly Hegseth and Vice President J.D. Vance, discussing military strategy surrounding war strikes in Yemen.
Signalgate Part Deux angered the Democratic Party, and in a post, the official party apparatus declared that Hegseth "needs to go."
Hegseth responded shortly afterward with an attack against liberals:
"Your agenda is illegals, trans & DEI — all of which are no longer allowed at [the Department of Defense]."
You can see his response below.
Democrats responded to Hegseth's outburst with a meme of a blurry phone screen—"Pete's POV"—in shady nod to his history of excessive drinking.
@TheDemocrats/X
People were shook by the party's brazen response—and mocked Hegseth in their own way.
According to sources, the second Signal group chat included 13 participants but no other Cabinet-level officials.
Among those in the chat were Hegseth’s chief of staff Joe Kasper; deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick; retired Army sergeant major and adviser Eric Geressy; Navy JAG commander and legal adviser Tim Parlatore; Hegseth’s brother Phil, a senior adviser at the Department of Homeland Security; and Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer.
Hegseth’s brother, Phil, works at the Pentagon as a Department of Homeland Security adviser to Hegseth—but it remains unclear why he or Jennifer Hegseth would need access to or be informed about details of the military strikes in Yemen.
When asked about the existence of the second Signal chat, Hegseth lashed out and referenced two of his advisers who were escorted out of the Pentagon early last week amid an investigation into allegations of leaking sensitive information, remarking:
“You know, what a big surprise that a bunch of leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out. It’s not going to work with me, because we’re changing the Defense Department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of war fighters, and anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news doesn’t matter.”
Anna Kelly, White House deputy press secretary, also downplayed the significance of the second group chat, saying that "no matter how many times the legacy media tries to resurrect the same non-story, they can’t change the fact that no classified information was shared."
