Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth broke his silence hours after a bombshell report in The Atlantic revealed that he and other top-level Trump administration officials shared classified information via a Signal group chat that included a reporter.
“Nobody was texting war plans,” Hegseth told reporters outside Joint Base Pearl Habor-Hickam, where he used his first public comments since the colossal error broke to slam the story’s author, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.
“So you're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again to include the, I don't know, the hoaxes of ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ or the ‘fine people on both’ sides hoax, or the ‘suckers and losers’ hoax.”
The defense secretary added: “So, this is a guy that peddles in garbage. This is what he does.”
ALSO READ: 'Not much I can do': GOP senator gives up fight against Trump's tariffs
Golberg reported earlier Monday of his inadvertent inclusion in the messaging app, where war plans about an imminent strike on Yemen were discussed among the group that is also understood to have also included National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
“I would love to comment on the Houthi campaign because of the skill and courage of our troops,” Hegseth said Monday. “I’ve monitored it very closely from the beginning, and you see, we've been managing four years of deferred maintenance under the Trump administration.”
Hegseth added: “We will ultimately decimate the Houthis, which is exactly what we're doing as we speak from the beginning, overwhelmingly.”
Watch the clip below or at this link:
