Hegseth Fires Back After Atlantic Releases Full Signal Chat

In the wake of the Signal chat incident, congressional Democrats seem to be taking the position that the only reasonable response is for Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to be fired or resign. I regret to inform them (okay, I don't really regret it) that they are unlikely to see that wish fulfilled.

Wednesday morning, as our Managing Editor Jennifer Van Laar reported, the Atlantic released the full Signal message chain after questions swirled as to whether the not-exactly-reliable Jeffrey Goldberg's characterization of the message portions he didn't initially share as "classified" and/or "war plans" was accurate. This also follows a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee (coincidentally coming just after the story broke) and a Tuesday filing of a lawsuit naming Hegseth and others in the message chain as defendants and asserting Federal Records Act violations.

Hegseth, Gabbard, Others Sued Over Signal Chat Incident, Accused of Possibly Criminal Conduct

While Democrats at Wednesday's House Intelligence Committee hearing went all in on the full message chain, as included in the Atlantic's follow-up report, it was apparent that there was far less "there" there than originally thought.

Hegseth, currently in Hawaii as part of a tour of the Indo-Pacific, spoke with reporters on the tarmac Wednesday and shared a fiery response to the latest reporting on the matter.

Watch:

🚨Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sets the record STRAIGHT on this mornings reporting from The Atlantic:

"I noticed this morning, out came something that doesn't look like 'war plans.' They even CHANGED THE TITLE to 'attack plans,' because THEY KNOW it's not 'war plans.'"… pic.twitter.com/PwZweM3L1p
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 26, 2025

HEGSETH: Nobody's texting 'war plans.' Well, I noticed this morning, out came something that doesn't look like 'war plans.' And, as a matter of fact, they even changed the title to 'attack plans' because they know it's not 'war plans.' There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information.
You know who sees war plans? I see them, every single day. I looked at them this morning — I looked at attack plans this morning. You know who does attack plans and war plans? Men like that admiral right there, Paporo, for the Indo-Pacific, or Eric Kurilla, our General in CENTCOM. They do attack plans and war plans, and thank God we have those leaders who do it and do it well, and our enemies know it.
My job — as it said atop of that — everybody's seen it now: "Team Update" — is to provide updates in real-time, general updates in real-time, keep everybody informed. That's what I did. That's my job. The warfighters will take the fight to the enemy, and I love what they do. And with President Trump's leadership, our enemies are on notice, we will have peace through strength, and we'll keep putting our troops first.

Certainly, there remain questions as to how Jeffrey Goldberg, of all people, wound up in that Signal messaging group. And the incident has hopefully served as a wake-up call to the administration to review communication protocols. But if the Democrats were hoping to turn this into a Trump administration bloodletting, it appears they're out of luck.

Editor's Note: Thanks to President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's leadership, the warrior ethos is coming back to America's military.

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