House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to be fired over using a group Signal chat to discuss war plans.
“His behavior shocks the conscience, risked American lives and likely violated the law,” Jeffries said in a Tuesday letter to President Donald Trump. “Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth should be fired immediately.”
Hegseth and other top national security officials had used the unsecured group chat to discuss plans to bomb Houthi rebels in Yemen and had inadvertently added a journalist, sparking the imbroglio. Some of those officials had faced pointed questioning from Hill Democrats on Tuesday, and the minority party has sought to capitalize on the damaging revelations stemming from the incident.
Jeffries’ letter follows calls from other Democrats for the officials to step down. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that both Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz should resign. But top Hill Republicans like Speaker Mike Johnson have backed Hegseth and the other Trump officials amid the debacle, with Johnson telling reporters Tuesday that it was a “mistake” but wouldn’t happen again.
