‘None of this is based in reality’: Hegseth blames fired staffers for leaks and trying to sabotage Trump’s agenda

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has blamed fired staffers for the leaks about the second Signal chat group he created about strikes against Houthis in Yemen, as he accused them of trying to “sabotage” President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Hegseth is fighting to hold onto his position after a bombshell report that he shared details of military strikes in Yemen in another Signal chat that included his own wife and brother.

“None of this is based in reality,” Hegseth said during an appearance on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning, where he used to work.

When asked whether the report was “leaked as a way to get back” at him, Hegseth agreed.

“Those folks who are leaking, who have been pushed out of the building, are now attempting to leak and sabotage the president’s agenda,” Hegseth said. “We’re for the war fighters. We’re for the president. And none of this is based in reality.”

Hegseth characterized the plans that were shared in the Signal group chats as “informal, unclassified coordination” for what he said was “media coordination of events.”

He also said he was reestablishing “standards and accountability” at the Pentagon.

“The warfighters are behind us. Our enemies know they are on notice,” Hegseth said. “Our allies know we are behind them, and that, in this dangerous world, for the American people, is what it is all about.”

The New York Times first reported the details of the second Signal group chat, which included flight schedules for the warplanes involved in the March operation, and reported that Hegseth used his personal phone.

Hegseth shifted the blame to “disgruntled former employees” while speaking to reporters in a defiant display Monday at the White House Easter Egg Roll event.

“They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations,” Hegseth said. “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.”

Hegseth’s job appears safe for now after Trump continues to stand by him and dismissed the report.

“It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories,” Trump said Monday. “I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees. He was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people and that’s what he’s doing so you don’t always have friends when you do that.”

The embattled defense secretary’s denial follows explosive claims by a recently resigned Pentagon aide that the department is experiencing a “full-blown meltdown” under his leadership. John Ullyot, who resigned last week as a Pentagon spokesperson, described a month of “total chaos” under Hegseth.

Chaos inside the Pentagon “is now a major distraction for the president,” Ullyot wrote in the scathing Politico op-ed.

“President Donald Trump has a strong record of holding his officials to account,” Ullyot said. “Given that, it’s hard to see Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth remaining in his position for much longer.”

While Democrats bolted out of the gate to call for Hegseth’s resignation, Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon became the first House Republican to suggest that Trump should fire Hegseth.

Bacon pointed out that “if a Democrat did this, we’d be demanding a scalp” in stern words to Politico.

“The military should always pride itself on operational security. If the reports are true, the Secretary of Defense has failed at operational security, and that is unacceptable,” Bacon, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, also told Axios.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a swift denial of an NPR report Monday claiming that a search is underway to replace Hegseth following the second Signal chat fiasco.

She called the NPR report “total FAKE NEWS based on one anonymous source who clearly has no idea what they are talking about.”

It emerged last month that Hegseth texted sensitive war plans involving a wave of U.S. air strikes in Yemen in a Signal chat called “Houthi PC small group” that inadvertently included The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. The chat was created by Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz.