Trump live updates: Hegseth uses Easter egg roll event to blast reports he shared Houthi attack details in second Signal chat
Donald Trump is standing behind Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, after reports that he shared details of a March attack on Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis in a message group that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer.
The revelations that Hegseth used the unclassified messaging system Signal for a second time to share highly sensitive security details come at a delicate moment for him, with senior officials ousted from the Pentagon last week as part of an internal leak investigation into his earlier use of the app.
“The president stands strongly behind Secretary Hegseth, who is doing a phenomenal job leading the Pentagon,” Leavitt told Fox News. “And this is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change that you are trying to implement.”
Trump reiterated his support of Hegseth at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll event on the South Lawn calling the report “fake news.”
Hegseth shared details of the attack similar to those revealed last month by The Atlantic magazine after its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was mistakenly included in a separate chat on the Signal app, Reuters reported on Sunday.
