Is US Defence Chief Pete Hegseth Stepping Down? White House Says This Amid Buzz

Last Updated:April 21, 2025, 23:38 IST

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the Public Radio story on the search was not true.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. (File)

Amid the buzz of US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth leaving the Trump administration, the White House on Monday refuted the claims that it has begun searching for a new defense secretary.

According to Public Radio (NPR) report, the Trump administration reportedly began looking for a new secretary of defense after Hegseth continued to face mounting controversy related to the leak of sensitive military information.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the Public Radio story on the search was not true.

“This ⁦@NPR story is total FAKE NEWS based on one anonymous source who clearly has no idea what they are talking about. As the President said this morning, he stands strongly behind ⁦@SecDef," she said in a post on X.

As per the reports, the Pentagon Chief shared information regarding planned attacks on Yemen to a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer.

The critical information was shared by the US Defence boss before the US launched military strikes on Yemen on March 15- raising questions about the use of Signal to share highly sensitive security details.

Earlier, a group chat from the unclassified messaging app in which Pete Hegseth shared critical details of the attack plans to other Trump administration officials was made public by Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg who had been accidentally added to the group where all of Donald Trump’s most senior national security officials.

Neither the White House nor Hegseth denied that he had shared such information in a second chat, instead focusing their responses on what they called the disgruntled workers whom they blamed for leaking to the media and insisting that no classified information had been disclosed.

Hegseth responding to the latest claims about sharing details in private family Signal group chat, said the allegations were part of a broader effort to damage his reputation.

Despite the claims, the White House has reaffirmed its support for Hegseth.

“It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories," President Donald Trump told reporters. “I guess it sounds like disgruntled employees. You know, 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," Trump said.

The White House also tried to deflect attention from the national security implications of the latest Signal revelation by framing it as the outgrowth of an institutional power struggle between Hegseth and the career workforce. But some of the recently departed officials the administration appeared to dismiss as disgruntled were part of Hegseth’s initial inner circle, brought in when he took the job.

“This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change that you are trying to implement," Leavitt said in remarks amplified by a Pentagon social media account.

(With inputs from agencies)

Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)

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