Trump supports Hegseth following the sharing of assault plans in the second Signal communication, according to the White House

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Monday that President Donald Trump supports U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, following revelations that he communicated information about a March attack on Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis in a chat group with his wife, brother, and personal attorney.

The disclosures that Hegseth shared extremely sensitive security information for the second time over the unclassified texting technology Signal come at a difficult time for him, as senior officials were removed from the Pentagon last week as part of an internal leak inquiry.

The president has complete faith in Secretary Hegseth. Leavitt told reporters on Monday, “I talked to him about it this morning, and he supports him.”

According to Reuters on Sunday, Hegseth gave details of the attack in the second chat that were similar to those made public by The Atlantic magazine last month after Jeffrey Goldberg, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, was inadvertently included in a different communication on the Signal app.

About a dozen persons participated in the second conversation, which was made during Hegseth’s confirmation process to talk about administrative matters rather than specific military preparations. Hegseth’s brother, a liaison to the Pentagon from the Department of Homeland Security, was one of them.

Hegseth did not divulge any classified material on either Signal chat, according to Leavitt.

On Monday, Hegseth told reporters at the White House, “I have spoken to the president, and we are going to continue fighting on the same page all the way.”

The most recent disclosure follows the escort of Hegseth’s top advisor, Dan Caldwell, from the Pentagon following his identification during a Department of Defense leak inquiry.

Hegseth relied heavily on Caldwell, who was designated by the secretary in the first Signal chat as the lead person for the Pentagon.

Caldwell wrote on X on Saturday, “We are deeply disappointed by the way our service at the Department of Defense ended.” “Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.”

Less senior officials Colin Carroll, the chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg, and Darin Selnick, who recently took over as Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff, were placed on administrative leave and dismissed on Friday after Caldwell’s departure.