Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s defense of his accidental leak of classified war plans has sparked more outrage than resolution, as lawmakers and national security experts raise alarm over the Trump administration’s handling of sensitive military operations.
Hegseth responded to The Atlantic‘s report that he had inadvertently shared top-secret defense plans with a journalist in a Signal group chat by lashing out at the outlet’s editor-in-chief, calling him “deceitful.” But critics say the problem goes far beyond the press.
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Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a former Navy combat pilot, appeared on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 Monday night to share his disbelief at the incident and the broader implications it reveals about the Trump administration’s security practices.
“I don’t know anybody on the Intelligence Committee here that I serve on that would have done anything close to this kind of conversation,” Kelly said, referring to the use of Signal—a civilian encrypted messaging app—to discuss classified military operations.
Cooper noted that Republican leaders have largely downplayed the incident. “Speaker Johnson downplayed this. He said that they’ll tighten up,” Cooper said. “It doesn’t seem like there’s much — publicly at least — outrage by your Republican colleagues. Obviously, if this was a Democratic administration and this had been Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or anybody else, it would have been a different tune. Are you surprised? Do you expect any kind of hearings here?”
Kelly confirmed that the topic would indeed come up soon. “Well, Anderson, we have a hearing tomorrow, an open hearing about worldwide threats on the Senate Intelligence Committee. And I can guarantee you that this topic is going to come up tomorrow in an open hearing,” he said.
When Cooper asked whether the CIA director would be present, Kelly responded, “CIA director will be there. He was one of the individuals on this text chain.”
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Kelly expressed further concern about the casual tone of the conversation. “It was almost like they were deciding to order a pizza,” he said. “It’s not the kind of conversation you would expect between the principals when they’re deciding to commit troops to combat in a foreign country.”
He added, “I was pretty shocked… not only that this was done on Signal, but also just shocked about the lack of depth in the discussion before sending our Navy pilots over the beach to drop bombs where there is a significant threat.”
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