Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday sent a clear message to leakers in the Pentagon. He suggested that those who gave internal information to the media could be subject to prosecution.
Hegseth’s comments came during a wide-ranging interview on “Fox and Friends” with host Brian Kilmeade. During the conversation, Hegseth discussed the seeming flood of leaks coming from the Pentagon, which Democrats and the media have used against him and President Donald Trump.
Hegseth defended his leadership and condemned the leaks as efforts to sabotage the Trump administration’s agenda. He stressed that leaked messages shared via messaging app Signal were “informal, unclassified coordinations for media coordination and other things.”
The defense secretary further stated, “We take the classification of information, very important.”
Hegseth confirmed that several senior staffers had been fired because they were suspected of leaking information. “It was the result of an investigation … sufficient evidence to believe that they or others near them were party to leaking,” he said.
The secretary alleged that the staffers who lost their jobs were retaliating by slamming him in the press. “Disgruntled former employees are peddling things to try to save their ass,” he told Kilmeade.
The secretary further explained that the leaks are still under investigation and that the DoD could refer the matter to the Department of Justice. “When that evidence is gathered sufficiently … those people will be prosecuted, if necessary,” he said.
Kilmeade asked Hegseth about former spokesperson John Ullyot, who penned an op-ed for Politico criticizing the secretary’s leadership and claimed the Defense Department was operating in chaos. “Anybody that knows John knows why we let him go,” Hegseth said.
He added: “We did a lot of favors for John … Now, he’s misrepresented a lot of things in the press. It’s unfortunate.”
Hegseth said his team “tried to help” Ullyot, but “He’s spinning it otherwise. It’s too bad. It’s politics, I guess.”
The secretary further addressed the overall resistance to President Trump inside and outside of the Pentagon. “They’ve come after me from day one, just like they’ve come after President Trump,” he said. But Hegseth said he remains undeterred in fulfilling his mission. “I’m here because President Trump asked me to bring warfighting back to the Pentagon every single day,” he insisted.
The secretary cited several policy wins, such as confronting China, rebuilding border security, and removing DEI programs from the Defense Department.
Kilmeade asked whether Hegseth regretted taking the job with all the controversies coming his way. “Oh, not for a minute,” Hegseth declared. “When warfighting and lethality is brought back … young people want to come back in.”
Sec Def Pete Hegseth is the man for the job period and President Trump agrees.
— intheMatrixxx (@intheMatrixxx) April 22, 2025
Stop listening to the Panicans. pic.twitter.com/O3hH2bVNRk
Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll, and Darin Selnick, who were fired for leaking, put out a joint statement on X in which they expressed their disappointment.
We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended. Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door. All three of us served our country honorably in uniform - for two of us, this included deployments to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And, based on our collective service, we understand the importance of information security and worked every day to protect it. At this time, we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of “leaks” to begin with. While this experience has been unconscionable, we remain supportive of the Trump-Vance Administration’s mission to make the Pentagon great again and achieve peace through strength. We hope in the future to support those efforts in different capacities.
Joint statement from Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll, and Darin Selnick:
— Dan Caldwell 🇺🇸 (@dandcaldwell) April 19, 2025
We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended. Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door. All…
Meanwhile, Democrats are making as much use of the controversies as possible. Several Democratic lawmakers have called for Hegseth to resign. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) became the first Republican to call for the defense secretary’s firing during an interview with Politico.
“If it’s true that he had another [Signal] chat with his family, about the missions against the Houthis, it’s totally unacceptable,” Bacon said, referring to a New York Times report suggesting that Hegseth shared sensitive information with family members.
Still, President Trump has stood by Hegseth and expressed confidence in his ability to do his job. The administration recently squashed an NPR report claiming that the president is looking to replace Hegseth, calling it “fake news.”