Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Gov. J.B. Pritzker have both called on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to resign after a reporter was included in a text chain detailing plans for an offensive strike against Yemen.
Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg was reportedly included in that chain, in which several key figures in the Trump administration detailed plans for strikes against Yemen before they were carried out earlier this month.
Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard were all reportedly included in the chain, according to NBC News, which was conducted on the encrypted messaging app Signal.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe was on the chain, as was National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who reportedly sent the invitation to Goldberg.
The text chain has been roundly criticized by Democrats, but both Duckworth and Pritzker have gone a step further, calling on Hegseth to either be fired by President Donald Trump or to resign.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart, Duckworth called the incident an “egregious national security failure” and that every official in the chat should be fired or resign.
“The fact that every single one of those people on [the group chat] was okay with using this non-classified product for multiple days to conduct their war plans shows a complete lack of professionalism and oversight by the people on there,” Duckworth said. “In fact, every one of those people should be fired. They should resign. Pete Hegseth is the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in history, and he is further demonstrating that by actually uploading classified war plans onto an unclassified network. It puts our men and women in uniform in jeopardy.”
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Pritzker echoed similar sentiments in an interview with MSNBC’s Jen Psaki.
“Our national security (is) being compromised because they’re using a texting app, because they’re sending plans about how they’re going to attack the Houthis abroad,” he said. “If someone had been on that chain that hadn’t been a patriotic American like Jeffrey Goldberg, if someone who had wanted to get something out of that chain, it would’ve gone abroad. It would’ve been broadcast to other people. The Houthis would’ve known our soldiers, our pilots, were coming, and their lives would have been lost.”
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Pritzker said Hegseth is “unqualified” to be defense secretary, and that he should be removed from his post.
Trump has expressed “utmost confidence” in Waltz and the rest of his national security team according to spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.
Hegseth reacted for the first time to the news Monday, disparaging Goldberg and insisting that war plans were not discussed.
“Nobody was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth said. “You’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.”
The National Security Council has said the text chain “appears to be authentic,” and Goldberg published screengrabs of messages within the chat in his reporting.
“At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” a spokesperson said. “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our servicemembers or our national security.”
The material in the text chain “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” Goldberg reported.
Goldberg originally disbelieved that the chat was authentic, but once he realized it was, he left.
It was not clear if the specifics of the operation were classified, but they typically are and are kept secret to protect service members and the security of the operation.
Just two hours after he received the details, the U.S. began their airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
