Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) slammed Defense Secretary Don Bacon and said President Donald Trump should fire him after a series of negative news reports.
During an interview with Politico, the lawmaker claimed the Department of Defense is in “chaos” under Hegseth’s leadership, an argument former DoD official John Ullyot made in a recent op-ed.
“I had concerns from the get-go because Pete Hegseth didn’t have a lot of experience,” Bacon, a former Air Force general who now chairs the subcommittee on cyber issues, said in an interview. “I like him on Fox. But does he have the experience to lead one of the largest organizations in the world? That’s a concern.”
The Nebraska lawmaker also said that while he didn’t feel it was his place to call on Hegseth to resign, he wouldn’t stand for Hegseth’s mismanagement were he the occupant of the Oval Office.
“If it’s true that he had another [Signal] chat with his family, about the missions against the Houthis, it’s totally unacceptable,” said Bacon, referring to the New York Times report that Hegseth shared sensitive information about military operations in Yemen in a private chat on the Signal app that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer. It’s the second report of administration officials using an unclassified messaging platform to share sensitive information.
“I’m not in the White House, and I’m not going to tell the White House how to manage this … but I find it unacceptable, and I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge,” Bacon continued.
Bacon further pointed out that America’s enemies, including Russia and China, “put up thousands of people to monitor all these phone calls at the very top, and the No. 1 target besides the president … would be the secretary of Defense.”
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“[A]nd for him to be putting secret stuff on his phone is not right. He’s acting like he’s above the law – and that shows an amateur person,” Bacon continued.
Ullyot, in his op-ed, claimed the Defense Department “is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership” and that “The last month has been a full-blown meltdown at the Pentagon – and it’s becoming a real problem for the administration.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly defended Hegseth – even after the first Signalgate fiasco. Nevertheless, NPR published a report on Monday claiming the president is looking to replace the defense secretary. The problem is that this piece relied on comments from one anonymous source with no supporting evidence or statements from other White House officials.
Additionally, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt put out a statement claiming NPR’s story was “total FAKE NEWS” and that Trump “stands strongly behind” Hegseth.
This @NPR story is total FAKE NEWS based on one anonymous source who clearly has no idea what they are talking about.
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) April 21, 2025
As the President said this morning, he stands strongly behind @SecDef. https://t.co/5Npig8968v
At this point, it is difficult to make sense of this tangled web of claims coming from the media, former officials, and the White House. While hiccups can be expected – especially since Hegseth does not have experience leading a military – nothing so far appears to be a smoking gun against him.
If he did discuss the Houthi bombing in another Signal chat with two DoD officials, it’s not a great look, but it’s also not damning either. It is not as if he went to random strangers and spilled the details of the airstrike.
If anything, this controversy tells us that perhaps Signal isn’t the best app for these discussions. Hegseth and his team were not the first to use the app – they explained that this also happened under the Biden administration, so it won’t be that easy for the media to make a big deal of this. If this is the worst of it, I’d say Hegseth is in the clear.
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