Pete Hegseth has faced harsh rebukes from critics since before he became the secretary of defense, but now the entire internet is roasting him for accidentally including an Atlantic reporter in a group chat where he was discussing plans for the United States to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen.
The former Fox News host and current head of the Pentagon wrote about weapons, targets, and timing of the Yemen attack in a group chat on Signal — a commercially available encrypted messaging platform — that also included Vice President JD Vance, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, former Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, billionaire hedge fund manager-turned-Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, plus 13 more key figures, including national security advisor Michael Walz, who was the one who sent the Signal invitation to The Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, the New York Times reports.
The information shared was so priviledged that The Atlantic decided not to publish some of the content of the group chat in their scathing exposé because it posed a risk to servicemen and operations within the Middle East.
The blunder was so big that today, Trump’s top national security officials, including Hegseth, Ratcliffe, and Gabbard, were brought before a Senate Intelligence Committee today to answer questions about why classified information about the plans to bomb Yemen was shared in the group chat.
Not only did people sprint to X (formerly Twitter) to compare sharing the country’s war plans in a group chat to an episode of Veep or posting that the incident is "like Watergate, only in this version Nixon directly mails the tapes to Woodward and Bernstein,” but it also prompted Democratic politicians to get in on the action. Hillary Clinton, who was harshly criticized by Republicans for using a private email server for State Department business, posted a screenshot from The Atlantic article with the caption “You’ve got to be kidding me,” and Tim Walz joked on X, ”Pete Hegseth texting out war plans like invites to a frat party."
Keep scrolling to see the funniest reactions to Pete Hegseth's big national security mistake!
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"You have got to be kidding me."
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"Pete Hegseth texting out war plans like invites to a frat party."
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"there's a reporter in the group chat"
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"Pete Hegseth after sending war plans to a reporter"
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"It’s like Watergate, only in this version Nixon directly mails the tapes to Woodward and Bernstein"
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"In a perfect world, the town drunk and the Secretary of Defense would be two different people."
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"Possibly my favourite #SignalGate meme so far"
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"Ladies and gents, it's time for some "Houthi PC small group" memes!"
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"Me in the group chat for top secret air strikes"
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"Girls groupchat names: 'The Girlies'
Boys groupchat names:"
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"Circling back on this…"
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"Only took 3 days for this to age like milk"
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"Me in the group chat with Pete Hegseth"
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"Lurking in the chat like"
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"People are now referring to Pete Hegseth as “WhiskiLeaks” and I’m kinda pissed that I didn’t think of it first."
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"biggest 'more Veep than House of Cards' moment i've ever seen"
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"dance like no one is watching
text like the editor of the Atlantic was accidentally added to the group chat and is reading everything"
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"me reading national security secrets bc i've been accidentally added to a group chat"
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"Your in her DM's He's adding me to national security group chats"
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"Here are the secret war plans of the United States. Reply STOP to opt out of these texts."
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"Pete Hegseth’s morning routine just dropped."
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"Jeff Goldberg better than me tho bc I would have stayed on that chain until Jan 2029"
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"Big day for the BuT HeR EmAiLs folks."
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"Pete Hegseth is messy."