BURSTSen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) said late Wednesday that calls for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to resign after he shared attack plans in a Signal group chat that included a journalist are “ridiculous.”
Schmitt was asked Fox News’s Laura Ingraham on “The Ingraham Angle,” about revelations by The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, that he was added to a group chat that included a plan to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“They didn’t want Pete Hegseth to have this position in the first place. By the way, that was the question I was asked mostly by these liberal reporters, ‘should Pete Hegseth resign?’” Schmitt said. “It’s ridiculous.”
Schmitt also reiterated a point made by national security adviser Mike Waltz, who created the group chat. They both admitted there was a mistake made, but downplayed the significance of sharing the plan over the messaging app.
“We ought to stand together here and make sure that we understand this was a mistake. It shouldn’t happen again,” Schmitt said.
“But they were successful,” he said of the Trump officials who planned the attack.
The release of the messages in the group has sparked widespread shock about the top Trump administration officials not only inadvertently adding a reporter to the chat, but using the messaging app to share attack plans.
Hegseth has claimed that no war plans were ever shared, prompting The Atlantic to release screenshots in which the Defense secretary messaged about timing, location and weapons used against the Houthis.
Democrats have quickly criticized the administration, with several calling for investigations into the incident. Many have called for Hegseth and Waltz to resign.
Schmitt, however, accused Democrats of blowing the incident out of proportion.
“It was a mistake, right? But ultimately the outcome, as President Trump said, was very successful,” Schmitt said. “This wasn’t confidential or top-secret information. It was a policy discussion.”