A former Pentagon spokesperson says Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth has taken “no responsibility” for leaking war on a Signal chat.
“The problem here is that Pete Hegseth has taken no accountability,” said Chris Meagher, former Pentagon chief spokesperson under President Joe Biden, on CNN Sunday. He added, “He’s bashed the reporter. He’s called it a hoax. He’s done everything but say, ‘Hey, I made a mistake by putting this information in the Signal chat.‘”
On Monday, The Atlantic revealed that top Trump administration officials—including Hegseth—had discussed plans to bomb Yemen on a Signal chat that included the magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. Throughout the week, Trump has rebuffed calls from congressional Democrats to fire Hegseth, telling NBC on Sunday that he does not “fire people over fake news.”
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Meagher said that Hegseth had revealed “classified sensitive material about an operation hours before that operation took place into an unclassified setting, which is one of the biggest no-no’s at the Department of Defense.”
“If somebody like me did that,” Meagher added, “I’d be out on the sidewalk.”
CNN host Scott Jennings countered that Biden did not fire Pentagon staff after the disastrous withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and alleged that the “bar for firing people like this is really high from the last administration.”
Jennings called the Afghanistan withdrawal “a disaster” where “people died.” He added, “No accountability was meted out after the drone strike that vaporized those poor kids and that family. No accountability.”
Meagher bristled at the remarks, adding, “I don’t have a lot of time for that argument today, and neither do most Republicans.”
Meagher went on to note that former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had indeed taken responsibility for a drone strike that killed three American soldiers in Jordan.
“You mentioned Secretary Austin. He stood at the podium for an hour and took accountability, he asked for a 30-day review of the hospitalization,” said Meagher.
