Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) suggested Monday that Pete Hegseth should be fired as secretary of defense, reportedly becoming the first GOP House member to advocate for his ouster.
NPR wrote Monday that the White House was already searching for a replacement after it was reported that Hegseth again shared classified information with outsiders on an imminent military attack in Yemen. The group chat, allegedly the second on Signal that breached security protocol, included Hegseth’s wife, brother and lawyer.
“If the reports are true, the secretary of defense has failed at operational security, and that is unacceptable,” Bacon told Axios. “If a Democrat did this we’d be demanding a scalp. We should be Americans first when it comes to security.”
Bacon’s declaration would seem to put him at odds with President Donald Trump, who earlier dismissed concerns and the report of Hegseth’s second Signal briefing.
“He’s doing a great job. It’s just fake news,” Trump said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the anonymously sourced NPR report “total FAKE NEWS.”
But Bacon, a House Armed Services Committee member, appeared to directly urge Trump to can Hegseth in a separate interview with Politico.
“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 said.
