Americans think some officials should resign over Signal chat blunder

The majority of Americans say Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should resign after a journalist was inadvertently added to a Signal group chat discussing upcoming airstrikes on the Houthis in Yemen earlier this month.

A 54% majority of Americans think he should resign, while 22% think he’s fine to stay in his position and 24% weren’t sure, according to the J.L Partners poll for DailyMail.com.

More Republicans, 38%, think he should resign than those that don’t, 33%.

A majority of independent voters, 54%, also think he should resign, while 20% think he should not.

A little less than half of voters, 47%, said National Security Adviser Mike Waltz should resign from his role in the incident. It was his number that added the journalist to the group. Only 21% said he should stay. A third of Republicans, 33%, said Mr. Waltz should resign and 32% said he should stay.

The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, found himself added to a group chat on the encrypted message app Signal and observed messages from top administration officials including Mr. Waltz, Mr. Hegseth, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard discussing the airstrikes before they took place on March 15.

Messages from the chats discussed the timing of the airstrikes on Houthi rebels, which were revealed in a second Atlantic report.

At 12:15 p.m. ET, Mr. Hegseth texted, “F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package).”

Another message said: “1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”

He also said: “1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”

The administration maintains that there were no war plans or classified information discussed in the chats. President Trump has said the media has exaggerated the incident.

Mr. Waltz said he took “full responsibility” for the blunder but also argued no valuable information was revealed.

“No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent. BOTTOM LINE: President Trump is protecting America and our interests,” he wrote on X.

Mr. Hegseth has made the same argument. “Nobody is texting war plans,” he said.

Ms. Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe were grilled about the incident in Congress during national security hearings. Ms. Gabbard acknowledged it was a “mistake” that a journalist was added but refused to characterize the information disclosed as classified.

Democrats railed against the administration for not taking more responsibility. During a House hearing Wednesday Rep. Jim Hines, Connecticut Democrat and ranking member of the panel, scolded administration officials for blaming Mr. Goldberg instead of taking responsibility for the inadvertent leak of military operations.

“There’s only one response to a mistake of this magnitude: You apologize, you own it, and you stop everything until you can figure out what went wrong and how it might not ever happen again,” Mr. Himes told Ms. Gabbard and Mr. Ratcliffe. “That’s not what happened.”