Democrats call for resignations as Trump officials downplay Signal chat security breach

WASHINGTON — Democrats escalated their calls Wednesday for top Trump administration officials to resign or be fired for their part in a stunning national security breach, after the Atlantic published more of the detailed military strike plans those officials discussed on the Signal messaging app.

President Trump and several top officials on that text chain — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — had spent much of Tuesday downplaying the security breach, suggesting the information shared was not classified.

Hegseth and other White House officials — including Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt — had gone so far as to suggest the whole thing was a “hoax” spread by Atlantic Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who had inadvertently been included in the chat and broke the story Monday.

But on Wednesday, Goldberg and Atlantic reporter Shane Harris published a second article, which included the portions of the chat Goldberg had previously withheld showing the military attack plans that Hegseth had shared with the 18-member group. Those plans detailed the weapon systems, timing and sequence of strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, hours before they occurred.

“Just CONFIRMED w/ CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch,” Hegseth wrote, referring to Central Command, the military’s Middle East combatant command, the Atlantic reported.

“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package),” the message continued. “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).”

F-18s are strike aircraft. MQ-9s are Reaper drones.

“1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package),” the message continued.

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

“1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”

“If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests — or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media — the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds,” Goldberg and Harris wrote. “The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.”

Hegseth, a former Army National Guard major and co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend” who has been criticized by Democrats as wildly inexperienced for the secretary post, took to X on Wednesday morning to again deny that the information he’d shared was classified.

“No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information. Those are some really s— war plans,” he said, before adding, “We will continue to do our job, while the media does what it does best: peddle hoaxes.”

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress were apoplectic.

“The Signal incident is what happens when you have the most unqualified Secretary of Defense we’ve ever seen,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired astronaut and naval officer, wrote on X. “We’re lucky it didn’t cost any servicemembers their lives, but for the safety of our military and our country, Secretary Hegseth needs to resign.”

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, also called for resignations.

“In the text chain, Hegseth invited additional thoughts. Here’s one: You didn’t enforce 100% [operational security] — far from it — and you should resign,” Schiff wrote on X Wednesday.

The evening prior, Schiff had posted a video to X in which he referred to the incident as “Signalgate” and called it a “colossal f— up.”

He demanded a rack of Trump administration officials resign or be fired: Hegseth for “sharing these detailed war plans,” Ratcliffe for downplaying the severity of the breach, Gabbard for not understanding the “sensitive nature of this information,” and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, for being a “moron” and allegedly engaging in the chat while in Russia, an adversary with robust spying capabilities.

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Schiff predicted that Trump and his top officials “will lie, they will obfuscate, they will attack anyone critical of them,” and Republicans in Congress will simply “run for cover.”

During Wednesday’s briefing, Leavitt repeatedly characterized the military strikes in question as successful, and blamed former President Biden for not sufficiently attacking the Houthis when he was in office.

She cast the media’s focus on the Signal chat as a grossly overblown distraction, saying, “We are not going to bend in the face of this insincere outrage.”

Leavitt also defended Witkoff specifically, dismissing the idea that he had endangered sensitive information in Russia and calling reporting that he had used personal devices to engage in the Signal chat while there “false.”

She said Witkoff was using a “classified, protected server” in the country and was “very careful about his communications” there.

Trump, who was not on the Signal chat, said before Wednesday’s revelations that the lapse “turned out not to be a serious one,” and defended those involved, including national security advisor Mike Waltz, who has been blamed for adding Goldberg to the chat.

After the latest Atlantic revelations, Trump called Democrats’ focus on the text chain a “witch hunt.”

In a Fox News interview Tuesday, Waltz could not explain how Goldberg had been added to the chat, and said he had spoken to billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk — Trump’s “efficiency” advisor — about an investigation.

“We’ve got the best technical minds looking at how this happened,” Waltz said.

However, Democrats were eager to get their own answers — including on Wednesday at a previously scheduled House Intelligence Committee hearing, where Gabbard and Ratcliffe were to provide a global threat assessment.

Gabbard, who at a Senate hearing Tuesday said she would not discuss the matter, on Wednesday called the text chain a “mistake” and said she was traveling during the time of the discussion.

At one point Wednesday, Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) got into a shouting match with Ratcliffe after asking whether Hegseth had been drinking alcohol before disclosing the attack plans. Prior to his Senate confirmation, Hegseth had faced accusations of alcohol abuse, which he denied.

“This is a question that is on the minds of every American,” Gomez said.

“I think that’s an offensive line of questioning,” Ratcliffe responded.

While Republicans tried to turn attention to other issues, Democrats repeatedly dragged the focus back to the Signal chat.

“I’m calling on the administration to move forward with accountability,” said Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) at the committee hearing.

Republican concern over the breach has been muffled.

Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican and former Air Force general, said the White House “is in denial that this was not classified or sensitive data” and “should just own up to it and preserve credibility.”

Among other criticisms, Democrats have blasted Trump officials — including Hegseth — for being hypocrites on the severity of the breach, citing their ardent support in the past for repercussions for Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the 2016 presidential election, after it was revealed that she had used a private server to send work emails as secretary of State under President Obama.

Republicans have suggested Democrats are the hypocrites.

“Democrats look ridiculous posing on the sanctity of secure communications after covering up for Hillary Clinton’s blatantly illegal server and her destruction of public records,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) posted on X.

Others have drawn comparisons between the assertion now that the attack plans were not classified because Hegseth said so — an idea experts have strongly questioned — and Trump’s contention that classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago property after his first term in the White House were no longer classified because he said they weren’t.

Trump had faced federal criminal charges for his retention of those documents and subsequent efforts to cover it up, but they were dropped by the Justice Department after his reelection in November.

Repeatedly on Wednesday, Democrats framed the assertion by Trump and others that the attack plans weren’t classified as another absurd lie.

At the House Intelligence hearing, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) addressed Gabbard, Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel directly, noting he has worked with all three in the past. “The idea that this information [that] was presented to our committee would not be classified, y’all know, is a lie. That’s ridiculous,” he said. “I’ve seen things much less sensitive be presented to us with high classification, and to say that it isn’t is a lie to the country.”

Afterward, Castro posted video of the exchange to X.

“I just questioned our nation’s top national security officials in the House Intelligence Committee hearing. They could not admit that the messages in their signal chat were classified. This is ridiculous, they know better, and they are lying to the American people,” he said. “Pete Hegseth must resign.”