President Trump offered his full support to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a phone call on Sunday night, just hours after The New York Times reported that Mr. Hegseth had shared details about military strikes in a Signal group chat, a person briefed on the call said.
Mr. Hegseth called the president around 8 p.m., said the person, who asked for anonymity to discuss a private conversation. The president told Mr. Hegseth that disgruntled “leakers” were to blame for the report and made clear that he had Mr. Hegseth’s back. The president also said he had plenty of experience dealing with leakers.
Mr. Trump then instructed his team to publicly defend Mr. Hegseth.
On Monday morning, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, went on “Fox & Friends,” the show Mr. Hegseth previously hosted.
She insisted that Mr. Hegseth had not shared classified information in the chat. The Times reported that he had shared sensitive details about the Pentagon’s attack plans against the Houthis in Yemen in a chat last month, before the attack. The group of people in that chat, which was created for strategizing about Mr. Hegseth’s nomination, included the defense secretary’s wife, brother and personal lawyer.
“This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and the monumental change that you are trying to implement,” Ms. Leavitt told the Fox News host Brian Kilmeade. She also blamed The Times report on “leakers.”
The decision to close ranks around Mr. Hegseth comes as Mr. Trump has so far been unwilling to fire any of his top officials, no matter what headlines they generate — a marked change from his first administration.
Mr. Hegseth had previously been criticized for sharing details of active military operations on a Signal chat that was created by the national security adviser Michael Waltz. On that group chat, Mr. Waltz mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg.
Also on Sunday night, Politico published an extraordinary opinion essay by Mr. Hegseth’s recently departed spokesman, John Ullyot, in which he said that the Pentagon “is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership.”
Aishvarya Kavi contributed reporting.
