Congressman Seth Moulton (D-MA) called for Pete Hegseth's removal on "Forbes Newsroom" after new reporting showed the defense secretary shared details about an imminent attack on the Houthis in Yemen with his wife, brother and lawyer in a Signal group chat.
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00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes.
00:06Joining me now is Congressman Seth Moulton. Congressman, thank you so much for joining me.
00:11It's good to be back. Thanks for having me. News of a second signal scandal broke over the weekend
00:17last month in a chat that included his wife, his brother and lawyer. Defense Secretary Pete
00:23Hegseth reportedly shared details about an upcoming attack on the Houthis in Yemen.
00:27To start off this conversation, what's your reaction to this new signal story?
00:33Well, first of all, I'm not surprised. As someone who can't be trusted once,
00:37can't be trusted a lot. And just in the same way that this guy can't be trusted in all aspects of
00:43his personal life, he's professionally totally untrustworthy, completely unqualified to do this
00:49job. And he himself has become a danger to the national security of the United States.
00:55This is very serious. I want to talk about the differences here between the first signal gate
01:01and this story, because National Security Advisor Michael Waltz last time inadvertently added the
01:08Atlantic's editor to the chat. This was a completely different chat. It reportedly was made before Pete
01:13Hegseth was confirmed. It included his family members as well as his lawyers. What are your
01:18thoughts on the difference here? I mean, it seems a lot worse, but the bottom line is that both are
01:25completely illegal. By the Department of Defense's own classification guidance, the details Secretary
01:32Hegseth shared are classified. And actually, they're classified top secret. Now, it's illegal even to share
01:39what's called sensitive but unclassified information on a signal chat. It's an unsecure platform. And it
01:47often exists on personal phones that can be hacked by our adversaries. In fact, some of their top targets
01:52are people like Pete Hegseth and his associates. So this is dangerous. It's illegal, no matter who you're
02:01talking to. And it's especially dangerous, because the top secret information he shared could be used
02:08by our adversaries to shoot down our own pilots.
02:12Pete Hegseth tried to tamp down concerns today at the White House's Easter egg roll. He said to
02:18reporters essentially that this was an old story. He blamed the media. He said that the media is taking
02:24quote, anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn
02:29people and ruin their reputations. Not going to work with me because we're changing the Defense
02:34Department. He didn't deny what happened though. What's your thoughts on how he characterized it?
02:39You learn in the military. I remember this from day one of Marine training is that integrity matters
02:45above all else. So you might drop out of a run and they'll let you try again. You might fail a test
02:49and you can take it again. But if you lie about anything in the Marine Corps, you're going home
02:54that afternoon. Well, Hegseth continues to lie about this. He's not taking accountability for
03:01his own actions. And as a result, he cannot be trusted. He's clearly not trusted by his own
03:08closest advisors. What do you think the troops think about him? Well, I know because I've heard
03:13from a lot of them that they are disgusted by this behavior from the top person in the Pentagon
03:18because they know that they would be fired in a heartbeat, probably prosecuted criminally
03:25if they did what the Secretary of Defense has done and is now lying about himself.
03:32What do troops abroad think about him? I think we're all curious about that because
03:36they're abroad, they're serving this country, and they're seeing the Secretary of Defense,
03:42their top boss there, sharing these sensitive details on separate group chats.
03:47One group chat that includes his family members, what are they thinking? Do they feel safe right
03:51now in their jobs? No, a lot of them do not. I've heard from active duty troops I've never heard
03:57before on an issue like this that's in the political discussion. They are disgusted. They know they can't
04:04trust him. They know they can't enforce these own rules, or at least they're gonna have difficulty
04:08doing so with their own troops. Because the top person in the Pentagon, the person who's supposed to
04:14lead by example, the person who's demanding accountability from his organization, but refuses
04:19to take accountability for his own illegal behavior, just cannot be trusted. I can't tell you just how
04:27frightening it is to be in a situation where you're putting your life on the line, and you can't trust
04:33the people above you. I remember what that feels like on the ground in Iraq, when people in Washington
04:40were making decisions completely out of touch with reality, with the reality that we faced on the
04:46ground in that war. It's an incredibly disheartening feeling. And even at that time, though, we didn't
04:52have a Secretary of Defense who was this incompetent. We didn't have a Secretary of Defense, even though I
04:58disagreed with many of the things they were doing, who just lied through his teeth and was completely
05:02untrusted by even his closest advisors. I don't think we've ever had a situation like this before
05:09in American history. And it's incredibly dangerous for our national security. We all know we can't
05:15trust Hegseth. That means our allies don't respect him and can't trust him. That means our adversaries,
05:21our enemies around the globe, don't respect him and don't trust his resolve. And worst of all,
05:28it means our own troops cannot trust him with their lives. I'm curious what you think our enemies
05:36specifically are thinking right now, because this is what White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt
05:40said today. This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against
05:46the monumental change you are trying to implement. And that quote sounds like some in the Trump
05:50administration are at war with the government they've run. And this approach arguably helped them
05:55win when they were campaigning. But now they're running the government here. So what type of
05:59message is this sending to the enemies abroad, as well as our enlisted men and women abroad too?
06:05It shows that the top people in the Trump administration know absolutely nothing about
06:11leadership. And what the message that it's sending to our adversaries abroad is that this is a good time
06:17to think about taking advantage of the United States. There's chaos at the top of the Pentagon,
06:22as admitted by some of Hegseth's own closest advisors. Our troops know that they can't trust
06:28their leadership. This is a recipe for American military disaster. And it's an invitation to our
06:36adversaries to take advantage of us now. John Elliott is a former DOD spokesperson. He recently resigned.
06:43As you said, he is an admitted Hegseth backer. He wrote an op-ed entitled,
06:48Pete Hegseth is the best choice to reform the Pentagon. He wrote that in December. This weekend,
06:53this is what he penned in Politico. Quote, it's been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon from
06:58leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings. The dysfunction is now a major distraction
07:03for the president, who deserves better from his senior leadership. He's describing, as you said,
07:08this chaos at the Pentagon. Senior leaders, including Hegseth's own chief of staff are also out.
07:13Do these concerns, are you hearing them from the Pentagon? Are people that you're talking to at
07:18the Pentagon painting the same picture? Yes. We hear them a lot on Capitol Hill. They're heard
07:25by Democrats and Republicans. And what Democrats are saying publicly and Republicans are saying
07:31privately is that Hegseth needs to resign. And if Trump has an ounce of leadership and accountability
07:39in himself, he should just fire the secretary of defense immediately.
07:44How loud are those Republican calls to have him resign or have him leave, at least privately?
07:50Because Congressman Don Bacon, he appears to be the first Republican now to publicly call this
07:58situation unacceptable. He told Politico if it were up to him, he wouldn't tolerate it. And he said,
08:03there's a lot, a lot of smoke that's come out of the Pentagon. And I got to believe there's some
08:07fire somewhere. He also said Hegseth is acting like he's above the law, and that shows an amateur
08:12person. So you're saying that this is consistent with what Republicans are saying privately. Do you
08:17think what Don Bacon's saying now, do you think that's going to open a dam of Republicans now
08:22saying it publicly?
08:25I think that Congressman Don Bacon, former General Don Bacon, is the only Republican on Capitol Hill right
08:32now with an ounce of courage. And I give him a lot of credit for that. But the reality is that I don't
08:38see other Republicans following him. These other Republicans are just acting like cowards right now,
08:46unwilling to stand up to their own administration in the name of our troops for the sake of our national
08:53security, for the sake of upholding the oath to the Constitution that they all swore. It's a shameful
09:01time for the Republican Party right now in Washington. Congratulations to Don Bacon. But we need to see
09:07a lot more Republicans follow his lead. You're saying you have grave concerns when it comes to
09:13national security. You're seeing attack plans shared on Signal with family members, with people who don't
09:18need those imminent operational plans. You see this shakeup at the Pentagon, someone who just a few
09:24months ago was an ardent supporter of Hegseth now calling for him to be let go. What are specifically
09:30those concerns when it comes to national security? Well, let's just detail this. A well-worn adversary
09:37tactic to get at our top leaders is to get at their family members or close associates. And if our top
09:44leaders are so dumb and so irresponsible to share confidential, or in this case, absolutely top
09:52secret information with their family members, it's going to be pretty easy for adversaries like Russia
09:59and China to hack into that information. And it's actually quite remarkable that they just got so
10:05lucky that this targeting information wasn't captured by an enemy and shared with the Houthis on the ground
10:12who have anti-aircraft capabilities. They've already been shooting down our drones, much smaller targets
10:17than F-18 fighter jets. It's so lucky that they didn't get that information in time to target our brave
10:25American pilots. Pilots who show amazing bravery and have incredible accountability every day of their
10:34lives in stark contrast to their leader at the top of the Pentagon. It's amazing that they're still alive
10:40today because that information wasn't shared with the enemy in time. You want Hegseth out. You either want
10:47him to resign or President Trump to fire him. And I don't think it's going to take just Democrats
10:53calling for that, for that to actually happen. What do you think needs to happen then? Do you think
10:58if there's enough Republican voices, he's out? I mean, what are the next steps here for you?
11:03I mean, look, the definition of political courage is standing up to your own party.
11:07When Secretary Austin made a serious but much more minor mistake in comparison, when he didn't tell
11:14the president and other close associates about his own surgery, I didn't hesitate. I was asked,
11:21what do you think President Biden should do? And I said he should fire him.
11:25We need Republicans to have the courage to do the same thing, to be willing to stand up to Trump when
11:30they know he's wrong, when they know the secretary is wrong, and when they know they're putting American
11:35lives in danger by his continued service at the top of the Pentagon. Get Hegseth out. It's the right
11:41thing to do for our troops. It's the right thing to do for our country. It's the right thing to do for
11:46our national security to keep all of us safe. And you're a veteran. You said it's a really scary
11:52time when you're on the ground and you think that the decisions being made in Washington are out of
11:57touch. Let's say Hegseth goes. Who would you want to see replace him?
12:04Well, the irony here is that there are literally hundreds of people more qualified than Pete Hegseth to
12:10take this job because he's the most unqualified secretary of defense in history. He had the
12:15tightest confirmation vote of any secretary of defense in history. So we want to see the best
12:21person for the job. But there are actually a lot of people who could do it better than Pete Hegseth.
12:27Congressman Seth Moulton, I appreciate you as always. Thank you for joining me.
12:31Good to see you.
12:40Good to see you.