Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss how Republicans feel about Sec. Pete Hegseth, following the second Signal chat scandal.
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00:00John Elliott is a former DOD spokesperson. He recently resigned. As you said, he is an admitted Hegseth backer.
00:08He wrote an op-ed entitled, Pete Hegseth is the best choice to reform the Pentagon.
00:12He wrote that in December. This weekend, this is what he penned in Politico.
00:16Quote, it's been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon, from leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings.
00:23The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president, who deserves better from his senior leadership.
00:27He's describing, as you said, this chaos at the Pentagon. Senior leaders, including Hegseth's own chief of staff, are also out.
00:35Do these concerns, are you hearing them from the Pentagon? Are people that you're talking to at the Pentagon painting the same picture?
00:42Yes, we hear them a lot on Capitol Hill. They're heard by Democrats and Republicans.
00:48And what Democrats are saying publicly and Republicans are saying privately is that Hegseth needs to resign.
00:56And if Trump has an ounce of leadership and accountability in himself, he should just fire the Secretary of Defense immediately.
01:05How loud are those Republican calls to have him resign or have him leave, at least privately?
01:11Because Congressman Don Bacon, he appears to be the first Republican now to publicly call this situation unacceptable.
01:20He told Politico if it were up to him, he wouldn't tolerate it.
01:23And he said there's a lot, a lot of smoke that's come out of the Pentagon.
01:27And I got to believe there's some fire somewhere.
01:29He also said Hegseth is acting like he's above the law, and that shows an amateur person.
01:34So you're saying that this is consistent with what Republicans are saying privately.
01:38Do you think what Don Bacon is saying now, do you think that's going to open a dam of Republicans now saying it publicly?
01:44I think that Congressman Don Bacon, former General Don Bacon, is the only Republican on Capitol Hill right now with an ounce of courage.
01:55And I give him a lot of credit for that.
01:57But the reality is that I don't see other Republicans following him.
02:01These other Republicans are just acting like cowards right now, unwilling to stand up to their own administration in the name of our troops for the sake of our national security,
02:15for the sake of upholding the oath to the Constitution that they all swore.
02:21It's a shameful time for the Republican Party right now in Washington.
02:25Congratulations to Don Bacon.
02:27But we need to see a lot more Republicans follow his lead.
02:30You're saying you have grave concerns when it comes to national security.
02:35You're seeing attack plans shared on Signal with family members, with people who don't need those imminent operational plans.
02:42You see this shakeup at the Pentagon.
02:44Someone who just a few months ago was an ardent supporter of Hegseth, now calling for him to be let go.
02:50What are specifically those concerns when it comes to national security?
02:54Well, let's just detail this.
02:55A well-worn adversary tactic to get at our top leaders is to get at their family members or close associates.
03:04And if our top leaders are so dumb and so irresponsible to share confidential or, in this case, absolutely top secret information with their family members,
03:17it's going to be pretty easy for adversaries like Russia and China to hack into that information.
03:22And it's actually quite remarkable that they just got so lucky that this targeting information wasn't captured by an enemy and shared with the Houthis on the ground who have anti-aircraft capabilities.
03:35They've already been shooting down our drones, much smaller targets than F-18 fighter jets.
03:41It's so lucky that they didn't get that information in time to target our brave American pilots, pilots who show amazing bravery and have incredible accountability every day of their lives in stark contrast to their leader at the top of the Pentagon.
03:59It's amazing that they're still alive today because that information wasn't shared with the enemy in time.