The majority of Americans, including the largest share of Republican voters, say in a new survey they should resign after revelation that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegses shared details of upcoming US airstrikes in an innocent signal group chat, including the Atlantic editor-in-chief.
JL Partners Daily Mail National Votingshared with the hill on Friday, found that 54% of all registered voters think Hegses should resign as head of the Pentagon. About 22% said they should stay in their role, while another 24% were not sure.
Nearly 38% of GOP voters think it's 38%. Hegseth believes he shares information about the weapons used in the signal thread and the timing of the attack on Yemeni Houthis. Surveys showed that about a third of Republicans opposed it, but 29% were unsure.
A majority of 54% of independents agree that former Fox News host Hegseth should resign. Two out of ten independents had opposite views, but a quarter of respondents did not know.
When Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic left Firestorm in Washington on Monday, he revealed he had been added to a signaling group chat with top Trump administration officials, including Hegses, Vice President Vance and national security adviser Mike Waltz. Before Goldberg left the chat, Hegses had shared details about his upcoming strike. This is sensitive information that defense experts could risk the lives of American service members.
The administration responded defensively, attacking Goldberg, claiming that the classified information was not shared despite journalists later sharing screenshots containing specific startup times and other attack details.
Congressional Democrats have called for Hegses or Waltz, who originally added Goldberg to the chat, to step down, but some have called for criminal investigations and point out that the ability to remove signal messages is against laws requiring White House records to be kept.
So far, Capitol Hill Republicans have not publicly called on Heggs to step down.
“I think they should make sure it doesn't happen again. They want us to say, 'It's not going to happen again.” Sen. Kevin Kramer (RN.D.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said: “Don't let that happen again.”
Almost half of 47% of Americans think that waltz should go. Approximately 21% of respondents objected, but 32% were unsure.
33% of Republicans believe Waltz should resign, and 32% should stay where they are, their biggest share, 35, is unsure.
Trump stood on both Hegses and Waltz. The president said he would ask the Secretary of Defense to review whether flight times included in signal exchanges should be classified.
“Hegses does a great job, he had nothing to do with it,” Trump said this week.
The survey was conducted between March 25th and 27th among 1,001 registered voters. The margin of error was positive or negative 3.4%.
