Donald Trump backs Pete Hegseth as Democrats demand his resignation

President Donald Trump backed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday amid calls for his resignation over a leaked Signal chat of details surrounding a military strike in Yemen, Report informs via Daily Mail.

The president spoke about the controversy after Hegseth sent details of the strike to administration officials in a Signal chat that mistakenly included The Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who published the messages in full on Wednesday morning.

Trump was asked by reporters whether Hegseth should consider resigning in the wake of the controversy, after several Congressional Democrats demanded that he step down.

"Hegseth is doing a great job, he had nothing to do with this. Hegseth. How do you bring Hegseth into this?" Trump replied.

The president confirmed to DailyMail.com that his White House national security advisor, Mike Waltz took responsibly for mistakenly adding Goldberg to the Signal chat.

"Mike Waltz … he claimed responsibility, I would imagine. It had nothing to do with anyone else. It was Mike, I guess, I don’t know, I was told it was Mike," Trump said when asked about the investigation.

Trump again dismissed the controversy about whether or not Hegseth had shared classified information that could have endangered the operation, pointing instead to the successful mission.

"There was no harm done because the attack was unbelievably successful that night," Trump said.

The president questioned the motivations of Democrats calling for Hegseth's resignation and whether the Signal app was even working like it was supposed to.

‘Look, it’s all a witch hunt … you wanna ask about whether or not Signal works, I don’t know if Signal works, I think that Signal could be defective to be honest with you,’ Trump said.

The encrypted app that deletes messages after they have been received is popular in Washington, DC for communications, even though it is not considered a secure platform for classified information.