Pete Buttigieg calls Pete Hegseth ‘unfit to lead’ after second bombshell Signal chat leak revelation

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Sunday publicly condemned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, calling him “unfit to lead,” Report informs via The Advocate.

New revelations showed Hegseth shared classified US military plans—including details of a Yemen airstrike—with his wife, brother, personal lawyer, and others in an encrypted Signal group chat. The disclosure comes weeks after Hegseth was revealed to have discussed plans for a military strike in an unsecured Signal chat to which The Atlantic’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg had been added.

“Of course, advance information on US combat operations is classified,” Buttigieg, a Navy veteran who served as an intelligence officer, wrote on Facebook. “Pretending otherwise is an insult to our troops, who all know this. The Secretary is unfit to lead.”

The comment came after The New York Times reported that Hegseth disclosed flight schedules of fighter jets involved in March 15 strikes during private Signal messages sent from his personal phone. The chat, called “Defense | Team Huddle,” included 13 people—none of whom had security clearance for real-time war plans, according to the paper.

Among them were his wife, Jennifer Rauchet, a former Fox News producer; his brother, a Homeland Security adviser; and Timothy Parlatore, his longtime personal lawyer turned Navy reservist.