More Republican voters believe US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegses should step down more than anyone who thinks he should stay in his job.
Hegses outlined details of the US airstrike in Yemen in a signal group chat, including JD Vance, Donald Trump’s vice-president, and Mike Waltz, a national security adviser who accidentally added Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
The fire in the controversy over the error, revealed after the Atlantic released chat details on March 24, called on people to resign.
This appears to have influenced the perception of Army National Guard veteran and former Fox News TV host Hegseth among voters, including Republicans. In a new poll, 54% of all registered voters believe Hegseth should leave his role as head of the Pentagon, 22% believe he should remain, and 24% believe he is not sure.
A total of 38% of Republican voters agree that Hegus should quit, compared to just a third he thinks he should maintain his job. The majority of independents are also thought to be 54%, according to a poll released Friday and conducted by JL Partners on behalf of Daily Mail.
The Blundering Group chat discussed the merits and fatal consequences of air attacks on Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and discussed embarrassingly lightly remarks about Europe by Vance and Hegses.
Trump has so far refused to fire any of the people involved, and the president dismissed it as a “glitch” and attacked Goldberg instead. Meanwhile, Waltz said Goldberg’s number was somehow “sucked” into his phone and added to the signal group chat.
Goldberg refused to explain this. “I don’t know what he’s talking about there,” the journalist told the press on Sunday at an NBC meeting. Goldberg refers to a science fiction film about humans living unconsciously in simulated reality, saying, “This is not a ‘matrix’. The phone number wasn’t just sucked into other phones.
“Very often, the most obvious explanation is explanation. My phone number was on his phone, so my phone number was on his phone.”
The signal group chat controversy follows a difficult start to the Trump administration for many of the president’s cabinet picks.
The vote, which took place before this latest controversy, showed that the majority of American voters were disappointed with members of Trump’s cabinet, and recorded record levels of grievance in the past four presidential administrations where NBC voted for such a vote.
