Trump White House Denies NPR Report That It’s Replacing Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary Amid Signal Leak Fallout

The Trump administration has denied NPR’s report that the president’s camp was looking to replace Pete Hegseth as its defense secretary following his recent Signal Chat controversy.

“WRONG. Fake News!” the Trump administration’s X account Rapid Response 47 said in a tweet on Monday.

In another post, the administration called the reports “lies.”

“Lies from NPR — which, as we all know, is a Fake News propaganda machine,” Rapid Response 47 shared.

White House Press Secretary and Trump’s assistant Karoline Leavitt also said the story is “total fake news.”

“This NPR story is total fake news based on one anonymous source who clearly has no idea what they are talking about,” Leavit. “As the President said this morning, he stands strongly behind @SecDef.”

The administration’s response comes after published a story on Monday titled: “The White House is looking to replace Pete Hegseth as defense secretary.” In the write-up, journalist Tom Bowman cited an anonymous U.S. official and detailed that the potential job shift was connected to Hegseth’s recent fumbles in the position, specifically his accidental sharing of the government’s plans to launch military strikes on Yemen, plans that were released by the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg after he was accidentally added to Hegseth’s text message chat.

The process of Hegseth’s removal supposedly came about after The New York Times reported that Hegseth also shared details about the Yemen strikes in a private Signal chat with his wife Jennifer Rauchet and younger brother Phil Hegseth.

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