Pete Hegseth was barely able to get confirmed as Donald Trump’s Defense secretary, and following a series of scandals — including the revelation that he shared U.S. war plans in a second Signal group chat last month — it appears increasingly likely that he will be the first member of Trump’s Cabinet to either resign or be forced out not even 100 days into Trump’s second term. Below are the latest updates on his ongoing mess.

Leon Panetta, secretary of Defense during the Obama administration, told the Associated Press that the information Hegseth shared in his multiple Signal chats would have been classified.

“It is unheard of to have a secretary of Defense committing these kind of serious security breaches,” Panetta said. ”Developing attack plans for defensive reasons is without question the most classified information you can have.”

Attorney General Bondi should immediately appoint a special counsel to investigate Pete Hegseth’s multiple security breaches.

When a reporter asked if the recent Pentagon firings reflected on bad management, Leavitt echoed Hegseth’s own words and characterized the ex-employees as leakers.

“They were Pentagon employees who leaked against their boss to news agencies in this room,” she said, “and it’s been clear from day one from this administration that we’re not going to tolerate individuals who leak to the mainstream media, particularly when it comes to sensitive information.”

ABC27, a Harrisburg affiliate, reports Hegseth is heading to Pennsylvania this week amid the swirling Signal-chat controversy. The Defense secretary is set to visit the U.S. Army War College and Carlisle Barracks in Carlisle on Wednesday.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt continued her ongoing defense of Hegseth, telling reporters President Trump “stands strongly behind” him.

“The Secretary of Defense is doing a tremendous job, and he is bringing monumental change to the Pentagon, and there’s a lot of people in this city who reject monumental change,” she said. “And I think, frankly, that’s why we’ve seen a smear campaign against the secretary of Defense since the moment President Trump announced his nomination before the U.S. Senate.”

Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a combat veteran, said Tuesday that Hegseth “needs to be fired.”

“The intel he shared via Signal, including to his wife, was sent to him on a secure channel. He knowingly exposed our pilots to unnecessary danger with his show boat antics,” she wrote on X.

Hegseth still retains support from others on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Republican senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri took to social media to make it clear he’s sticking by the beleaguered Defense secretary:

The D.C. foreign policy establishment is getting desperate. They've tried to take out @PeteHegseth twice. Everyone knows exactly what they're doing.

It won't work.

As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I have full faith and confidence in his leadership.

Rhode Island senator Jack Reed, the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services committee, told NPR that Hegseth is proving all of the concerns that many in Congress had over his confirmation.

“He’s confirming now everything that we were saying. He does not have the experience to manage a major enterprise like the Pentagon. He does not operate according to the chain of command, to my view. He’s got a cadre of old buddies around him and ironically this week he fired a lot of his old buddies,” he said. “This is just a complete meltdown of common sense, and it endangers our national security.”

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