Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is under close scrutiny as Republican lawmakers criticize his handling of sensitive military information in a group chat with other administration officials that inadvertently included a journalist.

Republican lawmakers have stopped short of calling on Hegseth to resign, but they’re warning that his decision to share sensitive details about a pending military strike against Houthi rebels in Yemen over Signal, a commercial app, is a clear “strike” against him.

“I think they should make sure it never happens again. I wish they’d tell us, ‘It will never happen again.’ It’s the first strike in the early stages of an administration,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Don’t let it ever happen again."

“I don’t know how many strikes you get. In baseball you get three. Maybe this is worst two,” he added. “If mistakes like this continue to happen, we’ll deal with them as it happens. My hope and my expectation is that it won’t.”

Another Republican senator said that President Trump is “not happy” but noted that so far the president is sticking by Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz, who reportedly assembled the group chat, which included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic.

Trump on Tuesday downplayed the controversy, calling it “the only glitch in two months.”

GOP senators are questioning Hegseth’s judgment in the whole affair.

They’re scratching their heads over his decision to divulge sensitive details about when attack fighter jets would launch and when strike drones would reach their targets on a commercial app, which was then accessed by at least two recipients’ private phones.

And they’re wondering about Hegseth’s response to reporters’ questions, specifically his adamant denial that “nobody’s texting war plans” after a National Security Council spokesperson had confirmed that the chat group’s reported texts appeared to be “authentic.”

“The worst part of it is Hegseth saying himself, ‘This didn’t really happen.’ Why don’t you just admit it?” remarked one Republican senator.

“It’s going to have to be........

© The Hill