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U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth participates in an interview outside of the White House on Mar. 21, 2025.

I supported President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, a former infantry officer in the U.S. Army National Guard who was awarded two Bronze Stars and other commendations for his military service. Like many on the right, I hoped his warrior ethos and vocal patriotism would inject backbone into an institution bloated by bureaucracy and captured by progressive ideologues obsessed with promoting diversity, who were wasting money and dividing troops.

But what I, and many others, overlooked is now impossible to ignore. This man is dangerously unfit for one of the most sensitive and important jobs in the world. It’s been more than a month since a poll found that more Republican voters think Hegseth should resign than think he should stay. It’s deeply dismaying that President Donald Trump hasn’t ousted him yet.

I am no Democrat who wishes to weaken the president. But this is a national security emergency. Hegseth has become a danger to the very institution he was entrusted to lead.

In February, as U.S. forces were actively preparing strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, Hegseth took real-time operational strike plans, which he had received through secure military channels, and casually dumped them into two separate chats on Signal, a commercial messaging app that could have easily been hacked. One chat included the editor of The Atlantic magazine, whose phone number had apparently been added by accident. Another chat from Hegseth’s personal phone inexplicably included his wife, his brother and his personal lawyer.

Gregory F. TrevertonMarch 28,........

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