U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly shared military strike plans in a second Signal group chat recently, this one including his wife and brother. And for “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough, that “recklessness” was a lot to wrap his head around.
This Signal group chat is different than the one that accidentally included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic just a few weeks ago. In this particular thread, there were 13 people total, but according to MSNBC, Hegseth sent the messages after an aide warned him to not share sensitive information on Signal.
Discussing the latest leak on Monday’s episode of “Morning Joe,” Scarborough recalled his time as a congressman and how seriously he was required to take handling information like this.
“I was just a little congressman, one of 435. Was on the armed services committee. We would get information and we understood we didn’t tell a soul,” he said. “Nobody, not even staff members. Not family, certainly not family members.”
Teeing up a question to retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, Scarborough was mostly stunned. “Even on my small level, this is just really — this is so hard to comprehend,” he said. “I wonder how shocking it must be for you, who understands this sort of recklessness could lead to lost American lives.”
Hertling readily agreed that it was shocking, noting that during his military career, he dealt with all levels of classified information — though the White House once again denied that any info shared in the Signal chat was technically classified — and that there were always “two ironclad standards.”
“You protect classified, critical and sensitive information, and you only share it with those who have a clearance and with a legitimate need to know,” Hertling expalined. “And you certainly don’t share it with your wife, your family members or those you’re trying to impress. Doing anything else betrays trust and it violates the standards that all military personnel and most government officials learn.”
You can watch the full segment from “Morning Joe” in the video above.
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