Updated March 27, 2025 at 11:31 AM ET
The sharing of sensitive information by top Trump administration defense officials put the lives of military personnel at risk, says Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat from Colorado. For that reason, the former Army Ranger, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should resign from his post.
On Wednesday, Hegseth told reporters, "Nobody's texting war plans," and denied sharing classified information.
Crow and other lawmakers on the Hill have been grilling top intelligence officials after The Atlantic this week revealed that members of the Trump administration inadvertently included the magazine's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, in a group chat discussing a bombing campaign in Yemen.
The officials used Signal, an open-source encrypted messaging app that the Pentagon warned agency personnel against using just days after the leak due to a risk it could be targeted by hackers.
Morning Edition reached out to Republican lawmakers, representatives for the White House and every Trump administration official who was in the Signal chat group. All either declined or did not respond to our requests for interviews.
"We're not going to play the political theater that the Trump administration and the people closest to Trump always play," Crow told Morning Edition. "We're just going to explain in very common terms what's happening here and why this is important, why the culture of recklessness and carelessness at the very top within the Trump administration is putting the lives of our men and women at stake."
Crow spoke to NPR's Michel Martin about why he feels the sharing of sensitive information by top Trump administration officials over Signal was a risk.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Michel Martin: I want to draw on your experience as a person who served in the military in a volatile environment overseas. What was the risk of communicating sensitive military information using Signal?
Rep. Jason Crow: The most important thing when you're conducting an operation is the element of surprise. The adversary cannot know you were coming because they, of course, can prepare for that. The risk goes up exponentially and people can die. It's not hyperbole to say that if the adversary knows that you're coming, the risk of casualties goes up tremendously. With the Houthis, we're talking about a very sophisticated military force. This isn't a bunch of people rolling around in the back of pickup trucks with AK 47s. They have some of the most sophisticated weapon systems in the world thanks to the Russians and others.
Martin: You've been calling for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to resign. Why him and why not Mike Waltz, who says that he is the one who created the group chat? And what do you think that would accomplish?
Crow: Sec. Hegseth is the one who has executive authority over our nation's largest agency. You know, the agency that's charged with protecting our country. I said from day one that Pete Hegseth is not qualified for this job. He doesn't have any experience working at a high level in national security. He has no experience running large organizations. And you see what happens now when you have somebody without the experience and expertise to handle sensitive matters. What happens is they act in a careless and reckless way. He doesn't take it seriously. And the risk for our men and women in uniform is very high as a result of that.
Martin: So at the moment, the defense secretary Hegseth doesn't seem inclined to resign and the president doesn't seem inclined to ask him to or require him to. So what do you believe this administration should do now to show that it's taking this matter seriously?
Crow: Just because they won't enforce standards and they don't hold themselves to the same standards as they expect of everyone else, doesn't mean that we should get rid of our standards, right? If this had happened to a private, to a sergeant, to a general, anybody who I served with and anybody below the chain of command from Pete Hegseth, those folks would have instantly been investigated, probably relieved of command or responsibility and potentially even court martialed. What the Trump administration is saying is that the people at the top, they run by different rules, they're protected and the rules don't apply to them, which, of course, sends a message that your culture is dysfunctional and sends a message down the chain of command that these things don't matter. So that's where things started curating within organizations, and that's where people end up getting killed.
Martin: So to that end, Republicans attacked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for years, even though there's no evidence that it was ever compromised. But now it seems that Democrats, some Republicans, but mainly Democrats, are gearing up to keep talking about this and to continue to attack these officials for their use of Signal. Is there a way to avoid this becoming just another political football and really re-emphasize security best practices?
Crow: We're not going to wrestle with the pig and get muddy. What we're going to do is actually just talk about the facts. We're not going to play the political theater that the Trump administration and the people closest to Trump always play. We're just going to explain in very common terms what's happening here and why this is important, why the culture of recklessness and carelessness at the very top within the Trump administration is putting the lives of our men and women at stake. And why that has to change and why that is important to American people and why they should frankly be extremely upset about it.
NPR disclosure: Katherine Maher, the CEO of NPR, chairs the board of the Signal Foundation.
The digital copy was edited by Treye Green and Kristian Monroe.
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