Seth Moulton On Signal Scandal: People Are Wondering If Hegseth Was ‘Just Incompetent’ Or ‘Drunk’

3/26/2025

During a press briefing from House Democrats on Tuesday, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-CA) slammed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for a Signal group chat leak detailing Yemen war plans.

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Transcript

00:00Accountability is back. Accountability is back. I quote Secretary Pete Hegseth. That

00:19was our Secretary of Defense on the record just a couple of months ago. Now the debate

00:27among national security professionals is over whether the Secretary was just incompetent

00:35or whether he was drunk. That's how low this has gone and those are serious debates happening

00:41among national security professionals today. Because my colleagues are right, this put

00:48American lives at risk. This cheapens the work that our men and women on the front lines

00:58of our armed services and our intelligence agencies do every single day. Because it says

01:05the rules that apply to you don't apply to us as your leaders. There's a simple concept

01:14that I would have thought Pete Hegseth would have learned in a National Guard, which is

01:20leadership by example. Well let me tell you, if any guardsman at any level, including the

01:29most junior private, had done what Pete Hegseth did, he would not only be fired, would not

01:37only lose his security clearance, but he would probably be criminally prosecuted.

01:46Let's just debunk a few myths here. Because now the approach these leaders are taking

01:54is to lie. That's not in the leadership manual for our armed services, but that's what they're

02:01doing now. They're saying, oh, this information wasn't classified. Without even knowing the

02:07full details, we know that the time of attack for this operation was in the message. Let's

02:17be clear, that's classified information. That's all you need to know. Let's address another

02:28issue. Was this illegal? It's illegal on two different levels. One, it's mishandling classified

02:35information. That's been well established. But the second level it's illegal on is that

02:42the executives are required to maintain records of its communications. And this is a way for

02:48this lawless administration to get around that. Third, was there a risk? Yes. There's

02:58tremendous risk. That's why national security professionals, including everyone on that

03:04group chat, aside from the people who weren't supposed to be on it, has 24-7 access to

03:11classified proper means of communication. So if the national security advisor feels

03:18like, oh, I need to chat with someone, well, guess what? In his home, in his office, on

03:22his plane, he has the means to do so within the law. So there is no excuse here. But there's

03:31also clearly no accountability. And it's very clear that Secretary Hegseth, with how

03:39he is handling this, has no honor, has no sense of duty, and has absolutely zero accountability

03:51for his own actions. It's now my honor to yield to a fantastic freshman veteran, Congressman

04:02Biden.

Seth Moulton On Signal Scandal: People Are Wondering If Hegseth Was ‘Just Incompetent’ Or ‘Drunk’

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