White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt quickly denied a report that President Donald Trump’s administration is considering replacements for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The White House on Monday blasted an NPR report that a search was underway for a new Pentagon chief as “fake news” following new reporting about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the Signal app and criticism from former Pentagon officials.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed plans about a military operation against the Houthis in Yemen on a second Signal group chat, this one on his personal phone and including his wife, lawyer and brother, three people familiar with the chat told CNN.

President Donald Trump “stands strongly behind Pete Hegseth,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday morning, defending the scandal-plagued Defense secretary against escalating criticism from Democrats and former senior officials.

Hegseth “is doing phenomenal leading the Pentagon,” Leavitt said in a “Fox & Friends” appearance. “This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change you are trying to implement.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth created another Signal messaging chat that included his wife and brother where he shared similar details of a March military airstrike against Yemen’s Houthi militants that were sent in another chain with top Trump administration leaders, The New York Times reported.

A person familiar with the contents and those who received the messages, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, confirmed the second chat to The Associated Press.

The Pentagon is in “total chaos” and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is unlikely to remain in his role, according to its former top spokesperson, who painted a scene of dysfunction, backstabbing and continuous missteps at the highest levels of the department.

“The building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership,” John Ullyot wrote Sunday in a POLITICO Magazine opinion piece. “The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president — who deserves better from his senior leadership.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared details of a March attack on Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis in a message group that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday.

The revelations of a second Signal chat raise more questions about Hegseth's use of an unclassified messaging system to share highly sensitive security details and come at a particularly delicate moment for him, with senior officials ousted from the Pentagon last week as part of an internal leak investigation.

British soldiers have successfully trialed a new radio frequency directed energy weapon (RFDEW) designed to take out incoming attacks involving large numbers of drones, the U.K. government has said.

Why It Matters

The world has watched on as the rapid pace of drone development quickly came to define the war in Ukraine, changing how modern militaries would fight wars going forward.

As drone technologies matures, so too do counter-drone systems and techniques designed to knock uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) from the skies.

Elon Musk's SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of President Donald Trump's "Golden Dome" missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said.

Musk's rocket and satellite company is partnering with software maker Palantir (PLTR.O), opens new tab and drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has drawn significant interest from the technology sector's burgeoning base of defense startups.

Under pressure from the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, nearly all the staff of the Defense Digital Service — the Pentagon’s fast-track tech development arm — are resigning over the coming month, according to the director and three other current members of the office granted anonymity to discuss their job status freely, as well as internal emails.

The resignations will effectively shut down the decade-old program after the end of April.