President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed a deepening controversy surrounding Pete Hegseth, declaring the embattled defense secretary is “doing a great job” despite seismic dysfunction within the Pentagon amid political infighting, numerous firings, and reports he divulged to his wife, brother and lawyer the highly sensitive details of an imminent military operation.

The turmoil elicited a rebuke from at least one Republican lawmaker, who labeled the situation a “meltdown,” and called into question how long Trump’s affection for the increasingly isolated and defiant Cabinet pick will last. Pentagon officials have watched the unraveling of Hegseth’s inner circle with alarm, concerned how it would function in a national security emergency and wondering whether the president may be forced to act.

“The president always expresses support for his team — right until he doesn’t and you read about it in the tweet the next day,” said one person familiar with Trump’s thinking, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the crisis.

Speaking outside the White House, Hegseth, a former Fox News personality and National Guard veteran, defended himself angrily. He lambasted the news media for publishing “a bunch of hit pieces” that were seeded, he suggested, by the officials whom he had fired for leaking to reporters. The anonymous sources in those stories, Hegseth assessed without providing evidence, are “disgruntled former employees” colluding with journalists to “slash and burn people, and ruin their reputations.”

“It’s not going to work with me,” Hegseth vowed on the sidelines of the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, saying the newly surfaced accusations about his advance disclosure of attack plans “doesn’t matter.” He added that he and Trump had spoken and that they are “on the same page all the way.”

The uproar follows a report Sunday by the New York Times indicating Hegseth on March 15 had shared the timing and other key aspects of a bombing campaign in Yemen with a small group of people that included his wife, Jennifer, brother, Phil, and personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, using the encrypted — but unclassified — messaging application Signal.

That coincided with a related controversy in which Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, unwittingly included the Atlantic magazine’s top editor in a separate Signal group used by numerous senior administration officials to coordinate the Yemen strikes. Hegseth disclosed highly sensitive details there, too — information that former defense officials have assessed typically would be highly classified and restricted to only a small number of people.

The upheaval in the Pentagon dates back at least a month, to another unflattering report that the billionaire Elon Musk was due to receive a briefing that would include closely guarded secrets revealing how the U.S. military would probably conduct a war with China. Trump himself was troubled by the idea and intervened, officials familiar with the matter said, though the administration reacted publicly by questioning the accuracy of the reporting and launching an investigation into leaks officials suspected of arising from the Defense Department.

The incident marked an inflection point, with Hegseth and senior aides becoming increasingly paranoid, two officials familiar with the matter said. About a week later, the Atlantic published its first account of the Signal debacle, exacerbating the acrimony and distrust that has taken hold at the highest levels of the Pentagon.

The discord spilled into public view last week with the ouster of three senior defense officials — Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll, and Darin Selnick — for allegedly making unauthorized disclosures to the news media.

In a joint statement Saturday, the three fired political appointees accused Hegseth’s team of slander and said they “have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with.” The firings of Caldwell and Selnick, longtime associates of Hegseth whom he had asked to join his team, were especially disquieting, said several people who know them.

Caldwell said in an interview with conservative journalist Tucker Carlson that aired Monday evening that he had not leaked information to the media and has not been provided with a reason for his firing. Despite the allegations against him, he said he has not received a polygraph test or been asked to provide his phone to authorities to be examined for potential leaks.

Caldwell added that he believes the leaks investigation was “weaponized” against him, Selnick and Carroll. He said that when he was first escorted out of his office, he thought he was about to be asked to testify against Hegseth in an ongoing inspector general investigation about his use of Signal. He had access to highly classified information until right before he was removed, he added.

“If I actually did some of the things that anonymous people on the internet and people in the Pentagon said I did, I’d be in handcuffs,” Caldwell said.

Hegseth’s team also intends to remove his chief of staff, Joe Kasper, and shift him to a less visible but as yet undefined Defense Department role, said people familiar with the matter. That development, first reported by Politico, followed weeks of friction between Kasper and other colleagues, these people said.

Defense officials have declined to acknowledge Kasper’s impending move or address questions about who is fulfilling the duties of the defense secretary’s chief of staff. Sean Parnell, a spokesman for Hegseth, did not respond to requests for comment.

A former Hegseth spokesman, John Ullyot, also has turned on Hegseth, saying in an opinion piece published by Politico that he had doubts about the defense secretary’s ability to do his job. Ullyot, who was removed from his position last month after colleagues questioned his judgment, wrote that it has “been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon” and that Trump deserved better from his senior leaders.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump, portrayed Hegseth as the victim of expansive opposition from within the department, alleging that the “entire Pentagon” is working to undermine him.

To reinforce his inner circle of political aides, Hegseth plans to make Marine Corps Col. Ricky Buria, most recently his junior military assistant, a senior adviser and possibly even chief of staff or deputy chief of staff, two people familiar with the matter said. Defense officials said Buria unexpectedly submitted paperwork last week to leave the Marine Corps and is now considered on “terminal leave,” transitioning out of the service.

Buria was promoted to his current rank last fall, meaning that, without a waiver, he will revert back to his previous rank — lieutenant colonel — in retirement. With few exceptions, a service member must hold a rank satisfactorily for two years to retire at that pay grade and receive benefits commensurate with it.

The person familiar with Trump’s thinking questioned whether Buria is suited for such a job, noting that he first served as a junior military aide to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in the Biden administration. While it is common for military officers to hold nonpartisan roles that bridge presidential administrations, it is unclear whether the White House will accept Buria.

On Monday, Rep. Don Bacon (Nebraska), a Republican and retired Air Force general, said that he military should always pride itself on maintaining operational security and that it is “unacceptable” if the new reports about Hegseth’s handing of sensitive information are true.

“If a Democrat did this, we’d be demanding a scalp,” Bacon said. “I don’t like hypocrisy. We should be Americans first when it comes to security.”

Missy Ryan and Abigail Hauslohner contributed to this report.