President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he was planning to sit for an interview with The Atlantic&#8217;s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, in spite of the fact that Goldberg has used his outlet to perpetuate &#8220;many fictional stories&#8221; about the president and his administration.
Trump declared his intentions in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying that he planned to take the meeting with Goldberg and two of his writers — both of whom he described as unfriendly to the administration — &#8220;out of curiosity.&#8221;
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&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1915433979454410756?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 24, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Later today I will be meeting with, of all people, Jeffrey Goldberg, the Editor of The Atlantic, and the person responsible for many fictional stories about me, including the made-up HOAX on &#8216;Suckers and Losers&#8217; and, SignalGate, something he was somewhat more &#8216;successful&#8217; with,&#8221; Trump began, referencing one story that had circulated during his first term in the White House before pivoting to the recent SNAFU in which Goldberg had accidentally been added to a Signal chat group where high-level administration officials had discussed plans to retaliate against Houthi terrorists in some detail.
Despite the fact that National Security Adviser Mike Waltz took responsibility for the incident — and that Goldberg&#8217;s addition to the group has been linked to an algorithm-based &#8220;contact suggestion&#8221; feature on his iPhone — Democrats and media still attempted to weaponize the story in their efforts to bring down Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
&#8220;Jeffrey is bringing with him Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker, not exactly pro-Trump writers, either, to put it mildly!&#8221; Trump&#8217;s post continued. &#8220;The story they are writing, they have told my representatives, will be entitled, &#8216;The Most Consequential President of this Century.&#8217; I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be &#8216;truthful.&#8217; Are they capable of writing a fair story on &#8216;TRUMP&#8217;? The way I look at it, what can be so bad – I WON!&#8221;

President Donald Trump

Trump Agrees To Interview With Repeat Hoax-Peddler Jeffrey Goldberg ‘Out Of Curiosity’

Trump Agrees To Interview With Repeat Hoax-Peddler Jeffrey Goldberg 'Out Of Curiosity'

Donald Trump

Media

Military

Pete Hegseth

Politics

Signal

The Atlantic

The now infamous Signal chat breach — which gave Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg access to a private chat with top officials in President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration — has been linked to the &#8220;automated suggestion&#8221; feature on the iPhone used by National Security Adviser Michael Waltz.
According to a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/06/signal-group-chat-leak-how-it-happened" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> published Sunday by The Guardian, Waltz had intended to include his communications chief Brian Hughes — a former spokesman for Trump — but thanks to an iPhone algorithm that imports potentially &#8220;related&#8221; phone numbers into existing contacts, he also added Goldberg.
To find the connection between Goldberg and Hughes, the investigation had to go back nearly six months to October of 2024 — when Goldberg had sent an email to the Trump campaign about a story The Atlantic planned to publish attacking the president over his behavior toward wounded service members. According to The Guardian&#8217;s report, Hughes had texted then Rep. Waltz (R-FL) — who was serving as the campaign&#8217;s national security surrogate — and had included Goldberg&#8217;s contact information along with the content of his email. Waltz&#8217;s iPhone then associated the included number — Goldberg&#8217;s — with Hughes, adding it to an already saved contact.
Waltz did not contact Goldberg with regard to that story, but instead waited until after it was published and delivered a rebuttal on CNN: &#8220;Don’t take it from me, take it from the 13 Abbey Gate Gold Star families, some of whom stood on a stage in front of a 30,000 person crowd and said how he helped them heal.&#8221;
It was not until March, when Goldberg was included in the Trump &#8220;principals&#8221; group chat — where an imminent strike on Houthi terrorists was discussed in some detail — and then went public with the information, that Waltz was made aware of the mishap. At the time, he told FoxNews that the number had somehow been &#8220;sucked&#8221; into his phone.
&#8220;An iPhone suggestion to update a contact with a phone number seen inside the conversation is what led to Mike Waltz inadvertently saving an Atlantic reporter’s phone number under the name of the person he was chatting with, which was Brian Hughes,&#8221; Marina Medvin posted in reaction to the new report. &#8220;Automated suggestion on tech can be so damn dangerous.&#8221;
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An iPhone suggestion to update a contact with a phone number seen inside the conversation is what led to Mike Waltz inadvertently saving an Atlantic reporter’s phone number under the name of the person he was chatting with, which was Brian Hughes.
Automated suggestion on tech… <a href="https://t.co/pRZPLPqMRk">pic.twitter.com/pRZPLPqMRk</a>
&mdash; Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarinaMedvin/status/1908904288778060076?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Referencing Waltz&#8217;s initial claim — that Goldberg&#8217;s number had been inadvertently saved under someone else&#8217;s name — The Daily Wire&#8217;s Brent Scher weighed in as well. &#8220;So it really did get sucked into Mike Waltz phone… According to @guardian, the WH forensic report says Brian Hughes, who runs Waltz comms, sent Goldberg’s contact last Oct to push back on a campaign story. Apple added the number under Hughes as a &#8216;contact suggestion update.'&#8221;
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So it really did get sucked into Mike Waltz phone…
According to <a href="https://twitter.com/guardian?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@guardian</a>, the WH forensic report says Brian Hughes, who runs Waltz comms, sent Goldberg’s contact last Oct to push back on a campaign story. Apple added the number under Hughes as a “contact suggestion update.” <a href="https://t.co/688DXYiEZl">pic.twitter.com/688DXYiEZl</a>
&mdash; Brent Scher (@BrentScher) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrentScher/status/1908895526977667549?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Throughout, Goldberg has stated that he knows Waltz and has spoken with him — a claim that Waltz has repeatedly denied, and that the Guardian reported was neither confirmed nor ruled out by the investigation into how his number got into the Signal chat.

2023 Concordia Annual Summit – September 18

‘So Damn Dangerous’: Signal Chat Breach Linked To ‘Automated Suggestion’ Feature On iPhone

'So Damn Dangerous': Signal Chat Breach Linked To 'Automated Suggestion' Feature On iPhone

Houthis

Mike Waltz

The media are on the hunt for a bad story they can hang around President Trump&#8217;s neck. Why? Because President Trump&#8217;s approval rating continues to hover around 50%, which is a historic high for him.
The SignalGate story basically went nowhere because the truth is that everybody has, at one point or another, included somebody in a group chat by accident and it gets very awkward. The actual result of the Signal chat was kind of an embarrassing snafu. The military strikes on the Houthis, however, were totally successful. The United States military is currently eviscerating the Houthis in Yemen.
So the media continue on the hunt.
There are certain stories that are so bad for an administration that they end up hampering their ability to do anything because association with the administration becomes toxic. And there have been many cases of this over the course of modern American history.
The Hunter Biden laptop story, for example, hovered over the Biden administration for the entirety of his term. Sometimes a single story can shift an entire election cycle. In 2006, Republicans looked like they were in decent shape for the midterm elections. But there was a Republican congressperson named Mark Foley who allegedly had been sleeping with some of his aides. Because of that, Republicans ended up getting shellacked.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2170-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
With the media on the hunt, they are digging into the immigration realm. Thus, there is a story from The Atlantic, written by Nick Miroff, that was intended to do serious damage to the Trump administration. The story was titled, “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/an-administrative-error-sends-a-man-to-a-salvadoran-prison/682254/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">An ‘Administrative Error’ Sends a Maryland Father to a Salvadoran Prison</a>.”
The idea here is that the most popular element of Trump&#8217;s agenda — by far right now — is his immigration portfolio. He has done more on the border than any president in modern American history by far.
“The Trump administration says that it mistakenly deported an immigrant with protected status but that courts are powerless to order his return,” The Atlantic piece started. “The Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing Monday that it had grabbed a Maryland father with protected legal status and mistakenly deported him to El Salvador, but said that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to order his return from the megaprison where he’s now locked up.”
On its face, that&#8217;s a bad story for the Trump administration. If they just took a random, innocent guy from El Salvador who had protected status and then threw him into a prison in El Salvador, that would be a really bad story. A major screw-up. And if the administration said they couldn’t do anything to fix it, an even bigger screw up.
According to The Atlantic:
<blockquote>The case appears to be the first time the Trump administration has admitted to errors when it sent three planeloads of Salvadoran and Venezuelan deportees to El Salvador’s grim “Terrorism Confinement Center” on March 15. Attorneys for several Venezuelan deportees have said that the Trump administration falsely labeled their clients as gang members because of their tattoos. Trump officials have disputed those claims. But in Monday’s court filing, attorneys for the government admitted that the Salvadoran man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, had been deported accidentally. “Although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” the government told the court. Trump lawyers said the court has no ability to bring Abrego Garcia back now that he is in Salvadoran custody.</blockquote>
The lawyer for Garcia is asking for the court to order the Trump administration to ask for Abrego Garcia&#8217;s return.
“Trump-administration attorneys told the court to dismiss the request on multiple grounds, including that Trump’s “primacy in foreign affairs” outweighs the interests of Abrego Garcia and his family,” The Atlantic reported.
The lawyer for Garcia said, “They claim that the court is powerless to order any relief. If that’s true, the immigration laws are meaningless—all of them—because the government can deport whoever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, and no court can do anything about it once it’s done.”
Here is where The Atlantic gets itself into trouble. So far, it’s a bad story for the administration. They took a man who shouldn&#8217;t have been deported and they deported him. And the Trump administration admits he shouldn&#8217;t have been deported.
The Atlantic continued:
<blockquote>Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has a 5-year-old disabled child who is also a U.S. citizen, has no criminal record in the United States, according to his attorney. The Trump administration does not claim he has a criminal record, but called him a “danger to the community” and an active member of MS-13, the Salvadoran gang that Trump has declared a foreign terrorist organization. Sandoval-Moshenberg said that those charges are false, and that the gang label stems from a 2019 incident when Abrego Garcia and three other men were detained in a Home Depot parking lot by a police detective in Prince George’s County, Maryland. During questioning, one of the men told officers that Abrego Garcia was a gang member, but the man offered no proof and police said they didn’t believe him, filings show. Police did not identify him as a gang member.</blockquote>
But here is where The Atlantic screws it up. This is what makes this story at least partially fake news.
As John Hasson <a href="https://x.com/SonofHas/status/1906906290791616899">reported</a>, “An Immigration judge found that Garcia was an MS-13 member, a flight risk, and a threat to the community SIX YEARS AGO.”
That is not included in the story. Instead, you get the story from this guy&#8217;s lawyer that says he was just an innocent person who was wrapped up in a bunch of bad testimony from people with whom he was hanging out at a Home Depot parking lot.
But according to the actual legal filings:
<blockquote>During the course of his proceedings, Abrego-Garcia remained in ICE custody because the Immigration Judge (IJ) with the Executive Office for Immigration Review denied Abrego-Garcia bond at a hearing on April 24, 2019, citing danger to the community because &#8220;the evidence show[ed] that he is a verified member of [Mara Salvatrucha] (&#8216;MS-13&#8217;)]&#8221; and therefore posed a danger to the community. The IJ also determined that he was a flight risk.</blockquote>
There was an administrative error here. That is true. So what exactly was the administrative error?
<blockquote>On March 12, 2025, ICE Homeland Security Investigations arrested Abrego-Garcia due to his prominent role in MS-13. Over the next two days, Abrego-Garcia was transferred to the staging area for the removal flights &#8230; The operation that led to Abrego-Garcia&#8217;s removal to El Salvador was designed to only include individuals with no impediments to removal. Generally, individuals were not placed on the manifest until they were cleared for removal. ICE was aware of this grant of withholding of removal at the time of Abrego-Garcia&#8217;s removal from the United States. Reference was made to this status on internal forms.</blockquote>
So, years ago an immigration judge labeled this guy a member of MS-13 and a flight risk. Despite that, they placed an order to withhold removal upon him because he had a credible fear of being harmed by people back in his home country.
That was the screw-up. He was on the list as an alternate.
But how exactly is it that The Atlantic fails to mention that an immigration judge literally found that there was credible evidence that he was MS-13, which changes the entire nature of the story? It turns this from a horrifyingly terrible story in which an innocent person with no connections to any form of criminal activity and a five-year-old son with disabilities and an American wife is removed for no good reason, to a story where a credibly-accused and legally-found MS-13 gang member, according to this immigration judge, is removed by accident despite a withholding of removal order.
In other words, it’s a bureaucratic screw-up and the guy shouldn&#8217;t have been removed. But it is not a human tragedy if somebody who is involved in MS-13 ends up being removed from the country.
It&#8217;s this sort of desperate hunger for a story to use as a baton against the Trump administration that leads so many members of the mainstream legacy media to play up the headline.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Holds Press Briefing

The Atlantic’s Giant Fake News Screw-Up

Ben Shapiro

El Salvador

illegal immigrants

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Legacy Media

MS-13 Gang

Opinion

President Trump

Democrats and media just can&#8217;t quit the Signal story, as evidenced by the broadcasts across multiple networks on Sunday morning. On every show, time was devoted to questions about the apparently-accidental inclusion of Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg in a Signal chat group in which top officials discussed an imminent attack on Houthi terrorists.
For those who don&#8217;t spend their Sunday mornings glued to the television — and their Sunday afternoons attempting to dig through a week&#8217;s worth of network and cable news media spin — The Daily Wire has compiled a short summary of what you may have missed.
Despite the fact that the attack discussed in the chat went off without so much as a hitch — and American service members do not appear to have been put in any danger — from ABC News to CNN, hosts and guests discussed whether or not the information discussed in the Signal group amounted to classified information and what should ultimately happen to those who were responsible for it.
On ABC News&#8217; &#8220;This Week,&#8221; anchor Martha Raddatz referred to the mishap as &#8220;jaw-dropping&#8221; and an &#8220;extraordinary national security breach&#8221; — and accused President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration of &#8220;downplaying, deflecting, and at times outright dismissing&#8221; the seriousness of the situation.
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“The Trump administration downplaying, deflecting and at times outright dismissing an extraordinary national security breach.” <a href="https://twitter.com/MarthaRaddatz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MarthaRaddatz</a> breaks down how Trump officials are responding to the Signal group chat containing Yemen strike details: <a href="https://t.co/5uOLPfh8tt">https://t.co/5uOLPfh8tt</a> <a href="https://t.co/hAlAQs6OwQ">pic.twitter.com/hAlAQs6OwQ</a>
&mdash; This Week (@ThisWeekABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1906347760116273342?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Raddatz then brought in Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) to discuss the situation, and he claimed that despite assurances from multiple Trump administration officials that nothing discussed in the chat had been classified, he knew better.
&#8220;There is no question, regardless of agency, that this was classified,&#8221; Warner insisted, arguing that American lives could have been lost had the information been leaked to the public sooner. &#8220;It insults the intelligence of the American people when someone says, &#8216;Oh, no, nothing classified here.'&#8221;
Warner noted that the intelligence community had previously warned that Signal should not be used for classified information — and continued to insist that the information discussed by the Trump administration officials was classified, but never gave any specifics regarding what exactly had been divulged that was classified.
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“There is no question, regardless of agency, that this was classified.”
Sen. Mark Warner said that if information had been leaked from top Trump officials&#39; Signal chat discussing plans to bomb the Houthis in Yemen, American lives could have been lost. <a href="https://t.co/K6lUzM1jTE">https://t.co/K6lUzM1jTE</a> <a href="https://t.co/mIZpNE1Fla">pic.twitter.com/mIZpNE1Fla</a>
&mdash; This Week (@ThisWeekABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1906351336188162306?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Raddatz followed by bringing in Rep. Mike Turner — who previously chaired the House Intelligence Committee — and he also suggested that the material discussed was classified by virtue of the fact that military plans were included. He did not mention, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did shortly after the story broke, the fact that the military plans did not include coordinates either for the troops involved or the targets, nor did they give the names and locations of the units tasked with carrying out the attacks.
Still, Turner argued that it &#8220;should be considered classified information and it&#8217;s surprising to find it in an unclassified manner.&#8221;
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GOP Rep. Mike Turner, former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said “clearly” subject of military details discussed in the Signal group chat “should be considered classified information and it&#39;s surprising to find it in an unclassified manner.” <a href="https://t.co/oPQ2UURqhG">https://t.co/oPQ2UURqhG</a> <a href="https://t.co/73aXHApjw1">pic.twitter.com/73aXHApjw1</a>
&mdash; This Week (@ThisWeekABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1906357037929230549?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
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On CBS News&#8217; &#8220;Face the Nation,&#8221; Sue Gordon — former principal deputy director of national intelligence — weighed in on the incident, and she complained that too much focus was being given to the fact that no tragedy had resulted from the breach.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think we should rest on the fact that nothing bad happened this time. We don&#8217;t know whether that communications path has been penetrated, so we don&#8217;t know whether state actors that have lots of resources are just sitting and lurking,&#8221; she said.
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There was &quot;nothing&quot; about the military information discussed in the Trump administration&#39;s Signal group chat that was &quot;appropriate&quot; for being shared on that app, says Sue Gordon, former principal deputy director of national intelligence.
&quot;I don&#39;t think we should rest on the fact… <a href="https://t.co/xeoQl76Lcr">pic.twitter.com/xeoQl76Lcr</a>
&mdash; Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1906382615805849628?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Former CENTCOM commander, Retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, pushed back a bit and noted that there was one major component of the story that was getting lost underneath all the noise regarding the Signal chat group — the fact that the Trump administration was successfully taking the fight to the Houthi terrorists in a way that President Joe Biden&#8217;s administration either could not or would not do.
&#8220;I think we have the capability — actually, right now, in Iran&#8217;s weakened state — to threaten them very strongly,&#8221; McKenzie said, adding that he &#8220;wouldn&#8217;t take anything off the table&#8221; with regard to next steps against the Houthis and Iran. The United States, he explained, has &#8220;finally begun to strike the Houthis hard,&#8221; in a way &#8220;that, frankly, eluded the previous administration.&#8221;
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Ret. Gen. Frank McKenzie, former CENTCOM commander, says the &quot;larger story&quot; behind the Signal group chat controversy is that the U.S. has &quot;finally begun to strike the Houthis hard,&quot; at a pace &quot;that, frankly, eluded the previous administration.&quot;
He adds that he &quot;wouldn&#39;t take… <a href="https://t.co/8w9wE150z7">pic.twitter.com/8w9wE150z7</a>
&mdash; Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1906384751407063498?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
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On NBC&#8217;s &#8220;Meet the Press,&#8221; Jeffrey Goldberg  claimed that Vice President JD Vance&#8217;s comments in the chat were proof that he didn&#8217;t think President Trump fully grasped the situation.
What Vance actually said in the chat was that he favored delaying the strikes for a month because an immediate strike — besides sending an obvious message to the Houthis — ultimately did more to benefit and bail out Europe than it did for the United States.
&#8220;I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,&#8221; he said, referencing the administration&#8217;s broader position that Europe needed to step up and take an active role in its own defense.
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Vance Signal messages suggest he doesn’t think Trump knows what he’s doing, Goldberg says <a href="https://t.co/9P79IZMqjA">https://t.co/9P79IZMqjA</a>
&mdash; Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) <a href="https://twitter.com/MeetThePress/status/1906345176081043831?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
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And on CNN&#8217;s &#8220;State of the Union,&#8221; Dana Bash brought in Senator James Lankford (R-OK) — who agreed that an investigation into the Signal chat was &#8220;entirely appropriate.&#8221;
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.<a href="https://twitter.com/SenatorLankford?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenatorLankford</a> tells <a href="https://twitter.com/DanaBashCNN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DanaBashCNN</a> that it&#39;s &quot;entirely appropriate&quot; for the acting Pentagon inspector general to look into top Trump officials discussing military plans on Signal. <a href="https://t.co/2mYxfcIOfy">pic.twitter.com/2mYxfcIOfy</a>
&mdash; State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNNSOTU/status/1906338929218863605?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Later on in the broadcast, however, Republican commentator <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/no-accountability-dems-calling-for-hegseths-ouster-trip-over-awol-lloyd-austin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scott Jennings</a> dismantled the argument that Trump administration heads — particularly Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth&#8217;s and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz&#8217;s — should roll over the breach, pointing out that the bar for such firings had been set by the Biden administration.
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🚨Scott Jennings lays out the plain facts to Dems calling for firings over Signalgate —
JENNINGS: “The bar for firing people like this is really high from the last administration when after the Afghanistan withdrawal, which was a disaster, people died.&quot;
&quot;No accountability was… <a href="https://t.co/eE5n3liLIk">pic.twitter.com/eE5n3liLIk</a>
&mdash; Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) <a href="https://twitter.com/WesternLensman/status/1906350055574966505?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;If you’re trying to assess ‘what should we do about it,’ I hear Democrats arguing, ‘Well, we should fire Pete Hegseth,’ or, ‘We should fire the National Security Adviser,&#8217;” Jennings said. “The bar for firing people like this is really high from the last administration when after the Afghanistan withdrawal, which was a disaster, people died, no accountability was meted out. After the drone strike that vaporized those poor kids and that family, no accountability. After the secretary of defense went AWOL, no accountability.&#8221;

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Poland

Spin Cycle: But About That Signal Story …

Spin Cycle: But About That Signal Story ...

ABC News

CBS News

NBC News

CIA Director John Ratcliffe accused the journalist from The Atlantic who wrote a piece about top Trump officials communicating over a Signal chat group that inadvertently included him of lying in his report.
Ratcliffe made the remarks during testimony in front of the House Intelligence Committee alongside FBI Director Kash Patel, National Security Agency Director Gen. Timothy Haugh, and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse.
&#8220;My responsibility as CIA Director, one of its responsibilities is to kill terrorists, and that&#8217;s exactly what I did along with President Trump&#8217;s excellent national security team,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That&#8217;s what we should be focused on.&#8221;
Ratcliffe said that one of the major issues with the article was how it falsely suggested things that never happened.
&#8220;I spent four hours answering questions from Senators as a result of that article that were intimating that I transmitted classified information because they were hidden messages,&#8221; Ratcliffe said. &#8220;Those messages were revealed today and revealed that I did not transmit classified information and that the reporter, who I don&#8217;t know, I think intentionally intended it to indicate that.&#8221;
&#8220;That reporter also indicated that I had released the name of an undercover CIA operative in that Signal chat,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;In fact, I had released the name of my chief of staff, who is not operating undercover. That was deliberately false and misleading.&#8221;
Ratcliffe noted that his answers have not changed about what happened, he used an appropriate channel to communicate, and he did not transfer any classified information.
&#8220;At the end of the day, what is most important is that the mission was a remarkable success is what everyone should be focused on here because that&#8217;s what did happen, not what possibly could have happened,&#8221; he said.
WATCH:
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.<a href="https://twitter.com/CIADirector?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CIADirector</a>: &quot;My answers haven&#39;t changed. I used an appropriate channel to communicate sensitive information. It was permissible to do so &#8230; and at the end of the day, what is most important is that the mission was a remarkable success.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/Mas5YKrz5a">pic.twitter.com/Mas5YKrz5a</a>
&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1904908706426351757?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

US-POLITICS-INTELLIGENCE-CONGRESS

CIA Director John Ratcliffe Shreds Atlantic Editor Behind Signal Story: ‘Deliberately False’

John Ratcliffe

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth slammed The Atlantic on Wednesday over its reporting on a Signal chat group where he gave updates to top administration officials that inadvertently included a journalist from the publication about the United States&#8217; recent military strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
Hegseth made the remarks while addressing reporters from a tarmac in Hawaii where he was visiting U.S. forces as part of a larger trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where the administration is currently working to counter a rising Chinese threat.
Hegseth said that the attacks against the Houthis have been &#8220;devastatingly effective&#8221; as the military campaign now enters its second week.
&#8220;Nobody&#8217;s texting war plans,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Well, I noticed this morning out came something that doesn&#8217;t look like war plans. And as a matter of fact, they even changed the title to attack plans because they know it&#8217;s not war plans. There&#8217;s no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information.&#8221;
&#8220;You know who sees war plans? I see &#8217;em. Every single day. I looked at them this morning,&#8221; he said while indicating that he believes that there is a difference between &#8220;war plans&#8221; and &#8220;attack plans.&#8221;
He said that his role in the Signal group chat was to &#8220;provide updates in real time, general updates in real time, keep everybody informed.&#8221;
&#8220;That&#8217;s what I did. That&#8217;s my job,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The war fighters will take the fight to the enemy, and I love what they do. And with President Trump&#8217;s leadership, our enemies are on notice. We will have peace through strength, and we&#8217;ll keep putting our troops first.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
One more time…
I see war plans every single day. No one is texting war plans. <a href="https://t.co/ujU7IvHGmL">pic.twitter.com/ujU7IvHGmL</a>
&mdash; Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (@SecDef) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecDef/status/1904974332532490584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

White House: Trump

Hegseth Fires Back At The Media Over ‘SignalGate’ Reporting

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt opened Wednesday&#8217;s press briefing by going on offense against Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg over his report this week about a Signal chat group where top Trump administration officials discussed U.S. strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
Leavitt ripped the mainstream media for focusing on the story, which she called &#8220;sensationalized&#8221; and said was &#8220;falling apart by the hour.&#8221;
The story broke open because Goldberg was somehow added to the group, allowing him to monitor what U.S. officials were saying about the forthcoming strikes.
&#8220;The National Security Advisor has taken responsibility for this matter, and the National Security Council immediately said alongside the White House Counsel&#8217;s Office that they are looking into how a reporter&#8217;s number was inadvertently added to this messaging thread,&#8221; Leavitt said. &#8220;We have said all along that no classified material was sent on this messaging thread. There were no locations, no sources or methods revealed, and there were certainly no war plans discussed.&#8221;
She said that the story proves that &#8220;Democrats and their propagandists in the mainstream media know how to fabricate, orchestrate, and disseminate a misinformation campaign quite well, and there&#8217;s arguably no one in the media who loves manufacturing and pushing hoaxes more than Jeffrey Goldberg.&#8221;
&#8220;Goldberg is an anti-Trump hater,&#8221; she said. &#8220;He is a registered Democrat. Goldberg&#8217;s wife is also a registered Democrat and a big Democrat donor who used to work under Hillary Clinton. This is the same Jeffrey Goldberg who infamously lied about weapons of mass destruction to get us into the Iraq War, which cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American soldiers.&#8221;
&#8220;And how else has Goldberg discredited himself?&#8221; she continued. &#8220;By absurdly claiming that President Trump was Vladimir Putin during the 2016 campaign, by peddling the &#8216;Russia, Russia, Russia&#8217; hoax that tried to hijack President Trump&#8217;s first term, by inventing the &#8216;suckers and losers&#8217; hoax to help Joe Biden in the 2020 election, by peddling a hoax about President Trump involving Gold Star families to help Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, which our campaign at the time, vigorously denied.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/PressSec?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PressSec</a> on the latest hoax from Democrats and their media mouthpieces: &quot;If this story proves anything, it proves that Democrats and their propagandists in the mainstream media know how to fabricate, orchestrate, and disseminate a misinformation campaign quite well.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/F33uQtduD8">pic.twitter.com/F33uQtduD8</a>
&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1904947160178725156?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

US-POLITICS-LEAVITT-BRIEFING

Karoline Leavitt Hammers Jeffrey Goldberg At Press Briefing

Karoline Leavitt

Trump Administration

The White House on Wednesday accused The Atlantic of sensationalizing the content of additional &#8220;attack plans&#8221; messages that the outlet released after administration officials denied sharing classified information in a Signal group chat that its reporter was inadvertently added to.
The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was mistakenly added to a Signal group chat of top Trump military and intelligence officials to monitor airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. The Atlantic’s first article on the chat, published Monday, left out messages that Goldberg said contained sensitive “attack plans” that could damage U.S. national security if released.
The outlet published those redacted messages on Wednesday after Trump officials denied on Tuesday that any classified information was shared in the group chat. “There was no classified information as I understand it,” President Donald Trump <a href="https://x.com/Breaking911/status/1904613513378537843" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on Tuesday.
The messages released by Goldberg were sent by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at 11:44 a.m. ET on the morning of March 15, the day of the strike on the Houthis. The messages, sent to the group roughly two hours before the strike was delivered, said:
<blockquote>TEAM UPDATE:
TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.
1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)
1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”
1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)
1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)
1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.
MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)
We are currently clean on OPSEC.
Godspeed to our Warriors.</blockquote>
Vice President JD Vance slammed Goldberg after the publication of the additional messages, accusing The Atlantic chief of sensationalizing the contents of messages that he had originally kept from the public.
“It’s very clear Goldberg oversold what he had,” the vice president posted on X.
“But one thing in particular really stands out. Remember when he was attacking Ratcliffe for blowing the cover for a CIA agent? Turns out [CIA Director John Ratcliffe] was simply naming his chief of staff,” Vance said. The Atlantic, at the request of the CIA, kept redacted the name of Ratcliffe&#8217;s chief of staff because the identities of CIA intelligence officers are typically protected.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
It’s very clear Goldberg oversold what he had. But one thing in particular really stands out. 
Remember when he was attacking Ratcliffe for blowing the cover for a CIA agent? Turns out Ratcliffe was simply naming his chief of staff. <a href="https://t.co/BUGbX6gZDZ">https://t.co/BUGbX6gZDZ</a>
&mdash; JD Vance (@JDVance) <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/1904887094649971146?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Ratcliffe had testified to Congress on Tuesday that his chief of staff was not operating undercover, and so naming him in the Signal chat was “completely appropriate.”
National Security Adviser Mike Waltz <a href="https://x.com/MikeWaltz47/status/1904888948628877756">posted</a> after after the additional messages were public: “No locations. No sources &amp; methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent. BOTTOM LINE: President Trump is protecting America and our interests.”
The Atlantic reached out to the White House and top intelligence officials before publishing the additional messages, asking if government officials had any reservations about the outlet doing so. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt emphasized that no “classified information” was shared in the group, but that the messages contained &#8220;sensitive information” that should not be made public.
“As we have repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat. However, as the CIA Director and National Security Advisor have both expressed today, that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation. This was intended to be a an [sic] internal and private deliberation amongst high-level senior staff and sensitive information was discussed. So for those reason [sic] — yes, we object to the release,” Leavitt told The Atlantic in a statement.
After The Atlantic published the additional messages, Leavitt responded to the story on X.
“The Atlantic has conceded: these were NOT ‘war plans.’ This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin,” Leavitt wrote.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The Atlantic has conceded: these were NOT “war plans.” 
This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin. <a href="https://t.co/atGrDd2ymr">pic.twitter.com/atGrDd2ymr</a>
&mdash; Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) <a href="https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1904875629612331123?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

JD Vance

White House Blasts The Atlantic After Release Of More ‘Attack Plans’ Messages: ‘Oversold’

White House Blasts The Atlantic After Release Of ‘Attack Plans’ Messages: ‘Oversold’

White House

On Monday, Jeffrey Goldberg, the execrable editor of The Atlantic, dropped a bombshell story. Goldberg is basically a stand-in for Barack Obama&#8217;s foreign policy team.
He broke the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">story</a> that he was accidentally included in a Signal chat that was basically comprised of every top member of Team Trump in the national security sphere, ranging from the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, to National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, to Vice President of the United States JD Vance, to Stephen Miller, a top adviser to President Trump.
They were all in a Signal chat discussing the upcoming military strike on the Houthis. Waltz accidentally included Goldberg in this Signal chat.
What exactly happened here? The answer is almost certainly that Waltz meant to include the U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
Signal is an encrypted messaging service that is basically supposed to be uncrackable by outside sources. When using Signal — as I myself do — you can choose how your name appears in its identity line. You can either pick your full name or your initials.
My assumption is that Jamieson Greer opted to use his initials, “JG,” and that whoever put together the group selected Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic instead.
This does not mean, as so many folks who do not like Mike Waltz surmise, that he was regularly chatting with Goldberg. It just means that Goldberg was in a list of contacts that included Greer, both of them used their initials “JG,” and he selected the wrong one.
Obviously, the biggest issue is the leak itself. How did this happen?
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2165-member-exclusive">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
President Trump was asked about this yesterday, and said, “I don&#8217;t know anything about it. I&#8217;m not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it&#8217;s a magazine that&#8217;s going out of business. I think it&#8217;s not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it.” When told the chat was discussing the attack on the Houthis, Trump <a href="https://x.com/yashar/status/1904250234236289151">replied</a>, “The Houthis? You mean the attack on the Houthis? Well, it couldn&#8217;t have been very effective because the [U.S.] attack was very effective. I can tell you that.”
When Hegseth was asked about this, he <a href="https://x.com/DODResponse/status/1904311661629964334" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tore into</a> The Atlantic as well: “So you&#8217;re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who&#8217;s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again, to include the, I don&#8217;t know, the hoaxes of ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ or the ‘fine people on both sides’ hoax or ‘it&#8217;s suckers and losers’ hoax. This is a guy who peddles in garbage.”
I&#8217;m on board. I think The Atlantic, particularly Goldberg, is not a good representative of the journalistic institution. He was basically a stenographer for Barack Obama. But it was confirmed that the Signal chat involved all these players, and the story was real.
That raises a couple of questions. One is legal. There are people who are attempting to claim that this was somehow violative of criminal law, that this was a breach of Official Records Acts because an auto-delete function can be activated in Signal chats.
The use of terms in The Atlantic piece such as “high side” suggests that there was an entire other thread that was going on inside these sort of classified government rooms. That was preserved. So, there&#8217;s that.
Second, the president of the United States has the ability to simply declassify whatever he wants. So the idea that this is some violation of law is overstated. Is it a scandal? Sure, it&#8217;s a scandal when there&#8217;s a screwup this big. If you accidentally include a journalist in a high-ranking discussion about the precise location of a bombing, that is a major problem, of course. It is a breach of security.
But I am not willing to hear such claims from people on the Democratic side of the aisle who were perfectly fine with the Hillary Clinton email issue. This is one of the lines that the Left is hammering: “You guys, you fussed all about Hillary Clinton and her emails and keeping those on her own private server.”
First, we should recognize that what Hillary Clinton did and what happened here (inviting a journalist into a group chat) are both quite bad. Obviously, that involves high-ranking discussions of national security matters that are classified. That is a giant booboo.
As much as I despise Goldberg as a human being, I think he actually did the responsible thing in not printing, for example, operational details or blowing the operation beforehand, which he certainly could have done.
With that said, the reason that everyone is so casual about the use of classified material these days is because of the original sin of James Comey not prosecuting Hillary Clinton over her emails. That set up an entire permission structure for people to mishandle classified materials — unless you’re a Republican.
That is the way this works. If Hillary Clinton uses classified materials, and she puts them on a private server — which Comey of the FBI openly acknowledged was likely accessed by foreign sources — and no prosecution attends, how can that rule apply to anybody else?
This is why it was so ridiculous when they tried to go after Trump for the mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago at the same exact time that Joe Biden had classified documents in his garage.
This issue is largely played out, in the sense that while something can be a giant screwup, nobody takes it as a criminal-level screwup at this point. That was laid to rest in 2015 and 2016 by the operation to let Clinton off the hook back for her email scandal.
When the Left says, “We&#8217;ve now heard the end about her emails,” the reality is, “But her emails,” was the inciting event for an entire string of mishandling of classified materials on both sides of the aisle.
Some Democrats say this could have cost lives. As it stands, that is hypothetical and did not happen in reality. A giant screwup is not quite the same thing as an intentional move to endanger human life on the American side of the aisle.
It&#8217;s also worth noting that many of the same people who are very upset with this particular situation would have been perfectly happy if the war plan had been leaked by a Trump administration insider and printed on the front page of The New York Times — which happened all the time in the first Trump administration.
What is interesting is the mobilization on one side of the Republican aisle against Waltz in particular, because there are really two issues that are of note with regard to this leak.
One is the leak itself, which obviously is deeply noteworthy. And the administration should make sure nothing like this ever happens again.
But then, there is the second issue, which is what was actually said in the leak. I have noticed that the partisans of Vance are saying that the real story is the leak, while partisans of Waltz are saying that the real story is what was said in the chat.
The answer is both. Both of these things are actual real stories, and neither should be obscured.
People who are fans of the vice president are shifting the focus away from what Vance actually said in the chat, which is another fascinating aspect to this.
This is a window into the open foreign policy debates happening inside the Trump administration. Trump says we are going to reopen freedom of trade and freedom of the seas. We&#8217;re going to strike the Houthis; we&#8217;re not going to be cowards as the Biden administration was.
A consequential discussion ensues in the chat: part of the administration says we need to go punch the Houthis in the mouth, but Vance says we should not punch the Houthis in the mouth and then puts forward a pretty milquetoast delay tactic. Vance posited an open disagreement with President Trump: “I&#8217;m not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now.”
It isn’t. Striking the Houthis is not inconsistent with his messaging on Europe.
By the way, the argument that only 3% of U.S. trade runs through the Suez but 40% of European trade does and thus it doesn&#8217;t matter for the United States if trade moves through the Suez Canal is incredibly silly because trade is intertwined. If the price of goods drastically goes up in Europe, then the price of goods in the United States will go up as well — because we trade with Europe.
Vance’s remarks bespeak an entirely different geopolitical strategy than what the Trump administration as a whole has been promoting. When looking past the leak issue to the actual content, Waltz, Hegseth, and Miller reflect the priorities of the president of the United States.
But Vance? Not so much. When he says, “This is really about cramming it down on the Europeans, so why don&#8217;t the Europeans do it,” he knows full well that the Europeans are not capable of taking on the Houthis. He also understands how global trade works.
This really suggests that the vice president has a very different view of foreign policy from Trump’s, a view that he expressed pretty clearly before he was vice president when he said he didn&#8217;t care whether Russia took Ukraine. That is certainly a view that bespeaks of foreign policy and spheres of influence — essentially, that Russia should have its own sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, stretching all the way down into the Middle East, and that the United States should basically remove itself from the world, which may or may not mean a broader sphere of influence for the Chinese.
Vance has a very different foreign policy than the Trump foreign policy. That&#8217;s just reality.
When he makes statements that openly conflict with the President of the United States’ statements, that is another side to this story.
There are two dueling narratives, and it will be interesting to see how it shakes down inside the administration.

US-DEFENCE-DIPLOMACY

The National Security Story

Department of Defense

National Security Agency (NSA)

Social Media

Stephen Miller

Tulsi Gabbard

White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz responded to the explosive report in The Atlantic from a reporter who was accidentally included in a Signal chat group where high-level Trump officials were discussing a forthcoming strike on Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
Waltz made the remarks to reporters during a meeting on Tuesday where other administration officials were present as the president signed executive orders. He said he has never met or communicated with Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, who wrote the story.
&#8220;There&#8217;s a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves [by] making up lies about this president, whether it&#8217;s the Russia hoax or making up lies about Gold Star families,&#8221; Waltz said. &#8220;And this [journalist] in particular, I&#8217;ve never met, don&#8217;t know, never communicated with and we are looking into him, reviewing how the heck he got into this room.&#8221;
&#8220;But I&#8217;ll tell you what, the world owes President Trump a favor,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;Under Biden, global shipping was shut down — pin-prick attacks months between them, our destroyers being fired upon dozens of times. President Trump took decisive, active action with his national security team, took out the head missileer, knocked out missiles, knocked out headquarters, knocked out communication sites, and for once, as we hear, as you all hear, from every one of our allies, thank God for American leadership again. Thank God for American strength.&#8221;
Waltz said that Goldberg &#8220;wants the world talking about more hoaxes and this kind of nonsense, rather than the freedom that you&#8217;re enabling.&#8221;
&#8220;And a key part of our sovereignty is open sea lanes and knocking the crap out of terrorists, which is exactly what your team and Pete Hegseth, a good friend and fellow veteran, is leading the charge on,&#8221; he added.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
BREAKING
After President Trump was asked about the Yemen Signal group chat, he asked National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to weigh in.
These are the first public comments from Waltz, who reportedly added Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the group chat by accident,… <a href="https://t.co/s7I8byz31Y">pic.twitter.com/s7I8byz31Y</a>
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) <a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1904612524319719899?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 25, 2025</a></blockquote>

US-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-TRUMP-AMBASSADORS

Mike Waltz Responds To Controversy Over Signal Chat On Houthi Strike Plans

The Biden administration authorized the use of the unclassified Signal messaging app for official communications before top Trump administration officials began using it, according to Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR).
Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, appeared on Fox News on Tuesday and suggested that the outcry over top Trump officials using the encrypted messaging platform to communicate is misdirected as the use of the app began under the previous administration.
On Monday, The Atlantic&#8217;s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealed</a> that he was mistakenly added to a Signal group of top Trump officials discussing plans to attack the Houthis. A Senate Intelligence Committee hearing scheduled for after Cotton’s appearance on Fox News featured two of the officials also included in the group, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
“I bet a bunch of those senators that you see at the hearing today are using Signal, as well, to speak to each other or to speak to their aides,” Cotton said ahead of the expected questions over the Signal group at the hearing. “It is my understanding that the Biden administration authorized Signal as a means of communication that was consistent with presidential record-keeping requirements for its administration, and that continued into the Trump administration.”
“It&#8217;s simply another messaging app like the iMessage app on your iPhone or email servers that every administration has set up in which senior administration officials can communicate with each other,” Cotton said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I joined Fox &amp; Friends to preview today’s open Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the Worldwide Threat Assessment. <a href="https://t.co/F807jZsKcC">pic.twitter.com/F807jZsKcC</a>
&mdash; Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenTomCotton/status/1904517075273420865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 25, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Revelations about the Signal group chat, parts of which were published in The Atlantic on Monday, sparked questions about National Security Advisor Mike Waltz’s future in the administration. Goldberg reported that he had been added to the sensitive group chat by an account labeled “Michael Waltz.”
President Donald Trump dismissed suggestions that he could fire Waltz over the Signal group on Tuesday. Trump told Fox News that “he’s not getting fired” and called the Signal group a “mistake,” but added that “nothing important” was shared in the thread.
Goldberg said that sensitive information was relayed in the Signal thread that had the potential to damage “American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East” if it were to be released. He did not publish the alleged messages he referred to.

Tom Cotton

Tom Cotton: Biden Admin Authorized Signal App For Communication Between Top Officials

Congress

President Donald Trump and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended top officials on Tuesday morning after they <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-acknowledges-journalist-was-inadvertently-added-to-high-level-chat-on-houthi-strikes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inadvertently added</a> The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a text chain where they discussed striking Houthi targets last week.
Goldberg published a story on Monday detailing how he was added to a group chat on the unclassified messaging app Signal where Trump officials — including Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, among others — were talking through timing and strategy for U.S. military strikes in Yemen against the terrorist group. The White House confirmed the authenticity of the group chat, saying in a statement that it is &#8220;reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.&#8221;
While the Trump administration confirmed that the group chat highlighted in The Atlantic&#8217;s story was genuine, Leavitt <a href="https://x.com/PressSec/status/1904512527699968437" target="_blank" rel="noopener">slammed</a> Goldberg&#8217;s &#8220;sensationalist spin.&#8221; The press secretary wrote on X that &#8220;No &#8216;war plans&#8217; were discussed&#8221; on the Signal group chat and &#8220;No classified material was sent to the thread.&#8221;
&#8220;The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible,&#8221; Leavitt added. &#8220;As the National Security Council stated, the White House is looking into how Goldberg’s number was inadvertently added to the thread. Thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of President Trump, and everyone in the group, the Houthi strikes were successful and effective. Terrorists were killed and that’s what matters most to President Trump.&#8221;
Goldberg&#8217;s number was reportedly added by Waltz or a member of his staff in what was possibly a mixup between Goldberg and Trump trade negotiator, Jamieson Greer, who shares the same initials as The Atlantic editor-in-chief. Trump <a href="https://x.com/GarrettHaake/status/1904517487925825844" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> NBC News that he remains confident in Waltz&#8217;s ability, adding that the National Security Advisor &#8220;learned a lesson&#8221; and is &#8220;a good man.&#8221; Trump added that he&#8217;s not concerned about the story, saying it is &#8220;the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one.&#8221;
In some of the messages published by The Atlantic, Vance expressed concerns about conducting the strikes and said that he was &#8220;not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now.&#8221;
“There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices,” Vance wrote. “I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”
In a statement on Monday, the administration maintained that the chat showed &#8220;the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials,&#8221; adding, &#8220;The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.”
Hegseth <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pete-hegseth-fires-back-at-atlantic-writer-deceitful-and-highly-discredited" target="_blank" rel="noopener">responded</a> to questions about The Atlantic story on Monday, calling Goldberg &#8220;a deceitful and highly discredited, so-called ‘journalist&#8217; who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again, to include the, I don’t know, the hoaxes of ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ or the ‘Fine People On Both Sides’ hoax, or the ‘Suckers And Losers’ hoax.'&#8221;
“Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth added.
In an <a href="https://x.com/kaitlancollins/status/1904355800845627724" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a> with CNN&#8217;s Kaitlan Collins Monday night, Goldberg accused Hegseth of lying.
&#8220;He was texting war plans. He was texting attack plans,&#8221; Goldberg said. He added that sensitive military information was discussed in the group chat and that he did not publish it in his report.
&#8220;When targets were going to be targeted, how they were going to be targeted, who was at the targets, when the next sequence of attacks were happening. I didn’t publish this, and I continue not to publish it because it felt like it was too confidential. &#8230; And I worry, honestly, that sharing that kind of information in public would endanger American military personnel.”

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