The White House confirmed on Monday (24) that senior Trump administration officials unwittingly included a journalist in a group chat about US military plans.
The Signal messaging app chat about upcoming military strikes reportedly included several members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet, including Vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic magazine, published a story on Monday in which he initially thought it could not be true.
“I had very strong doubts that this text message group was real, because I could not believe that the US national security leadership would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans,” he wrote.
Goldberg was in a group chat that discussed plans for airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
On March 15, the United States targeted rebel strongholds in Yemen.
Goldberg wrote that he received hours of advance notice through the group chat. He still felt the chat was fake, but when the US strikes on Yemen were reported, he realized it was real.
“After coming to this realization that seemed impossible just a few hours ago, I have removed myself from the Signals group,” he wrote.
On Monday, National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes told AFP news agency, “The reported message thread appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how a number was accidentally added to the chain.”
When asked about his cabinet members using Signal to discuss military plans, Trump said, “I don’t know anything about that.”
Later, White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said, “President Trump appears to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Adviser Mike Waltz,” and he added Goldberg to the conversation.
Meanwhile, Hegseth denied that he had shared war plans with reporters.
“Nobody texted war plans, that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth told reporters in Hawaii.
He called Goldberg “fraudulent” and a “discredited so-called journalist,” referring to The Atlantic’s critical reporting on President Trump.
However, congressional Democrats called for action.
Congress should investigate what happened and “prevent this kind of national security breach from ever happening again,” says top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries.
Senator Elizabeth Warren called it “strangely illegal and unbelievably dangerous.”
