UPDATED, with Gabbard comment and The Atlantic statement: The White House’s strategy to deal with the fallout over a Signal app security breach is a familiar one: Blame the media.
This time, it’s that the story is overblown.
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg wrote on Monday that he was mistakenly given access to a Signal group chat involving National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and other top Trump administration officials. At one point, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared plans for strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, hours before they were carried out.
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt this morning attacked Goldberg, saying that he is “well-known for his sensationalist spin.”
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She wrote, “1. No ‘war plans’ were discussed. 2. No classified material was sent to the thread. 3. 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.”
On Monday, Hegseth also attacked Goldberg and suggested that The Atlantic editor-in-chief trafficked in hoaxes.
But Goldberg said it was a “lie” that war plans were not discussed. “He was texting attack plans. 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, too technical, and I worry, honestly, that sharing that kind of information in public would endanger American military personnel.”
It’s possible that Leavitt and Hegseth are playing a game of semantics: “War plans” vs. “attack plans.” Attacking the messenger is a common tactic any White House amid a brewing scandal, but it’s the natural pivot for Trump and his allies. When the president was asked about the story on Monday, he denied even knowing about it, but he quickly went on about The Atlantic and dismissed the publication as a failing media outlet. This morning, he told NBC News’ Garrett Haake that Waltz “has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.” Trump called it Waltz’s “only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one.”
Elon Musk shared a post from the satire site The Babylon Bee and wrote, “Best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of The Atlantic magazine, because no one ever goes there.” Trump shared the post on Truth Social.
A Trump ally on Fox News, Jesse Watters, also tried to minimize the story, in a segment with the chyron, “We’ve all texted the wrong person before.”
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are testifying on Capitol Hill in a previously scheduled appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the committee, said that “this was not only sloppy. It not only violated all procedures, but if this information had gotten out, American lives could have been lost.”
Gabbard declined to get into specifics, and refused to say whether she was on the chat, but Ratcliffe did. “There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal chat.”
“If there was no classified material. share it with the committee,” Warner responded.
Brit Hume, Hegseth’s former colleague at Fox News, dismissed the idea that war plans were not discussed. After Hegseth’s comments to reporters, Hume wrote, “Oh for God’s sake, the administration has already confirmed the authenticity of the message.” He was referring to a previous statement from the spokesperson for the National Security Council that confirmed the authenticity of the chat.
The Atlantic issued a statement later in the day, saying, “Attempts to disparage and discredit The Atlantic, our editor and our reporting follow an obvious playbook by elected officials and others in power who are hostile to journalists and the First Amendment rights of all Americans. Our journalists are continuing to fearlessly and independently report the truth in the public interest.”
