National security-minded Democrats, and at least one Republican, on Monday panned the Trump administration’s top national security officials after the editor of The Atlantic reported he was inadvertently added to a Cabinet-level group chat used to plan military strikes in Yemen.
Washington was captivated by the news that the magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg had been, seemingly by mistake, added to an apparent group chat on the messaging platform Signal with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and others in the highest tiers of Trump’s government in which they reportedly discussed classified national security information and plans — since acted upon — to launch strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
“If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen,” Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a press release.
Reed said he would be seeking answers from the administration immediately.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a member of the Armed Services panel, said on the social platform X that Hegseth was “demonstrating his incompetence by literally leaking classified war plans in the group chat.”
Asked Monday about the report in The Atlantic, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said: “We’re just finding out about it, but obviously we’ve got to run it to ground and figure out what went on there.”
In the House, Massachusetts Democrat Seth Moulton, a member of the Armed Services and select China committees, said on X that the level of “incompetence” displayed by the event was “so severe that it could have gotten Americans killed” and that “Hegseth is in so far over his head that he is a danger to this country.”
And Connecticut Democrat Jim Himes, ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, said in a post on X that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who was also seemingly in the group chat, last week said “‘any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of law and will be treated as such.'”
“By the Trump admin’s own ‘standards’ everyone on this chain would lose their access to classified info and be subject to criminal investigation,” Himes said.
And Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a post on X that “classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels — and certainly not to those without security clearances, including reporters. Period. Safeguards must be put in place to ensure this never happens again.”
Goldberg wrote that on March 11, he received a connection request on Signal from a user with the handle Michael Waltz. Goldberg accepted the request and, two days later, was added to a group called the “Houthi PC small group.” On March 14, Vice President JD Vance reportedly began discussing with the group, 18 people in all, the merits of launching a strike on the Houthis then versus a month later.
“I just hate bailing Europe out again,” said Vance.
“VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space,” replied Hegseth, according to Goldberg’s account.
Ultimately, the officials decided to move forward with the plan to launch strikes against the Houthis. On March 15, Hegseth sent to the group what Goldberg described as “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
Two hours later, strikes began hitting Yemen’s capital of Sanaa.
Briana Reilly and David Lerman contributed to this report.
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