Members of Donald Trump‘s senior administration accidentally added an American journalist into an encrypted group chat in which they chatted about top-secret details about a US military strike. I’d add a punchline to that, but I think the absolutely ridiculous facts speak for themselves.
This week it was revealed that the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a group chat on the encrypted messaging platform Signal with Vice President JD Vance, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and several other cabinet members.
On Monday, Goldberg published an article about the fuck up with the headline “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans”.
In the article, Goldberg explained that he received a request on the open-source encrypted messaging app on March 11 from a person named Michael Waltz. In the hopes that it was the real National Security Advisor of the United States, Goldberg accepted the request.
Two days later, Goldberg was added to a group chat called “Houthi PC small group”. He quickly discovered that it was a chat created after the top dogs had a meeting in the Situation Room about upcoming military strikes against Houthi (Iran-backed military organisation) targets in Yemen.
At first, Goldberg wasn’t entirely taking the chat at face value, aware that it potentially could be a disinformation operation.
“I remained mystified that no one in the group seemed to have noticed my presence. But if it was a hoax, the quality of mimicry and the level of foreign-policy insight were impressive,” Goldberg wrote.
However, the text chat revealed plans for a strike in Yemen. Goldberg reasoned that if it was real, he’d see evidence of the strikes taking place.
“At about 1:55, I checked X and searched Yemen. Explosions were then being heard across Sanaa, the capital city,” he said.
Goldberg claimed he stayed in the chat and was able to see the discourse had by the high-ranking officials about the strikes. However, he remained wary.
“I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior US officials, up to and including the vice president,” Goldberg said.
On Monday, the White House officially confirmed what Goldberg believed to be true — he was included in a group chat which detailed top-secret war operations.
“The message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes told the media.
Meanwhile, Trump said he didn’t know anything about it.
“I don’t know anything about it. You’re telling me about it for the first time,” he told the press.
In his article, Goldberg made it clear that the security breach of adding him to a group chat was bizarre.
“I have never seen a breach quite like this. It is not uncommon for national security officials to communicate on Signal. But the app is used primarily for meeting planning and other logistical matters — not for detailed and highly confidential discussions of a pending military action. And, of course, I’ve never heard of an instance in which a journalist has been invited to such a discussion,” he wrote.
As a whole, the situation is clearly a clusterfuck. Imagine accidentally adding a journalist to your top-secret conversations. It’s like adding your ex into a group chat where you’re referring to him as “moustache” and calling him a wanker.
Also not to be the person who screams “mercury is in retrograde”, I’d like to add that mercury IS in retrograde and these technology-related things do happen. So make sure you double-check who your texts are to.
God forbid you accidentally send a nude to the wrong person or inadvertently leak top secret war information to a journalist.
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