The reveal that top advisers to President Donald Trump had accidentally leaked war plans to the press sent the Trump administration into denial. Now that The Atlantic has published the leaked plans in question, MAGA is charging ahead into the next stage of grief: anger.
In a series of contentious interviews on Wednesday, Trump allies and associates haughtily blew off questions from concerned reporters. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene attacked the media for giving air to a scandal they viewed as ridiculously overblown.
"We are not going to bend in the face of this insincere outrage," Leavitt told reporters at the White House. “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."
Leavitt's statement served as a preamble to a heated question-and-answer session. CNN's Kaitlan Collins asked if President Trump felt "misled" by his Cabinet, who assured him that no classified information had been shared in the compromised Signal chat.
"I have now been asked and answered this question three times," she said. "I've given you my answer. The president feels the same as he did yesterday."
When Collins attempted to ask a follow-up question, Leavitt rushed to the next reporter and refused to respond.
Leavitt refuses to take a follow up question from Kaitlan Collins pic.twitter.com/TIjpygSW05
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 26, 2025
Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich pressed Leavitt on what counts as classified information, asking her directly why "launch times on a mission" were not considered classified by the White House.
"Do you trust the secretary of defense...or do you trust Jeffrey Goldberg, who is a registered Democrat and an anti-Trump sensationalist reporter?"
FOX NEWS: Why aren't launch times on a mission strike classified?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 26, 2025
LEAVITT: Again, I would defer you to the secretary of defense's statement pic.twitter.com/iR0q7EBmCR
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has maintained that he did not share war plans in the Signal chat, even as screenshots of messages revealing the timing of planned missile strikes have been released. In a post to social media, he said the texts he sent would have made "really s**tty war plans."
"Those 'plans' include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information. Those are some really sh**ty war plans," he wrote.
Later in the day, Hegseth reiterated that point to reporters in Hawaii, quickly leaving before they could ask him any questions.
The rage at reporters isn't limited to active members of the Trump administration. Marjorie Taylor Greene attacked a reporter from UK outlet Sky News when she raised questions about the group chat.
Greene told the reporter to "go back to [her] country" and worry about the UK's "major migrant problem.
"We don’t give a crap about your opinion and your reporting," Greene said. "You should care about your own borders."
