That was a hoax. The information is not classified. For some reason, the journalist was “sucked” into the signal chat, intentionally or through some kind of technical glitches.
In days after the Atlantic Prime Minister's editor revealed that he was carelessly included in a group chat of top US officials planning a military strike against Yemen's Hooty militants, senior members of the Trump administration provided a series of changing, sometimes contradictory, and often generous accounts of how the episode happened.
Taken together, most parts of the statements try to distract attention from the basic facts of what happened. An uncategorized commercial app, Defense Secretary Pete Hegses used the signal to share sensitive details about the impending attack in an extraordinary national security attack.
Let's take a look at the main players and what they said about what happened and what their reasoning coincides with what happened.
President Trump said the Atlantic article was a “witch hunt” and called the journalist “a perfect three bag.”
President Trump on Wednesday criticized reporters for the Atlantic storyline as “all witch hunts,” and perhaps the signal was flawed, criticizing former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for not swaying Yemen during his administration.
“To be honest with you, I think the signal is flawed,” he said. Trump added that the fact that he did not do so “has caused a lot of damage and a lot of problems in this world.” The Trump administration criticized Biden for not being aggressive enough against the Hoosis, but his administration led allies in 2024 in several attacks on Yemen's Hoti site.
Trump argued that no classified information was shared among members of the group, including Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, and that it is not uncommon for government members to use cues for official business.
But he has also spent more energy than defending his national security authorities than he has lightly pared Goldberg and Atlantic.
“I happen to know that the guy is a complete three-bag,” Trump said of Goldberg on Tuesday, telling reporters in the Cabinet Office. He added: “Atlantic is a failed magazine, very, very poor. No one cares about it.”
The President and Secretary of Defense have the ability to retrospectively assert that information will be declassified. Former national security officials say they are skeptical that information Heggs shares ahead of the March 15 strike is unclassified given its specificity and the impact of life and death.
Hegseth said the details he shared were technically not “war plans.”
“No name, no target, no location, no units, no route, no source, no way, no way, no classified information,” Hegseth wrote on X on Wednesday. He added:
When trying to trust the Atlantic, the White House argued that the information shared in the signal was not a “war plan,” but that the headlines in the first story call it a “attack plan.” National security experts say this is very likely a distinction that is unchanged.
According to a message released by the Atlantic, Hegses included timestamps and other secret details in his message hours before the attack began.
National security adviser Michael Waltz suggested that journalists may have been “sucked” into group chats.
In Fox News, Waltz lay down on Goldberg, calling him a “scum,” suggesting that he may have intentionally inserted his number into Waltz's phone.
Goldberg said it was accidentally added to Waltz's signal group chat.
Waltz said he was “not a conspiracy theorist,” but he doubted that Goldberg would “somehow get on someone's contact and be sucked into this group.
“Have you ever had someone else's contact information to show you your name? Waltz added, pointing out, “It looked like someone else.” He also said “we're trying to understand” whether journalists were intentionally added to the group or through “other technical averages.”
Host Laura Ingraham appears confused by his reaction and asks him if the staff had made such an error. Trump told NBC News on Tuesday: The staff had a number there. ”
At Fox, Waltz claimed that “the staff were not responsible.”
“Look, I took full responsibility and built the group,” he said, but he claimed he had never texted Mr. Goldberg and was not on the phone when he chatted. He said Trump's adviser, tech billionaire Elon Musk, had some of the “best technical minds” to look into what happened.
Spy chief Tarshi Gabbard said she was not really involved.
Gabbard told members of the assembly on Wednesday that the message proved she was not involved in sharing or debating details related to the strike.
“What was shared today reflects the fact that I wasn't directly involved in that part of the signal chat,” she testified before the House Intelligence Committee.
According to a message published in the Atlantic, Gabbard named Joe Kent early in the exchange. She texted again until the end of the chat, not writing, “Great work and effectiveness!” After the strike.
CIA director John Ratcliffe claimed he personally did nothing wrong.
Ratcliffe defended his actions on Wednesday, expressing his digging about how the Atlantic characterized certain information he posted to signal groups.
“These messages were revealed today and made it clear that I did not send any classified information,” Ratcliffe told members of the House Intelligence Committee. He accused Goldberg of misrepresenting details from his contributions to the exchange.
“I showed in that signal chat that I released the name of a masked CIA operative. In fact, I released the name of my staff chief who has not been conducting a secret investigation,” Goldberg said.
“It's intentionally false and misleading,” Ratcliffe concluded.
In the original article, Goldberg did not refer to the person as a secret agent, but as an “active intelligence agent.” In the second article where he published the signal group's message, he said that was not the case as the CIA requested that Goldberg not disclose his name. The CIA prefers to keep the names of officers secret, so they can still take on future challenges abroad.
Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said he had no phone since the plans were being discussed.
Witkov's only contribution to signal chat was one of the messages he sent after the strike. It was only five emojis: two prayer hands, one muscle, two American flags.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board on Tuesday wrote that Witkov was in Russia at the time when the Signal Group was debating plans to attack Yemen.
Witkov admitted that he was visiting Moscow at the time, but in a social media post he denied having his phone and said “it provides a safe phone that the government provides when traveling to areas where he doesn't want to compromise his device.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the incident was a “big mistake” and suggested that it could encourage reform.
Rubio said it was clear that someone made a “big mistake” by including journalists in the signal group.
“Someone made a big mistake and added a journalist. There's nothing against the journalists, but you're not expected to be involved in that,” Rubio told reporters while traveling to Jamaica.
As a result of the mistake, “reforms and changes will occur,” he added.
Otherwise, he said the concerns had been exaggerated as the war plans had not been revealed in the signal group, reflecting the arguments expressed by others in the administration.
“There was no war plan there,” Rubio told reporters. He said the chat was intended to allow Trump's aides to talk about strikes with counterparts in other countries.
Edward Wong Reports of contributions.
