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Trump administration senior officials are facing harsh criticism after it was revealed that they had used the personal messaging app Signal to discuss highly classified military intelligence in a group chat. The chat, in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth laid out plans for an upcoming military strike in Yemen, inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, as a participant.
Though the rest of the chat’s participants – including national security advisor Michael Waltz, Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard – doubled down on insisting nothing improper had happened. But after details of a second chat emerged, even harsher scrutiny fell upon Hegseth, who was a Fox News anchor prior to Donald Trump appointing him as Defense Secretary.
Further investigations revealed that he had a startlingly accessible digital presence, raising questions over whether he’s left key classified information vulnerable to foreign adversaries.
Read on below our live updates as we track the fallout from the Signal group chat.
Pete Hegseth reportedly spilled Yemen attack details in another Signal chat
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly shared details about the March 15th Yemen military strikes in another Signal chat with people who weren’t government officials, reports The New York Times. The chat included his wife and “about a dozen” others he knew personally and professionally, the outlet writes, citing conversations with four unnamed sources.
The details he shared “included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen,” writes the Times, which notes the details were “essentially the same” as those shared in the Signal chat between Hegseth and other officials last month that included Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who was added by mistake.
A beginner’s guide to using Signal
If you hadn’t heard of Signal before this week, chances are you’re well aware of it now. The messaging app was thrust into the news on Monday when The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was mistakenly added to a group chat involving top military officials planning an airstrike. Even though it entered the discourse for extremely unusual reasons, Signal has been, and remains, a well-regarded messaging platform for secure communication. It’s not foolproof — emphasis on fool, in this case — but it’s worth understanding what it is and how it works, even if you’re not a person who deals with highly confidential information.
Signal is a messaging app. You download it to your iOS or Android device, link your phone number, and you’re ready to go — just like other services like WhatsApp or Telegram. The thing that makes Signal different is its emphasis on privacy. Communication on the platform is end-to-end encrypted by default, and the app offers additional protections to keep your private discussions private.
Here’s what military planning usually looks like — and why it doesn’t include Signal
Image: Shealah Craighead / White House
The Trump administration planned a military strike in Yemen the way normal people plan a surprise birthday party: in a group chat.
As detailed by The Atlantic earlier this week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and other senior officials used a Signal group to discuss an attack on Houthi targets, sharing details that included the movement of American assets in advance of their deployment. The news leaked because one member, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, made the bizarre mistake of inviting Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg into the discussion. But even before that moment, Hegseth and the rest were doing something dangerous and far outside the bounds of normal military planning — while using an app that, for ordinary people, is still one of the best ways to have a private chat.
Donald Trump explains how he thinks the military strike “call” added Jeffrey Goldberg.
The Atlantic releases strike group chat messages
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
On March 24th, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published a damning story about being added to the ‘Houthi PC Small Group’ on Signal by Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz. In it, he described inadvertently becoming privy to high-level military operation planning that should never have taken place on Signal by people who really should have known better. The administration spent the next two days saying that the contents of the chat were “nonclassified.” On March 26th, The Atlantic released the texts, which included weather conditions for targeted strikes, descriptions of the targets, confirmations, congratulations, names of specific drones used in the attack, and more.
Previously, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claimed, “Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that “No ‘war plans’ were discussed” (but also later emailed The Atlantic to say “we object to the release” of the texts). At the subsequent hearing, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reiterated the claim that “no classified material” was shared.
The military strike groupchat scandal isn’t going away.
A day after The Atlantic EIC Jeffrey Goldberg revealed he’d been inadvertently included in a group message on Signal where Trump admin officials discussed details of an upcoming military strike, CBS News reports on an NSA warning from February that the app isn’t approved for “nonpublic unclassified” information. Despite testimony today that no classified material was shared, the NSA noted the danger posed by Russian phishing campaigns attempting to add a linked device and bypass Signal’s encryption for surveillance.
Later on Tuesday evening, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries shared a letter he’d sent to the president saying Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth “should be fired immediately” over the breach, and watchdog organization American Oversight said it’s filed a lawsuit against several of the officials in the chat.
Trump officials planned a military strike over Signal – with a magazine editor on the line
Getting added to the wrong group chat is a common problem, but what if that group chat is describing an upcoming military strike? That’s what happened to The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who was added to a Signal group chat formed by high-ranking members of the Trump administration to discuss plans for military strikes on Yemen. As a result, he had the details of a bombing attack targeting the Houthis hours before it actually occurred on March 15th, facts later confirmed not only by the attacks going off on schedule but in comments from National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes, who said they are “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
The 18 members of the chat — named “Houthi PC Small group” — appear to have included vice president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard, all freely chatting with The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief listening in. Goldberg says he’s unsure how he was added or how no one on the thread noticed his presence. Discussions of classified military plans are generally not supposed to take place on consumer messaging apps.
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