A view of the White House. Photo: VCG
Top Trump administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, allegedly discussed details of a highly sensitive operation to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen in a group chat that mistakenly included The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, according to Goldberg on Monday.
The incident has sparked criticism and drawn widespread concerns about the senior officials of the Trump administration's handling of the highly sensitive information.
'A bombshell report' In an article entitled "The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans," published on the website of The Atlantic on Monday, Goldberg described in detail how an intense policy discussion unfolded in an encrypted chat group on the Signal messaging app called the "Houthi PC small group" before the US military operations against Yemen's Houthi forces on March 15.
Goldberg said after he was unexpectedly invited to the encrypted chat group, he received a message from "Michael Waltz" which read as follows: "Team - establishing a principles group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours," according to the article. Michael Waltz is the name of US National Security Adviser.
Goldberg wrote that the group chat included accounts seemingly representing Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and senior National Security Council officials.
At the first place, Goldberg said he "had very strong doubts that this text group was real," as he could not believe that the national-security leadership of the US would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans, according to his article.
Goldberg said he 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 discussion with senior US officials, up to and including the vice president, Goldberg wrote.
Brian Hughes, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, stated that the message thread, as revealed in the report on The Atlantic, "appears to be authentic." He added that administration officials are "reviewing how an unintended number was included in the chain," the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
When asked about the Goldberg story at the White House on Monday afternoon, US President Donald Trump told reporters he had not heard about it, CBS News reported.
"I don't know anything about it," the president responded, according to the US media report. "I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it's not much of a magazine. But I know nothing about it," he said.
Hegseth in his first comments on the matter attacked Goldberg as "deceitful" and a "discredited so-called journalist" while alluding to previous critical reporting of Trump from the publication, the AP reported.
He did not shed light on why Signal was being used to discuss the sensitive operation or how Goldberg ended up on the message chain, the AP said.
This incident reveals the intricate and often delicate relationship between the US media and the government, particularly its executive branch, Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
The incident also shows that the decision-making mechanism and culture in the US are inherently "porous," lacking absolute confidentiality, Li noted. "It is extremely difficult for any decision to remain completely secret. Therefore, if the outside world expects the US to strictly maintain secrecy, they are likely to be disappointed."
This highly permeable decision-making culture, where leaks are pervasive, not only deepens domestic public distrust in the government but also raises doubts about the US' credibility on the global stage, Li said.
Criticism and concerns Many raised concerns about the potential mishandling of classified information as well as sensitive details regarding US war plans, according to Politico.
Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 presidential candidate who drew intense criticism from Republicans for her use of a private email server for official public communications, reacted in a post on X on Monday by tweeting a screenshot of the Atlantic article with an "eyes wide open" emoji followed by the simple message, "You have got to be kidding me."
"If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen," Jack Reed, the Senate Armed Services Committee's top Democrat, said in a statement.
"Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion, using approved, secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line. The carelessness shown by President Trump's Cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the administration immediately," said the Democratic senator, Xinhua reported.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called it "one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time," the Guardian reported.
US House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Monday that the Trump administration "is addressing what's happening," adding: "Apparently, an inadvertent phone number made it onto that thread. They are going to track that down and make sure it doesn't happen again," according to Newsweek.
However, Johnson dismissed any potential disciplinary action for Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth, US media The Hill said.
The world's media reacted to this incident. "A shocking breach": Trump officials leak military attacks to The Atlantic, Al Jazeera said in a title of a story published on Monday.
US media Axios called it a "Trump's Cabinet's explosive leak" of Yemen war plans, saying that the extraordinary breach exposed classified information and private deliberations among the highest-ranking officials in the US government, and raised serious questions about the lax handling of America's secrets by Trump's Cabinet.
It is not fully understood what went wrong internally, but based on the details that have emerged so far, it is evident that the highest levels of US security decision-making suffer from a significant lack of discipline, Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
"Such a situation inevitably raises doubts about US' ability to manage security matters effectively. Even if top-secret documents may not be transmitted through group chats as such, the leak of sensitive discussions to an outsider has exposed serious management loopholes," Lü added.
The expert also said that internal divisions within the US administration over how to handle the Houthis, seen in the leaked chat, underlined the coordination issues between the White House and various government agencies, potentially posing security risks.
Open disdain
Officials of the Trump administration expressed dissatisfaction with its European allies and directly attacked Europe in the private chat, according to Goldberg's report.
Vance reportedly said that he disliked "bailing Europe out again" when discussing US plans to bomb Houthi rebels in the Signal group chat.
Waltz criticized the limited capabilities of European navies. Hegseth responded, saying, "I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's pathetic."
The Guardian said in an article titled "Stunning Signal leak reveals depths of Trump administration's loathing of Europe" on Tuesday, pointing out that those messages inadvertently shared with the Atlantic journalist lay bare the unvarnished truth about how Vance and Hegseth feel about European allies.
"If this is what friendship looks like-humiliation, disdain, betrayal-then we have no choice: Europe must act," the European Democratic Party said in a post on threads on Monday, reacting to the US officials' words on Europe.
The Economist also said in a Monday article that this "shambolic leak reveals Team Trump's contempt for allies."
This incident once again confirms the dismissive attitude of Vance and others toward Europe - rather than outright hostility, it's more about not taking Europe seriously at all, Lü said.
"This disdainful tone not only reveals their lack of genuine interest and respect for Europe but also further deepens European distrust of the US - a distrust that has now become unmistakably clear," the expert said.
