Trump backs officials who looped journalist in on top secret military group chat

In the article, Goldberg revealed he received a connection request on the encrypted messaging app Signal on March 11 from a person using Waltz’s name. Goldberg accepted the request, hoping it might be the actual national security adviser, but suspicious it could be an impersonator.

Two days later, Goldberg was added to a group chat titled: “Houthi PC small group.” Waltz explained that the chat was a “principles [sic] group for co-ordination on Houthis”, following a meeting in the Situation Room that day. Waltz asked for each member to nominate a point of contact.

Goldberg then watched as a stream of group members nominated their point person, including “JD Vance”, “MAR” (understood to be Secretary of State Marco Rubio), “TG” (Gabbard), “Scott B” (treasury secretary Scott Bessent) and, under his full name, Pete Hegseth.

The next day, March 14, Goldberg reports Waltz sent another message to the group, informing them a memo about the operation was in their “high side inboxes” – referring to a classified computer system.

The user called JD Vance then suggested the administration was “making a mistake” by proceeding with the Houthi strikes. “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Vance told the group, according to Goldberg’s account.

“There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself.

“But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”

Hegseth argued against a delay, saying that it was a core national interest to protect freedom of navigation at sea. Further debate ensued, including from a member called “SM” – presumed to be White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller.

Goldberg reports that the comments seemed to realistically reflect the way each person would normally talk but that he remained wary it could be a “disinformation operation”.

“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 writes.

But the next day, March 15, his disbelief ended. Goldberg writes that Hegseth posted operational details of the imminent strikes on Yemen, “including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing”. Goldberg did not publish the details in his report.

Goldberg waited to see if the bombings unfolded as described, and they did. Minutes afterwards, members of the Signal group chat congratulated each other on the attack. The Atlantic’s story includes screenshots of these messages.

He says he then realised he had almost certainly been included in a genuine group chat involving the most senior Trump administration officials planning a sensitive military operation. He subsequently had this confirmed by Hughes, the National Security Council spokesman.

In a separate statement to this masthead, Hughes said: “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.”

Regarding Vance’s apparent disagreements about the operation, his communications director, William Martin, said in a statement: “The Vice President’s first priority is always making sure that the President’s advisers are adequately briefing him on the substance of their internal deliberations.

“Vice President Vance unequivocally supports this administration’s foreign policy. The President and the Vice President have had subsequent conversations about this matter and are in complete agreement.”

Earlier, Trump was questioned about the report during an event at the White House on Monday afternoon, local time, and indicated he had not been briefed.

“I don’t know anything about it … You’re telling me about it for the first time,” he said. “I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic … I think it’s not much of a magazine.”

The national security implications of the incident were playing out in Washington on Monday as stunned officials and observers grappled with the magnitude of the error.

Veteran Democrat and former speaker Nancy Pelosi said people must be held accountable for their “cavalier behaviour” that put military lives at risk.

“I have never before seen such horrifying incompetence in the securing of our nation’s intelligence,” she said.

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who was hounded by Republicans for using a private email server instead of her departmental account, posted on X: “You have got to be kidding me.”

Leon Panetta, a former defence secretary who served under president Barack Obama, told CNN that the incident could violate espionage laws and undermine US national security.

“Somebody on The Atlantic got the most sensitive emails you can imagine. That is a serious blunder, it has to be investigated, and somebody, quite frankly, needs to get fired,” he said.

But House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson played down concerns. “They’ll tighten up and make sure that doesn’t happen again,” he told reporters in Congress. There was no need for anyone to be disciplined over the incident, he said.