President Trump’s national security adviser accidentally invited the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic to a group text in which top officials debated highly sensitive plans for bombing Yemen, the magazine reported Monday.
Why it matters: The extraordinary breach exposed classified information and private deliberations among the highest-ranking officials in the U.S. government, and raised serious questions about the lax handling of America’s secrets by Trump’s Cabinet.
- Vice President Vance, national security adviser Mike Waltz, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA director John Ratcliffe were among the 18 officials in the Signal chat.
- The White House confirmed the authenticity of the messages reported by Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, and said it had launched a review into “how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
Trump himself told reporters at a press conference Monday that he wasn’t aware of the story.
- “I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic,” he said.
4 takeaways
1. A mind-boggling security breach: National security experts expressed disbelief and outrage over how Waltz could have made such a mistake — and why sensitive war plans were being discussed on Signal, a publicly available encrypted messaging service, in the first place.
- The U.S. government does not permit the use of Signal to transmit classified information, such as the operational details of the March 15 strikes on the Houthis discussed in the group chat.
- Some national security lawyers suggested Waltz may have violated the Espionage Act by coordinating “national defense” plans in such a careless manner.
- Several participants in the group chat, including Waltz and Rubio, had for years excoriated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for using a private email server to conduct government business.
2. Vance as the voice of dissent: As momentum seemed to be building toward striking the Houthis, an Iranian-backed group that has disrupted billions of dollars of international trade in the Red Sea, Vance weighed in to say, “I think we are making a mistake.”
- “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Vance said.
- He argued that freedom of navigation in the Red Sea matters much more to Europe than the U.S. economically, that the strikes could cause oil prices to rise, and that delaying by a month would give the administration more time to build its case to the American people.
- Vance later told Hegseth, “if you think we should do it let’s go.” A spokesperson for Vance told The Atlantic that he and Trump had “subsequent conversations” about the strikes and “are in complete agreement.”
Screenshot of Signal messages, courtesy of The Atlantic.
3. Disagreement over “messaging,” not military strategy: Domestic politics and foreign policy are always intertwined, but it’s particularly glaring in text message form.
- There is no debate in the messages Goldberg shared about the likely military effectiveness of the strikes in Yemen. Such conversations may well have taken place in other settings. But what is on display in the leaked texts is a discussion of how to shape the narrative at home.
- “I think messaging is going to be tough no matter what – nobody knows who the Houthis are – which is why we would need to stay focused on: 1) Biden failed & 2) Iran funded,” Hegseth wrote in response to Vance’s concerns that the plan would be contrary to Trump’s “message on Europe.”
4. They really can’t stand the Europeans.
- Vance’s disdain for European political elites isn’t just political theater. Here, he argued against strikes that he felt would mainly benefit Europe — and thus should be up to the Europeans to execute.
- Even after Waltz and others responded with evidence that only the U.S. could execute such an operation, Vance replied, “I just hate bailing Europe out again.”
- “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC,” Hegseth wrote back.
The intrigue: A user identified as “SM” (possibly Stephen Miller) added that they would ensure the Europeans and Egyptians knew “what we expect in return,” and said the question was “if Europe doesn’t remunerate, then what?”
- “If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return,” the user continues.
- It’s unclear what compensation the U.S. sought from its European allies for the strikes in Yemen.
What to watch: Congress erupted at news of the leak, with Democrats calling for investigations and potential consequences for the national security officials involved in the incident.
- “Every single one of the government officials on this text chain have now committed a crime — even if accidentally,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) tweeted.
- “We can’t trust anyone in this dangerous administration to keep Americans safe.”
