The gang that couldn't text straight
Gee, who would have guessed Hegseth and crew would turn out to be dangerously inept?
By Sam Bellamy
As a child, before I grasped that war wasn’t nearly as much fun as the sanitized version on my TV, my pals and I used to skulk around our suburban neighborhood with toy guns, pretending we were fighting a battle against whoever’s turn it was to be the bad guys.
Today, I have an uneasy feeling that the little battalion of bloated egos and arrested development skulking around the White House these days is no more fit to run a military operation than we were.
The latest evidence is Pete Hegseth accidentally texting the minute-by-minute war plans for this month’s bombing of Houthi targets in Yemen to the editor of The Atlantic magazine on the messaging platform Signal.
Jeff Goldberg, the editor, tells us all about it in a fascinating piece posted online Monday. It’s behind a paywall – a digital subscription is $80 for one year – but a 30-day free trial is also available.
Well, let me amend that to say that Goldberg tells us mostly all about it. Unlike the Cabinet-level participants in the message chain leading up to the bombing, Goldberg is actually careful about national security and the safety of military personnel and intelligence officers. He divulges just enough to let us know how incompetent this administration is.
The saga began on March 11, when Goldberg received a request on Signal from a user identifying himself as Michael Waltz, the name of Trump’s national security advisor. Goldberg had some doubt it was actually that Waltz and, throughout the next few days, suspected he was the target of an elaborate con, perhaps by a group hoping to embarrass a journalist.
But Goldberg connected to Waltz and was soon added to a message chain called “Houthi PC small group.” What ensued next were several days of discussions that included Secretary of Defense Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Senior White House Aide Stephen Miller, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and quite a few other high-ranking officials.
Donald Trump wasn’t part of the group; in the hours leading to the attack, he was golfing.
These officials shared thoughts on a proposed attack on the Houthis, an Iran-backed terrorist organization that’s been wreaking havoc on international shipping since late 2023. Trump has gleefully recounted President Biden’s failure to stop the Houthis and struck his usual tough guy pose, vowing that he’ll take care of them.
In the message chain, Vance shares his doubts about the attack and states that about 40% of the trade through the embattled Suez Canal is to and from Europe, with only 3% involving U.S. trade. He suggests waiting to attack until Trump can explain to the public why it’s necessary to take the risk of a military operation when it doesn’t do much to serve his America First agenda.
Hegseth replies that he can wait but explaining the necessity of the attack would be tough because most Americans don’t know who the Houthis are. He suggests the administration’s message “stay focused on: 1) Biden failed & 2) Iran funded.”
Note here that putting the lives of U.S. military personnel in danger is deemed worthwhile if Americans are reminded that “Biden failed.”
Later, Vance says he’s OK with proceeding with the attack but laments, “I just hate bailing Europe out again.”
“VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC,” replies Hegseth.
As the discussion proceeds, the participants share sensitive military information, including the name of an active intelligence officer, and talk about making sure European and Egyptian leaders are informed the Trump administration expects something big in return for hammering the Houthis.
At no point did anyone ask Golberg who he was or why he was there.
Goldberg says the exchanges seemed real and contained a sophisticated knowledge of U.S. foreign policy, but he still had doubts about the authenticity of the messages.
Then, at 11:44 a.m. on March 15, Hegseth sent a “TEAM UPDATE” to the group.
It wasn’t until the moment of the attack a couple of hours later – as he sat in a supermarket parking lot – that Goldberg was certain he’d been watching a top secret conversation.
He was stunned by the many details Hegseth sent prior to attack.
“I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts,” Goldberg writes. “The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility.”
Goldberg continues, “What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
After the attack, the chat participants exchanged congratulations and expressions of relief, as well as a series of emojis – praying hands, a fist, flexed biceps, American flags. You know, like FDR and Generals Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley and Marshall would have if they’d had Signal and acted like kids playing war.
Afterward, Goldberg deleted himself from the chat and, being a good reporter, contacted the participants with a series of questions, such as did you know I was there, and do you people use Signal regularly for sensitive discussions like this and hey, have you given any thought to the possibility that this sort of unsecured talk might endanger American personnel? (I’m paraphrasing. He was more polite.)
“This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” a National Security Council spokesman replied to Goldberg. “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.”
Goldberg and a colleague at The Atlantic, Shane Harris, also interviewed numerous national security and legal experts to inquire if any laws were broken by Trump’s Cabinet and the vice president.
The consensus seems to be “yep.” Maybe even the Espionage Act, which among other things contains provisions on handling “national defense” information.
Sharing a war plan with others – including an unidentified individual – would be a no-no. What’s more, violations – as Trump likes to gleefully point out when harassing generals and others who’ve crossed him – can be punishable by death.
Death seems overly harsh, but forcing these idiots to delete Signal from their phones would be a good start. The Pentagon, after all, does have a rather sizable budget that includes secure methods of communication.
In his piece in The Atlantic, Goldberg reminds us that Trump repeatedly blasted Hillary Clinton for using a private email server to conduct official business while she was secretary of state. This led to the chant Americans probably will never get out of their heads: “Lock her up!”
Prison is not a bad option for these buffoons, but it would be expensive — and we are trying to cut back, aren’t we?
But firing the lot of them, capped by Vance’s resignation, does seem quite appropriate.
Anyone care to share praying hands, a fist, flexed biceps and American flag over that?