Jeffrey Goldberg
Appearances
Apple News Today
Top Trump officials leaked war plans to a journalist by mistake
That's when I realized that the chain was real. Until that point, I really had a deep suspicion that that I was being spoofed or hoaxed or being led astray on a disinformation campaign. But this all seems so improbable that I simply assumed that it couldn't be real.
Apple News Today
Top Trump officials leaked war plans to a journalist by mistake
According to everything I understand, they're not supposed to be doing this on commercial messaging apps. They got quite lucky that they included my phone number.
Apple News Today
Top Trump officials leaked war plans to a journalist by mistake
If they're going to pick an errant phone number, I mean, at least it wasn't somebody who supported the Houthis because they were actually handing out information that I believe could have endangered the lives of American service people who were involved in that operation.
Consider This from NPR
The fallout from the Signal breach begins
These are the most serious jobs in America. They are sending Americans into harm's way to carry out national security missions on behalf of the United States. They shouldn't be texting each other operational information. And they shouldn't... I mean, this is the universal problem. Know who you're texting.
Consider This from NPR
The fallout from the Signal breach begins
I look at the group, it's 18 people or so, and it includes what I take to be the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor, the Vice President, CIA Director, and so on.
Consider This from NPR
The fallout from the Signal breach begins
By Saturday the 15th, the text chain is filled up with what I would call operational military information of the sort that I'm not comfortable sharing. I'm not comfortable sharing, obviously.
Consider This from NPR
The fallout from the Signal breach begins
Yes. I'm sitting in my car in a parking lot in a supermarket at 1144 a.m. Eastern, and I get this war plan from Pete Hexeth. And it basically says in two hours' time, you'll begin to see the effects of the bombing.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
You know, I assume that things that come over the transom are fake, but there's no harm in saying to Mike Waltz, yeah, sure, here's my, I accept your message request and I'll find out if it's the real Mike Waltz or not. That happens. A couple of days later, I'm added to the Signal Chat Houthi PC small group with a bunch of names, most of which are spelled out. Some are not.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Some are just initials, but, you know, including the CIA director, the Das ist ein Fake. 100%. Because that doesn't happen. Somebody's setting me up. Well, couldn't you just check to see if it was Mike Waltz's phone number? Like, don't you have his phone? No, I don't want to press any buttons.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
If there was anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they would be in jail right now. Nobody is above the law, not even Hillary Clinton, even though she thinks she is.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
You don't want to accidentally leave the chat. Well, no. I assume that this is a state actor or a non-state actor trying to, you know. I mean, and it's obviously more subtle than, this is UPS. You have to give us your social security number unless we're not going to give you your packet. You know, this is some sophisticated thing going on. You know, and Signal in the way it's designed, you can't.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
very easily, from my limited skills here, very easily see what's going on. Or if the person in the group is not in your phone book, then you can't see who it is. Anyway, I just thought of some weird thing. I get a lot of weird things over the transom, as do you, every day. It's like, alright, we're moving on. And then, over the next couple of days, it gets very, very strange.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
First, there's a, with a high degree of you know, very similar to, there's a discussion about attacking Yemen and whether they should attack Yemen this weekend. You know, this is already late in the week. And I'm like, well, some AI is very clever at mimicking the policy positions or the ideological proclivities of J.D. Vance. That's interesting. Because J.D.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
was the one that was against in the text chain. J.D. was the one who articulated, and by the way, I find this fascinating, and this is the stuff that interests me the most. I find it fascinating that J.D. Vance ist im Chat. Nicht nur sagt er, dass er mit dem Präsidenten entgegenkommt, aber er denkt nicht, dass der Präsident die Veränderungen der Politik versteht. Das ist interessant.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Nun, es ist berühmt.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Das ist, wo es ein bisschen blöd ist, richtig? Ich meine, er sagt es in einer Schale, die die Hälfte des Kabinetts inkludiert. Ich bin exagerierend, aber nur ein bisschen. Vielleicht 30 Prozent des Kabinetts. Includiert, übrigens, die größten Kabinettsdepartementen, die Staatssekretärin, die Defense, die Treasury.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
are in there and he's like I don't think the president really gets what's going on here and he's making strong arguments that this is just we're just doing Europe another favor and screw the Europeans and it's interesting a conversation that's ostensibly about whether we start dropping serious bombs on the Houthis becomes more animated on the question of how bad the Europeans are really bad or super bad
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
You know, and that's where it goes. That's the Friday, but on Saturday... Loathes. Hex has said he loathes our Europeans. Yeah, no, and they did it all caps. Europeans are pathetic, all caps, whatever. I mean, they're all sort of mimicking each other and mimicking the boss in that sense. Saturday is when it becomes obviously totally bizarre, and I realize that I'm in something that
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
As much as I enjoy national security investigative reporting, I don't need strike plans two hours before a launch. That should not be coming into my phone. I mean, I take this stuff very, very seriously and I take the responsibility not to get Americans killed very, very seriously. And I'm sitting in a Safeway parking lot and my phone contains now information that
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Really four or five humans should know. Right. Detailed plans, who they're going to kill, when, what weapons. When, yeah, the when and the where are what's interesting in the weapons packages. Because what I deduced, obviously what I deduced from this is that these are not uncrewed aircraft drones being used or missiles, standoff missile platforms.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
They're talking about, all I'm comfortable saying is that they're talking about crewed aircraft drones. in the coming hours to attack sites that I have to assume are protected by anti-aircraft batteries and other defensive weapons systems that I don't know. But it's like, the thought is, if this is real... Why the hell do I have this? And I'm serious.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
I know it might go against people's perception of what a reporter wants to know. I want to know the strategy. I want to know the arguments. I want to know our foreign policy posture. After action, I want to know if it worked or not, if they killed the right people or if they killed civilians by mistake. I want to know how bad the... I don't want to know what planes are flying when.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Sorry, I get very exercised about this because the White House is saying there is no classified information. Classification is a technical term, so put that aside. But the White House is now saying there is nothing in there that was sensitive. And it's like... Let's get to that. Boys, what are you talking about here?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
I've detailed without including particulars or technical issues what was included. It was a timeline of coming attacks, the weapon systems used in these attacks, some very specific targeting information, who they are trying to kill. Okay? Let me just state that. Who they are trying to kill in the next two hours. Are we going to split hairs here? To me, that sounds like an attack plan.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
I'm good. Thanks for having me.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
That sounds like a war plan. That sounds like this is what we're going to do and we haven't done it yet. And literally... They are talking, you know, and I agree with this kind of language, you know, Godspeed to our men. They understand that they're about to send Americans into harm's way in order to achieve this national security goal. Classification is a very interesting subject.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
I can't get into it. I don't. Es gibt nationalen Verteidigungsinformationen, es gibt Klassifikationen. Schau, es ist offensichtlich Material. Es gibt einen Covert CIA-Operator, der auf dem Thread genannt wird, richtig?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Ja, und ich habe ihren Namen von diesem, sie haben jemanden genannt, der ein aktiver CIA-Officer ist, in diesem Thread, der auf Signal ist, wiederum eine kommerzielle App, in der ich schaue. Und ich habe es enthüllt. Ich habe es nicht in die Geschichte gelegt, weil sie unter Cover ist. Aber, ich meine, der CIA-Direktor hat es in den Chat gelegt.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Aber das ist klar klassifizierte Informationen, die CIA-Operationen. Bei jedem Standard der Vorstellung, ich meine, wir sprechen über, wiederum, diese sind technische Termine, und es gibt viele, viele verschiedene Läufe und Komplexitäten. Und ich bin kein Nationalverwaltungslehrer. Aber, schau, ich habe das seit mehr als 30 Jahren gemacht.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Ich weiß, was technische, technische Informationen aussehen.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Look, I feel like, let me just put it this way. My colleagues and I and the people who are giving us advice on this have some interesting conversations to have about this. But just because they're irresponsible with material doesn't mean that I'm going to be irresponsible with this material. And you know what? Du hattest eine lange Geschichte, wie ich, mit ihnen zu handeln.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Und in solchen Momenten, wenn sie unter Druck sind, weil sie mit ihrer Hand in den Kühlschrank gefangen wurden oder was auch immer, sagen sie einfach alles, um aus dem Moment zu kommen, aus der Spur zu kommen. Und das ist okay. Ich verstehe es. Ich verstehe die defensive Reaktion. Aber hier ist die Sache.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Meine Obligation, finde ich, ist die Idee, dass wir die Information über die nationalen Sicherheitsbedingungen ernst nehmen. Maybe in the coming days I'll be able to let you know that, okay, I have a plan to have this material vetted publicly. But I'm not going to say that now because there's a lot of conversations that have to happen about that. Makes sense.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
All of my inclinations, as you can tell, including withholding the name of the CIA undercover officer, all of my inclinations are, I have a pretty clear standards in my own behavior of... Information that I consider to be in the public interest, even if it's technically classified or not, information that's in the public interest and information that's not in the public interest.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Quite randomly, I was in Salzburg, Austria. Let's put that aside.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
I mean, unauthorized release might not be technically the correct term for mistakenly inviting the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic into your signal chat. I don't know what cover there... It seems like they have standards.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Right. Although I have seen in some corners of the conversation pro-Trump people saying that. Oh, I'm sure he was invited on purpose in order to show that J.D. Vance was strong against Europe. And it's like, that's one way to show that. The other way is to just look on YouTube at his speech at the Munich Security Conference in which he was deeply critical of Europe.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Jahrhundert von The Sound of Music, das ist alles, was ich sagen kann. Aber ich war in Salzburg, er hat mich eingeladen, mit ihm zu sprechen. Ich habe ihn, glaube ich, zweimal in meinem Leben getroffen, nicht letztes Jahr, wahrscheinlich ein paar Jahre zuvor.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
I mean, there's some 3D chess kind of thinking going on around this, which I find obviously amusing. Look, you know, here's the thing. You know, obviously, it's a very relatable screw-up. Right? We've all sent texts to the wrong people. And there is something to be said for a White House just saying, oh, yeah, looks like we screwed that up.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Ja, aber ich mag die Houthis nicht so sehr, wie sie die Houthis nicht mögen. um you know here's the thing they're using an unclassified messaging system to share very sensitive information they mistakenly invited the editor of the atlantic under the thing just say i guess we screwed up trying to learn from it we'll do better next time I'm all for that. Everybody makes mistakes.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
I mean, most of us don't invite people to the PC small group. We just sort of invite them to a party that they shouldn't have been to. But I get that. But just deal with the reality of it, especially since they've taken such strong positions on classification and on the use of unauthorized servers as a famous example. But Das ist das, was ich nicht verstehe. Just deal with it.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Aber es hat mich nicht als verrückt, ich bin der National-Security-Advisor, ich bin der Editor von einem Magazin, ich lese über National-Security. Wir stimmen wahrscheinlich auch auf viele Dinge zu. Zumindest alle, Mike. Ja. Yeah, well, that's the issue. Marco too, right?
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
No, I'm not carrying this alone. I have colleagues and trusted colleagues and advisors who I said, there's this weird thing going. Look, we were all, including my colleague Shane Harris, who's one of the great intelligence reporters, one of the great intel community reporters. Wir waren beide überzeugt, dass das eine elaborate Deception-Kampagne war, eine elaborate Desinformation-Kampagne.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Und der Grund, warum wir das dachten, ist, weil es einfach zu unmöglich ist. Es ist zu unmöglich. Und übrigens, es ist zu unmöglich, given my coverage history of these guys, the Suckers and Losers piece and other things. How did I get into this group? Therefore, since it made no sense, it had to be a Deception-Campaign.
The Bulwark Podcast
S2 Ep1007: Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Wehner: What's Going on with Our National Security?
Ich freue mich auf das Podcast-Interview.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Yeah, put aside the weirdness of inviting a journalist by mistake. I mean, okay, it's hard to put aside, obviously, given what's happened. But one of the things that people don't understand, I think, about why there are rules governing privileged conversations within the national security community is that signal might be end-to-end encrypted, and it might be very hard to hack.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
But foreign intelligence services spend a lot of time trying to target the actual devices that belong to government officials, right? Like, in other words, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is walking around with a cell phone in his pocket.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
It should not surprise anyone to know that the Chinese government is very interested in knowing what's going on inside that phone, and it uses all kinds of methods where, in a remote way, you can target that phone.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
If somehow the Houthis understood that American warplanes were heading in their direction, that would give them conceivably more time to prepare a response, which would obviously put the pilots of those planes in danger. You're the National Security Advisor of the United States. You're the CIA director. You don't want your target...
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Oh, The Daily. Oh, yeah, I'm familiar with it.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
in Yemen to know that in an hour or so, he's going to get blown up. So, yes, like if you put this stuff out in the wild and signal and you're not talking about this in a secure way, face-to-face... theoretically, the danger level goes up. I mean, this is so obvious to me, like logic dictates this.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Well, also the success and failure of your mission, right?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I can't answer that question. I'm not a national security lawyer. We've interviewed national security lawyers who say that there are various risks associated with doing this the way they did it. That will be discovered in the fullness of time. And there's a lot of chatter right now in military forums and government forums of people who are saying, I'm an army captain in the artillery, right?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
But every year I have to be recertified in cybersecurity and I have to watch, you know, videos of how to make sure that your information is correct and what kind of information can you put on your personal phone and what kind of information can't you put on your personal phone. And there are people who get kicked out of the military.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
No, that's great. It's cool. So do you have a lot of listeners?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
There are people who go to prison for compromising security at a much lower level than, we're about to attack Yemen. Here's how the attack is gonna go.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Right. Right. And that's why there was no sympathy among government employees. There's no particular sympathy for Hillary Clinton for having a government emails on her personal server. But still, there's not, you know, guys, you make these rules. You got to follow them.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I mean, I guess you could say that. It's the beginning of an administration. They're two months in. But is ignorance of the law, you know, does that absolve you of following the rules? Although some of them have obviously served. Marco Rubio is on the Intelligence Committee. John Ratcliffe was the former deputy. DNI, Pete Hexeth served in the army and so on. Also, like, here's the thing.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I mean, even at that level, there's like kind of an orientation moment. Here's your office. Here's your computer.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Here's your skiff. This is the computer that you can communicate with other intelligence agencies with, but you cannot have your personal email on it. It's a closed system. And this is the computer that you get to use to do internet research. And this is the, you know, I mean, you're presumably told all this stuff.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Because going into a skiff is a pain in the neck.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I mean, I had to go to the supermarket. Maybe they got to go to the supermarket. I mean, you know, you got to go to the supermarket. You got to go take your kid to Little League. I mean, all these people do have security details, mind you. They're driven and armored Suburbans, and they have very extensive communications skills. devices associated with those vehicles.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I mean, the idea is to make it maximally convenient. And by the way, this is— So that's it.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I don't know. Or if you talk about it on Signal, you're obligated to make a copy of that discussion and send it to an official government account so that it can be archived by the National Archives. But Signal is a disappearing app. Obviously, you know, the messages disappear.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And so there is the plausible explanation that they're like, we just want to have real talk and we don't want this to be archived forever in the National Archives.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Well, I mean, so it's convenience and also a way of having a way of protecting your conversation from future congressional oversight. It's a lot of other things.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Nothing that's been said by the administration so far suggests to me that they're treating this seriously or treating it the way they would treat it if this were Democrats who had done this.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
If this is not a big deal, then people like Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio and all the rest have to go back into time and say that Hillary Clinton wasn't a big deal either. Right? I mean, this is this kind of arid, dispiriting Washington game where when you commit a crime, it's the worst thing that ever happened on the planet. And when I do it, it's perfectly acceptable and understandable.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Here's the thing, and this is sort of what I would love to say to Pete Hegseth. Six months ago,
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
If Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan and Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, and the Secretary of Defense, and the Joe Biden administration were communicating with Kamala Harris over Signal about an imminent military attack and describing to Kamala Harris which weapons are going to be used in the attack, and they mistakenly included a journalist in that conversation, do you really think Pete Hegseth would say it's not a big deal?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
What I understand from inside the White House, I've talked to a couple people and obviously read some of the reporting in the last period of time. They think that Mike Waltz is a dope for including me in the chat, and they're really focused on that. I mean, there's not a fantastic record of Democrats being completely assiduous about the storage and safekeeping of classified information.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I mean, nobody's perfect here, but we're coming out of a situation where the current president was actually indicted— for hiding classified information in a bathroom. This is the president, of course, who is known to have discussed classified operations on the veranda of Mar-a-Lago. So, you know, the tone is set from the top.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I mean, there are people who take security very seriously, and there are people who don't take it very seriously. I don't think anybody would say that Donald Trump is one of those presidents who took it extremely seriously.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Oh, I don't think about that. By the way, those are words that hurt. I'm really sorry that he said that. Donald Trump has called me terrible things for five years. Just a few months ago, he called me a radical, left, disgraceful, something I can't even remember. It's like a bunch of words, the usual words that he uses when he's mad at a reporter. So, A, I'm used to it. B, I don't care.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Well, the story begins in earnest about March 11th. I received a message request on Signal from someone identified as Michael Waltz. He's the National Security Advisor of the United States.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
C, I'm going to do my job harder when I'm running up against opposition. D, this is our current reality in America, and someone has to just keep trying to do accountability journalism, even though there are a lot of pressures on people not to do accountability journalism.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I'm going to, Your Honor, I'm going to respectfully decline to answer that question on the grounds that I can't answer the question. I take the nation's laws very seriously, but I am not in a position to discuss decision-making related to the type of material that I was seeing.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Yeah, the commercial, non-government, end-to-end encrypted app that a lot of people in journalism and outside of journalism use because it's allegedly safer. And I don't know Waltz. I've met him a couple of times. But it struck me as unusual because I have a somewhat contentious relationship with the Trump administration, or more to the point, with Trump.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
First and foremost, what I discovered was what I consider to be a massive security breach, a breach you can drive a Mack truck through. The idea of reporting and the idea of having a free press and the idea of holding government officials accountable is that you make the world a better place by telling the citizens what's going on and what the government is doing.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And so let's assume that this is a functional government and responds in ordinary ways to the discovery of flaws. With any luck, they'll tighten up their procedures and policies.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's too early to say. I mean, we all can speculate about the unusual qualities of this administration and whether they respond in the way that other administrations would respond to these kind of events or these kind of revelations.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Look, 10 years ago, Donald Trump insulted the war record of John McCain. I listened to that. I thought, oh, well, that's it for the Donald Trump campaign because the one thing you don't do is attack war heroes. But the rest is history. We know what happened four years ago, five years ago, I reported that Donald Trump referred to the World War I and World War II war dead as suckers and losers.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And there are people who said, so what? There's always a contingent of people these days who say, so what, for partisan reasons. And so I've gotten out of the prediction process. business, the ordinary rules of political physics don't really apply anymore.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
It says that we're in a dangerous place. Successful countries respond to observable reality by changing course to account for that reality. If these guys go back to using Signal to discuss war planning, that's on them. That is what you would call reckless behavior.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
If they're going to not change certain procedures because they don't like the media or because they think that the Democrats are also bad, it just doesn't sound like a healthy country. It doesn't sound like a healthy way to run a country.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
But certainly in the normal bandwidth of Washington experience for a magazine editor who covers politics and foreign policy and national security to get a message request from the national security advisor, if it was indeed him, I accepted the request, forgot about it. A couple of days later, I'm... included in a group called the Houthi PC Small Group.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Houthis are obviously the Iran-backed terrorist organization that runs part of Yemen and been obviously attacking shipping, attacking Israel for the last year and a half, becoming quite a menace to international shipping. PC stands for Principals Committee, meaning that small group of principals, cabinet members, people who run intelligence agencies.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
No, I have never been to a principal's meeting. Right, just to be clear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what PC stands for. Small group is not actually that small. It was 18 people, 19 people. I wouldn't consider that a small group. I would consider it the medium group.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
J.D. Vance, Michael Waltz, and the secretaries of state, defense, treasury, CIA director, director of national intelligence, et cetera. I mean, again, people who are identified as such on my phone, but I'm an appropriately suspicious journalist, and obviously for reasons I can go into, I think this is a setup of some sort.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I think this is a hoax, a deception, a non-state actor trying to entrap a journalist. I don't know what it is, but... On the face premise of this is ridiculous, so it had to be something other than what it was purporting to be.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Maybe I can be included on something having to do with like the Easter egg roll or something at the White House, but I'm not going to be on this.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I mean, let's be honest. You know, you become a journalist because the most interesting place on the planet is the other side of a closed door, right?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
So I've got to watch it one way or the other, you know?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Well, the first text in this chain is from Michael Waltz saying that he's setting up this discussion group. This is on a Thursday, I guess, for basically, you know, we're heading into this weekend. There's this sort of elliptical promise of something happening over the next 72 hours. And the Michael Waltz username asks these other principals to give their weekend POC, point of contact,
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
in case there's a reason to have a further discussion. And so one after another, six or seven people respond, Marco Rubio, or the person playing Marco Rubio responds with a name from somebody from the State Department and so on, the Defense Department, et cetera.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And most interesting in this moment to me is that the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, names a person and says, this person is going to be representing the CIA in this conversation. Now, what I learned over time is that the person he names is an active CIA officer whose name has never been discussed in public. I thought, what? Like, this is really weird. What is happening here?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
But that's the initial foray. And then the next day, there's a really interesting substantive policy debate about whether the U.S. should ramp up its military activities against the Houthis in Yemen. And there's a lot of criticism in the chain of the Biden administration's inability to get the Houthi situation under control.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Mainly what there is is a lot of resentment expressed toward the Europeans for not being able to float navies that could actually do this work and criticism of the Europeans for not being able to pay. You know, the sort of thing that we've heard for a while from these guys is... And J.D. Vance starts the conversation out by saying he disagrees with the decision to attack Yemen, at least right now.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
He goes on to say that we're sending the wrong message to Europe and why do we have to do this? And it's the European shipping that's in danger, not American shipping. And furthermore, the president doesn't really understand the consequences of doing this. And J.D. Vance, he's doing this in front of half the cabinet.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
People who work for the president, he's telling them, I disagree with the president, and also I'm not sure he gets it. And J.D. Vance is playing the role that we understand J.D. Vance to play, which is like kind of a soft isolationism. It's like, why are we fighting Yemen? What are we doing?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
And then the more kind of traditional, muscular, interventionist philosophy is represented by Michael Waltz, the— National Security Advisor and Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, is, yes, we recognize that Europe is pathetic, and this is what Hegseth says about Europe, in all caps, by the way.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
You know, they recognize this European dynamic, but they're more interested in just, like, let's get this thing going against the Houthis.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I am suspecting that it could be real because it's pretty accurate depiction of what these guys sound like.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
But I, again, and let me put this in like, it can't be true. That's what's keeping me from believing that it's true.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
It can't be true. Like, come on. Like, you know, I've been around this world for a long time. They don't do this.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, and also, it's weird that... substantive government conversations will be taking place over Signal because Signal is not, by the U.S. government standards, secure, in part because, obviously, it's technically open to anyone, including yours truly. And I know that previous administrations have used Signal different messaging services, but not for substance, right?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
I mean, I think in the Biden administration, it's a good example. They used Signal. But my impression is, based on some reporting, my impression is that they use Signal to do things like setting up lunch appointments or, hey, I've just left Saudi Arabia. I'll call you from a skiff when I get to whatever.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
The SCIF is a compartmentalized facility that is built to protect conversations electronically. You know, you can't even take your phone or your Apple Watch or your Fitbit. These are very, very, very secure facilities. And by the way, The senior people in the national security apparatus of the United States have these things built into their houses when they're serving.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
So they can just go down to the basement and make the secure phone call, right? And the whole idea is to protect these conversations from foreign surveillance.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Well, it progressed very quickly so that on Saturday the 15th, I am running some errands and the signal chat lights up. And probably the most important text in this entire series of texts comes from the account user Pete Hegseth, who provides what I would call basically the attack sequence, a summary of the war plan. And, you know, it's... It tells the exact time that attack will be launched.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
It tells the exact time the effects of the attack will be felt in Yemen. It talks about the weapons packages being used. It talks about some specific targets.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
A forthcoming attack on Yemen. I'm also sitting there in my car. It's 1144 a.m. Eastern Time. I get this text. The text promises that the effects of the first wave of attacks will be felt in Yemen at 1345, 1.45 p.m. Eastern Time. So it's two hours, right? And I'm thinking to myself, hmm, well, I guess in two hours I'm going to find out if this is a real chain or not, right? Definitively.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
So, you know, I basically just kind of sit there and at 1.55 or so, I go into Twitter and I, you know, put Yemen in the search bar. And then sure enough, there are bombs falling all over Yemen just as the user identified as Pete Hegseth promised two hours earlier.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
It's a couple of updates on... The consequences of the attack, that's all I'll say. The damage that they think that they have done, combined with some, you know, congratulatory texts. And this is, of course, where they start using emojis.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Before the attack started, there was the prayer emoji used by a couple of people. And then during the attacks, when the reports are coming in that that's going well from the American perspective, there's the flexed bicep, I guess, emoji. There's the fire emoji. There's an American flag emoji.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Sometimes they're repeated a couple of times, you know, and there I'm sitting there watching that and going, wow, you know, every workplace is the same, huh?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
So, you know, I'm sitting in the car, I'm watching the signal chat react to the Yemen attack. I'm realizing that this is almost certainly a real Signal Group and not some sort of deceptive disinformation campaign. And so then I had to begin to make a series of decisions, consulting with colleagues, that ultimately led me to remove myself from the Signal Group later that day.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Knowing that the group administrator in Signal and the members, I believe, of a group as well, are notified that You have left the group. I assumed at that point that Mike Waltz was going to call and say, hey, who is this? Or call and say, why'd you leave the group? And then I would say, you know, Director Waltz or whatever, do you know, do you even know who this is?
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
But nobody, look, I mean, here's the truth of it is nobody noticed when I was added and nobody noticed when I was left.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
You know, I think people can make their own deductions here, but I can't get into, for various reasons, the conversations I subsequently had with colleagues and others about my decision-making. All I will say is that I remove myself from the group, understanding the consequences of that. And what I do is I decide, oh, I have to write a story about... the world's weirdest signal group.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
On Monday, I texted and emailed the relevant people in the chat. I used the signal contact. I sent long emails to a large number of players in this drama saying, you know, asking various questions.
The Daily
The Editor Who Was Accidentally Texted War Plans
Well, I mean, I got one official response back from the National Security Council, which, you know, came pretty quickly saying, apparently this is a real chain and we're investigating why a journalist was inadvertently invited to the chain. But, you know, I think they had to acknowledge it. And they did. Once they acknowledged that it's real, I published our first piece on the subject.
The Megyn Kelly Show
WH Backs Waltz, DOJ Says Khalil Lied on Green Card App, Judge Boasberg Deep Dive: AM Update 3/26
He was texting war plans. He was texting attack plans. When targets were going to be targeted, how they were going to be targeted, who was at the targets, when the next sequence of attacks were happening. And I continued not to publish it because it felt like it was too confidential.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Absurd Signalgate Spin, NPR Exec Grilled, and Biggest Media Hacks in America, with Ruthless Podcast Hosts | Ep. 1036
The last thing I want is to see American lives endangered in any way.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Absurd Signalgate Spin, NPR Exec Grilled, and Biggest Media Hacks in America, with Ruthless Podcast Hosts | Ep. 1036
me which is why you didn't include it and jeffrey you rightly didn't publish of course the details of everything you saw in that exchange so i don't expect you to repeat them here again i don't want to go into details because i don't think it's responsible to oh it's not about operational issues as much as i enjoy national security investigative reporting
The Megyn Kelly Show
Absurd Signalgate Spin, NPR Exec Grilled, and Biggest Media Hacks in America, with Ruthless Podcast Hosts | Ep. 1036
I don't I don't need strike plans two hours before a launch. That's not that should not be coming into my phone. I mean, I take this stuff very, very seriously.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Absurd Signalgate Spin, NPR Exec Grilled, and Biggest Media Hacks in America, with Ruthless Podcast Hosts | Ep. 1036
I have a pretty I have a pretty clear standards. in my own behavior of what I consider information that I consider to be in the public interest, even if it's technically classified or not. I'm sticking to my principles here.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Republicans Blow Up on Live TV over Trump Crash
Well, let me answer it this way. When the texts are coming over, as I'm watching them unfold, it's 1144 a.m. on a Saturday. Pete Hegg said this promising that U.S. warplanes are taking off in 30 minutes to bomb enemy targets that we know are protected by anti-aircraft batteries.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Republicans Blow Up on Live TV over Trump Crash
Okay, so if that's not the most sensitive information, the most secret information in the world, I simply don't know what the meaning of classified or secret or top secret is. Because American pilots were about to fly into possibly a deadly situation. And the Secretary of Defense is telling everyone on the group chat, which by the way, included me.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Republicans Blow Up on Live TV over Trump Crash
that these pilots were about to go into harm's way. Talking about them after they come back is a different thing entirely, but letting that information out on a commercial messaging app seems very odd. So I was sort of aghast when I'm watching this unfold on my phone.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Republicans Blow Up on Live TV over Trump Crash
Well, this isn't the matrix. Phone numbers don't just get sucked into other phones. I don't know what he's talking about there. You know, very frequently in journalism, the most obvious explanation is the explanation. My phone number was in his phone. because my phone number is in his phone. He's telling everyone that he's never met me or spoken to me. That's simply not true.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Republicans Blow Up on Live TV over Trump Crash
I understand why he's doing it. But, you know, this has become a somewhat farcical situation.
Up First from NPR
War Plans Group Chat, Alien Enemies Act, U.S. Greenland Visit
I'm sitting in my car in a parking lot in a supermarket at 1144 a.m. Eastern, and I get this war plan from Pete Hegseth.
Up First from NPR
War Plans Group Chat, Alien Enemies Act, U.S. Greenland Visit
I'm sitting in my car, and I get this war plan from Pete Hegseth.