Why Trump administration officials are talking about the US bombing Yemen

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 26: U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) points to text messages by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during an annual worldwide threats assessment hearing at the Longworth House Office Building on March 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. The hearing held by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence addressed top aides inadvertently including Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic magazine, on a high level Trump administration Signal group chat discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen.

A blockbuster report on the Trump administration's allegedly shoddy OPSEC raises a larger question of what the United States is doing in Yemen to begin with

(Image credit: Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images)

By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US

published 26 March 2025

Washington continues to reel this week after The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg published a stunning report detailing his experience being accidentally added to a group chat of Trump administration officials. Using the messaging app Signal, they were coordinating a military strike on Houthi targets in Yemen. Goldberg's story, the second half of which was released after the White House insisted there had been no breach of top secret protocols, has become a major scandal for President Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday demanded in a letter to the White House that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth be "fired immediately" for the breach, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) raised the possibility of a congressional investigation into the episode. While the political ramifications of this "Signalgate" scandal remain to be fully seen, the incident has brought public attention to a broader and perhaps more materially pressing question: Why is the United States bombing Yemen at all?

The White House has said that strikes against the Houthi group, which have played a key role in Yemen's ongoing civil war, are "due to attacks on Navy ships and shipping" in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Islamist group, said Military.com. The bombardment will end the "minute the Houthis say 'we'll stop shooting at your ships, we'll stop shooting at your drones,'" said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week to Fox News host Maria Bartiromo before The Atlantic's story was published. The campaign is about "freedom of navigation" and "restoring deterrence," Hegseth said.

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The Houthis had "pledged to restart their attacks on Israeli-linked vessels" in the wake of Israel's renewed bombardment of Gaza this month, said Responsible Statecraft. The group's previous attacks, which intensified during the conflict between Israel and Hamas last year, led to "economic disruption," with predominantly European-based commerce being "rerouted away from the region." During those assaults, the group used a "loose definition of what constitutes an Israeli ship, meaning other vessels could be targeted as well," said The Associated Press.

The U.S. attacks are also "meant to send a warning signal to Iran," with whom the president wants to "broker a deal" over nuclear weaponry, said The New York Times. Vice President J.D. Vance seemed, at least in part, to acknowledge this facet of the administration's strategy in the Signal conversation detailed by Goldberg. Given that the majority of the disrupted trade in the region was European, the "strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message," Vance said on Signal.

Iranian backing of the Houthis is "central" to the group's operational capacity, said Andrew Borene, a member of the Atlantic Council's Counterterrorism Project, in a council analysis. With the Houthis having "positioned themselves within Iran's 'Axis of Resistance,'" the U.S. needs a "more comprehensive allied approach" as "airstrikes alone won't be enough to push the Houthis out of Yemen or restore stability to one of the world's most vital trade routes."

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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.