Trump allies urge White House to admit chat blunder

What happened

The Atlantic Wednesday published the full Signal group chat on Yemen strikes between President Donald Trump's top national security officials and, inadvertently, the magazine's editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.

The White House and top intelligence officials continued to insist that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had not disclosed "war plans" or "classified information" on the unsecured messaging app, but few people outside the administration appeared to follow their lead.

Who said what

The information Hegseth shared about the imminent strike on Houthi targets was "jaw-dropping in its specificity and includes the type of information that is kept to a very close hold to protect the operational security of a military strike" and the safety of pilots, The Associated Press said. Even "routinely pro-Donald Trump figures pushed back" on Trump's "handling of the Signal scandal" and called for those responsible to be fired, Politico said.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"The White House is in denial that this was not classified or sensitive data," Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said. "They should just own up to it and preserve credibility." What Hegseth disclosed was "of such a sensitive nature that based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified," Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). Mistakes "should be acknowledged."

Trump has "privately expressed frustration about the incident," The Wall Street Journal said, but he made the "strategic decision to paper over his annoyance" and "attack, attack, attack." The president did "tentatively" blame national security adviser Michael Waltz Wednesday, Politico said, but continued to "vigorously defend" Hegseth. Waltz "claimed responsibility," and "I always thought it was Mike," Trump said. But "how do you bring Hegseth into it? He had nothing to do — look, look, it's all a witch hunt."

What next?

Wicker Wednesday "became the first member of his party to call for an independent review" at the Defense Department, The New York Times said. "But it is unclear who would oversee such an investigation," as Trump "fired the inspector general at the Pentagon" in his first week back in office.