WASHINGTON — The Trump administration struggled Wednesday to stem the fallout from revelations that top national security officials discussed sensitive attack plans over a messaging app and mistakenly added a journalist to the chain.
The White House said the information shared through the publicly available Signal app with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, was not classified, an assertion that Democrats said strains credulity considering that it detailed plans for an upcoming attack on Yemen’s Houthis.
The decision on determining whether the information is classified ultimately lies with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Several Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday called for Hegseth to step down.
“This is classified information. It’s a weapon system, as well as a sequence of strikes, as well as details of the operations,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., who represents the 8th District in Chicago’s west and northwest suburbs. “He needs to resign immediately.”
President Donald Trump during an Oval Office appearance to announce new tariffs on imported vehicles seemed frustrated as reporters repeatedly questioned him about the matter.
“I think it’s all a witch hunt,” Trump said.
Hegseth in the chain listed weapons systems and a timeline for the attack — “THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP,” he wrote. The Houthis have been wreaking havoc on vital Red Sea shipping lanes since November 2023 as the Israel-Hamas war raged.
Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the position that the Trump administration is staking out can be described with one word: “Baloney.”
“When you describe time, place, type of armaments used: Do they think the American public is stupid?” Warner said in an exchange with reporters.
Sen. Roger Wicker, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he and Sen. Jack Reed, the committee’s top Democrat, will send a letter to the Trump administration requesting an expedited inspector general investigation into the use of Signal.
Asked about the call for an inspector general probe, Trump replied, “It doesn’t bother me.”
But White House officials continue to insist that no classified material was discussed in the March 13 to March 15 Signal chain and have launched scathing attacks on Goldberg.
The Atlantic on Wednesday published the full content of the text exchange.
Hegseth, White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and other administration officials on Wednesday uniformly insisted that no “war plans” had been texted on Signal, a claim that current and former U.S. officials have called “semantics.”
Hegseth in an X posting said the message chain included, “No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information.
“This only proves one thing: Jeff Goldberg has never seen a war plan or an ‘attack plan’ (as he now calls it). Not even close,” Hegseth, who is traveling to the Indo-Pacific this week, added.
Trump bristled at the suggestion that Hegseth should step down.
“He’s doing a great job,” Trump said. “He had nothing to do with it.”