On Monday, several Trump Cabinet members including Pete Hegseth, the person in charge of our entire military, mistakenly sent war plans about the bombardment of Houthi rebels in Yemen to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic and a private citizen.
The Secretary of Defense is dishing about secret military operations on Signal, an unsecured messaging app, without even a quick look through the group chat member list to ensure that it only included the intended recipients.
I thought that this sort of thing was only discussed through some high-tech, ultra-secure, heavy-duty anti-Chinese hardware from a bunker a mile underground. Apparently not. Hegseth, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller, Tulsi Gabbard, Michael Waltz, Scott Bessent, and the rest of the incompetent hooligans heard that Signal had “encryptions” and said, “welp, good enough.”
Did Trump’s secretary of defense not even get a basic 30-minute crash course on keeping military secrets or how to communicate through secure government channels? What about the Secretary of State or the Director of the CIA, or the Director of National Intelligence?
National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes, said that, “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.” It’s not clear what exactly there is to review. National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and company first decided to flaunt security protocols by using the app for restricted communications, second, Waltz sent a connection request to the wrong person, and then third, added that person to a group chat where sensitive matters would be discussed. There were three steps there where Waltz had the opportunity to avoid the mistake and he took none of them.
What this also reveals is that my friends and I have a lot in common with Trump’s Cabinet members. Their texts read exactly how my friends and I would be communicating if we were in charge. JD Vance expressed consternation about Trump’s plans to help Europe by opening up shipping routes near the Arabian Peninsula, “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.” Pete Hegseth sympathized, “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.” Here again, my naivety betrayed me. There’s no trace of any sophisticated thinking with respect to how they deliberate about foreign policy, much like the group chats I have with my buddies. It’s “hate” and “PATHETIC.”
Waltz’s involvement in all of this is particularly hilarious given his past criticisms of the Biden administration. In 2024, Waltz protested, “Biden’s sitting National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sent Top Secret messages to Hillary Clinton’s private account. And what did DOJ do about it? Not a damn thing.”
What is Trump’s DOJ going to do about this more egregious offense? Not a damn thing? That’s right, Trump backed his Cabinet on Tuesday saying that, “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.” Apparently the only way Michael Waltz would learn to not use Signal to communicate sensitive national security matters and avoid randomly inviting private citizens to those conversations was by getting dirty – he’s more of a hands-on learner, you see.
Pete Hegseth, while speaking on Fox News about Hillary Clinton’s email scandal passionately stated that, “Any security professional, military, government or otherwise, would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct and criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information. The fact that she wouldn’t be held accountable for this, I think, blows the mind of anyone who’s held our nation’s secrets dear. Who’s had a top-secret clearance like I have.”
Instead of the accountability that was promised by Trump, the parties involved were up all night practicing their deflections and denials. In a Senate hearing on Tuesday, both Gabbard and Ratcliffe refused to answer questions, instead simply denying that there was any classified information shared in the chat. Plans about imminent military action that include details about targets and the weapon platforms being used are always classified.
According to Ratcliffe, Pete Hegseth had the authority to determine what counted as classified in the group chat. So for Trump’s cabinet, the strategy when you leak classified information is to simply declassify it – truly genius. Who could have predicted this?
Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group.