The Trump administration has provided many jaw-dropping moments, but few have been as shocking as editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s scoop published today. Goldberg reported on how he was inadvertently added to a discussion of a military strike on Houthi militias in Yemen, conducted over the encrypted messaging app Signal. In essence, a reporter was invited to listen while the nation’s top security officials weighed and debated a military action, and was sent detailed information about the strike.
Even President Donald Trump seemed unaware of the breach. “You’re saying that they had what?” he replied when asked about the news. Trump added that he is “not a big fan of The Atlantic,” something he’s previously made clear, and which makes the unintentional leak all the more remarkable. A spokesperson for the National Security Council said, “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
David Graham: Tell me how you came to conclude that this group was real.
Jeffrey Goldberg: It was actually chilling: 11:44 a.m., Saturday the 15th, eastern time, in my car in a parking lot, just checking my phone, and I see a text from Pete Hegseth, or somebody who’s hoaxing me as Pete Hegseth. It provides information about upcoming military operations with timings attached: This is going to happen. Then this happens, then this happens, and this happens. I’m sitting there in my car and thinking I’m about to find out if this was an elaborate scam or not. So I thought to myself, I’m sitting here for the next two hours with my hands around my phone. I check on X around 1:55, and yes, Sanaa is being bombed, so then I have the realization that this is almost certainly a real channel and not just an elaborate fakery of some sort. And that’s when I began to realize that I had to write about this massive security breach.
