The Crucial Detail That's Missing in the Hegseth Signal Chat Saga

When I first read the story, there was a sense of dread: top Trump officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, had somehow added The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg onto a group chat on the encrypted messenger app Signal. How and why are unanswered questions, but there must be accountability for this trip-up. This chat was candid about certain foreign operations, specifically countering the Houthi threat, another failed initiative of the Biden administration. National Security Adviser Michael Waltz was also on these communications—the fact that Goldberg, the father of the losers and suckers lie 2020 and the recent ‘Trump loves Nazi generals’ myth, got added to this chat is unfathomable.

🚨JEFFREY GOLDBERG: "No. (Hegseth) is lying. He was texting war plans, attack plans, when targets were going to be targeted, how they were going to be targeted, who was at the targets, when the next sequences of attacks were happening.

I didn't publish it and I continue not to… pic.twitter.com/uLx2ofc8eM
— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) March 25, 2025

It's a lengthy piece; some officials are cast in a good light despite this oversight, and others are not so much. That’s not important. Trump officials authenticated the chat. It caused a stir among the liberal media and the anti-Trump losers who now support Democrats. Hillary Clinton even chimed in, someone who, regardless of the situation, should keep her mouth shut, as she conducted all official State Department business through an unsecured server that wasn’t approved and got hacked by foreign adversaries. And yes, classified documents went through that server. Ms. Two-time presidential loser, it’s possible to hold the position that both instances are terrible.

Hear me out: What if they are both bad pic.twitter.com/ihExYdisbq
— Christian Schneider (@Schneider_CM) March 24, 2025

Flashback:

The outstanding question, besides how they allowed some fake news reporter into this chat, is whether secret war plans were shared. That’s what Goldberg alleges: “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.” He claims he saw them but won’t print them because that would be a disclosure of classified documents. I wouldn’t trust Jeff as far as I could throw him—too many times, he’s penned fake news. The Trump administration has confirmed the chats are real, but the secret war plan angle wasn’t even touched.

SIGNAL: Scott Jennings just dismantled the Atlantic’s hit piece by laying out the facts. The Signal app was already installed on several devices and agency computers when officials arrived—indicating it was already in use. Messages even reference switching to “high side”… pic.twitter.com/5mZlLUNHdW
— @amuse (@amuse) March 25, 2025

One, Signal was already installed on several devices used by those involved. They knew there was another platform to disclose and discuss highly classified materials. We don’t know if war plans were discussed. We do know that we have an administration working on something substantive on the Houthi threat.

I've read the Atlantic article & Signal messages twice, top to bottom. Most of those on social media ringing alarm bells and repeating talking points have not.

Should Goldberg have been added to the chat? No.

Did Goldberg gain access to "secret" information? Kind of. He found… pic.twitter.com/KMHpFsjvT8
— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) March 24, 2025

Two things can be true at once.

Would adding Goldberg accidentally be an obvious mistake? Yes. Duh.

Is this the mountain of tOp SEcReT PLanS that Goldberg claims? Not even close.
— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) March 24, 2025

Tony Kinnett of the Daily Signal:

I've read the Atlantic article & Signal messages twice, top to bottom. Most of those on social media ringing alarm bells and repeating talking points have not.
Should Goldberg have been added to the chat? No.
Did Goldberg gain access to "secret" information? Kind of. He found out we'd strike the Houthis two hours early.
What Goldberg & the Atlantic are calling TOP SECRET "war plans" is a massive embellishment—any butterbar fresh out of ROTC could tell you that. These aren't war plans. These aren't even school board notes.
They're "Ok, we're ready to do that thing everyone knew we were going to do? Yep? Neat. Also Europe sucks."
Watergate this is not. It's a final, informal check-in after things are already planned/assigned.

Pete Hegseth accidentally shares sensitive information with a journalist and the left calls for him to resign, while General Milley intentionally shares classified information with the CCP and the left calls him a hero.
— Chase Geiser (@realchasegeiser) March 25, 2025

You know the Atlantic War Plans story is an orchestrated hoax by how many community notes they’re trying to put on all tweets pointing that out.
— Mostly Peaceful Memes (@MostlyPeacefull) March 25, 2025

They confirmed that he was added to the group chat.

They did not confirm they were discussing Top Secret War Plans. In fact, the opposite.

Can you not read? https://t.co/w5dUy1EdTg pic.twitter.com/CF0qTXg7DH
— Mostly Peaceful Memes (@MostlyPeacefull) March 25, 2025

No one shared any war plans—Goldberg fabricated that part, just like he’s fabricated countless other Trump hoaxes. He took a dumb but ultimately trivial screw-up by Waltz and blew it up into Watergate 2.0. The only remaining question is why Waltz had Goldberg in his contact list.
— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) March 25, 2025

Jeffrey Goldberg is well-known for his sensationalist spin. Here are the facts about his latest story:

1. No “war plans” were discussed.

2. No classified material was sent to the thread.

3. The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different…
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) March 25, 2025

Since we’re on the topic of war plans pic.twitter.com/T5n0DRBoBz
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) March 25, 2025

And no, this isn’t some major win for the legacy press. It’s barely been 24 hours, and this story has already peaked. It is starting to fizzle out because there’s nothing there regarding what liberals want to exist, which is a massive security breach along the lines of the damage Robert Hanssen did at the FBI. I bet this story will be out of the cycle by next week. There will be no shortage of attempts to keep it in the cycle, though, but this publication and its author have penned too many fake news stories for it to be believable.

There's no dispute about whether Mike Waltz added Jeffrey Goldberg to a sensitive chat. There *is* dispute about whether he was sent "war plans." Goldberg has a history of false reporting so skepticism of how he characterizes important info is more than warranted. https://t.co/H4tq7EDtGx
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) March 25, 2025

Last note: In case the Democrats start ripping those for using Signal, we have receipts.

Senator Warner claimed that Signal is an “unclassified system.”

This is untrue, and many democrats have boasted about the security of the platform.

Jasmine Crockett has previously said, “We have all these Signal chats. If you don’t have Signal, get on Signal, okay? Do not… pic.twitter.com/eS1lyppWPb
— Media Lies (@MediasLies) March 25, 2025