The White House has had various answers as it responds to the controversy surrounding a Signal group chat about strikes against the Houthis in which a journalist was errantly added.
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported on Monday he was inadvertently added to a Signal chat with several senior Trump administration officials earlier this month where attacks on the Houthis were discussed. He subsequently reported on Wednesday details he had omitted, including messages in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared the timeline for strikes planned on Houthi targets before they were publicly announced.
The chat included national security adviser Mike Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, among others.
The apparent security lapse has led to an avalanche of questions being hurled toward the Trump administration. Here are some of the defenses the White House has offered since the bombshell report was released Monday.
Focus on the mission, not the messages
One response offered by a White House official has been to pivot the conversation to the operation itself, rather than the controversy about the Signal chat and who was in the chat. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the operation against the Houthis “successful and effective” and said it was the most important part of this story.
“Thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of President Trump, and everyone in the group, the Houthi strikes were successful and effective. Terrorists were killed and that’s what matters most to President Trump,” Leavitt said in a post on X on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters in Hawaii Hegseth promoted the same messaging, saying, “I’m incredibly proud of the courage and skill of the troops. [The strikes] are ongoing and continue to be devastatingly effective.”
Waltz ‘learned a lesson’
President Donald Trump offered another response to the controversy, specifically about the allegation that it was Waltz who added Goldberg to the chat. The president told NBC News on Tuesday that he believed Waltz had “learned a lesson,” adding he believes his national security advisor is “a good man.”
Trump also downplayed the incident as “the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one.”
In the press briefing Wednesday, Leavitt said the president remained “confident” in Waltz but declined to say for sure whether or not administration officials would be fired over the breach.
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Shoot the messenger
One popular response from Trump administration officials has been to attack Goldberg’s record as a journalist. Goldberg has a history of reports that have been decried as unfounded and in some cases fabricated, but the response to facts of the story by some officials has been to discuss Goldberg’s reporting history.
“Jeffrey Goldberg is well-known for his sensationalist spin,” Leavitt said in a Tuesday post on X.
“Goldberg’s bad news. It’s the Atlantic — it’s failing. It’s probably going to be out of business soon, and it’s a terrible magazine. They’ve made up all sorts of stories about me,” Trump said in an interview with Newsmax on Tuesday.
Multiple Trump administration officials have claimed Goldberg fabricated the information in the chat, claiming he had originally said there were “war plans” but in his second report called them “attack plans.”
“The Atlantic has conceded: these were NOT ‘war plans.’ This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin,” Leavitt said Wednesday in response to Goldberg’s follow-up report.
“The Atlantic has already abandoned their bulls*** ‘war plans’ narrative, and in releasing the full chat , they concede they LIED to perpetuate yet ANOTHER hoax on the American people. What scumbags!” White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich said in a post on X.
“The Atlantic beclowns itself as they concede— by releasing this— that no “war planning” was going on as they had falsely alleged. Sounds like some terrorists had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a post on X.
The White House has not clarified the difference in war plans versus attack plans regarding confidentiality.
Signal is ‘approved’
Signal, the app at the center of the group chat controversy, has also been invoked in the Trump administration’s response to the incident.
Leavitt said during a press briefing Wednesday that the app had “been an approved app for government use,” noting it is an encrypted messaging service.
Ratcliffe also testified on Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the app was allowed to be used by government officials.
“One of the first things that happened when I was confirmed as CIA director was Signal was loaded onto my computer at the CIA, as it is for most CIA officers,” Ratcliffe said Tuesday. “One of the things that I was briefed on very early, senator, was by the CIA records management folks about the use of Signal as a permissible work use. It is. That is a practice that preceded the current administration to the Biden administration.”
However, the National Security Agency put out an operational security bulletin a month before Goldberg inadvertently infiltrated the Signal group chat between Trump administration officials, warning of a “vulnerability” in Signal in the form of phishing scams.
“The use of Signal by common targets of surveillance and espionage activity has made the application a high value target to intercept sensitive information,” the internal bulletin warned, noting phishing scams from professional Russian hacking groups, which could gain access to conversations by bypassing the app’s end-to-end encryption.
Characterize the story as overblown
Another common response from the Trump administration has been claims the story is overblown.
Vance posted on X on Wednesday that he believed it was “very clear Goldberg oversold what he had.”
Both Waltz and Hegseth also downplayed the information in the chat, claiming it was not a significant story.
“No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent. BOTTOM LINE: President Trump is protecting America and our interests.” Waltz said in a post on X.
“So, let’s me get this straight. The Atlantic released the so-called ‘war plans’ and those ‘plans’ include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information. Those are some really s****y war plans. 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 said.
The reaction from Democrats and some Republicans has not been as dismissive, with several calling for resignations and investigations into the incident.