Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was adamant Monday that sensitive “war plans” were not being discussed in a Signal chat group that inadvertently included a journalist.
“Nobody was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth told reporters in Hawaii when asked about a report in The Atlantic revealing a stunning breach of national security involving high-level Trump administration officials.
The magazine’s top editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, revealed in the piece that he was inadvertently included in a group text on the encrypted Signal app with Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, national security adviser Mike Waltz and other Trump administration officials where internal deliberations and operational details about airstrikes against Houthi terrorists were discussed.
Goldberg was added to the Signal chain on March 11, well before the strikes in Yemen were carried out on March 15.
White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes told The Post earlier on Monday that messages included in Golberg’s report appear to be “authentic” and said the NSC is “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”
Hegseth, in his first public remarks since the scandal broke, slammed Goldberg before denying that “war plans” were being discussed in the Signal chain.
“You’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again,” the defense secretary said of The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief.
Hegseth pointed to Goldberg’s reporting on debunked allegations that President Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia ahead of the election; his article on Trump’s comments about the violence during a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.; and his disputed 2020 article accusing Trump of disparaging US troops buried in France as “suckers” and “losers.”
“So this is a guy that pedals in garbage, this is what he does,” the Pentagon chief continued, before discussing the military’s efforts to root out Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
Goldberg claims he was invited to join a Signal chain called the “Houthi PC small group” two days after connecting with Waltz on the app.
Waltz, a former Republican congressman from Florida, is reportedly at risk of losing his job over the incident.
“It was reckless not to check who was on the thread. It was reckless to be having that conversation on Signal. You can’t have recklessness as the national security adviser,” a senior Trump administration official told Politico.
The official said discussions are ongoing with staffers about what to do with Waltz.
“Half of them saying he’s never going to survive or shouldn’t survive,” the official told the outlet.
A different administration official indicated that Trump has spoken to Waltz since the bombshell report, after he initially told reporters at the White House that he was unaware of The Atlantic’s report.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that “President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.”
The White House did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
