Donald Trump has reacted to the report claiming that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mistakenly included The Atlantic magazine editor to a group chat discussing fundamental US military Houthi war plans.
When pressed about The Atlantic’s revelation on Monday that senior cabinet members and advisers texted war preparations to a journalist using Signal, Trump gave a surprising response, saying that “I don’t know anything about it.”
The US President launched a scathing attack against the magazine. “I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me it’s a magazine that’s going out of business. I think it’s not much of a magazine. But I know nothing about it. You’re saying that they had what?”
In his remarks, Trump also mentioned that this was the first time he heard about the purported intelligence exchange.
Trump then requested information about the security breach from reporters.
“What were they talking about?” Trump enquired. He then seemed to mistake the breach for a deliberate effort to undermine the US military’s presence in Yemen.
“It couldn’t have been very effective because the attack was very effective. I can tell you that,” the President remarked.
Later, Trump reshared billionaire Elon Musk’s X remarks on Truth Social. “Best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of The Atlantic magazine, because no one ever goes there,” the Tesla CEO wrote.
Also Read: Who is Jeffrey Goldberg? The Atlantic’s editor accidently receives top-secret Trump admin Houthi war plans
What has The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg said
Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic said that officials shared extremely private and classified information in the group chat regarding the Pentagon’s strategy to launch military airstrikes against the Houthis, leading to condemnation of the government’s handling of this crucial information.
Goldberg claimed to have been added to the “Houthi PC small group” on Signal, an open-source encrypted messaging platform. According to The Atlantic report, an account named “Pete Hegseth” posted information on impending raids on Yemen in the chat group on March 15.
Trump said that same day he issued an order for a series of strikes on Hothi-dominated areas in Yemen.
Following the report about the leak, former national security staffers and members of Congress blasted the Trump administration on social media.
“If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self,” Representative Pat Ryan, a Democrat from New York wrote on X.
