How did a journalist added to a group of signals among Trump’s senior officials on an American military strike over Hutis rebels in Yemen?
That is a key question after Jeffrey Goldberg brought it to light the message chain on Monday article Entitled: “The Trump administration sent me an accidentally your war plans.” A National Security Council spokesman told ABC News shortly after the article was published, the thread of messages that was reported “seems to be authentic.”
Goldberg said he received a connection request in the commercially available application of a user identified as the National Security Advisor of the White House Michael Waltz. Later he told to be added to a chat group with a Waltz message about which he settled to coordinate about the hutis.
After the article caused a fire storm, Goldberg’s credibility was attacked by White House officials, apparently trying to minimize what Democrats, experts and even some Republican legislators, a great security violation. Trump told journalists on Tuesday that “there was no classified information as I understand.”
On Wednesday, Goldberg published a second story that shows the supposed messages. The initial history in the Atlantic had only described the operational part of the message chain, but did not disseminate details.
A screenshot of the chain published on Wednesday, from the perspective of Goldberg, says: “Michael Waltz added it to the group.”
However, the Trump administration has offered different explanations, and sometimes contradictory, about how Goldberg was included.
President Donald Trump, in multiple interviews, suggested that he was an employee of the Waltz team who added it. Trump has repeatedly expressed his support and confidence in Waltz in the midst of democratic pressure to resign or fired.
Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth, March 21, 2025, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief, Atlantic, March 25, 2025 and the national security advisor of the National House Mike Waltz, February 20, 2025.
Getty Images/ABC News/AP
In a new defense on Wednesday, Trump suggested that perhaps it was a “bad signal” without elaborating what that means.
“But someone in my group was ruined or is a bad sign,” Trump said in “The Vince Show” with Vince Coglianese. “You know, it’s a bad sign. It happens too. But it seems that maybe he arrived with a staff member, and was by accident.”
“From what we can say, we will know today, I think, but we have some bigger types by reviewing the phones, but it is something that is not a big problem, apart from what you want to discover who did and how they did it because they do not want to happen, you know, in the future; you cannot happen,” Trump added.
On Tuesday night, however, Waltz said he was responsible for what happened.
“I assume all the responsibility. I built the group,” Waltz told Laura Ingraham from Fox News.
At the same time, Waltz tried to turn the script and blame Goldberg, suggesting that the editor could have somehow advanced towards the group chat.
“Of course, I didn’t see this loser in the group. It seemed someone else.
Users of signal records through their telephone numbers and group chats are controlled by users designated as administrators, who have the authority to invite and reject users at will.
“I didn’t pirate anyone’s phone,” Goldberg told ABC News Live Kyra Phillips on Wednesday. “Mike Waltz invited me to point out and then invited me to a group. I don’t know how to say more than that.”
The signal application on a smartphone is seen on the screen of a mobile device, on March 25, 2025, in Chicago.
Kiichiro Sato/AP
The director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, in Testimony before the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, told the legislators that adding to Goldberg was a “error.”
“It was a mistake for a journalist to be added inadvertently to a signal chat with high -level national security principles, having a political discussion about imminent strikes against hutis and the effects of the strike,” Gabbard said.
The White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Waltz “has assumed the responsibility of this matter” and is under review.
“The National Security Council immediately said along with the White House lawyer’s office that they are investigating how the number of a journalist was inadvertently added to this mess of messages,” Leavitt added.
That review, Leavitt said, also includes Elon Musk’s team.
“Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this to discover how this number was added inadvertently to the chat. Again, to assume responsibility and ensure that this can never happen again,” he said.
Ivan Pereira of ABC News contributed to this report.
