President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other MAGA Republicans are attacking The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed following his bombshell revelation that he was wrongly invited to a group chat with Trump Administration officials that described plans for a military operation against Houthis in Yemen.
The invitation for the chat, which took place via the messaging app Signal, came from National Security Advisor Michael Waltz — and the participants included, among others, Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard.
In a scathing opinion column published on March 25, The Daily Beast’s David Rothkopf points to the Goldberg/Yemen group chat scandal as a glaring example of how “reckless” the Trump Administration is from a national security standpoint.
READ MORE: ‘So concerning’: Expert explains why the group chat on Houthi attack plans are so worrying
“America has made its fair share of mistakes in its international relations in the post-World War 2 era — but never has an administration made a choice as bold as the Trump Administration’s decision to make omnishambolic, head-up-our-butts dangerous and pernicious clusterf—ery the centerpiece of its foreign policy agenda,” Rothkopf argues. “The most recent example of this commitment to disastrous policies from incompetent leaders engaged in defective processes is, of course, the revelations included in The Atlantic’s blockbuster story detailing how the magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was somehow added to group text thread in which the administration’s leadership were sharing top secret war plans.”
Rothkopf adds, “In an even more shocking twist, the White House actually acknowledged that what he wrote was true. The result is pandemonium in the national security community, not just in D.C. but in capitals around the world.”
The Daily Beast columnist stresses that not only was it a major blunder to expose a prominent journalist to classified information, but also, the fact that the chat took place via Signal is deeply problematic.
“The stupidity and recklessness that had to be behind coordinating highest-level policy on a platform like Signal — which is not approved for sensitive or classified government communications — and, apparently, on personal cellphones, reaches world record levels,” Rothkopf warns. “It is easy to make fun of, but is, of course, no laughing matter. As one former high-ranking top military official said to me: ‘Hire clowns, expect a circus. And frankly, I’ve never seen a screw up on this level before. In normal times, they all should go.”
READ MORE: ‘Shocking recklessness’: Trump’s defense department accidentally texted war plans to reporter
David Rothkopf’s full Daily Beast column is available at this link (subscription required).
