Leaked Messages Show Trump Officials Discussing War Plans Amid Escalating Yemen Strikes
Benjamin Barry
Staff Writer
On March 24, 2025, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, published an article in The Atlantic titled, “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.” In the article, Goldberg revealed how several of the highest-ranking officials in the Trump administration accidentally included him in a group chat to discuss missile strikes on Yemen. These officials included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and other members.
The group chat was created on Signal, a messaging app that, according to the Associated Press, has been used for government purposes before, but strictly for non classified information. In fact, the Biden administration used the app but emphasized that it was only to be used for organizational purposes or to notify somebody they had sent a classified message through the appropriate channels. Goldberg reported that he had received a message request on the app on March 11 from Mike Waltz, the White House National Security Advisor. On March 14 and 15, discussions in the group chat, with Goldberg included, centered on potential strikes on the Houthis in Yemen.
ABC News reports that strikes began on the 15th, hours after Pete Hegseth sent a detailed missile strike plan into the group chat. The message included details on the targets, the times and sequencing of strikes, the fighter jets to be used, and more.
Upon the story initially breaking, many members of the Trump administration gave mixed responses when questioned by the media and the public. NBC News reports that Pete Hegseth stated, “Nobody’s texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say.” These comments were made a day after the initial story broke, before Goldberg eventually released another article with full screenshots of the group chat. When Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, was asked about this during a Congressional hearing on this matter, she initially claimed to not remember the chat’s contents, but denied that classified information was discussed, according to Politico.
Additionally, according to NPR, the administration conducted an internal investigation, resulting in the determination that none of the information was classified. Many opponents of this opinion, both Democrats and some Republicans, point to the fact that if these messages had been leaked prior to the strikes, it could have put the lives of Americans in the military in danger, as it included information on where planes would be, down to the exact time.
With this rapidly evolving story, many have begun to raise wider questions around the new administration’s handling of classified information. In fact, as a result of the increased scrutiny, Politico reports the Trump administration had used Signal to host group chats about sensitive topics before. According to four people who have come forward anonymously who were a part of these group chats, over 20 have been made for issues including the Middle East, Ukraine, China, Europe, and more. All of these four people also stated that sensitive information was discussed in these chats.
As mentioned prior, Signal is not an authorized app for the use of sharing classified information. Not only is it less secure than official governmental channels, but the app has also has a feature that allows users to set messages to delete after a certain period of time. According to The New York Times, two different laws, the Presidential Records Act and the Federal Records Act, mandate that all governmental communication be recorded and stored. If messages are automatically deleted by the app, using it for such sensitive information becomes highly illegal. While many of these records are only kept temporarily, the Presidential Records Act requires any and all communication from the President and/or Vice President be preserved permanently.
Legal action has already been taken in response to the leak, with the nonprofit group American Oversight filing a suit against several of the members of the group for the leaking of “potentially classified information about active military operations.” Furthermore, a judge has ordered the administration to preserve the messages sent between March 11 and March 15 over Signal, as reported by NPR. In the screenshots provided by Goldberg, the messages in the group chat were set to delete in a week.
Image courtesy of Getty Images.
