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DONALD TRUMP HAS continued to downplay the growing scandal that saw a journalist inadvertently added to a private group chat of the most senior US officials discussing air strikes on Yemen.
The US President said he will “look into” the use of the Signal app and denied that any classified information was shared in the chat, backing his national security team despite the breach.
The administration is facing mounting pressure after The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he was included in the conversation on the Signal messaging app.
The material in the text chain “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing”, Goldberg reported.
It was not immediately clear if the specifics of the military operation were classified, but they often are and at the least are kept secure to protect service members and operational security.
Goldberg said he received the Signal invitation from Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, who was in the group chat. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were also in the group chat.
The US National Security Council said the text chain “appears to be authentic”.
The incident has been swiftly condemned by Democratic politicians, with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer calling for a full investigation.
Trump initially told reporters that he was not aware that the highly sensitive information had been shared, more than two hours after it was reported.
At a meeting with Waltz this afternoon, when asked by reporters if he would conduct an investigation into the chat, the Republican leader said: “We’ll look into it, sure.”
Asked if he will conduct an investigation into the Signal chat containing attack plans, President Trump says, “We’ll look into it, sure. I would look into it, sure.” Asked if the FBI will lead that, Trump says, “It’s not really an FBI thing. It’s really something having to do… pic.twitter.com/yiUOJ2vQ2G
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) March 25, 2025
He also doubled down by attacking Goldberg as a “sleazebag” and said “nobody gives a damn” about the story that has rocked Washington.
“There was no classified information,” Trump said when asked about the chat, saying that Signal was used by “a lot of people in government.”
Waltz said US technical and legal experts were looking into the breach but insisted he had “never met, don’t know, never communicated” with Goldberg.
“We are looking into him, reviewing how the heck he got in,” said Waltz when Trump asked him to comment during a meeting with new US ambassadors at the White House.
In a phone interview with broadcaster NBC earlier today, Trump said the breach was “the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one.”
The president added that Waltz, his top security official in the White House, “has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.”
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe – who were both reported to be in the chat – endured a stormy Senate Intelligence Committee hearing over the leak today.
“There was no classified material that was shared,” Gabbard, who has previously caused controversy with comments sympathetic to Russia and Syria, told the committee.
Ratcliffe confirmed he was involved in the Signal group but said the communications were “entirely permissible and lawful.”
The White House earlier pushed back more forcefully on the second day of the scandal, after confirming the breach on Monday.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X that “no ‘war plans’ were discussed” and “no classified material was sent to the thread.”
She also attacked Goldberg as being “well-known for his sensationalist spin.”
Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no experience running a huge organization like the Pentagon, had also said late Monday that “nobody was texting war plans.”
But top Democrats have condemned the breach, saying it was potentially illegal and calling for an investigation to find out why officials were using a commercially available app for sensitive discussions.
“This is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time,” Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in a speech on Monday afternoon.
“If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen,” said senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a statement.
He said American lives are “on the line. The carelessness shown by Mr Trump’s cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the administration immediately”.
Senator Mark Warner blasted what he called “sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior.”
Some Republicans also expressed concerns.
Senator Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters: “We’re very concerned about it and we’ll be looking into it on a bipartisan basis.”
Karoline Leavitt said the White House’s Counsel’s Office “has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible.”
The White House was also “looking into how Goldberg’s number was inadvertently added to the thread.”
The US has conducted air strikes against the Houthis since the militant group began targeting commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea in November 2023.
Just two hours after Goldberg received the details of the attack on 15 March, the US began launching a series of air strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
The leak could have been highly damaging if Goldberg had publicised details of the plan in advance, but he did not do so even after the fact.
He did, however, write that Hegseth sent information on the strikes, including on “targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” to the group chat.
“According to the lengthy Hegseth text, the first detonations in Yemen would be felt two hours hence, at 1:45 pm eastern time,” Goldberg wrote – a timeline that was borne out on the ground in Yemen.
Goldberg said he was added to the group chat two days earlier, and received messages from other top government officials designating representatives who would work on the issue.
The group chat featured a number of the most senior Trump officials hitting out at Europe, and seeking ways to make European countries pay the US in the aftermath of the Yemen attacks.
On 14 March, according to The Atlantic report, a person identified as Vance expressed doubts about carrying out the strikes, saying he hated “bailing Europe out again,” as countries there were more affected by Houthi attacks on shipping than the United States.
Group chat contributors identified as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Hegseth both sent messages arguing only Washington had the capability to carry out the strikes, with the latter official saying he shared Vance’s “loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”
And a person identified as “S M” – possibly Trump advisor Stephen Miller – argued that “if the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return.”
With reporting by Jane Moore, Press Association and © AFP 2025
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