WASHINGTON – Trump’s top officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegses and Vice President JD Vance, are said to have discussed details of Yemen’s highly sensitive surgery.
When the cabinet meeting unfolded at the White House on Monday afternoon, Goldberg published an article detailing how it was added to the 18-person chats of encrypted messaging app signals earlier this month by an account that shares the name of White House national security adviser Mike Waltz. Goldberg later said an account named “Pete Hegses” had planned for Strikes in Yemen This included accurate information about the “weapon package, target, and timing” of the attack just before the attack took place.
The National Security Council said in a statement to CBS News that the message appears to be “real” after the story was released.
“At this point, the reported message threads appear to be authentic and we are reviewing how careless numbers have been added to the chain,” a spokesman for the National Security Council said. “This thread is a demonstration of deep and thoughtful policy coordination among senior officials. The continued success of Operation Houthi shows that there was no threat to service members or national security.”
When asked about Goldberg’s story at the White House Monday afternoon, President Trump told reporters he hadn’t heard of it.
“I don’t know anything about it,” replied the president. “I’m not a huge Atlantic fan. For me, it’s a magazine going out of business. I don’t think it’s a magazine. But I don’t know anything about it.”
In a later statement, White House press chief Karoline Leavitt said the president “has the greatest confidence in his national security team, including national security adviser Mike Waltz.”
The Atlantic Story
Goldberg said in his article that he received a request to connect a signal from a user named “Mike Waltz” on March 11th without explaining it. On March 13, Goldberg said it was added to the group chat with a signal entitled “Houthi PC Small Group.”
The total was 18 people, including Vice President JD Vance, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to Goldberg.
Goldberg wrote that he was initially skeptical of the group’s credibility, and that he believed it was an effort to “part of the disinformation campaign” or to embarrass the journalists.
“There was a very strong question of the authenticity of this text group because we couldn’t believe that the US national security leadership would communicate about signals about the imminent war plans,” Goldberg wrote.
Houthis is an Iran-backed rebel force in Yemen, and has attacked commercial and warships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden for over a year, threatening maritime trade. Houthis used the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas to justify the attack. The president said last week that he thought Iran was behind the attack and warned him that he would “suffer the consequences” of additional strikes.
According to Goldberg, on March 14, Signal Chat officials discussed the timing of the surgery targeting the group. An account named “JD Vance” expressed concern that taking action against Houthis would benefit primarily Europe as Trump is pressured to do more to his European allies to provide his security.
“I don’t know if the president knows how inconsistent this is with his message in Europe right now. There is an additional risk of a medium to severe surge in oil prices,” Vance wrote. “I’m willing to support the team’s consensus and keep these concerns to myself. But there’s a strong argument to delay this for a month, and I’m doing messaging work on why this is important, where the economy is, and more.”
Goldberg said, “VP: I understand your concerns and fully support you are raising at POTUS. I replied that it is difficult to know the important considerations (economy, Ukrainian peace, Gaza, etc.).
On Saturday, March 15th, Hegseth posted an update, with others responding with text saying Goldberg wouldn’t publish it.
“What I say is, to explain the shocking recklessness of this signal conversation, Heggs’ post included operational details of upcoming strikes in Yemen, including information about the target, the weapons deployed by the US, and the attack sequence,” Goldberg wrote.
Goldberg said Heggs told the group that a strike against the Hoosis would begin at 1:45pm ET.
“So I was waiting in the car park at the supermarket. I reasoned that if this traffic light chat was real, Houthi’s target would be bombed soon. At about 1:55 I checked X and searched Yemen. After that, I heard an explosion in Sanaa, the capital,” he wrote.
He checked the signal chat and said he found a series of congratulatory messages from Waltz and others.
Atlantic Ocean
“We concluded that the Signal Chat Group was almost certainly realistic. We came to this. We removed ourselves from the Signal Group, something that seemed almost impossible a few hours ago, and realized that this would trigger an automatic notification to the group’s creator, “Michael Waltz.” “It seemed like no one in the chat knew I was there, and there were no subsequent questions about why I left or who I was.”
At 2:29pm, Trump posted a message about the true society announcing the attack.
“Today, I ordered the US troops to launch a decisive and powerful military action against the hooti terrorists in Yemen. They have launched a relentless campaign of pirate, violence and terrorism against the United States and other ships, aircraft and drones,” Trump wrote. “Hooty’s attacks on American ships are unacceptable. They will use overwhelming deadly force until they reach their target.”
Congress’s reaction
The story bounced back through Washington on Monday afternoon, with Democrats demanding an investigation into why highly categorized information is being discussed on commercial messaging apps, rather than making government channels safe. Goldberg also claimed that Waltz set up some of the group chat messages a week later and others four weeks later.
Sen. Jack Reid of Rhode Island, a ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the episode “represents one of the worst mistakes of operational security and common sense I’ve ever seen.”
“With American life on the line, military operations must be handled at the utmost discretion using approved, secure communication lines. The carelessness shown by President Trump’s cabinet is surprisingly dangerous,” Reid said in a statement. “I will immediately seek the answer from the administration.”
At the Capitol, House Speaker Mike Johnson defended the administration’s handling of the case and said he doesn’t think Heggs or Waltz should be punished.
“The administration is dealing with what happened. Apparently, an inadvertent phone number made it in that thread. They track it down and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” the Louisiana Republican said. He said the conversation “showed that top officials were doing their job, doing it well and implementing the plan accurately. The mission was successful. No one was put in danger for that.
“We all texted the wrong people, but the bigger problem is they don’t use safe phones to discuss war plans,” said Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, who is critical of the administration’s foreign policy.
“This could kill the troops. Secure phones are essential for these types of communication. Russia and China are undoubtedly monitoring uncategorized mobile phones that they hope to share this information,” Bacon said.
I contributed to this report.
