The Atlantic’s editor said that Pete Hegseth sent operational details of a US attack on the Houthis in a Signal chat.
The editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine revealed in an article on Monday that Trump administration officials revealed to him crucial military details about United States air strikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebel targets on March 15, hours before the attack.
Jeffrey Goldberg, a veteran journalist, said that US government officials accidentally added him to a texting channel where they mapped out the strike.
The US government has acknowledged that the message thread appears to be authentic. The incident has prompted accusations by critics of the Trump administration that senior officials were guilty of a major security breach.
Here is more about what happened, what was revealed, how US officials have responded, and what’s next:
“The world found out shortly before 2pm eastern time [18:00 GMT] on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen,” Goldberg wrote, as he opened his Monday article for The Atlantic.
“I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44am [15:44 GMT].”
Here is what happened.
On March 11, Goldberg received a connection request from someone named Michael Waltz on Signal, an encrypted messaging service. Michael “Mike” Waltz is the US national security adviser.
Goldberg accepted the request, still hoping this was the real Waltz, he wrote.
On March 13, Goldberg was added to a messaging group on Signal called “Houthi PC small group”. Goldberg presumed, based on his experience reporting about the US government, that PC here meant Principals Committee – a committee comprising top leaders of the Cabinet, generally associated with security issues.
There were 18 members in the group in total, Goldberg wrote. Besides Waltz, the group included messages from:
The chat opened on March 13 with Waltz briefing the group that this was a team established “for coordination on Houthis,” and that his deputy was pulling together “a tiger team at deputies/agency Chief of Staff level following up from the meeting in the Sit Room this morning for action items and will be sending that out later this evening.” The Sit Room, or Situation Room is an intelligence management complex in the White House where the latest information on a military or political situation is communicated.
Waltz then requested the members of the chat to name a point of contact from their team to coordinate with Waltz’s team over the next days and the group members began to name individuals from their teams.
What happened?
At 8:05am (12:05 GMT) on March 14, Waltz wrote: “Team, you should have a statement of conclusions with taskings per the Presidents guidance this morning in your high side inboxes.” A high side inbox refers to classified communication systems.
The messages also seemed to show Vance in disagreement with the approach towards Yemen that Hegseth and Waltz appeared to be pushing. “I think we are making a mistake,” the account named Vance wrote on March 14.
Goldberg also wrote that the group received messages from Ratcliffe “that might be interpreted as related to actual and current intelligence operations.”
The Atlantic editor added that Hegseth responded to Vance’s concerns, acknowledging them, but arguing that delaying the operation came with risks that “1) this leaks, and we look indecisive; 2) Israel takes an action first – or Gaza cease fire falls apart – and we don’t get to start this on our own terms”.
Hegseth added: “We can manage both. We are prepared to execute, and if I had final go or no go vote, I believe we should.”
Waltz also chimed in with a message about trade figures and the limited capabilities of European navies.
The Vance account responded, saying “if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.” To this, the Hegseth account said, “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”
On March 15 at 11:44am (8:44 GMT) the Hegseth account posted a “TEAM UPDATE.” Goldberg did not reveal details of this update in his article, saying that if an adversary of the US saw these details, they could harm the American military and intelligence personnel.
However, Goldberg did add that the Hegseth message contained operational details of the March 15 attacks in Yemen, including what targets – including individuals – were to be hit, what weapons were to be used and the sequence of events that would follow.
Goldberg waited in his car in a supermarket parking lot to see if the attacks really did take place at the time scheduled by Hegseth in his message. They did, in Yemeni capital Sanaa, Goldberg wrote he found out through X.
The strikes killed at least 53 people, including children, and wounded others.
Goldberg exited the group chat and sent Waltz a message on Signal and an email to several US officials with questions about whether the group was real, and whether the officials knew Goldberg was included.
Goldberg wrote that Vance’s spokesperson William Martin wrote that despite the impression created by the messages, Vance was fully aligned with Trump. “Vice President Vance unequivocally supports this administration’s foreign policy,” said Martin, according to Goldberg’s article.
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