Trump administration war plan group chat: Journalist added to Signal thread discussing Yemen planned strikes

The White House says it’s “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added” to a group chat on an encrypted messaging platform, where senior Trump Administration officials discussed secret Yemen war plans.

The group chat fiasco first surfaced on Monday night when the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, claimed he had been added to a group chat on Signal that included high-profile members of US President Donald Trump’s team.

‘It should go without saying - but I’ll say it anyway - that I have never been invited to a White House principals committee meeting, and that, in my many years of reporting on national-security matters, I had never heard of one being convened over a commercial messaging app,’ Mr Goldberg wrote in The Atlantic.

The chat reportedly included profiles that identified as Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

The group also allegedly included Stephen Miller, a CIA representative and adviser to the president, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

In the group, Mr Waltz tasked his deputy Alex Wong with setting up a “tiger team” to co-ordinate US action against the Houthis.

The US has conducted airstrikes against the Houthis since the militant group began targeting commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea in November 2023.

Just two hours after Mr Goldberg received the details of the attack on March 15, the US began launching a series of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.

Hours before those attacks started, Mr Hegseth posted operational details about the plan, “including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” Mr Goldberg said, declining to disclose the details of what he termed the “shockingly reckless” use of the Signal chat to co-ordinate the strike.

The information leak comes as Mr Hegseth’s office has just announced a crackdown on leaks of sensitive information, including the potential use of polygraphs on defence personnel to determine how reporters have received information.

The Defence Department referred a Reuters request for comment to the National Security Council, and NSC spokesman Brian Hughes said the chat group appeared to be authentic.

“At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” he said.

“The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy co-ordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our service members or our national security.

President Trump responds to group chat security blunder

Mr Trump says he doesn’t “know anything about” the Signal group chat that a journalist was accidentally added to.

“I don’t know anything about it. I am not a big fan of The Atlantic,” Mr Trump said.

“To me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business, I think it’s not much of a magazine.

“I know nothing about it. You’re telling me about it for the first time.”

Hilary Clinton, who ran against Mr Trump in the 2016 US election, summed up her feelings over the Signal group chat fiasco with just seven words

“You have got to be kidding me,” the Democrat wrote on X.

- With Reuters