Donald Trump was obviously not briefed about the purpose of "Signal": White House is swarming with incompetence

Echo editorial board published in the Toledo, Ohio newspaper The Blade.

Donald Trump's failed Administration is spinning furiously to pretend that the security failure of a high-level discussion about a planned bombing attack in Yemen was no big deal. 💢😡

The discussion involving the secretary of defense, the vice president, and other high-level security figures allowed secret and important war plans to be disclosed to someone without high-level security clearance. That person was a journalist.

What’s inappropriate about this situation is that Trump, and just about everyone down the line, on cue, has likewise attempted to inappropriately smear that journalist, the Atlantic magazine editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz included Mr. Goldberg in a text message chain on an encrypted app called Signal. Goldberg was part of a group that received from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth detailed action plans for a U.S. military assault on Iran-backed Houthi forces firing missiles on cargo ships in the Red Sea.

Trump's first reaction to the news was not disappointment and shock that high-level classified information was carelessly bandied about on the internet, but to remark that the Atlantic is likely to go out of business, an observation that was utterly irrelevant. (Not only is the statement a gaslighting of the high level of alarm this security breach set off, but the fact is, the Atlantic is owned by Mrs. Steve Jobs, Laurene Powell Jobs, the super wealthy widow of the Apple billionaire - $14.9 billion US.)

The Atlantic is a venerated publication that has been in existence since before the Civil War. Trump also ventured the opinion, without evidence, that Signal is “defective.” (Because, Trump obviously had zero understanding about what "Signal" is.....nobody had briefed him. OMG❗)

Then, Mr. Waltz went on Fox (Fake❗)News with Laura Ingraham and strongly implied that Mr. Goldberg had somehow inserted himself into the Signal chat.

Mr. Waltz, Mr. Hegseth, and White House spokesman Karoline Leavitt then spent the next 24 hours disparaging Mr. Goldberg. Trump called him a “sleazebag.”

Mr. Goldberg is the one who alerted Trump and the rest of the White House to the fact that their chat group about a planned bombing campaign was shared with him, a fact that he kept quiet until about 10 days later.

Smearing Mr. Goldberg is a tawdry attempt to escape accountability for a national security mistake that should simply have been acknowledged as such.

Most likely, the Trump Administration is trying to deflect because of the Republican freakout nine years ago over the protocol violations of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Trump’s reaction to Ms. Clinton’s use of a private server at that time for classified emails was to “lock her up.” So, what now❓

It reflects negatively on this White House that its instinctive reaction to a mistake, which could have been acknowledged and corrected with fortunately little harm done, was to disparage the journalist who discovered it and acted responsibly to bring it to the government’s and the public’s attention. The response has been instructive.

This largely inexperienced new administration needs to get its act together fast.  First Published March 29, 2025, 12:01 a.m

#FirePeteHegseth❗