Nancy Youssef
Appearances
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
I mean, I guess since they used emojis, the emoji I would have used is like head exploding when I first saw it because there were so many elements of it that were surprising. I cover the Pentagon primarily, so the idea that details about an op would be on signal was shocking to me, that the decision around the strike would be made
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
on signal, that a reporter would be added, that the times of strikes when F-18s were taken off aircraft carriers would be included on the check. It was all so shocking to me. And also because I've covered a lot of these strikes, you rarely get to see sort of the behind the scenes in terms of what they're talking about in those critical minutes and hours before a strike.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
So to see that conversation and what's happening was interesting to me. So it was all really surprising.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
So the Houthis are a militant group in Yemen. They control large swaths of Yemen. And after the war in Gaza began, the Houthis had started launching strikes and attacks on commercial and military vessels traveling through the Red Sea. And that is one of the busiest commercial shipping waters in the world. And so...
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
Those strikes really reduced the use of those waters and fundamentally changed commercial shipping. And the Biden administration had conducted strikes on them to try to stop this and get those ships back in those waters. They conducted about 200 such strikes intermittently throughout 2024. But the Houthis continued to strike.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
Then there was the ceasefire in January and the Houthis announced that they would stop the strikes in light of the ceasefire. Then when the ceasefire started to collapse, they announced that they'd resume strikes. They hadn't yet when the U.S. launched this campaign that they have said will be different in targeting Houthis and reopening those waterways.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
The big difference that we see is that they're going after leadership and personnel. And I think that they are trying to do it more offensively rather than doing it sort of over a couple of days that they're going to try to do it over several days. I think we're in day 11 or 12. I've lost count of days on the strike campaign.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
That's right. One of the main arguments we've heard from the administration is that, as you note, that this has been successful. In terms of like the initial objectives of that day, I think one could argue that they've been successful and that they hit what they wanted to hit. But in terms of the broader campaign goals, it is too early to say that.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
And we haven't heard anything in the last few days that indicates that this campaign over this last 11 or 12 days has gone such that they think they're on track to reaching a point where the Houthis can no longer pose a threat to ships transiting the Red Sea and other nearby waters.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
So the U.S. is not the primary user of those waters in terms of having goods transited to the United States. It's primarily used by Europe. And the president has said that he wants to see Europe take more control over their own security concerns and issues, including... commercial shipping that they depend on. And so J.D. Vance, who has been opposed to using U.S.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
military resources for things that are not primarily U.S. military, U.S. security concern interests, raises objections. Should the United States be investing in this kind of risky, expensive strike for something that does oppose a major economic threat to the United States? We're the minority in terms of using those shipping waters.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
Yeah, I don't know the numbers, but that doesn't sound off to me based on prior reporting. And then Stephen Miller comes in and says, no, this is what the president's asked for and this is what we're going to give them. And so to hear them sort of debating it literally days, hours before the strike was really interesting to me and speaks to sort of the divisions about how the U.S.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
military is used. So, you know, in the past we have been the leading nation in terms of defending not only U.S. interests, but that of our allies. And there's a real time debate going on about how much we're willing to continue to do that going forward.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
That's right. That's right. And by the way, Europe saw that. And I think you saw a lot of reaction to Europe about that because I think they'd been concerned about how much the U.S. would come to their defense and to see that debate happening. I think for those who are concerned that maybe the United States wouldn't be as a reliable partner, this sort of reaffirmed their fears.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
Now, having said that, the U.S. did do the strikes. So you get a sense, though, that this is an ongoing debate in some ways, not one that's been resolved.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
So he said he took full responsibility. He had the president's backing at a briefing earlier this week, but then subsequently sort of launched an attack on Goldberg and said that he wasn't a credible journalist and that maybe he wasn't solely strictly responsible for the creating of the chat, that he didn't know Jeffrey Goldberg, didn't have reason to have him in his phone.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
And so it was sort of a yes, but kind of scenario, for lack of a better term.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
No, there's a lot of speculation about that. It's sort of a search for every JG in government who might have been involved. I mean, it's sort of the parlor game in Washington. The other reason it's hard for me to answer is I'm used to what used to happen, or at least what happens at DOD, which is like... These guys at that level, top level, have a communications team that travels with them.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
So first of all, they have a secure communications setup in their house. But let's say they're out when something is happening. The communications person is with them to give them a secure phone to set up a secure communications channel. So it's hard for me to know because it's an unconventional way to even start this conversation.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
So I went around the Pentagon the other day just asking people for their government phones and asking them if they could download Signal. And they could. They could actually get the app on the government phone. But no one had the gall, and I didn't have the gall to push it, to try to start a Signal chat to find out if you could actually send messages on a government phone
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
What I saw is on Signal, you can actually download the app on a government phone, but there are all sorts of regulations about then using that to send communications about anything other than something innocuous like let's meet at this time or that time.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
Yeah. And I should note, the most similar scenario that I've seen along these lines is in Afghanistan. They use WhatsApp all the time to communicate with the Afghans because the Afghans didn't have secured comms. That's the closest that I've seen where military sort of planning has gone over an unsecured system.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
So to me, this is an argument about semantics. In the Pentagon, war plans refers to like the macro war planning, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Attack plans are that sort of individual unit plans assigned to do a specific task. And one could argue that attack plans are more sensitive than war plans. They have more details. They have names of units. They're much more detail-oriented. So
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
technically they're not war plans, but I think to a layman, they are war plans in that they provide details about an upcoming military operation. Now, they don't have the specific name of the person they were targeting or the specific building or the specific unit, but there's a framework there of what the military is getting ready to do on a military campaign.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
But that is a sensitive time and has always been treated as classified, and I have yet to find someone in the building who considers that unclassified information. I can just say that the Pentagon sees that as sensitive classified information. This regulation is saying that operations are always top secret and can be declassified after the operation is over.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
They often don't even tell us about these operations until that last fighter jet is back after the mission is over. That's been the standard practice before. I'm so sorry. This is a source calling that I have to take.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
The guy who never calls me out of the blue and then I think it was a butt call. So I was like, ah, he added you to the group chat by mistake.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
So on Wednesday, there was a hearing on the House side with Tulsi Gabbard, the ODNI director, John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, and they both basically said, well, we thought it was okay because Pete Hegseth said it was okay. He says it's unclassified, so we took him at his word.
The Journal.
Trump 2.0: Group Chat Fallout
And so there was a lot of suggestion on Wednesday that the responsibility of assessing whether to share that information sat with Pete Hegseth. It is the biggest sort of pointing at him that we've seen so far this week and suggests that they are looking at him at least on that portion of it. I think it's because that was among some of the most sensitive information released on that text thread.