Mixed Signal: Top Trump Officials Responsible for Major Security Breach
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What shocking headline did Jeffrey Goldberg report?
OK, I'm going to start tonight with one of the most shocking headlines I have ever seen. Here it is. The Trump administration accidentally texted me its war plans. That was literally a headline in The Atlantic just this morning. And it was written by the magazine's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. Because last weekend, Jeffrey Goldberg knew that the U.S. would strike Houthi rebels in Yemen. And he knew, he knew that two hours before the world did. Because a bunch of senior Trump officials were texting with him without realizing it. Jeffrey Goldberg is standing by here in studio for his first cable news interview since dropping that complete bombshell of a piece earlier today. There's really no way to do this story and kind of catch you, get you up to speed on it, do it justice, I should say, other than to just take you through it piece by piece. So that's what I'm going to do. I've read it about 10 times today. I've highlighted it. I've got lots of notes, all the things. We're going to go through all of it.
How did the Trump administration accidentally leak war plans?
Now, what Goldberg lays out here is so crazy, so dangerous, so irresponsible, you really have to hear it to believe it. The story starts like this. On Tuesday, March 11th, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz, which, as you all know, is the name of Trump's national security advisor. Now, Goldberg writes, I did think it was somewhat unusual, given the Trump administration's contentious relationship with journalists and Trump's periodic fixation on me specifically. It immediately crossed my mind that someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me. It's not at all uncommon these days for nefarious actors to try to induce journalists to share information that could be used against them. That does happen. We're going to talk about that. But the story continues. Because then two days later, Goldberg got a notification that the Waltz account had added him to a group chat called the Houthi PC small group.
Now PC in the national security world typically stands for principles committee, which is typically made up of literally the highest ranking national security officials in government. Just to give you kind of a sense of how high-ranking the people in the chat were, there was a user named M-A-R, as in Marco Antonio Rubio, the Secretary of State, and another user named J.D. Vance. There was also a Scott B. from Treasury. I think we know who that is. And a user named Pete Hegseth from the Pentagon. And yet, as Goldberg wrote, I had very strong doubts that this text group was real because I could not believe that the national security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I'd have a hard time believing that too.
I think anybody who spent time around national security information and government and reporting on it would too. Because at this level, the discussion about this level of sensitive issues is only supposed to happen on a few different channels, a few different ways. Usually they happen in what's called a SCIF, which stands for Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facilities, hence SCIF, because it's much easier to say and remember. But that's basically where computers storing classified information can be accessed to where conversations about things like war plans and even topics that are a whole lot less sensitive should happen. Skiffs are where the situation room is. And they're so sensitive and so secure that you can't even bring in your phone, your Apple Watch. They literally make you take it off. AirPods, any electronic device, you can't bring into a skiff. And most of these officials pretty much always have access to these facilities.
I mean, the vice president and high-level national security officials even have skiffs set up in their homes. And whenever they travel, on domestic trips, on international trips, they have skiffs set up there, too. A vice president could say to a staffer, I need to make a secure call. And the staffer can set that up, just to give you all a sense of this.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What shocking headline did Jeffrey Goldberg report?
0:08–1:05
2
How did the Trump administration accidentally leak war plans?
1:05–5:05
3
What were the consequences of sharing sensitive information?
5:05–14:22
4
How did Congress react to the leak?
14:22–19:20
5
What is Elon Musk's role in political discussions?
19:20–26:22
6
How are Musk's layoffs impacting American workers?
26:22–35:32
7
What measures are being taken to ensure national security?
35:32–42:12
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Briefing with Jen Psaki
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