Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was seemingly dumbfounded after the Trump administration accidentally texted a reporter its war plans.
On Monday, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed how he was inadvertently added to a group chat on Signal (a messaging app that touts higher security), which seemed to include top members of the Cabinet: Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and others.
To his surprise, Goldberg began receiving text messages about the United States’ bombing operation against Houthi targets in Yemen—learning of the attacks hours before they actually occurred. The strike was carried out last week, killing 53 people.
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Panetta, who served as defense secretary under President Barack Obama, said that there was “no question” that the chat was legitimate, and referred to the incident as a “serious blunder.”
“It has to be investigated, and somebody, frankly, needs to get fired,” Panetta told CNN Monday afternoon. “Somebody put that name on a list, and whoever that was deserves to be fired.”
He claimed that during his tenure, the conversation would have been had in-person at the White House, and that the mishap could have jeopardized lives. An account under the name Michael Waltz, which also happens to be the name for Donald Trump’s national security advisor, added Goldberg.
Trump officials confirmed the legitimacy of the text logs, defending their chats without omitting that adding Goldberg was a mistake.
“We are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” the White House National Security Council spokesperson said. “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials.”
The president claimed that he had just heard the news from a reporter Monday afternoon, and “didn’t know anything about it.”
“I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic," Trump said. “To me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business.”
X users showed a range of emotions after news broke on the massive leak, from disbelief to anger. Both “War Plans” and “Hegseth” shot up in trending terms searched on the app.
