Summary
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied allegations that he texted classified war plans to a Signal group chat that mistakenly included The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg.
The National Security Council confirmed the chat’s authenticity but called the inclusion of Goldberg an inadvertent mistake.
Lawmakers from both parties demanded investigations, with former CIA Director Leon Panetta warning of potential espionage violations.
Hegseth dismissed Goldberg as a “deceitful” journalist. Trump denied knowledge of the incident.
To be fair he was probably blacked out at the time
pete hegseth was a DUI hire.
He’s in a really unique position in that he can claim to not remember doing something awful, and most likely be telling the truth.
At least Nixon recorded himself
Wow how did I never think of this.
Sooo Pete didn’t do it, but trump also says that Pete learned his lesson?
US is a joke. A very dangerous joke.
Admit it but say it isn’t a big deal, but also deny that it ever happened. Let your followers pick whichever version they prefer. Profit!
No justice without truth, Congress won’t impeach and DOJ won’t prosecute, we’ve been here before with Mueller and the insurrection.
Don’t be negative. Push for change. Protest! https://www.mobilize.us/
House Speaker Mike Johnson to reporters on Monday after news of the messages spread: “I just was with the president in the Oval Office just now. The administration is addressing what happened. Apparently, an inadvertent phone number made it onto that thread. They are going to track that down and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Sounds great, how about we start by following fucking protocol? And not using a chat app on a damn mobile phone to have discussions on this scale?? Huh???
Disgusting comments about Europe in the group chat. The USA is a pariah state; the sooner we disentangle from it, the better.
where can one see the actual comments?
Here: The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans By Jeffrey Goldberg
The account identified as “JD Vance” addressed a message at 8:45 to @Pete Hegseth: “if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.” (The administration has argued that America’s European allies benefit economically from the U.S. Navy’s protection of international shipping lanes.)
The user identified as Hegseth responded three minutes later: “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.”
Lmfao
The editor in chief of The Atlantic wrote an op-ed on the whole episode, and they have corroborated and confirmed from multiple sources that he was, indeed, inadvertently shown data that is considered SCI in a Signal group chat that was likely conducted through the personal devices of administration officials.
There is no debate here. That happened. This is like rear ending someone in your car and totaling both vehicles and just refusing to even acknowledge that you even felt anything.
It’s like the “We’re all trying to find the guy who did this” skit with the guy in the hotdog suit and the hotdog car.
I agree with your position, but think it’s even worse than the situation depicted in your analogy because of the security implications and the accountability implications. I don’t know how to represent those in your analogy, though. Lol
LOL, you know what, sure. yeah. pete didn’t add anybody to the chat. it’s fine. the journalist got in there on his own. by eating carrots or something.
Pete didn’t add him, Mike Waltz did. But that’s neither here nor there, they all were in the wrong.
Except the journalist
In past times, resignations would have been required over something like this.
no, it was the carrots. the atlantic journalist just ate lots of carrots. it’s a known vulnerability in signal; I’ve run into it a bunch. when I eat too many carrots, sometimes I just end up in random signal chats. I actually met two girlfriends that way. I don’t even need to try, just happens by accident sometimes when you set me down next to like a ten pound bag a couple times in the same month. it’s nobody’s fault, nobody should be punished, nothing needs to be done about this issue.
Yeah, I think this is right. I don’t even have the signal app on my phone but carrots got me in to a meeting of the board of Coca Cola. It’s definitely carrots.
These fucking guys only ever lie and deny.
Are we really too stupid and weak as a country to be able to do anything about this?
It would seem the case - the US is impotent while the sitting president twiddles his thumbs and denies knowing his upper eschelon staff are using unsecure comms. Makes me laugh about the tough-guy image they want versus the limp-dick energy the display.
Roy Cohn’s second rule: Deny everything, admit nothing.
May those who live like him die like him: painful, alone, and ironic
Ah yes - the classic Trump approach… just yell Fake News as loud as possible.
I’m seriously hopeful that the people who have historically given into this lie are wising up.
Narrator: “They weren’t.”
My seed of hope: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT-2EobJKzE
Nice!
In my circle they are, thankfully.
What do they think if this latest bit of bullshit?
Don’t hold your breath. The Repubs will just say they haven’t read the news.
While acknowledging that Trump voters are emotional and fear-prone, they’re not entirely stupid and generally not cultists, probably, maybe. Can we have some sliver of hope? The ones I know are certainly not stupid but are tragically misinformed and savants of confirmation bias. I’ve also noticed that they care a great deal. It seems more like a target misalignment problem than a broken turret.
The ones I know are certainly not stupid but are tragically misinformed and savants of confirmation bias
Can you please define “stupid”? Because this feels like a very apt definition of the word you’re trying to use
I think he means there are some otherwise intelligent people voting against their self interests because the echo chambers and media they are exposed to have convinced them to.
Smart people can be misinformed too. Finding a way for them to be informed could help those ones (I wish I knew some of them, because I think I could help, but the trumpets I know are the cultist ones with really screwed up morals).
A smart person is impossible to dupe twice. This is Trump second term, anyone voting for him a second time after the first one does not deserve to be called “intelligent”. They are as stupid as they come and they can only blame themselves for that, especially in an era where information are abundant and vary.
This is moronic, elitist, trash
The only characteristic of stupidity is being misinformed? Everyone is misinformed to some extent. There are myriad aspects to intelligence. We’re all imperfect monkeys.
Nobody is denying that we are all imperfect monkeys nor is stating that being misinformed is the only characteristic of being stupid. I’m simply sayig that making mistakes is human, perservering in being mistaken is diabolical, as we say here in Italy. They knew the man from the previous administration and they actively choose to support him still after they saw what he was able to do with January 6th, besides all other misdees he achieved between 2016 and 2020. They are either morons and idiots or bad people, no inbetween left imho. If you still believe they are capable of changing without receiving an heartfelt apology from them, buddy, I’ve got a coliseum to sell to you, contact me in private
I understand the rage completely. As an American, I have lost hair for it. The tiny optimist in me believes that these people have a limit. They will never apologize for anything, but we can hope that they’ll trend more toward sanity once they discover how fucked Trumpism is. Many of them are fucking idiots, but a lot of them aren’t.
They don’t care.
He’s hurting people they hate, that’s all they care about.
Also, start with talking bad of media that was involved (see Orange’s first comment).
The classified plans aren’t allowed out of the SCIF and the phone isn’t allowed in the SCIF. Anything you learn in the SCIF cannot be stored, shared, or spoken about outside of a SCIF especially on electronic media. If anyone in the military did this, like lets say Chelsea Manning, and shared it with a journalist, like say Julian Assange, they would end up in prison for a while.
Chelsea Manning*
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A lot of people assume this is the correct way to speak because it’s chronologically correct, but the general consensus in the trans community is that she was always Chelsea Manning, and always was a woman, and the time that she spent using the other name and gender need not be reflected upon. I do not know how Chelsea Manning personally feels about this, and every individual is entitled to their own respect, however the general etiquette when you do not know is to NOT deadname or misgender them, regardless of what era of their life you are referring to.
This is not an attack. Just a PSA.
Have a peaceful evening.
Thank you for informing me.
I respectfully disagree with that consensus.
Her legal name was Bradley Manning when she was charged and tried: https://web.archive.org/web/20110726100828/http://www.haguejusticeportal.net/eCache/DEF/12/444.html
When referring to legal proceedings it only makes sense to use someone’s legal name during those proceedings. Court documents do not get retroactively updated when someone changes their name.
Ultimately, what is disrespectful to Chelsea Manning is entirely determined by Chelsea Manning not the Lemmy Community, Military Community, Trans Community, or any other group.
Nobody gets to be offended for me, and I am the sole determiner of what is respectful and disrespectful to me.
You are entitled to disagree, and as i said before, I do not know Chelsea Mannings’ stance on the matter. Some trans people do refer to their past tense selves with their previous names, or even do not change names after coming out or transitioning. You are correct that court documents will not be altered.
The point that I am making is that, in general, it is considered disrespectful and quite rude to dead name and misgender someone unless they have given you express permission to do so. It’s really not a matter of being technically correct, it’s just a matter of being kind.
Unless you are friends with Chelsea (which I am not), or unless you are directly quoting something out of the court document (and even then, you can just say “Manning”), there’s no need to use the name that she used to go by, and there’s no need to use he/him pronouns. We’re talking about Chelsea Manning right now, but this goes for any trans person that you are not personally acquainted with. Another example would be to say that Caitlin Jenner is an Olympic Medal winner, regardless of what she looked like or what name she won those medals under, or what category she won them in.
Again, not an attack. I’m just making noise.
Hope your night is going well.
(But fuck Caitlin Jenner, she’s a bad person)
That’s still deadnaming and misgendering tho, as I understand it as a cis guy myself. I encourage you edit your original response with her current name and gender
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All that is true. In addition, those communications are subject to records retention laws, so using signal and flagging them to be deleted is illegal in itself.
Getting blackout drunk and sending texts isn’t uncommon for raging alcoholics. Source: I used to be an alcoholic (sober for 6 years)
To be clear, Hegseth (the guy with a history of getting blackout drunk) isn’t the same as Michael Waltz, the guy who invited Goldberg to the chat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Waltz
Waltz, unlike Hegseth, is not a random idiot, he definitely knows better.
“Waltz received four Bronze Stars while serving in the Special Forces during multiple combat tours in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Africa. He served in the Bush administration as a defense policy director in the Pentagon and as counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney.”
As far as Hegseth (or any of the rest of them for that matter) was concerned, the list was all vetted and pre-approved people.
The fact that NONE of them actually vetted the list before saying anything speaks volumes.
They went down the line asking “Hey, who else in your department needs to be a contact on this?” and they all sounded off one by one, except Goldberg.
Nobody thought to ask “Hey, J.G., we haven’t heard from you yet. In fact, wait, who is J.G.?”
JFC we have better OPSEC in EvE Online!
Waltz, unlike Hegseth, is not a random idiot, he definitely knows better.
I’m pressing X to doubt so hard rn
You don’t get to work for Cheney if you’re an idiot.
Please, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Waltz as rebuking proof to your statement
That was ages ago. Each covid infection causes brain damage, each person has had covid 4 to 8 times by now, and older people are hurt the most by covid… So even if the guy was smart 30 years ago, we can’t assume he is smart today
Why do you think everyone has had covid a bunch of times? As far as I’m aware i’ve never had it and I’m sure there are billions more on the planet who haven’t.
I assume they meant in that group.
This makes me wonder if this was part of a ploy to let the public know how messed up things are in a “blink twice if you need help” kind of way. Or did Waltz feel these people are undeserving of their cabinet appointments and so managed to lift the veil so we can all see it? Is he mad that he wasn’t considered for the Secretary of Defense position? Is this his way of being Jim from The Office and looking into the camera?
6 years strong! Wooooo! Congrats!
6 years, wow. Nice one. Keep it up.
Gratulations! More years of soberness to come for you!
Working the playbook. Step 1: Deny
He knows they have the screenshots and the NSC confirmed it, right?
https://x.com/JenGriffinFNC/status/1904221405618577650
NSC statement: “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. The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our servicemembers or our national security.” - NSC Spokesman Brian Hughes
The Trump administration does not deny this Signal group chat about the war planning for the Yemen strikes is real. Trump’s top national security advisers added reporter
@JeffreyGoldberg
@TheAtlantic
to the war planning text chain on non-government social media app, perhaps breaking secrecy laws. Read this shocking story below.
Pro tip: if you change the
x.comtoxcancel.comyou can make the link use a twitter mirror and not give Musk revenue if people click on the linkMore “sourcing the quote” than anything else, but thanks!
Sigh. Todays word of the day is kakistocracy.
Why is nobody talking about the fact that we are bombing Yemen? Yes, including a random person in a text channel talking classified information is a problem. But, why are we just brushing off the actual chat contents?
Because pointing out that America is bombing Yemen is like pointing out that water is wet.
That’s not an excuse. There were huge ass protests over the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War. Putting pressure on officials to end this bullshit os worthwhile. Shrugging, and saying meh, it is what it is is super unhelpful.
You can protest the bombing of yemen and you will be doing a noble thing and get zero attention and have zero impact.
If you clown on them for inviting a journalist into their secret consequence free war chat - you will recieve lots of attention and potentially play a part in forcing some of these gouls to resign.
Exactly, they aren’t ashamed of being evil, but they are ashamed of being incompetent
There’s a couple reasons -
- It wasn’t so much “bombing Yemen” as it was, bombing a terrorist organization within Yemen’s borders. This is something every American administration has done for decades. That makes it poor political fodder, you can’t “one up” the competition with it.
- Most Americans would agree that the Houthis, once it is explained to them who they are, need to be bombed. The actual action would be reprehensible to some, but acceptable to most. You can’t put pressure on an admin to change their tactics when they feel they have a plurality of support.
- The sad and undeniable fact is that in American politics - American lives are simply more important than foreign ones. That’s not really unique to American culture, it’s not meant as a criticism, it’s just a sad reality. Bombing Yemen is pretty low risk for American lives - but sloppy OPSEC put American lives at huge risk so that’s where the focus is.
In a perfect world, the fact that America is committing violence in other nations and is not realistically reigned in by International Laws or Treaties would be a point worth getting upset about. But that fact is over 100 years old and has been successfully normalized. The idea of incompetent buffoons operating the Department of Defense like a bunch of frat boys trying to organize a kegger is marginally newer and more impactful on the national psyche.
I can’t believe I’ve found an actual adult on a lemmy thread.
I don’t think we’re ignoring that, so much as there is an overwhelming amount of bad shit to talk about stemming from this single incident.
And to be honest the bigger issue revealed here isn’t the failure to protect classified information or that they’re bombing Yemen (In a vacuum at least) right now but the fact that they are violating the law also by using an app that destroys documentation of their conversations. This has implications not only legally or militaristically but also that they know they want to do shit that would be illegal and evil enough that they don’t even want to use standard classified channels, not just bombing of Yemen but probably more future evil shit.
Every president since Carter has bombed Yemen (I think).
So it’s like hazing now?
That doesn’t make it a good thing. Should we just accept that the U.S. military industrial complex is what it is, and shrug it off? Bcz that’s what you’re suggesting.
I’m just saying it’s unremarkable.
Im sure the people being bombed in Yemen feel the same way…
This is the real waste fraud and abuse. Lockheed Martin testing out it’s ww3 tech on Houthi
They’re bombing the Houthis rebels who are (were?) fucking with the red sea shipping route to protest Israel, but I’m not sure how much they’re still fucking with it today. The Yemen government isn’t fully in control of Yemen.
CENTCOM shit. If Trump and Elon were genuine, they’d get rid of this true waste of tax payer $s.
