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Trump reacts to botched group chat, Hegseth says ‘nobody’ sent ‘war plans,’ but here’s the fallout

March 25, 2025 | | Print Article

A scandal currently roiling Capitol Hill is nothing but fiction, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The scandal centers around a claim by so-called “journalist” Jeffrey Goldberg, a known fabulist, that he was accidentally added to an unsecured group chat featuring top national security and defense officials, including Hegseth, DNI Tulsi Gabbard, and NSA Michael Waltz.

After being added to the group chat, Goldberg allegedly observed these same officials discuss then-secret secret plans to bomb the Houthis, with Hegseth at one point allegedly sharing operational details of the plan.

“[T]he Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” Goldberg wrote for The Atlantic.

This bombshell allegation from Goldberg, who again is a known serial fabulist, has sparked massive controversy on Capitol Hill, where Democrats and their media allies are now calling for heads to roll.

But asked to comment on this matter on Monday, Hegseth claimed the whole story is yet another fabrication from Goldberg.

Listen:

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“So, you’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again to include the, I don’t know, the hoaxes of Russia, Russia, Russia, or the fine people on both sides hoax, or the suckers and losers hoax,” he said. “So, this is a guy that peddles in garbage. This is what he does.”

“Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that. Thank you,” the defense secretary added.

Also asked to comment on the matter, President Donald Trump told reporters he had no clue what they were talking about.

“I don’t know anything about it,” he said. “I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business. I think it’s not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it.”

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Listen:

The problem is that the outrage is loud and growing, with even some at Fox News raising concerns about this scandal.

“Oh for God’s sake, the administration has already confirmed the authenticity of the message,” Fox News’ Brit Hume tweeted late Tuesday.

But the alleged confirmation came from Goldberg himself, who claimed in his Atlantic piece that National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes had confirmed that the group chat was indeed real.

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“This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” Hughes allegedly told Goldberg.

Even some congressional Republicans have begun speaking out.

“I’ve accidentally sent the wrong person a text — we all have, [but] the unconscionable action was sending this info over non-secure networks,” Rep. Don Bacon told Axios. “None of this should have been sent on non-secure systems.”

Rep. Derrick Van Orden added that even though this is an “isolated incident,” there should be “administrative accountability” such as retraining, but only if this was an unintentional mistake.

Below is what Rep. Mike Lawler tweeted:

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Disgraced former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who herself has a history of transmitting classified data on unsecured lines (though she never faced any consequences for this), has also been running her mouth.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she tweeted in response to Goldberg’s claims in The Atlantic.

In response, thousands of conservatives rushed to remind her that she was in no position to be judging others.

Speaking of hypocrisy, one popular conservative commentator asked the left why they weren’t this shrill and angry after former President Joe Biden botched the Afghanistan withdrawal.

“To all the hypocrites calling for someone to be fired for adding Jeffrey Goldberg to some text messages, where the hell where you about people getting fired after 13 service members lost their life because Biden botched the Afghanistan withdrawal?” Insurrection Barbie tweeted.

Meanwhile, Tony Kinnett of The Daily Signal argued in a tweet that the group chat messages allegedly viewed by Goldberg didn’t contain real “war plans” but rather school-like notes:

Finally, Fox News’ Will Cain argued that this incident proves why Americans should be “proud” of their current leaders in office.

Listen:

According to Goldberg, it was National Security Advisor Waltz who added him to the group chat. As a result, Waltz is now rumored to be on the chopping block, but Fox News has learned from sources close to the White House that he will not be fired.

“Fox News is told Waltz has no plans to resign and is sticking to his schedule Tuesday. He will be talking to his Russian counterpart about a Black Sea ceasefire deal and has plans to speak to Trump as usual later Tuesday,” according to the outlet.

An official also told Fox News that he has never met and has never spoken to Goldberg.

Somehow, Goldberg’s number was added to one of the members of the list, the senior official said, noting that Signal is allowed in multiple agencies.

It appears that Goldberg’s number was added to a contact card by one of the Trump administration staffers, Fox News has learned. The chat had Cabinet officials plus some of those officials’ staffers.

Vivek Saxena
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