The Trump administration accidentally texted their military strikes against the Houthi terrorist organization to the Atlantic's editor-in-chief and former Jerusalem Post columnist Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor wrote on Monday on the magazine platform.
Goldberg wrote in his piece that he knew the attacks were coming two hours prior, noting that he received the military plans of Houthi targets, weapons packages, and the timing of the attack straight from US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The editor added that he received the information via Signal, an open-source encrypted messaging service, where he received a connection request from National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, whom he initially just believed to be someone else masquerading as him. He then said he received a notice to be included in a group chat on the messaging service known as the "Houthi PC small group."
Waltz himself then sent a message in the group chat, Goldberg continued, saying that it was "establishing a principles [sic] group for coordination" on the Yemeni-based terrorist organization for over the next three days.
“Pls provide the best staff POC (principals committee) from your team for us to coordinate with over the next couple days and over the weekend. Thx,” The Atlantic piece quoted Waltz's text, which was referring to a group of the most senior national security officials to assist in coordinating their war plans against the Houthis.
Goldberg then said he saw US Secretary of State Marco Rubio responding to Waltz's request in the chat, noting that he endorsed State Department Counselor Michael Needham as his representative.
Other US officials that responded to Waltz's request include Vice President JD Vance, who endorsed State Department Foreign Service Officer Andrew Baker; National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, who endorsed National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who endorsed his deputy secretary in his department, Dan Katz; and Hegseth, who endorsed his senior advisor Dan Caldwell.
Like Hegseth is 'sending invites to a party'
Former candidate for vice president, Tim Walz, reposted the Atlantic story on X/Twitter, where he said that Hegseth is "texting out war plans like invites to a frat party."
Other members of the group included Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, the White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and the deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller.
Goldberg said he highly doubted the group chat was genuine, noting that they could've been part of a disinformation campaign, and his disbelief that "the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans," much less include The Atlantic editor-in-chief in these conversations.
He added that no one seemed to have noticed his presence in the group chat and that the strikes against the Houthis would occur at 1:45 p.m. EST, according to the group.
Goldberg then checked X to confirm if the strikes had occurred and saw that 10 minutes later, there were explosions reported in Yemen's capital city of Sanaa. He then went back to the Signal channel to see that the participants were discussing and congratulating each other on the strike.
Goldberg concludes his Atlantic piece by saying that the Signal channel was genuine, having emailed several US officials who were in the group chat to receive confirmation of its validity from National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes.
“This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” Goldberg quoted the official as saying.