Top officials in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump added Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a group chat in which officials shared what the White House has described as "sensitive" information.
Shortly after noon on March 24, 2025, The Atlantic published a story (archived) by Goldberg titled "The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans." In the story, Goldberg claimed he knew the U.S. was going to strike Houthi targets in Yemen two hours before the airstrikes happened because a top government official added him — accidentally, it appeared — to a group chat in which Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others discussed critical
When pressed by reporters, Hegseth first denied texting war plans and Trump said he didn't know anything about the situation. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard denied that the group chat contained classified information. Then, on March 26, The Atlantic published what it said was classified information from the group chat that the magazine had previously withheld out of its concern for national security.
Below, we
What, exactly, happened?
On March 11, 2025, Goldberg
Two days later, Goldberg received a notification indicating he was a part of a group chat named "Houthi PC small group." One of the participants, the contact labeled "Michael Waltz," said he was establishing a principals committee meeting for "coordination on Houthis" and asked the group to give the name of a representative from each of their offices to help coordinate.
The Houthis are a Yemeni rebel group backed by Iran that has attacked Israel and maritime trade in the region.
A slew of responses followed in which contacts labeled "JD Vance," "MAR" (presumably Secretary of State Marco Antonio Rubio), "TG" (presumably Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard), "Scott B" (presumably Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent), "Pete Hegseth," "Brian" (likely Brian McCormack from the National Security Council) and "John Ratcliffe" (presumably the head of the CIA) submitted their representatives' names.
Other participants in the group chat included "Steve Witkoff" (Middle East and Ukraine negotiator), "Susie Wiles" (the White House chief of staff), "S M" (presumably Stephen Miller, homeland security adviser), "Joe Kent" (presumably Trump's nominee to run the National Counterterrorism Center) and various National Security Council officials.
Goldberg wrote in his article that he had doubts about the group chat's authenticity because he couldn't believe national security leadership would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans, and that he initially thought the chat might be part of a disinformation campaign meant to publicly embarrass him as a journalist.
The next day, the "Michael Waltz" participant addressed the group about next steps. "JD Vance" responded, saying, "I think we are making a mistake" and "there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.," given how "inconsistent this is with [Trump's] message on Europe right now" and the risk of a "moderate to severe spike in oil prices." "Joe Kent" agreed that the group would have "the exact same options in a month."
"Pete Hegseth" then responded to "JD Vance," saying he supported him raising the concerns with Trump and that messaging would be "tough no matter what — nobody knows who the Houthis are — which is why we would need to stay focused on: 1) Biden failed & 2) Iran funded." He went on to indicate he was in favor of the operation.
"Michael Waltz" then shared a long text with data related to European trade figures and stated that no matter when the airstrikes happened, the U.S. would have to be the one to "reopen these shipping lanes."
The following exchange then commenced:
(The Atlantic)
(The Atlantic)
Goldberg wrote that at this point he remained skeptical, still believing the chat could be a disinformation campaign by someone with access to an adept AI text generator.
The next day, March 15, "Pete Hegseth" shared "operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing." Goldberg chose to redact this information in his original article, but according to the uncensored transcript he later released, the messages indicated the U.S. was going to strike Yemen two hours later, at 1:45 p.m. EDT.
"JD Vance" responded, "I will say a prayer for victory," to which two others responded with prayer hands emoji.
At 1:55 p.m., Goldberg searched "Yemen" on X and saw that bombs had exploded across Sanaa. According to the Houthi-run health ministry, the strikes killed at least two people and wounded more than a dozen others. The group reported at least 53 killed in earlier U.S. strikes, and on March 17, 2025, UNICEF independently verified that U.S. strikes had killed at least two children.
Members of the group chat subsequently sent celebratory messages:
(The Atlantic)
Goldberg then removed himself from the group chat, having concluded it was real. He received no subsequent questions as to who he was or why he left.
What was the initial response of those involved?
Hegseth initially denied wrongdoing when a reporter asked him about the group chat upon his arrival in Hawaii on the day Goldberg's article went live. Hegseth disparaged Goldberg's credibility and then said, "Nobody was texting war plans. And that's all I have to say about that."
Goldberg responded to this claim on CNN, saying, "He was texting war plans, he was texting attack plans."
When a reporter asked Trump for his response to the story during a news conference with the governor of Louisiana, Trump claimed he didn't know anything about it
Early on March 25, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt denied in an X post that the group chat included war plans:
During a committee hearing with Gabbard and Ratcliffe on March 25, Gabbard declined to say whether she was in a group chat and said the matter was "currently under review" (at 42:27). Both Gabbard and Ratcliffe denied that anyone shared classified information on the Signal group (at 45:40 and 44:22, respectively), although Ratcliffe confirmed he was on the group chat (at 42:50).
"We are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room," Waltz said on March 25. He also claimed "full responsibility" during a Fox News interview.
Goldberg wrote that Brian Hughes, spokesperson for the National Security Council, confirmed the Signal group chat was real. "This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain," Hughes wrote to Goldberg. "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 troops or national security."
A spokesperson for Vance also responded to Goldberg, saying, "Vice President Vance unequivocally supports this administration's foreign policy."
In the aftermath of The Atlantic's story breaking, the White House chose a strategy of communication that confirmed the group chat was real but denied that the material shared was classified. During a meeting at the White House on March 25, Trump said "from what I understand, it took place during and it wasn't classified information, so this was not classified. Now if it's classified information, it's probably a little bit different, but I always say you have to learn from every experience."
Did Hegseth share classified information?
Early on March 26, The Atlantic published a second story (archived) with the complete contents of the Signal chat — including the information the magazine previously considered a security risk if published, such as exact times, weapons and other details. "THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP," Hegseth wrote at one point:
(The Atlantic)
There was a critical window in the two-hour period — between when Hegseth sent this text and when the U.S. struck targets in Yemen — during which American pilots and military personnel could have faced severe danger if any bad actor had access to the group chat, according to multiple former intelligence officials.
Typically, discussion of sensitive military information occurs in a secure location, either at the White House or in sensitive compartmented information facilities (SCIFs) installed in high-level security officials' homes.
On March 26, 2025, top security officials including Gabbard, Ratcliffe and others testified at a Senate hearing. Gabbard doubled down on her previous assertion that parties on the group chat shared no classified information.
"The conversation was candid and sensitive, but as the president and the national security adviser stated, no classified information was shared," Gabbard said (at 0:40). "There were no sources, methods, locations or war plans that were shared."
We looked into what makes information classified, and found that according to former President Barack Obama's Executive Order 13526: Classified National Security Information (archived), agency heads have the power to classify information. This means that as the defense secretary, Hegseth has the authority to classify
Executive Order 13526, from 2009, states that "information shall not be considered for classification unless its unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause identifiable or describable damage to the national security" and pertains to one or more items on a list of eligible information,
(Executive Order 13526)
According to Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official, the information Hegseth posted also likely came from a "highly classified and protected" document. "Disclosure would compromise the operation and put lives at risk. Next to nuclear and covert operations, this information is the most protected," he told The New York Times.
If the information was classified before Hegseth shared it in the Signal chat, that means he possibly went through the proper channels of declassification before sharing it. According to Section 3.1 of Executive Order 13526, a select few may declassify or downgrade classified information:
- The official who authorized the original classification, as long as they are still in the same position and has the original classification authority;
- The originator's current successor in function, if that individual has original classification authority;
- A supervisory official of either the originator or his or her successor in function, if the supervisory official has original classification authority; or
- Officials delegated declassification authority in writing by the agency head of the senior agency official of the originating agency
In sum …
Waltz inadvertently added Goldberg to an authentic Signal group chat with some of the highest-ranking members of Trump's administration. In that chat, officials discussed military intelligence including exact times, weapon types and other details pertaining to a March 15, 2025 drone strike on Yemen two hours before the strike happened.
Hegseth's and the White House's insistence that he did not share any classified information may have merit, given that Hegseth has the power as an agency head to classify information — although he would have to meet certain conditions to declassify information if he was not the original official to authorize its classification. Therefore, it is not clear based on the available evidence whether Hegseth inadvertently sent classified information to Goldberg.