President Donald Trump revealed that a staffer with national security advisor Mike Waltz’s office included the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic in a Signal group chat with senior Trump officials who were discussing plans for an upcoming strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
‘It was one of Michael’s people on the phone.A staffer had his number on there,’ Trump told NBC in a phone interview when asked how Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, was added to the high-profile chat.
The president added that Goldberg’s inclusion in the group chat had ‘no impact at all’ on the strike in Yemen.
Goldberg published an article on Monday detailing how he was added to a Signal group chat on March 11, reportedly dubbed ‘Houthi PC Small Group,’ which included high-profile government officials, including Waltz, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance and others.
Signal is an encrypted messaging app that operates similarly to texting or making phone calls, but with additional security measures that help ensure communications are kept private to those included in the correspondence.
Those in the group reportedly discussed targeting the Iran-backed terrorist group, the Houthis, in Yemen, including timing.
‘According to the lengthy Hegseth text, the first detonations in Yemen would be felt two hours hence, at 1:45 p.m. eastern time,’ Goldberg wrote in his first-hand account of the chat. ‘So I waited in my car in a supermarket parking lot. If this Signal chat was real, I reasoned, Houthi targets would soon be bombed. At about 1:55, I checked X and searched Yemen. Explosions were then being heard across Sanaa, the capital city.’
The inclusion of a journalist in the group chat has sparked outrage from Democrats, with some calling on Hegseth and Waltz to resign from their security roles, and others demanding they testify before Congress on the matter.
Trump defended Waltz during his interview with NBC on Tuesday.
‘Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,’ Trump said in the phone interview.
Trump separately defended Waltz in comment to Fox News on Tuesday, saying the national security advisor will not be fired over the incident.
‘He’s not getting fired,’ Trump told Fox News. The president said the incident was a ‘mistake,’ though there was ‘nothing important’ in the Signal text thread.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung summed up the Atlantic story in an X post as ‘nothing more than a section of the NatSec establishment community running the same, tired gameplay from years past.’
‘From the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax of the first term to the fake documents case of the last four years… at every turn anti-Trump forces have tried to weaponize innocuous actions and turn them into faux outrage that Fake News outlets can use to peddle misinformation,’ he continued.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt added in a social media post on Tuesday that ‘No ‘war plans’ were discussed’ in the group chat, and that ‘no classified material was sent to the thread.’
‘Jeffrey Goldberg is well-known for his sensationalist spin. Here are the facts about his latest story,’ she posted to X. ‘The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible.’
‘As the National Security Council stated, the White House is looking into how Goldberg’s number was inadvertently added to the thread. Thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of President Trump, and everyone in the group, the Houthi strikes were successful and effective. Terrorists were killed and that’s what matters most to President Trump,’ she added.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for additional comment on the matter, but did not immediately receive a reply.
Fox News’ David Rutz, Danielle Wallace and Peter Doocy contributed to this report.