By Tony Bruce | Saturday, March 29, 2025 | 4 min read
New Signal leaks reveal Trump national security officials boasting about Yemen strikes. Photos debunk claims about journalist’s accidental inclusion.
What You Need to Know
- Deputy Defense Secretary Michael Waltz is under scrutiny after private Signal messages discussing U.S. strikes were leaked.
- Waltz denied knowing The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, but photos show them together at private events.
- High-ranking Trump administration officials including VP J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, DNI Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe participated in the chat.
- Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner warns the leaks raise “judgment and security” concerns.
In the fallout of the explosive Signal app leaks that exposed senior Trump administration officials flaunting U.S. military strikes in private chats, new evidence is dismantling the official denials at the heart of the scandal.
Deputy Defense Secretary Michael Waltz publicly claimed he did not know The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who was revealed to have been inadvertently included in a private Signal group chat where high-level officials discussed active U.S. military operations against the Houthi militant group in Yemen. But fresh reporting and photographic evidence suggest otherwise.
In a report published Thursday, Goldberg detailed that Waltz personally connected with him on Signal on March 11. Two days later, Goldberg was added to a private Signal thread labeled “Houthi PC small group,” where Trump national security officials openly discussed the strikes — seemingly unaware that a prominent journalist was among them.
The claim by the White House’s National Security Advisor that Waltz and Goldberg had “no prior relationship” now appears clearly mistaken. Photographs obtained by The Atlantic show Waltz and Goldberg together at a small, private gathering last spring, moderated by Goldberg himself and attended by Waltz. Additional photos place them together at multiple events over the past two years, including a defense gala and a military base tour.
Further complicating Waltz’s defense, sources familiar with the Signal thread allege that he privately messaged Goldberg encouraging him to “come and see how brave the Trump Defense boys really are” shortly before the journalist was added to the group.
The leaked Signal chat’s participants included some of the most powerful figures in the Trump administration: Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
The conversation in the chat was marked by casual bravado and performative boasting about the military operations — behavior that has sparked alarm among intelligence and media ethics experts.
During a closed-door Senate Intelligence Committee briefing earlier this week, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), Chair of the Committee, reportedly told colleagues, “This isn’t just a question of loose talk. This is about judgment, security, and the troubling ease with which serious decisions were treated like entertainment.”
White House officials have declined to comment on the latest revelations. Waltz’s office issued a brief statement late Thursday: “I stand by my previous comments. Any claims of impropriety are unfounded.”
The Atlantic has released additional excerpts from the Trump administration’s Signal group chat, revealing detailed timelines of military strikes in Yemen. This publication comes a day after senior officials asserted that the exchanges contained no classified information.
The newly disclosed messages, sent on March 15, appear to originate from an account associated with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. They include specific times of strikes, types of aircraft used, and preliminary assessments of the attacks’ effectiveness against Houthi rebels.
The release has intensified scrutiny over the administration’s handling of sensitive information. Senator Mark Kelly stated, “The Signal incident is what happens when you have the most unqualified Secretary of Defense we’ve ever seen.” He further called for Hegseth’s resignation, emphasizing the potential risks to service members’ lives.
In response, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the report, labeling it “another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin.”
However, pressure is growing on Capitol Hill for a formal investigation into how a journalist found himself inside a Signal chat where live military operations were being openly discussed — and why top Trump officials appeared comfortable with such casual handling of sensitive matters.
The Signal leak scandal is far from over. Each new revelation appears to point to the same unsettling question: Who was the performance really for?
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