Congressional representatives are up in arms after a reporter was added to a group chat in which Trump administration officials were discussing sensitive national security matters.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard were all present in the chat on the app Signal. Waltz apparently added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, to the chat accidentally. Goldberg was present when the group discussed sensitive war plans against the Houthis, which the editor revealed in an explosive article on Monday.
The Trump administration has scrambled to respond, while many in Congress have begun voicing outrage.
“There should absolutely be a congressional investigation so that we can understand what happened,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told reporters on Monday. “Why did it happen, and how do we prevent this type of national security breach from ever happening again? This is reckless, irresponsible, and dangerous. Who are some of these people that Donald Trump has put into the most sensitive national security positions in America?”
“We were promised that Donald Trump was going to hire the very best. It’s all phony,” he added. “The attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion, phony. So, it’s never about hiring the best people. As Democrats, we actually believe in merit, merit that should be based on what you know, not who you know. I will know that the secretary of defense who was on that chain has got to be the most unqualified person ever to lead the Pentagon in American history.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called the incident “one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time” and urged Republicans to pursue a “full investigation into how this happened, the damage it created and how we can avoid it in the future.”
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL) to hold a public committee hearing on “what might be the most astonishing breach of our national security in recent history.”
“Republicans have regularly contrived security ‘scandals’ to attack their political opponents with years of nakedly partisan hearings and investigations. This administration proves yet again that hypocrisy and cynical politics aren’t the only defining characteristics of today’s GOP; rank incompetence is front and center,” Meeks said.
Democrats weren’t the only ones who expressed outrage over the incident. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), another member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Axios the “unconscionable action” was using a nonsecure network to communicate sensitive information.
“None of this should have been sent on non-secure systems. Russia and China are surely monitoring his unclassified phone,” he said.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) said there must be “administrative accountability” if the breach was a mistake and “legal accountability” if it was intentional.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told reporters the incident was a “huge screw-up” and said he hoped “the interagency would look at that.”