Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has fired back at The Atlantic after the outlet published a controversial report claiming that Trump administration officials had shared “war plans” over an unsecured Signal group chat. In a scathing response, Hegseth mocked the allegations, highlighting the lack of any actual military intelligence in the so-called “plans.”
“So, let’s get this straight. The Atlantic released the so-called ‘war plans,’ and those ‘plans’ include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information,” Hegseth stated. “Those are some really shitty war plans.”
The Atlantic’s initial report, authored by Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, claimed that Vice President J.D. Vance, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and other top officials had engaged in discussions about imminent military strikes on Houthi strongholds in Yemen. However, after facing backlash from conservative circles and the White House, the publication altered its headline to read: “Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisors Shared on Signal.”
Conservative journalist Eric Daugherty took to X (formerly Twitter) to call out the apparent backpedaling by The Atlantic. “THEY’RE BACKPEDALING! The Atlantic just sent out an update report CLARIFYING that there WERE NO WAR PLANS exchanged in that Signal chat… they were (as we all saw) some discussion on the Houthi strikes that Americans knew were coming,” he wrote.
As the controversy unfolded, Hegseth doubled down on his critique of the report, pointing out that real military planning is vastly more sophisticated than what Goldberg’s article implied. “This only proves one thing: Jeff Goldberg has never seen a war plan or an ‘attack plan’ (as he now calls it). Not even close,” Hegseth asserted. “As I type this, my team and I are traveling the INDOPACOM region, meeting with Commanders—the guys who make REAL ‘war plans’—and talking to troops. We will continue to do our job while the media does what it does best: peddle hoaxes.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed Hegseth’s criticism, slamming the media for sensationalizing routine discussions within the administration. She emphasized that Trump officials were simply coordinating necessary military actions, not leaking classified intelligence. “The judge in this case is essentially trying to say the president doesn’t have the executive authority to deport foreign terrorists from our American soil. That is an egregious abuse of the bench,” she stated.
Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers have also weighed in, calling the media’s scrutiny of Signal hypocritical, given that the Biden administration had previously authorized its use for official communications. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) noted during a Fox News appearance that “the Biden administration authorized Signal as a means of communication that was consistent with presidential record-keeping requirements for its administration, and that continued into the Trump administration.”
With conservative voices rallying behind Hegseth and condemning The Atlantic’s reporting, the incident serves as yet another example of the media’s ongoing battle with the Trump administration. As the situation continues to unfold, the administration remains steadfast in its commitment to national security, undeterred by what it sees as politically motivated attacks from the press.