Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth maintains that he did not share “war plans” in the now-infamous Signal group chat that inadvertently included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg.
The outlet published a second article Wednesday morning that went into greater detail about the messages Hegseth shared with senior Trump officials in the chat about attacking Houthi targets. Goldberg said his outlet made the decision to publish the details so people could “reach their own conclusions” after multiple members of the administration insisted there was no classified information shared. The updates Hegseth gave in the Signal chat to other senior officials appear to be a real-time play-by-play. He specifically relayed details about dates and times, concepts of operations, and weapons systems included in it.
Hegseth, who is on a tour of the Pacific, took to social media again on Wednesday to mock Goldberg’s reporting and highlighted how the outlet seemingly now referred to “war plans” as an “attack plan,” which has become a Trump administration talking point.
“So, let’s me get this straight,” he wrote on X. “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. Those are some really sh**ty war plans.”
He added, “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.”
The second article revealed that Hegseth wrote to the group: “1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)
“1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)
“1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)
“1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)
“1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.
“MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)
“We are currently clean on OPSEC” — that is, operational security.
“Godspeed to our Warriors.”
On Tuesday, during a stop in Hawaii, Hegseth told reporters, “Nobody’s texting war plans, I know exactly what I’m doing, exactly what we’re directing, and I’m really proud of what we accomplished, successful missions that night and going forward.”
“Some of the rhetorical gymnastics this week regarding the Signal chat and classified information were painful to watch,” Bradley Bowman, a senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Examiner. “It is ridiculous to suggest that U.S. government information related to the timing, targets, weapons, and sequencing of impending military operations is not classified and can be appropriately discussed on an unclassified app subject to foreign espionage.”
“This literally could have resulted in our service members being killed,” Bowman, an Army veteran, added. “That information could be used to kill our service members or to at least make their mission less successful, giving our adversaries time to react before the actual attack comes.”
Sabrina Singh, who was a deputy Pentagon press secretary during former President Joe Biden’s administration, wrote in reaction to the second Atlantic article: “Pete Hegseth put the sequencing of the entire operation & types of aircraft that would be used to conduct these strikes all before the operation took place. He put the lives of our fighter pilots at risk. Details like this are classified. I am absolutely floored.”
Two of the people in the chat, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, testified Tuesday in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, where lawmakers peppered them with questions on the subject. Both denied sharing classified information in the chat.
“Partisans are doing what partisans do, they’re trying to spin things for advantage and minimize damage,” Bowman added. “This is really a moment for all Americans, regardless of party, to view the facts and, I’d say, come to the commonsense conclusion that we don’t want our adversaries to know about military operations before they’re conducted.”
In his first remarks on the Signal chat, Hegseth denigrated Goldberg, as many others in the administration have done since the story broke Monday.
President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said he took “full responsibility” for the mistake on Tuesday night, but he also suggested there could be some sort of conspiracy regarding how the reporter was added to chat.
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people out there, somehow this guy … gets on somebody’s contact and then get sucked into this group. … Now, whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean is something we’re trying to figure out,” Waltz said Tuesday.
Waltz, for his part, also seemingly shared sensitive information in the chat. He said “the first target” was the Houthis’ “top missile guy” and added that the United States “had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.”
The real-time intelligence of this Houthi individual’s location was most likely acquired via overhead surveillance or a human source, and that person could now be a target of the Houthis.
The Houthis may or may not have the capabilities to hack U.S. officials, but they are allied with entities that have more sophisticated militaries and intelligence agencies. One of the Houthis’ primary backers is the Iranian regime, which has grown significantly closer to Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Russia has reportedly provided the Houthis with intelligence to target commercial vessels in the waterways off Yemen’s coasts, according to the Wall Street Journal. U.S. officials, Hegseth included, have said the military renewed its aerial campaign to get the Houthis to stop their attacks on commercial vessels.
The Houthis have, in recent months, shot down U.S. drones in the region and have fired missiles and one-way drones at U.S. troops in the region.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its 2025 assessment threats report this week, and it included a recognition that the U.S.’s adversaries are coordinating more than before.
“Cooperation among China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea has been growing more rapidly in recent years, reinforcing threats from each of them individually while also posing new challenges to U.S. strength and power globally,” according to the report. “These primarily bilateral relationships, largely in security and defense fields, have strengthened their individual and collective capabilities to threaten and harm the United States, as well as improved their resilience against U.S. and Western efforts to constrain or deter their activities. Russia’s war in Ukraine has accelerated these ties, but the trend is likely to continue regardless of the war’s outcome.”
Beijing has sought to tap into the phones of several U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, who was in the Signal chat.
