According to Newsweek, Trump allegedly called Waltz “so stupid” for the mistake, based on a Politico source that is as reliable as a raccoon with rabies. They added that despite Trump publicly backing Waltz, insiders say his future remains uncertain. However, Trump has already stood solidly behind Waltz.
The alleged problem with the newly released texts is that Sec. Hegseth shared some information about what was about to happen. Hegseth was near real-time, but it had not yet happened. He said drones would follow, and the F-18s would take off. This was not a public channel; Goldberg should never have been on it.
Shawn Farash said on X:
There’s nothing in it but the pros and cons of striking now vs waiting a month.
It’s not war plans. It’s not classified info.
It’s a conversation, and nice to see cabinet members and staffers hashing out the best way to move forward.
The White House Responds
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on the social media platform X after the messages were released that โThe Atlantic has conceded: these were NOT โwar plans.โโ
โThey backpedaled the whole โwar plansโ thing really really fast,โ the U.S. Department of Defense, which Hegseth heads, said.
The original Atlantic article said the discussion involved โwar plans.โ The new article does not include that phrase.
Trump has said the government would likely not use Signal, a messaging application, moving forward.
โWe may be forced to use it. You may be in a situation where you need speed as opposed to gross safety, and you may be forced to use it, but generally speaking, I think we probably wonโt be using it very much,โ he told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
The president also said he still backs national security adviser Michael Waltz. Waltz hasย taken responsibility for addingย Goldberg to the group and has faced calls to step down or be fired.
โWe are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room,โ Waltz told reporters.
He told Fox News later that it was his responsibility, as opposed to one of his staffers.
I still wonder if a mole or Waltzโs wife was involved.
John Ratcliffe gave the okay to use Signal.
Democrats want several government committees to investigate. They plan to make this into a crisis.
The chat was not public. This is an embarrassment but not a crisis.
Wednesday’s Hearing
Top officials are being grilled and lambasted at today’s hearing.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the committee, chastised the intelligence leaders at the start of the hearing, saying they put the lives of troops at risk.
He said the Chinese or Russians could have gotten the information.
Gabbard acknowledged that the conversation was “sensitive” but denied that classified information was shared in the chat.
She told lawmakers that no sources, methods, locations, or war plans were shared, echoing the White House’s defense that “war plans” were not discussed despite the detailed guidance for an impending attack. In the wake of the latest texts’ release, Hegseth and other administration officials attacked The Atlantic and Goldberg, accusing them and the media at large of blowing the situation out of proportion.
Himes told Gabbard that, under the ODNI’s own guidance, “information providing indication or advance warning that the U.S. or its allies are preparing an attack” should be classified as top secret. Gabbard said the information Hegseth disclosed in the chat would fall under the Defense Department’s classification guidance, and she was unfamiliar with the department’s specific classification guidance.
The argument is now focused on whether it is sensitive or classified information since it was near real-time and not real-time.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard addressed the issue:
DNI Director-designate @TulsiGabbard: Democrats have accused me of being Trumpโs puppet, Putinโs puppet, Assadโs puppet, a guruโs puppet, Modiโs puppet โ but what truly unsettles them is I refuse to be THEIR puppet. pic.twitter.com/nphSJ26r1M
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) January 30, 2025
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