The Signal Chat: Why Military Personnel are Isolated? An Analysis of a White House Note on a Report of Pete Hegseth
The White House continues to largely dismiss a highly sensitive discussion by leading national security officials on the open-source encrypted Signal messaging app that leaked to a reporter.
The media attention on a story from the failing Atlantic magazine continues to be sensationalized, according to the press secretary at the White House.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said no classified information was posted to the Signal chat. Hegseth’s spokesman, Sean Parnell, said in a statement Wednesday that “there were no classified materials or war plans shared. The secretary was updating the group on a plan that was under way.
“I’ve defended spillage cases where people who were in the military would have been thrown out or had their jobs taken away because they violated rules that are just the smallest portion of what just occurred,” he said.
Pete Hegyseth is a liar. This is so clearly classified he could’ve gotten our pilots killed when he leaked it. “He needs to resign in disgrace immediately.”
“There would be an immediate investigation launched,” Mulroy told NPR’s Here & Now. “They’d be removed from any access to classified information, and if this is what they in fact did, they’d likely get court-martialed. I believe that everybody in the military knows that. And unfortunately, instead of owning up to it and taking responsibility, it seems to be that they’re making excuses for every reason why they could be able to do this.”
Being told in advance about Signal attack plans is bad for troops’ morale. But that double standard is so common, he adds, that there’s a phrase for it in the military: “different spanks for different ranks.”
Some military officers who have sent assessments for a long time have lost their jobs because they gave the information to an unguarded channel. He defended a junior Marine Corps officer in court who sent urgent, potentially lifesaving information to fellow officers in Afghanistan from a nonclassified email server and was relieved of duty.
“What typically happens in a spillage as serious as this is they’re immediately fired,” says Kevin Carroll, who served 30 years in the Army, and in the CIA, and at the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration. He says there’s no doubt what would have happened to an active-duty officer who had participated in the Signal chat.
What Have We Learned About Trump’s First 100 Days of the Second Donald Trump Presidency? A Day-by-Day Look at What NPR Politics Tells
During the first 100 days of the Trump administration, we will recap what you need to know on Friday mornings. Get more updates and analysis in the NPR Politics newsletter.
The week has been dominated by the Signal group chat among high-ranking Trump administration officials that a reporter was apparently inadvertently added to. There’s been plenty of other headlines. More tariffs went into effect that could raise the price of cars. There was more controversy surrounding Trump’s deportation efforts. There are questions surrounding the approach to the war in Ukraine.
Here are five takeaways from the week, followed by a day-by-day look at everything that happened this week on this 67th day of the second Trump presidency:
The Pentagon stated the app was convenient and warned against using it for nonpublic official information. Conversations like these are supposed to be preserved, archived – and likely classified, but the released texts from The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg show they were set to disappear on the app by National Security Adviser Michael Waltz.
- Legislators want more information on how a reporter was added to the chat, even though Trump officials and their congressional supporters tried to downplay it.
“HeGSeth?” How do you bring He GS into it? “Well, I’ll tell you that.” Trump responded to a reporter’s question. He had nothing to do with it. Look, it’s all a witch hunt.
This isn’t the end of the story, because a bipartisan group of lawmakers wants an investigation. The conversation seems to me to be of such a sensitive nature that if I knew about it, I would have wanted it classified.
He called for a fast report from the inspector general. Just days after Trump was sworn in, he fired more than a dozen IGs across multiple agencies, including the Defense Department.
Source: Signal chat fallout, tariff tension — and 3 more takeaways from Trump’s week
Implications of the First Day of Tax Cuts for Americans’ Lives and Jobs: Donald Trump’s Economy, the Auto Workers’ Union, and the Immigration Problem
It’s no secret that a big reason Trump was elected was to bring prices down. His actions in the first month will lead to higher prices. The U.S. imports a lot of agriculture from Mexico, so if tariffs were imposed on them, it would increase food prices. The higher prices on cheap goods Americans buy will be caused by the tariffs on China.
He gambled that the tariffs would increase manufacturing and even out trade imbalances in the long run. The auto worker union likes what Trump has done to end the free-trade disaster. Will people accept a higher price for groceries and cars when they’re already high?
“Now voters are saying, ‘OK, you’ve been elected; we know you’re going to be disruptive; we know you’re going to be that wrecking ball,’” said Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster, “‘but where’s the reduced cost of living I was looking for?’”
Trump’s economic approval has slipped while his overall approval ratings are higher. The consumer confidence index was at a low this week. That is risky for a president, who promised to bring prices down on the first day. Given that Trump is barred from running again and if prices do go up, it could be something felt by the GOP in next year’s midterm elections.
Immigration is where Americans give Trump the highest marks. The administration continues to argue in the courts but pushes the boundaries with its arguments. This week, the administration refused to give a judge more details on its timeline on deportation flights of Venezuelans the administration says are members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
An appeals panel, 2-1, sided with Boasberg and denied the administration’s push to restart deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, noting that the administration hasn’t given those targeted the chance to prove they’re not part of the gang before sending them to a country they’re not even from where they’re imprisoned for an indefinite period of time. The administration will be appealing to the Supreme Court.
A doctoral student at Tufts University was taken into custody off the street by plain-clothesed officers with face coverings and whisked away to a detention facility in Louisiana. The student, a Turkish national, was in the U.S. on a valid student visa. But that visa has since been revoked.
The Secretary of State said this was not about free speech when asked about the Columbia University student. “This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. … A student visa doesn’t belong to anyone. No one has a right to a green card.”
Source: Signal chat fallout, tariff tension — and 3 more takeaways from Trump’s week
The American Embassy in the United States has been sued for antisemitic conduct of the First World War, but no comment on Gallup
According to the data provided by Gallup, Americans’ sympathies are more with Israelis than with Palestinians, but for the first time, it’s below 50%. Republicans have sympathy for the Israelis while Democrats sympathize with the Palestinians. Democrats’ support has spiked as the war has carried on. Independents side with Israelis.
So Trump may feel he has public opinion on his side to continue with these kinds of expulsions and may try to make the debate about: 1. this not being about the war in Gaza at all, but 2. about ending anti-semitism on campuses. The question is: Is there room in the United States for a debate about what defines antisemitism and whether anyone has the right to criticize the government of Israel’s conduct of the war? The administration is bluntly making the point that certainly not if you’re a foreign student.
American Oversight sued this week to ensure that the records are kept in accordance with the Federal Records Act. The group is suspicious of the use of Signal by administration officials.
The judge said he was happy we could figure out a solution. He instructed the government to provide him with an update Monday. If the measures are satisfactory to the Court, the order will be lifted on April 10.
Hegseth, Ratcliffe and Boasberg: Who is Trying to Keep Us Away? A Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing
Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that Hegseth was responsible for determining whether the information was classified.
American Oversight’s attorneys argued that the public is entitled to access government records even if they are auto-deleting messages that originated on officials’ private phones.
They said the effort to evade the rules for record retention in the federal government was a systematic one. “There is no legitimate reason for this behavior, which deprives the public and Congress of an ability to see the actions of government.”
On the chat, Hegseth provided the exact timings of warplane launches and when bombs would drop before the attacks against Yemen’s Houthis began earlier this month. Hegseth laid out when a “strike window” would open, where a “target terrorist” was located and when weapons and aircraft would be used.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to destroy text messages from a phone call in which senior national security officials discussed plans for a US military strike against Yemen.
The administration was prevented from destroying any messages that were sent through the app.
A nonprofit watchdog, American Oversight, requested the order. The government attorney said that the administration was working to collect and save the messages.
Boasberg, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, noted during Thursday’s hearing that his order shouldn’t harm the government since the agencies already were working to preserve the Signal messages.
Boasberg, chief judge of the district court in Washington, has been at odds with the administration over a separate case involving flights deporting Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law. He temporarily blocked the flights and ordered at least two planes carrying immigrants to turn around, but that didn’t happen. The judge has vowed to determine whether the administration ignored his turnaround order.