The Division Bell hosts discuss Mike Waltz’s phone faux pas this week when a journalist got added to a private Signal group chat
Sending a message to the wrong person doesn’t usually have the seismic repercussions as adding a journalist to covert “war plans”.
Across the pond, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg got the scoop of a lifetime when he was added to Trump’s national security team’s group on Signal.
“It’s equivalent to winning the lottery for us, like being plopped into Keir Starmer and Morgan McSweeney’s private Whatsapp group chat!” Christian Calgie said on The Division Bell.
“JD Vance was in there, Waltz was in, the White House chief of staff, security operatives.”
“They’re a bunch of clowns” Buchan on Signal messages
“Why were they doing covert planning on Signal? Don’t they have encrypted phones or something? An underground bunker to talk about stuff?” The Mirror’s Lizzy Buchan asked.
“I don’t know how they can argue that they’re not war plans. What a bunch of clowns!”
Goldberg broke the story on March 24, revealing that he saw classified plans to coordinate strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. While the article sent shock waves around the world, the White House has tried to diffuse the huge mistake:
“Thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of President Trump, and everyone in the group, the Houthi strikes were successful and effective. Terrorists were killed and that’s what matters most to President Trump,” assistant to the President and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, wrote on X:
“So they’re denying that there was any national security element even though from what we understand if these messages got into the wrong hands they probably would have resulted in the deaths of US servicemen because you’d have been able to know where the bombs were coming from.” Christian argued.
Signal is a secure messaging service with end-to-end encryption, but this mistake raises concerns about operational security.
Listen to this week’s episode of The Division Bell on Spotify, Apple and Youtube.