Uh, Why Did the ‘Atlantic’ Editor Leave the Trump Group Chat??

In what feels like the U.S. politics equivalent of trying to send a “U up?” text to multiple women and clumsily creating a group chat with all of them—except, frankly, a gazillion times worse—Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s Editor-in-Chief, revealed on Monday that, on March 15, Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Waltz accidentally added him to a group chat of Trump officials. The Signal chat included Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles, and others, as they weighed bombing Yemen. The chat was called “Houthi PC Small Group.” (The Houthis are a political group in Yemen.)

Goldberg wrote that he thought he was being punked, or, worse, that Trump officials might be trying to ensnare him into reporting a false story and delegitimizing The Atlantic on the world stage. Then, hours later, the bombs fell, and Goldberg realized he’d been inadvertently added to a top-secret group chat rife with state secrets and highly sensitive national security information. Goldberg, himself, chose to leave the group chat; no one noticed he was there, let alone removed him. For the life of me, I can’t wrap my head around willingly exiting rather than staying, collecting, and sharing my findings with the public. Presumably for ethical reasons, but… he’s not the one who added himself to the chat! Goldberg says no one even reached out to him after he left the chat, which automatically notifies everyone present. 

Just last week, Hegseth told reporters, “Under the previous administration, we looked like fools. Not anymore.” 

Relatedly: Would any Trump administration officials like to add me to a top-secret government group chat??? I’ve been told I’m very fun to have in group chats, so… Think on it.

As for the contents of the chat, between the wildly cringe emoji usage (“👊🇺🇸🔥,” from Waltz), and Vance appearing to criticize President Trump, there was… a lot going on. At first, Vance and Hegseth debated whether to bomb Yemen, with Vance raising concerns about impacts on oil prices, and whether the U.S. would be seen as weak for aiding Egypt and Europe: “I just hate bailing out Europe again… If there are things we can do upfront to minimize risk to Saudi oil facilities we should do it,” he wrote, because, as usual, everything is about oil. 

Vance continued: “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices.” (I believe that is nerd-speak for “President Trump is an idiot.”) Eventually, Hegseth persuaded him that there was no difference between acting immediately and acting within a couple of weeks, though he did agree with Vance re: Europe. “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading,” he conceded. “It’s PATHETIC.”

I can’t emphasize this enough: There are extremely strict laws governing what communications platforms government officials can use, and Signal is not one of them. I’m old enough to remember when Republicans themselves led a crusade against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for using a private email server during the Obama era, only to now, themselves, use a civilian chat app to discuss a top-secret military operation and… accidentally add a reporter, then not even notice the reporter was present. (“You have got to be kidding me,” Clinton tweeted alongside the article on Monday.) Asked about the kerfuffle by reporters on Monday morning, Trump said he didn’t know anything about the group chat, that reporters were telling him “for the first time,” and then referred to The Atlantic as “a failing business.” OK.

As we continue to live through a prolonged, endless season of Veep, sometimes there are no words to describe how stupid everything is. And when words fail us, memes deliver.

Yes, the topic of said chat was warfare and killing people—but some social media users raised that it was sweet to see a group of middle-aged men form a group chat as a cure to the male loneliness epidemic: