SHORTLY after winning the 2024 election, Donald Trump began naming his nominees to his second Cabinet. While some seemed normal1, there were others that were, in purely political terms, batshit insane. The top spot in this list was arguably Matt Gaetz, he of the federal investigation into potential human trafficking, who was Trump’s initial pick to be the nation’s Top Cop, Attorney General.2 While Gaetz was shocking, the insane nominations did not stop there. Well known Putin Fangirl Tulsi Gabbard was nominated to run all of the American Intelligence community as DNI, anti-vax health nut Robert Kennedy Jr was tapped as Health and Human Services Secretary, and absolute wingnut Kash Patel was picked to head up the FBI. Finally, weekend Fox TV personality and (alleged) alcoholic3 Pete Hegseth was nominated and then confirmed to head the Department of Defense.
Setting aside the character flaws that each of these people obviously have and only considering the abject lack of experience that any of these people have for their jobs, most thinking people figured that at some point there would be fuck ups. Well, most people have been proven right, time and again. Ironically, it was none of this particular group of Keystone Kops that set the most serious (so far) situation in play.
You see, over the weekend The Atlantic reported that their editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg had been added to a Signal text chat that included nearly the entire Cabinet and was used to openly discuss war plans for the March 15th airstrikes against Houthis in Yemen. Goldberg was apparently added by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, although it is unknown as to why Waltz would have done such a thing. Others in the group included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, General White House Ghoul Stephen Miller, and more. No one seemed to notice the user “JG”, as Goldberg appeared in the chat.
Over the course of several days, Goldberg was able to follow along as this gang discussed rationale for the attack, as well as operational and strategic topics. He thought, more than once, that he was being setup as part of a disinformation plot. Then on the morning of the attack, Hegseth texted the group laying out the timing and method of the attack, using information that, while not shared in the article, would have “conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East”. Goldberg continues:
What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.
When the bombs started to fall almost exactly on schedule, Goldberg knew that the text group was legit.
But wait, you may ask; surely the United States government has systems and technology that allows them to communicate sensitive information securely, right? You would be correct. They absolutely have these tools. Further, it is specifically against the law to use commercial applications such as Signal for sensitive communication. Cabinet secretaries are also not supposed to use their phones for this type of dialog, as phones can be hacked. There are a lot of rules about this. Of course, T2.0 feels that rules are for the peasants. And Democrats.
In literally any other administration4 an intelligence failure of this magnitude would result in the nearly immediate “resignations” of both Waltz and Hegseth. Instead, Trump claimed not to know anything about the situation, which seems a lot worse to me. When asked for comment, Hegseth denied that any war plans were texted out and then reverted to a word salad that combined attempts to discredit Goldberg while also mixing in some of Trump’s Greatest Grievances:
“So I[...] You’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist whose made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.
“To include the, I don’t know, the hopes of Russia, Russia, Russia, or the fine people on both sides hoaxes or suckers and losers hoaxes”, Hegseth accosts.
The secretary continued attacking Goldberg: “This is the guy that peddles in garbage. This is what he does.
Sounds like a stable dude. This is yet another example of a mindset in the current administration that seems to boil down to “what are you going to do about it?”. It should be noted that the accuracy of the text chain was confirmed:
Brian Hughes, the spokesman for the National Security Council, responded two hours later, confirming the veracity of the Signal group. “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain”.
One final thing to consider: someone might consider using an app like Signal, which can be set to automatically delete messages after a certain amount of time5, when they specifically do not want an official record of the conversation to exist.
Not that anyone in this administration would intentionally do such a thing.
Take Care and Stay Strong
“Little” Marco Rubio being tapped for Secretary of State seemed to make sense, enough so that he was unanimously confirmed. Of course, like most people in djt’s orbit, he put on his sycophant mask almost immediately, and now most if not all Dems who voted to confirm are experiencing buyer’s remorse.
Gaetz ended up being the only Trump nominee to not be confirmed, as he removed himself from the nomination in hopes that he could avoid the release of a damning ethics report. He didn’t get the job, and the report still came out. Hell, he probably would have been confirmed by this cowardly Senate.
Just to be clear, if Hegseth is truly an alcoholic it is not a laughing matter, nor is it something to take lightly. As someone who just celebrated his 9th year of sobriety, I completely understand the nature of that particular disease, and I hope that anyone who is in its clutches is able to get the help that they need to get better. I also am keenly aware of all of the ways that such a person’s life can spiral out of control. Hegseth certainly exhibits some outward characteristics of a person struggling with addiction, but I do not know the man. I only hope that if he has a problem, he is willing to see it in himself and look for help.
Except T1.0, of course.
According to the Atlantic article, Waltz had set the messages in the group chat to disappear after either one or four weeks, which would be a violation of Federal Records Law.