Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s claim that nobody was discussing war plans in a top-secret group chat is “a lie,” The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg said Monday after Hegseth tried to discredit his bombshell reporting.
Goldberg revealed that he was—apparently inadvertently—added to a group chat composed of top national security officials—including Hegseth—who were discussing a strike on Houthi targets in Yemen that indeed took place on March 15, killing 53 people. Hegseth blasted Goldberg as a “highly discredited” reporter who “peddles in garbage” and insisted that “nobody was texting war plans.”
When asked about Hegseth’s denial, Goldberg told CNN’s The Source With Kaitlan Collins on Monday night, “No, that’s a lie. He was texting war plans. He was texting attack plans.”
Goldberg said the messages exchanged in the group chat detailed a specific time for the attack, human targets, weapon systems, and even weather reports.
“I thought to myself, ‘I guess they’re lucky they didn’t send this to a Houthi by mistake, or to a foreign diplomat,‘” he told CNN.
Speaking to MSNBC’s Inside With Jen Psaki earlier Monday evening, Goldberg added: “He can say that it wasn’t a war plan, but it was a minute-by-minute accounting of what was about to happen. This is their plan, and he was taking their plan and sharing it with a bunch of civilian leaders.”
Goldberg said Hegseth “seems like a person who is unserious and is trying to deflect from the fact that he participated in a conversation on an unclassified commercial messaging app that he probably shouldn’t have participated in.”
“I’ve never seen a large group of senior-most national security officials just kind of willy-nilly put out a bunch of stuff without knowing who they’re talking to,” he added.
Both Goldberg and Collins pointed out that none of their sources in the White House and national security circles attempted to dismiss the group chat as fake.
National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes confirmed the veracity of the group chat to Goldberg.
“This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” Hughes said. “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.”
Even Brit Hume, Hegseth’s former colleague at Fox News, was exasperated by the defense secretary’s deflection: “Oh for God’s sake, the administration has already confirmed the authenticity of the message,” Hume wrote on X.
President Donald Trump told reporters Monday afternoon that he was unaware of Goldberg’s stunning revelation: “You’re telling me about it for the first time … I don’t know anything about it.”
Goldberg told CNN this struck him as noteworthy, considering that he reached out to multiple White House officials for comment hours before Trump’s press conference.
Hours later, Trump reposted Elon Musk’s swipe at The Atlantic.
“Best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of The Atlantic magazine, because no one ever goes there.”
