White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has urged Americans to be “grateful” for President Donald Trump’s “competent” national security team as the White House seeks to downplay a security breach after a journalist was mistakenly included in a Signal chat in which he claimed Cabinet members discussed plans for airstrikes in Yemen.
In a segment on Jesse Watters Primetime Tuesday night, the Fox News anchor asked Leavitt whether the president has “full confidence” in his national security team after the stunning Signal messaging app intelligence leak.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in chief of The Atlantic, said he was added by Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, to a group chat set up to discuss airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen before they began on March 15. Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were among others in the chat, he said.
“President Trump absolutely has the full confidence in his national security team,” Leavitt responded.
“The American people should be grateful to these individuals and especially to President Trump for putting together such a competent and highly qualified team who are killing terrorists the Biden administration allowed to run wild in the Middle East,” the press secretary said.
Trump immediately rushed to his team’s defense, telling a meeting with U.S. ambassadors at the White House on Tuesday that the information divulged in the Signal group chat “was not classified.”
“Now if it’s classified information, it’s probably a little bit different, but I always say, you have to learn from every experience,” the president said, adding that he thought “it was very unfair the way they attacked Michael,” referring to his national security adviser.
Leavitt echoed the president’s remarks and emphasized “no classified information was shared in this group chat.”
She accused Democrats of “spinning a sensationalist story out of a basic set of facts.”
“The Democrats would have you believe there is a national security crisis on our hands when we absolutely do not,” Leavitt continued.
“They are good at fearmongering the American public, but not anymore.”
“I think the Americans see the truth,” she added. “They see past the sensationalist headlines from Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, which is a dying magazine, and they should trust this president and his national security team who again are getting things done, moving at Trump speed to make this world a safer place.”
Goldberg meanwhile said he’s considering publishing the full transcript of the group chat to show that the messages contained sensitive material, despite denials from the White House.
“My colleagues and I and the people who are giving us advice on this have some interesting conversations to have about this. But just because they’re irresponsible with material, doesn’t mean that I’m going to be irresponsible,” he told Tim Miller on Tuesday’s Bulwark Podcast.
“Maybe in the coming days, I’ll be able to let you know that, ‘OK, I have a plan to have this material vetted publicly.’ But I’m not going to say that now, because there’s a lot of conversations that have to happen about that,” Goldberg said.
