‘Mistakes were made’: White House in damage control after ‘one of the most stunning breaches’ in US history

The truly bonkers texts sent by Donald Trump’s inner circle, in one of the wildest security breaches of our age, have been revealed.

A text message leak revealing senior White House officials nonchalantly discussing America’s military plans has been rightfully declared one of the most stunning breaches in the nation’s history.

You could be forgiven if you barely took a glance at this one yesterday amid the relentless daily stream of barely-believable updates on the current state of the US. It’s hard for most to keep up as the newly-elected Republicans fire from the hip in their stated goal to reform the nation.

As heated debate evolves over the topics of Ukraine, Russia, tariffs and outrageous colonisation talk, one thing remains a constant. The rapidly moving media machine has an army of journalists scrambling day and night to expose the Trump administration’s flaws.

It’s a tough ask, given Mr Trump has long held a disdain for the mainstream press and has kept them at arm’s reach.

But this week, a solid-gold example of inept amateurism from the country’s elites was served up on a platter, for the editor-in-chief of one of Mr Trump’s biggest rival publications no less.

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic blew the world press out of the park when he woke up with a bizarre stroke of luck — a front-row seat to the conversations military reporters and analysts spend their lives pontificating over.

He was allegedly invited by White House National Security Advisor Michael Waltz to a Signal thread named “Houthi PC small group”.

It wasn’t long before details from one of the world’s most secretive group chats shot around the globe.

Goldberg claims he saw live details of weapons packages, targets, and strike timing two hours before missiles hit Yemen, exposing a crucial error in the most elite office’s internal security mechanisms.

“In my many years of reporting on national-security matters, I had never heard of (a principals committee) being convened over a commercial messaging app,” he wrote.

Whoops. Picture: Andrew Harnik / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)

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“If they were going to pick an errant phone number, I mean at least it wasn’t somebody who supported the Houthis.

“They were actually handing out information that I believe could have endangered the lives of American service people.”

The incident has immediately set off alarm bells on Capitol Hill as the administration reels to fix one of the most excruciating egg-on-face blunders seen in years.

The information leaked in this specific breach is hardly the kind to topple an administration, but the phenomenon has certainly raised some uncomfortable questions for Mr Trump’s “reckless” inner circle.

A National Security Advisor mistakenly opening the door to a well-known and openly anti-Trump journalist will not go down well with the Commander-in-Chief, to say the least.

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Democrats jumped on the opportunity, accusing the administration of being flippant with military intelligence, and while some Republicans have acknowledged the error, some have attempted to dodge the elephant in the room.

“Mistakes were made,” said Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker.

Meanwhile, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has called for a full investigation, branding it “one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence that I have read about in a very, very long time”.

The White House confirmed the incident but hastily downplayed its implications as damage-control mode kicked in.

“The attacks on the Houthis have been highly successful and effective,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, adding that President Trump “continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth leaned on familiar lines when cornered by the press. He dismissed Goldberg as “a deceitful and highly discredited” journalist.

When questioned by reporters about the leak, Hegseth danced around the specifics and instead ridiculed Goldberg, who he claims has “made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again … this is a guy who peddles garbage, it’s what he does”.

Hegseth dismissed Goldberg as ‘a deceitful and highly discredited’ journalist, while declining to address the content of the messages.

A National Security Advisor mistakenly opening the door to a well-known and openly anti-Trump journalist will not go down well with the Commander-in-Chief. Picture: Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)

What was in the chat?

According to Goldberg’s report, the chat group included several Trump cabinet members and senior national security figures: Vice President JD Vance, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and others.

Goldberg wrote that while he was initially unsure if the messages were real, he became convinced of their authenticity when he watched messages in real-time about a strike and then saw reports of explosions in Sanaa minutes later. Houthi officials later claimed 53 people had been killed.

One of the more telling moments came when the user identified as JD Vance voiced concern that the strike ran counter to Donald Trump’s messaging on Europe.

According to Goldberg’s report, the chat group included several Trump cabinet members and senior national security figures: Vice President JD Vance, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and others.

“There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices,” the message read. “But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month.”

Among the other threads in the chat was a proposal to bill European countries for US naval protection of shipping lanes.

“Whether it’s now or several weeks from now, it will have to be the United States that reopens these shipping lanes,” the Waltz account wrote.

“I just hate bailing Europe out again,” Vance said.

“VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC,” Hegseth replied.

Vance’s office later clarified to the BBC that the vice president “unequivocally supports this administration’s foreign policy,” and that he and the president “are in complete agreement”.

A spokesperson for the National Security Council confirmed that the thread appeared to be real, and called it “a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy co-ordination between senior officials.”

An internal review is now underway.

The drama has also exposed the specific platform White House officials are communicating on. Signal is a privacy-focused messaging application that has a strong reputation for keeping things completely under wraps, at least in comparison to more mainstream platforms.

The embarrassing slip-up has also revealed that the most powerful government on the planet does not, in fact, have its own in-house methods of communication and will discuss military matters on a program readily available on the App Store.

“I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans,” Goldberg wrote.

“I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.”

An internal review is now underway.