In the middle of March, journalist Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic found himself in a surprising situation when he joined a group chat with a user named Pete Hegseth, sharing the same name as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. It wasn’t until later that he realized he had unintentionally received details about planned bombings in Yemen.
Goldberg recounted this unexpected involvement in an article for The Atlantic on March 24, revealing that he received the ‘war plan’ at 11:44 am on March 15.
On that same day, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that the U.S. had executed ‘decisive and powerful’ air strikes against Iranian-supported Houthi rebels. He described this as a response to an ‘unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones.’
Goldberg stated that the texted plan included ‘precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing.’ While he has disclosed the names of the accounts in the group chat, there is no confirmation on whether these were indeed government officials, representatives, or entirely different individuals.
The details began on March 13, when Goldberg was added to a Signal group chat called ‘Houthi PC small group,’ a platform favored by journalists for its privacy features.
Within the chat was a user named Michael Waltz, a name shared with Trump’s national security adviser.
According to Goldberg, Waltz’s message stated: “Team – establishing a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. My deputy Alex Wong is pulling together a tiger team at deputies/agency Chief of Staff level following up from the meeting in the Sit Room this morning for action items and will be sending that out later this evening.
“Pls provide the best staff POC from your team for us to coordinate with over the next couple days and over the weekend. Thx.”
Goldberg noted that ‘principals’ groups typically refer to high-level national-security officials, which explained why he had never been part of one.
Other participants soon replied to the initial message, including an unidentified user named ‘MAR.’ It’s worth noting that the Secretary of State is Marco Antonio Rubio.
MAR: “Mike Needham for State.”
JD Vance: “Andy baker for VP.”
TG, not identified, though the Director of National Intelligence is named Tulsi Gabbard, said: “Joe Kent for DNI.”
Scott B (the Treasury Secretary is Scott Bessent): “Dan Katz for Treasury.”
Pete Hegseth: “Dan Caldwell for DoD.”
Brian: “Brian McCormack for NSC.”
An unnamed user, whom Goldberg says is an ‘active intelligence officer,’ mentioned: “John Ratcliffe.”
Later, at 8:05 am, Goldberg received another message from Michael Waltz, which informed the members about receiving a ‘statement of conclusions with taskings per the Presidents [sic] guidance.’
The JD Vance account responded: “Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake. 3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.”
The Vance account further criticized Trump’s ‘message on Europe’ as ‘inconsistent.’
“There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”
Joe Kent, a user sharing a name with Trump’s nominee for the National Counterterrorism Center, added there was ‘nothing time-sensitive’ about the timeline.
Hegseth replied: “VP: I understand your concerns – and fully support you raising w/ POTUS. Important considerations, most of which are tough to know how they play out (economy, Ukraine peace, Gaza, etc). I think messaging is going to be tough no matter what – nobody knows who the Houthis are – which is why we would need to stay focused on: 1) Biden failed & 2) Iran funded.”
The Hegseth account suggested waiting ‘a few weeks’ wouldn’t ‘change the calculus’ and cautioned that it might make the team appear ‘indecisive’ or lead Israel to take ‘action first.’
“We are prepared to execute, and if I had final go or no go vote, I believe we should,” the message continued. “This [is] not about the Houthis. I see it as two things: 1) Restoring Freedom of Navigation, a core national interest; and 2) Reestablish deterrence, which Biden cratered. But, we can easily pause. And if we do, I will do all we can to enforce 100% [operations security]. I welcome other thoughts.”
The JD Vance account later addressed Hegseth, writing: “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.”
Hegseth’s account mentioned that ‘now is as good a time as any,’ but stated the POTUS had ’24 hours of decision space.’
SM (Stephen Miller is the deputy White House chief of staff) said: “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. EG, if Europe doesn’t remunerate, then what? If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return.”
At 11:44 am, Goldberg received a ‘Team Update’ notification from the Hegseth account. He has chosen not to quote from it but mentioned that it contained information that could ‘conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel.’
This included ‘operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing.’
The Vance account replied: “I will say a prayer for victory.”
At 1:55 pm, Goldberg checked Twitter and discovered reports of explosions in Yemen.
On the Signal channel, the Michael Waltz account praised the ‘amazing job.’
After Goldberg contacted the National Security Council about the messages, spokesperson Brian Hughes said: “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain. 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.”
A spokesperson for JD Vance assured that the VP is aligned with the president, stating: “The Vice President’s first priority is always making sure that the President’s advisers are adequately briefing him on the substance of their internal deliberations. Vice President Vance unequivocally supports this administration’s foreign policy. The President and the Vice President have had subsequent conversations about this matter and are in complete agreement.”