National Security? Trump Officials Prefer Group Chats & Emojis
Senior Trump officials accidentally texted their war plans to a senior journalist, while flexing like teenage incels about how much they hate their European allies
National security gone rogue: Top officials drop classified info on a private app—because why not?
Occasionally art is unable to imitate life as developments are too absurd even for satire. One such case is The Atlantic magazine’s scoop that senior Trump officials—including Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio—managed to share highly sensitive war plans on a group chat. Not on the secure line platforms provided for them by the United States government. Nor in a classified briefing room. On Signal. A private company group chat platform. Apparently the brain trust in charge of American foreign, defence and national security accidentally invited The Atlantic’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
Yes, you read that correctly: one of the most senior journalists in America was inadvertently looped into a high-level military discussion, sat there in shock in his car parked outside Safeway supermarket as classified information scrolled by, waiting to confirm it was all real before promptly leaving the chat. Even that wasn’t enough to tip off the Trump White House Mensa Chapter in charge of America’s war machine—despite the app literally announcing “JG has left the chat.”
The chat, as it turns out, was also set to automatically delete old messages—potentially a significant violation of the Espionage Act, as official government communications are legally required to be preserved. But why worry about breaking the law when you’ve already fumbled national security so catastrophically?
And it gets worse.
As the senior administration figures shared details of dates, times, weaponry to be used for bombing Houthis in Yemen, Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed it with all the nonchalance of a man too busy at a fundraiser to care about minor details. With a response tantamount to ‘busy but sure’, the man in charge of overseeing U.S. foreign policy responded to a message about launching an operation— as if he was approving his buddy’s Instagram picture. Apparently ‘little Marco’ viewed planning a military strike on a private company’s chat platform as less important than the political events he was involved with. Busy but sure? Busy but sure’? Depressingly, this wasn’t about a dinner reservation—it was about human lives potentially lost in warfare, not whether Marco liked his friend’s new shirt.
One thing Rubio did not seem bothered about, despite running U.S. diplomacy was when Hegseth, called European allies “pathetic” in all caps as JD Vance insisted they should be forced to compensate the U.S. for their military action. It seems as if waging war is just another item in Trumpworld’s transactional ledger. The whole affair lays bare a worldview in which even counterterrorism is viewed through a crude, mercantile lens.
Just to add an extra layer of farce and tragedy, the officials punctuated their discussions by exchanging 🇺🇸 and 💪 emojis—because what better way to demonstrate your strategic brilliance than by role-playing as a teenage incel hyping himself up for a gym selfie?
This debacle makes one thing painfully clear: the United Kingdom and other allies participating in the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing agreement need to walk away, immediately. The United States, under this administration, is simply not a trustworthy partner.
And, of course, Trump himself responded in classic Trump fashion: by claiming—against all plausibility—that he was somehow the only person on the planet not aware of the single biggest news story of the moment. Instead, he deflected to attacking Goldberg and The Atlantic, because when caught in a scandal of staggering incompetence, the only move these days is to yell at the press.
Pete Hegseth once promised that, under his watch, nobody would take the United States for fools anymore. That proclamation hasn’t aged well. If anything, this latest catastrophe proves that the people running America’s military affairs are exactly as dumb as they look.
Dean M Thomson is currently a lecturer with Beijing Normal - Hong Kong Baptist University, United International College (UIC).
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