Even the most intense, red-blooded MAGA supporter can’t avoid admitting the obvious: accidentally incorporating one of the Beltway’s most widely-known journalists into a group chat about military operations in Yemen was straight up idiotic. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s ferocious denials aside, the entire affair shouldn’t have happened. Indeed, if you had written a novel, publishers would object to the entire premise of such a scene because it was too unrealistic even for fiction. And yet, it happened.
The Trump administration is now under more scrutiny than usual. Even normally stalwart Republican lawmakers like John Cornyn of Texas are expressing misgivings. White House officials, including Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard are insisting no classified material was passed over this civilian messaging application (Goldberg, who should know, insists otherwise).
U.S. officials will attempt to gaslight the public and the media about the scandal and brush it off as one big misunderstanding. But eventually, Trump or one of his advisers will need to explain how somebody could have made such a stupid mistake and what, if anything, will be done to mitigate similar stupid mistakes in the future. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, the man who inexplicably added the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat, is now facing a crisis of confidence, with some anonymous staffers suggesting he could lose his job over the entire episode (although President Trump reasserted support for Waltz a day after the story broke).
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