There’s disbelief around the world after a journalist was accidentally added to a group chat in which US officials were planning military strikes. Messages include JD Vance and Pete Hegseth bluntly criticising Europe. Listen to the Trump 100 podcast as you scroll.
Tuesday 25 March 2025 16:56, UK
Live reporting by Mark Wyatt
The Senate Intelligence Committee hearing has now adjourned after two hours of questions for US intelligence chiefs.
Among those being questioned were national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard and CIA head John Ratcliffe, both of whom are said to have been members of the Signal group discussing strikes on Yemen.
Ratcliffe denied the security breach was a “huge mistake” and insisted the use of Signal was “permissible”.
Gabbard at first declined to confirm whether she was actually in the chat, before suggesting there was a distinction between the “inadvertent release” and “malicious leaks” of information.
We’ve just received a statement from the White House on the security breach.
It labels the criticisms of the Trump administration a “coordinated effort to distract from the successful actions taken by President Trump and his administration to make America’s enemies pay and keep Americans safe”.
It says Democrats “and their media allies” have “seemingly forgotten” that Trump and his team have “successfully killed terrorists who have targeted US troops and disrupted the most consequential shipping routes in the world”.
The statement contrasts Trump’s action against the Iran-backed, Yemen-based Houthi rebels against Joe Biden’s apparent inaction – but the US military under Biden launched a number of strikes against the Houthis.
Trump White House claims Biden ignored ‘pirates’
“The Biden Administration sat back as a band of pirates… exacted a toll system in one of the most important shipping lanes in the world,” today’s White House statement adds.
“Biden’s weakness invited these unacceptable attacks — while President Trump put these terrorists on notice.”
“The Trump Administration’s actions to hold the Houthis accountable has been a massive success — and nothing can distract from that unrelenting action to keep Americans safe.”
Some more reaction now from Martha Kelner, our US correspondent, who has been speaking to politicians in Washington DC.
I was on the Hill late yesterday as lawmakers digested the news of what can only be described (pre-watershed) as a colossal screw-up.
Calls were beginning for accountability and for someone to lose their job over this fiasco.
I asked representative Jamie Raskin if he thought fist bump and fire emojis were an appropriate way to be discussing military strikes.
He said no, obviously, but that “nothing surprises me about this crowd”.
It’s been exactly 24 hours since the Atlantic published its bombshell report revealing its editor-in-chief was included in a group chat alongside US national security leaders discussing planned military strikes in Yemen.
Jeffrey Goldberg’s sensational piece has caused political uproar across the pond, drawing widespread condemnation from Democrats and plenty of ruby-red Republican faces.
If you’re just joining us, here’s what you need to know:
It’s been a very busy 24 hours across the pond, and we’ve only just seen Donald Trump for the first time today.
The president has been greeting Medal of Honor recipients in the White House.
Earlier, Trump told our US partner network NBC that he still had confidence in national security adviser Mike Waltz.
That’s despite one of his staffers accidentally adding Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal group chat containing classified military intelligence.
Reporters from our US partner network NBC have been speaking to Republicans as they come in and out of their weekly House conference meeting.
Far-right politician and passionate Trump supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene called the addition of Jeffrey Goldberg to the White House officials’ Signal chat “incredibly sloppy”.
However, she added that “it was a mistake, and I am, I can say for certain, they’re going to put protocols in place so that doesn’t happen again”.
Floridian Maria Salazar said “people make mistakes” and to give US defence secretary Pete Hegseth “a pass”.
Tim Burchett called his former colleague, White House national security adviser, Mike Waltz a “patriot”.
Senator Mark Warner is addressing the five most senior US intelligence officials at a Senate hearing.
Among them is director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who refuses to acknowledge whether she was on the Signal group chat.
A user named “TG” posted on the chat, according to the Atlantic.
CIA director John Ratcliffe admits he was on the group chat and argues the information shared was not classified.
“If it’s not classified, share the text with the committee,” demands Warner, who is met by silence.
Gabbard attempts to make the same claim as Ratcliffe, to which Warner says: “You can’t have it both ways. These are important jobs, this is our national security.
“Bobbing and weaving and trying to filibuster your answer. Please answer the question.”
Warner asks: “If this was a rank and file intelligence officer who did this careless behaviour, what would you do with him.”
Gabbard refuses to answer the question.
Warner points her to a post she made on X on 14 March.
There is no doubt that the information shared on Signal was extremely sensitive regardless of Donald Trump’s attempts to play it down, says military analyst Professor Michael Clarke.
Some of it was redacted by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg in a “very responsible” manner, says Clarke.
“We now know that it included weapons packages, timings, targets and it named CIA operatives, which must put their lives in danger.”
Clarke is referring to this extract from the Atlantic below…
“At 11:44 a.m., the account labelled Pete Hegseth posted in Signal a ‘TEAM UPDATE’.
“I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts. The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility.
“…The Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was incorrect when she said no war plans or classified material was included, says Clarke.
“It was full of it – absolutely full of it. And it was actually quite dangerous. It is a serious breach in the content of it. It was a serious breach of procedure that they shouldn’t have been talking about on Signal.”
These discussions should be carried out in a secure environment with officials taking notes, not “a gossip group”, he adds.
More from senator Mark Warner now, as he calls out the Trump administration’s “pattern of an amazing cavalier attitude towards classified information”.
He repeats that it is “reckless, sloppy”, but adds: “Perhaps what troubles me the most is the way the administration has decided we can take on all our problems by ourself [sic] without any need for friends or allies.”
He is referring to defence secretary Pete Hegseth, who described his “loathing of European freeloading” in a Signal group chat to which a journalist was accidently added, and JD Vance, who said: “I just hate bailing Europe out again.”
“The US is starting to act like our adversaries,” says Warner, “voting in the UN with Russia, Belarus and North Korea – that’s a rogues gallery if I’ve ever heard of one.”
Warner points also to Trump’s threats towards Greenland, Panama and Canada.
He says alliances built on trust over decades are being broken overnight.
“The Signal fiasco is not a one-off. It is a pattern we are seeing too often repeated.”
The topic of the day has now been brought up in Congress by the Democratic senator Mark Warner.
Warner is responsible for providing oversight of all US intelligence agencies.
“Putting aside for a moment that classified information should never be discussed over an unclassified system,” he says.
“It’s also just mind-boggling to me that all these senior folks were on this line, and nobody bothered to even check security. Hygiene 101. Who are all the names? Who are they? Well, it apparently included a journalist.”
He continues: “If this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer, and they had this kind of behaviour, they would be fired.
“I think this is one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behaviour, particularly towards classified information, that this is not a one-off or a first time error.”
Warner also praised the ethics of the Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, the journalist involved, “no matter how much” Pete Hegseth “or others want to disparage him”.
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