• The White House and MAGA Republicans continue to malign Jeffrey Goldberg, the reporter accidentally invited into a secret group chat dedicated to planning a military strike. So The Atlantic brought receipts. The magazine published texts it had previously withheld because they contained planning, sequencing and targeting information about the US military’s attack on Houthis in Yemen 11 days ago. The texts show that Hegseth’s insistence that “nobody was texting war plans” is false. They’ve also divided the MAGA faithful from Republicans who perform that Herculean task of supporting Trump while still sometimes taking American national security and diplomacy seriously.  

• “The statements by Hegseth, (Director of National Intelligence Tulsi) Gabbard, (CIA Director John) Ratcliffe, and Trump — combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts — have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions,” Goldberg and Atlantic reporter Shane Harris wrote.

• The texts show exactly what Goldberg said they did: Hegseth posting to the chat — two hours before the attack began — details on the warplanes, drones and missiles would be used, and critically, when. And a new wrinkle: National Security Advisory Mike Waltz (who added Goldberg to the chat in the first place) texted the group that the Houthis' “top missile guy” entered a building to visit his girlfriend and that the building had collapsed.

• The Defense Secretary and the President have authority to decide what information is classified. That means Pete Hegseth is in charge of deciding whether Pete Hegseth posted classified information to a reporter on Signal. The real point — as laid out in numerous executive orders and military manuals — is whether that information could potentially harm U.S. national security or endangers troops. Announcing planes, missiles, and targets on Signal two hours before an attack does exactly that. And in a world where Donald Trump is on the record claiming that he can declassify information in his mind, debating whether he or Hegseth think something is classified doesn’t mean much.

• Trump had been dominating the news cycle with a storm of DOGE cuts, deportations and chainsaws. But now, all that has given way to a scandal that Trump and his minions can’t control. Trump, true to form, has tried to downplay this debacle, even while tacitly acknowledging the magnitude of the problem. “It’s something that is not a big deal,” Trump claimed on a Wednesday morning radio program. A breath later, the president said: “You don’t want it to happen in the future. You can’t have that happen.” Clear leadership directives, got it!

• Republicans who specialize in national security are clearly outraged. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said the White House is “in denial” that the texts don’t contain classified or sensitive info, and that “they should just own up to it and preserve credibility." (“Preserve,” you say? LOL!) “It should have never happened and must not happen again,” added Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), who chairs an Armed Services subcommittee.

• Meanwhile, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee — the one whose Republicans approved Pete Hegseth as a qualified SecDef — wrote the administration demanding an independent Inspector General investigation. He also promised his committee “will be looking into this... It appears mistakes were made. No question." 

• Accountability, we dare say, is not Donald Trump’s forte, especially in this second, unleashed Trump presidency. Back in 2017, the Justice Department still clung to its independence when Russian interference led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Contrast that to today: Attorney General Pam Bondi has shown zero desire to get to the bottom of the Signal scandal. Asked in congressional hearings Wednesday if his agency would investigate, FBI Director Kash Patel (who wrote a children’s book featuring “King Trump”) refused to comment.

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