Jeffrey Goldberg

‘Signalgate’ is another nothingburger

I predict that by the time you read this, the press-fabricated entertainment known as “Signalgate” will be but a memory – a fond memory for those addicted to round-the-clock media frenzy, department of anti-Trump shenanigans. For the more responsible members of the populace, it will seem like an overheard squabble among angry children in some forlorn government-funded schoolyard.  What, after all, was “Signalgate?”  From one perspective, it was like a piranha-infested pool into which chunks of meat or perhaps a hapless Bond villain had been tossed. The resulting frothy tumult made it impossible to see what was happening. You only knew that the fish were frantic and the half-eaten protein shredded.   Such things happen from time to time in America.

waltz groupchat

Which member of the ‘Houthi PC small group’ chat are you?

Most people use groupchats to share memes, organize brunch or gossip. The Trump administration plans air strikes. After Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently included in the "Houthi PC small group" Signal chat by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, administration officials were eager to stress that no classified information was included in the unofficial chat. As a result, Goldberg published screenshots of the full conversation this morning. The messages offer a glimpse into not just the views of various cabinet members on foreign affairs; they reveal the texting styles of some of the most consequential government officials in the world. Some are relatable. "Having read thru the full Houthi PC small group logs, I've come to the sad realization that I'm the J.D.

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Mike Waltz claims he has ‘never met’ Atlantic editor

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz spoke to the press this afternoon for the first time since the Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg described how Waltz had inadvertently added him to a Signal groupchat in which air strikes on Yemen were planned. Waltz claimed that he'd “never met, don’t know, never communicated with” Goldberg. The only problem: Goldberg says in his report that the pair has met before. So who's lying? The Atlantic reported Monday how Goldberg was granted access to “precise information about weapons packages, targets and timing” from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, two hours before the US attack on Yemen targets on March 15. “There are a lot of lessons,” Waltz told the press while meeting with President Donald Trump and US ambassadors.

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Signal and the narcissism of connectivity

Signal is the fashionable place to discuss shady business – and that is probably what tempted National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, a military man with a previous in at the Pentagon, into using the app to discuss American air strikes against the Yemeni Houthis with top Trump administration officials. It was Waltz who added the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to the “Houthis PC small group” on March 13, two days before the strikes. To people like Waltz, Signal is the obvious place to plot such an operation. But Signal is also the app you use when you want the world to know that you have something to hide.

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Sad: DC only joint-second in national excessive drinking

District winos Washington second for excessive drinking – behind Montana Cockburn’s malign influence appears to be spreading its way across the capital: new data reveals that DC is now tied second in the nation for having the most excessive drinkers, alongside North Dakota and Iowa. Only Montana has the district beat, according to a 2025 update to the County Health Rankings and Roadmaps report from the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute.

The Goldberg groupchat ‘glitch’ is a crisis of competence

To be fair, Donald Trump’s team did promise to have the most transparent administration ever – a line I was planning to deploy on Fox News, but Peter Doocy beat me to it. Newly elected Senator Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican, was blunter: “Well, somebody fucked up.” It was only a matter of time before this White House, moving as fast as they have been, would make a glaring mistake. They had been relatively fortunate to this point, considering the sheer amount they’ve taken on in the early days of this administration, to have the screw-ups largely at a remove from the West Wing.

mike waltz groupchat competence

The ‘government by groupchat’ scandal should cost Mike Waltz his job

Blimey! Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg has written a fresh exposé that should result in the immediate resignation or firing of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. His story is called “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plan.”  In calm and lucid prose, Goldberg explains that he was initially suspicious of his inclusion in a text chain about a potential American military attack on Yemen on the encrypted app Signal. Various Trump national security officials, ranging from Vice President J.D. Vance to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, appeared to be in the chat with him.

waltz groupchat

The election was a referendum on the American media

In the final month of the 2024 election, the national media existed in another solar system from the country for whom is tasked at reporting accurate, unbiased and truthful information. The final month started with Jeffrey Goldberg and the Atlantic attempting to regurgitate their anonymously sourced “suckers and losers” hit against Trump from 2020. With the help of CNN and others, they resurfaced General John Kelly. Then they went and got their full Reich on by comparing Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally to a 1939 Nazi rally there. At said rally a comedian known for celebrity roasts made a crass joke about Puerto Rico, which blanketed the whole of national media outlets for four days.

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Democrats ramp up efforts to tie Trump to Hitler

Democrats including presidential nominee Kamala Harris and 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton are accusing their Republican opponent of being a Hitler-esque fascist. Spurred by a curiously thin report from the Atlantic claiming that former president Donald Trump disrespected the memory of a fallen soldier and praised Adolf Hitler and his generals, Harris held a press conference on Wednesday in front of her Washington, DC residence in which she warned Trump is “increasingly unhinged and unstable.” During a CNN town hall later that evening, Harris answered in the affirmative when she was asked if she believes Trump is a fascist. Meanwhile, Clinton likened the upcoming Sunday Trump rally at Madison Square Garden to an event held by Nazis at the same venue in 1939.

Kamala shows her stern side in NBC interview

Small wonder that Donald Trump is dodging a new debate with Kamala Harris. If her latest television interview was anything to go by, she is a much smoother public performer than only a few months ago. She was quite steely, making her points with concision and snap.  Harris may like to talk about joy, but she displayed little of it in her interview with Hallie Jackson of NBC News. Instead, Harris, in fending off several pointed questions, ensured that what was on display was her formidably stern side. “I’m not going down that rabbit hole with you right now,” she snapped at one point.

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The Atlantic’s ongoing Trump histrionics

As long as there exists an upper Acela Corridor audience, the Atlantic will be there to fearmonger Donald Trump and make him the center of their universe. The January issue of Laurene Powell Jobs Monthly was dedicated to Trump — and you can almost hear the trumpets coming out of the editorial meeting as they all congratulated themselves on another job well done. It was an all-hands-on-deck effort that precedes other all-hands-on-deck efforts, warning of the power of Trump and the fragility of our American democracy. Once again, the Atlantic’s impressive roster of MSNBC green-room regulars gets the equation exactly backwards.