Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic magazine's editor in chief, insists he saw "minute-by-minute accounting" of how the United States intended to bomb Yemen, despite Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denying the classified information was ever accidentally sent in a text message.
On Monday (March 24), Goldberg publicly claimed that he was inadvertently included in a Signal message chain with top officials from President Donald Trump's administration in Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, and others discussed plans to strike against the Houthi terror group in Yemen earlier this month.
“Look, I’m going to be responsible here and not disclose the things that I read and saw. I will describe them to you,” Goldberg said during an interview with MSNBC's Inside with Jen Psaki hours after news of the breach initially surfaced. “The specific time of a future attack; specific targets, including human targets meant to be killed in that attack; weapon system; even weather reports.
“I mean, the precise detail, and then a long section on sequencing: ‘This is gonna happen, then that is gonna happen. After that happens, this happens, then that happens, and then we go and find out if it worked’,” he added.
Hegseth publicly denied that sensitive "war plans" were ever discussed in the chat group and accused Goldberg of having a history of being "deceitful and highly discredited," which he responded to during the MSNBC interview Monday night.
“I mean, you know, he can say that it wasn’t a war plan, but it was a minute-by-minute accounting of what was about to happen, organized by CENTCOM, Central Command, which is the military oversight group of the Middle East, the broader Middle East,” Goldberg said.
“It’s interesting because as I’m reading it at 11:44 a.m. on Saturday morning, the 15th, seeing that the Houthis are not going to know about this for another couple of hours, and I know about it, and I’m thinking to myself, I mean, honestly, I’m thinking to myself, well, I’m glad that Mike Waltz didn’t invite a Houthi into the group or a Russian spy or an adversary of the United States,” he added.
Goldberg claimed he was added to the 'Houthi PC small group' Signal chain on March 11, four days before the Trump administration carried out its strikes in Yemen, having received an invitation from national security adviser Mike Waltz.