Signal Markers
The Trump administration has tried to subdue us with a "shock and awe" approach that has been deliberately designed to overwhelm our senses with an endless stream of outrages and divide our reaction to its intentional cruelties, but every now and then an outrage manages to poke its head above the crowd and get our undivided attention.
That certainly seems to be the case with this morning's revelation from Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, that he was somehow looped into a group text on Signal in which high-ranking officials in the Trump White House delivered the details of an impending military action.
(The full piece is here for free, if you haven't read it yet. Go ahead, we'll wait.)
Bluesky has been picking apart the story all morning. A lot of energy has been spent on the obvious irony that the exact same group that hyperventilated and hypothesized about Hillary Clinton possibly maybe perhaps one day leaking secrets on an unsecured email server is now just texting around actual secrets on their iPhones.
Less attention has been made to the equally horrifying fact that, in private, these people seem immensely stupid. Here's the National Security Advisor to the President of the United States throwing out his own version of a "Live Laugh Love" sign with the emojis for "Fist Flag Fire," for instance.
Seriously, though, this is a massive scandal. (And note, I'm trying to stop saying "this would be a massive scandal in any other administration" because that kind of preemptive excuse making only lets them off the hook. We keep pretending the normal rules don't apply to Team Trump because they'd prefer not to. Nope.)
At the very least, NSA Michael Waltz – who set up the group chat and made the mistake of roping in the editor of a goddamn magazine – should be forced to resign. A former solider, Waltz filled DeSantis's old seat in the House of Representatives when he was first elected governor. He's literally a replacement level politician, and I can't imagine he'd be hard to replace again. (It's not just that he screwed up massively here. He screwed up because he had a journalist's contact info in Signal to begin with. That might cause some trouble in Trumpland.)
But Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth should also be on the block. Despite the very real concerns that his background as a weekend host for Fox & Friends and a semiprofessional alcoholic and sex pest might not have prepared him to oversee the American military machine. The bumbling approach revealed in this incident surely isn't a one-off, and suggests a slapdash approach to national security. (And yes, there have been even bigger warning signs. And even bigger than that.)
To put it simply: there is every reason to worry that this administration is leaking like a sieve.
This would matter under normal circumstances. But given the Trump White House's recent campaign to piss off every single nation in the world, friend or foe, this all becomes even more alarming.
At the very same time the administration is needlessly ramping up tensions around the globe and increasing the likelihood of an armed confrontation (or, hell, several confrontations), it's making it less likely that America will succeed in any actual conflicts.
They've eviscerated the military and intelligence agencies, worried more about erasing "DEI" from the Pentagon than anything else. They've driven away the allies we desperately need for diplomatic pressure, for crucial intelligence gathering, and for military and logistical support. And now they've laid themselves and their secrets bare, putting troops at risk and jeopardizing the success of any operation down the line.
Yes, America remains the strongest military superpower. But that status doesn't provide perfect protection – 9/11 was a stark illustration of that, but only the most prominent one. And the imperfect people who are running things now are practically begging for another disaster of that scale.
Congress should step in to demand accountability and insist on resignations. They won't, thanks to the Republicans' cowardice, but that should be all the more reason for Democrats to raise hell about this now.
They should tie this GOP Congress to the administration whenever they can. Refuse to let Republicans in the House and Senate escape blame for all of this, when it remains true that a handful of them in either chamber could quickly bring about some much-needed accountability. Make it clear that Democrats strongly disagree with what's going on and warn Americans, before it's too late, that this is an invitation to disaster.
A reckoning is coming soon. If Democrats can't prevent it, they should make damn sure that the blame lands on the right people.
