President Donald Trump’s senior national security officials accidentally shared sensitive details about its strike plans on the Houthi terrorist group in Yemen with the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic through the encrypted messaging app Signal. 

The messages among Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Vice President JD Vance and 15 other senior officials involved discussions in the lead up to the strikes carried out on the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist group in Yemen last week and raises questions about the use of the private messaging app for conducting government business. 

The messages allegedly included sensitive information “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” said Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic's editor-in-chief, who refused to quote directly from the certain messages because of their sensitive nature. 

The spokesman for the National Security Council confirmed that the text chain was real and that the administration is investigating how the journalist was added to the thread.

“This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes told The Atlantic. “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.

“The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials,” Hughes also said. “The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.”

On March 13, two days after Goldberg received a connection request from an account labeled Michael Waltz, the journalist was added to a group chat called the “Houthi PC small group,” an abbreviation for a Principals Committee – a group of the senior most officials, including cabinet officials. 

The messages showed the earliest stages of planning for the strikes and provide a rare insight into internal administration debates. For example, Vice President Vance, the messages show, was wary of the strikes. 

“@Pete Hegseth if you think we should do it let's go,” Vance wrote, according to one screenshot. “I just hate bailing Europe out again.” 

“VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC,” Hegseth replied. “But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any, given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. I think we should go; but POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.”