Top Fox Analyst: Hegseth and Co. Making a Mess of Signal Leak Response
Even a top Fox News analyst thinks the Trump administration's response to a massive intelligence leak makes them look 'pretty bad.'
Brit Hume, the network's chief political analyst, laid out a two-step game plan for the administration to mitigate the fallout during a Wednesday night interview on Special Report With Bret Baier.
'There's some fairly well-established rules, if you can call them that, for how to deal with a situation like this,' he said. 'The first is: Get the facts out as fast as you can and don't be afraid to take responsibility.'
Hume said the administration 'did pretty well on that score,' noting that National Security Adviser Mike Waltz owned up to his mistake of inadvertently adding The Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a group chat of high-ranking administration officials who were discussing a military strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
'But then the second rule is: Don't feed the story,' the analyst went on. 'Once you've made your case about what happened and you're maybe waiting for further information to service, just stop talking about it.'
Hume said top officials got 'bogged down' by debates about whether the group chat discussed 'war plans' or not and whether any of the information shared in the thread was classified.
After The Atlantic published the full transcript of the text thread, officials who were part of the group chat—including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance—tried to downplay the importance of the operational details they discussed.
'It's very clear Goldberg oversold what he had,' Vance wrote on X.
The Fox News analyst chided the administration for attacking Goldberg over his release of the messages. Hume pointed out that The Atlantic only released the full transcript after officials attempted to paint Goldberg as a liar.
'I'm not a particular fan of Goldberg or his magazine, but he didn't do anything wrong here,' Hume said. 'He got that thing sent to him passively. He didn't do anything to get it.'
Hume agreed that discussions about the leak have overshadowed the 'success' of the March 15 attack that killed 53 people, but said it was only because officials, including President Donald Trump himself, keep talking about that group chat.
'Stop talking about it, Mr. President. It will work better,' he said. 'The answer is: 'I have said what I have to say about that for now and when we know more later on, we've fully investigated this, we will get back to you.''
Earlier Wednesday, Trump appeared to flip-flop on his earlier statements about the group chat by stating that he was unsure whether any of the information discussed was classified.
Still, Hume said it wouldn't be hard to understand why no heads would roll over the incident.
'The fact of the matter is that, although this looks pretty bad… the mission went off successfully,' he said. 'It did not turn out to be harmful in any meaningful way. It just looks bad. So I can see why the president wouldn't fire anybody over this.'
Hume isn't the only conservative pundit unhappy with the administration's handling of the leak. Other right-wing commentators, including Laura Loomer, Tomi Lahren, and even Piers Morgan, all separately flamed Trump officials.
'Trying to wordsmith the hell outta this signal debacle is making it worse,' Lahren wrote on X. 'It was bad. And I'm honestly getting sick of the whataboutisms from my own side. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Admit the F up and move on.'
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Bass again raised political eyebrows in 2020 for her praise of communists after Politico resurrected her 2017 remarks eulogizing one of the top members of the Communist Party USA in 2017, including calling him a "friend and mentor" in remarks inserted in congressional record. "I would like to honor the life and memory of my friend and mentor, Oneil Marion Cannon, who passed away on January 20, days before his 100th birthday," Bass wrote of Oneil Cannon. The comments did not mention that Cannon was a top leader of the Communist Party USA, identifying him instead as being "deeply involved in politics" and that he belonged to the Independent Progressive Party. "I would like to salute Oneil Cannon for his longstanding commitment to serving and uplifting others, and for a century of fighting to make the world a better place," she added. 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Williams, who no longer works in the mayor's office, agreed to plead guilty in May to a felony charge of "information with threats regarding fire and explosives," which carries a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. The former deputy mayor's plea agreement outlined that on Oct. 3 of last year, Williams was in a virtual meeting with colleagues when he used a Google Voice application on his personal cell phone to call his work phone, the DOJ reported in a press release last month. The city official then left the virtual meeting and called the Los Angeles Police Department's chief of staff to report he had received a call from a man threatening to bomb city hall. Karen Bass's Former Deputy Mayor Of Public Safety Admits Bomb Threat Hoax Targeting Los Angeles City Hall Williams then texted Bass and other city officials that he had received a bomb threat, the DOJ said. "Bomb threat: I received phone call on my city cell at 10:48 am this morning. The male caller stated that 'he was tired of the city support of Israel, and he has decided to place a bomb in City Hall. It might be in the rotunda.' I immediately contacted the chief of staff of LAPD, they are going to send a number of officers over to do a search of the building and to determine if anyone else received a threat," the message read, Fox News Digital previously reported. The DOJ noted in its press release that "Williams received no such call and had made the bomb threat himself. At no time did Williams intend to carry out the threat." "Like many, we were shocked when these allegations were first made, and we are saddened by this conclusion," a spokesperson for Bass said in May of Williams admitting to the bomb threat. 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The Palisades Fires began on Jan. 7, with Bass not returning to California until the following day. A reporter confronted Bass about her overseas trip as she exited the plane upon her return to Los Angeles, but she refused to answer his questions. "Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning? And do you regret cutting the Fire Department budget by millions of dollars, Madame Mayor?" Sky News reporter David Blevins asked as Bass was seen waiting to exit the plane. "Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today?" he added, but Bass did not respond in a video that subsequently went viral. Photos later emerged showing Bass at a cocktail party in Ghana just moments before evacuation orders were issued over the raging fires, Fox Digital previously reported. 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"We know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley's watch," Bass article source: Mayor Karen Bass' handling of LA riots adds to decades of political baggage
