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3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Secret History of Trump's Private Cellphone
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. Just before Election Day, a disturbing piece of information made its way to Donald Trump. Whenever he takes or makes calls on his personal cellphone, Trump learned, Chinese hackers could be listening and gathering intelligence. Iranians had already hacked into his campaign's email system—which was not a problem for Trump personally, because he has never liked putting things in writing—and the Chinese had breached the emails of the Republican National Committee. But now the hackers had compromised the backbone of U.S. telecommunications networks, according to federal officials who publicly described the intrusion on October 25, which allowed them to eavesdrop on calls involving Trump; his running mate, J. D. Vance; and other political figures. Some in the campaign took immediate action, abandoning longtime numbers, experimenting with burner phones, or switching to end-to-end encrypted applications, such as Signal, for voice calls so they would not route through central switching hubs. But Trump appeared unperturbed by the news, two people familiar with the episode told us, on the condition of anonymity so they could speak frankly. For more than a decade, the once and future president had been warned of the enormous risks he took—as perhaps the top global target of foreign intelligence services—by using a personal iPhone with a broadly circulated number to keep in touch with dozens of friends and colleagues. His phone was a lifeline, though. He wasn't going to give it up. Days later, when he won the presidency for the second time, his phone lit up, just as it had eight years earlier on Election Night 2016. 'You won't believe it,' Trump marveled in early-morning phone calls after the race was decided last year, according to an adviser. 'I've already had 20 world leaders call me. They all want to kiss my ass.' [From the June 2025 Issue: 'I run the country and the world'] A little more than four months into his second term, the president's personal cellphone has become, in many ways, the most pivotal technological device in the federal government, directly linking Trump to the outside world. Lawmakers, friends, family members, corporate titans, celebrities, world leaders, and journalists regularly use it, knowing that, unminded by aides, Trump remains open to picking up the phone, even when he does not recognize the number. 'Who's calling?' Trump asked when he answered our call one morning in late March from the country club he owns in Bedminster, New Jersey. (It was a fair question; it could have been almost anyone.) The draw of the phone is simple: Trump likes to call people. He likes to be called. Unknown numbers come with a thrill akin to putting a coin in a gumball machine and waiting to see which flavor rolls out. Surrendering the phone would be inconvenient, limiting, and so he keeps it. As for any efforts to control him and his cellphone use, 'I think people gave up on that years ago,' one adviser told us, adding that 'probably a ton' of people have Trump's personal number. A second ally estimated the number to be 'well over 100.' Several aides told us Trump has two different devices, and at least one aide said they have seen him with three. (One of the phones, some aides suggested, is mainly devoted to his social-media use.) The lock screen of one, captured by a Reuters photographer Friday night, shows an image of Trump's own face, stern and commanding, with a finger pointing directly at the camera. Trump has, at times, changed numbers; at least one number that he regularly answered as a presidential candidate in 2016 stopped working sometime during his first term. And another aide told us that Trump's phone had been given additional security features, though it is not clear what defense these would have offered against the Chinese hack, which targeted the back-end systems of telecom providers. 'He is not walking around with a run-of-the-mill iPhone off the shelf,' an adviser told us. The White House declined to explain more. 'We will not discuss or disclose security measures regarding the President, especially to The Atlantic,' White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told us in an emailed statement. Trump's obsession with keeping his personal phone is merely evidence that he is easy to reach and therefore 'the most transparent and accessible President in American history,' Cheung added. [Read: Trump's cosplay cabinet] Still, Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama's former speechwriter and deputy national security adviser, told us that 'it's an obvious massive risk—especially given what we know about Chinese penetration of phones in recent years.' Hacking is hardly the only concern. Joel Brenner, a senior research fellow at MIT's Center for International Studies and former head of U.S. counterintelligence, pointed us to a recent Wall Street Journal scoop by Josh Dawsey that authorities are investigating an unknown individual impersonating White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in calls and texts. Security protocols—at times cumbersome—exist for a reason, he said, and Trump taking a call from a foreign leader without the proper preparation or staff present poses real dangers. 'We run the risk of interception, we run the risk of impersonation, and we run the risk of being unprepared,' Brenner told us. What the president is doing is 'terribly dangerous,' he said, citing the possibility of Trump making major deals or concessions with other world leaders that his staff may be unaware of, leaving them to scramble. But Trump treats his direct line to the world as an enhancement of—not a risk to—his presidency. 'I've been on the phone with him before, and he's just said, 'I've got to go. I have someone from another country calling,'' an outside adviser told us. 'He doesn't even know which country. He just sees the number and thinks, This might be a foreign leader I want to talk to.' The first time Trump's team truly understood he would have a different relationship with his cellphone than did presidents past was Election Night 2016, the eve of his improbable victory. 'He was answering every phone call,' the outside adviser marveled to us, nearly a decade later, noting that none of the numbers was in Trump's contacts. 'He just answers the phone. He doesn't want to miss phone calls.' Presidents have long loved their phones. Rutherford B. Hayes was the first president to install a telephone at the White House, in 1877, and Herbert Hoover was the first to put a line in the Oval Office, in 1929. But Obama stands out in recent memory as the president most obstinate about wanting to bring a personal smartphone into the White House. Obama, famously addicted to his BlackBerry, argued to keep his after his 2008 victory and ultimately prevailed, albeit in a hard-fought compromise that involved limiting his contacts. Only a small group of Obama's friends and top staff received his BlackBerry email address, and only after undergoing a briefing from the White House counsel's office on security concerns. His device, which included security enhancements and was approved by national-security officials, was also configured so that emails from the president could not be forwarded. Rhodes told us that Obama's BlackBerry did not have a phone number attached for incoming calls—which instead had to go through the White House switchboard to a landline. [Read: Nobody's cellphone is really that secure] For Trump, the first presidential candidate to personally harness the power of social media, his cellphone has long been his megaphone. It is as much a part of his curated image as his oversize red ties. Trump is the ultimate Phone Guy. He wheeled and dealed in New York for decades from the landline in his Fifth Avenue office, even going so far as to impersonate a fictional spokesperson, John Barron, on the phone with reporters. Many advisers and friends told us they think the phone is Trump's best medium, the president at his most persuasive. In a different world, he's just 'Don from Queens,' calling in to talk radio to shoot the breeze and run through his gripes, about China ripping the country off and immigrants running amok. During his first term, Trump often used the White House switchboard to make calls and screen incoming ones, but he just as frequently did not, in part because he assumed that nearly everyone in government was part of the 'deep state,' career bureaucrats working against him, and he worried that they would somehow listen in on his calls. To be fair, his concern was not without merit; transcripts and details from several of his official calls with world leaders leaked to the press, and one such call, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, ultimately led to Trump's first impeachment, after an intelligence analyst became alarmed by details of the exchange. 'His perspective was, 'I can't trust anyone on the White House staff, so I have to use my cellphone,'' a former Trump adviser told us. Advisers tried to break his habit. John Kelly, the retired U.S. Marine Corps general who became Trump's second chief of staff in 2017, was particularly strict about operational security, several advisers, current and former, told us. Kelly repeatedly warned Trump about how vulnerable cellphones are—to hacking by the Russians and the Chinese, and also to the phones themselves being turned into listening devices by foreign or other bad actors. He and his deputies would regularly remove Trump's cellphone from the Oval Office, storing it in a padded box outside. But Trump either didn't understand or didn't care. 'He'd just reject it and say, 'It's not true,'' one of the former advisers told us. 'He'd say, 'My phone is the best on the market.'' In Trump's second term, his advisers have given up trying to restrict his phone use, though they privately admit displeasure at his practice of taking calls from journalists and others without their knowledge. 'He calls people nonstop,' Trump's campaign adviser Chris LaCivita said in an interview with Politico during the Republican National Convention last year. 'I don't worry about it, because what are you going to do? Take his phone? Change his phone number? Tell him he can't make phone calls?' [Jeffrey Goldberg: Read The Atlantic's interview with Donald Trump] But just because Trump's aides have given up caring doesn't mean there aren't still major risks. Foreign adversaries could still gain access to Trump's private conversations—inside the Oval Office, on the golf course, in the residence. During his first term, advisers said they 'certainly assumed he was always being listened to.' The FBI described the 2024 Chinese attack on at least nine telecommunications companies as a 'broad and significant cyber espionage campaign' that included eavesdropping on 'a limited number of individuals who are primarily involved in government or political activity.' In addition to Trump and Vance, senior members of Kamala Harris's campaign were also informed that they were being targeted. Joe Biden's national-security team later explained that the Chinese hack had given foreign spies the ability to 'geolocate millions of individuals, to record phone calls at will,' while as many as 100 targeted phones had likely had their texts and phone calls collected. Although there have been efforts to excise Chinese hackers from the telecommunications infrastructure and harden the systems, there is still a risk of future attacks. Before leaving office, Biden's team asked the Federal Communications Commission to begin a rule-making process to require telecommunications companies to upgrade their network security, because the voluntary industry guidelines issued by the government had failed to protect the country. Trade groups representing the wireless, telecom, and broadband industries oppose new security mandates, arguing that they would impose 'onerous network-wide duties.' 'It is likely that the systems may be compromised again,' one cybersecurity expert who was part of the Biden review told us. This person said the vulnerability of the telecom foundation means that even White House landline phone calls could be compromised. 'The White House systems use American phone lines. If the core is compromised, it doesn't matter who is on the end' of a call, this person said. In a video posted on X in late May, the Dilbert creator Scott Adams described seeing a call from a Florida number he didn't recognize and sending it to voicemail. When he listened to the message, he heard Trump's voice: 'This is your favorite president.' 'I thought to myself, No, did I just send the most important person in the world to voicemail?' Adams recounted, laughing and leaning back in his chair. 'And it turns out that I had. It was Trump, and he was just calling to check in.' Before the call, Adams had recently shared publicly that he has 'the same cancer that Joe Biden has,' and that he expects to die in the coming months. In his video, Adams explained that Trump left 'a semi-lengthy little voicemail,' saying that Adams could call him back on this number. 'Now obviously I don't call him back, right, because that would just be ridiculous,' Adams continued. Trump's habit of leaving lengthy voicemails is by design—not just because he's a phone guy but because he relishes giving people something they can play for friends and family. 'Who doesn't like to get a voicemail message from the president of the United States?' one adviser said. When Trump finally gets ahold of someone after having left a voicemail, he will sometimes ask recipients whether they have played his voicemail for others, the person said. [Jeffrey Goldberg: The Trump Administration accidentally texted me its war plans] Hours after Adams missed his call from Trump, his phone rang again, and once again a Florida number blinked onto the screen. This time, the cartoonist knew enough to answer. 'No fucking way,' Adams remembered thinking. 'There's no way he's calling me again. And I answer it, and it's Trump. And apparently he had heard my situation, and he had lots of questions.' The call ended with Trump telling Adams to just ask if he needed anything, and he would make it happen. As accessible as Trump is, even some who have his number are reticent about using it—or are at least strategic about it. One of the advisers we talked with told us they always try to find the best moment to call. 'If I call him, nine times out of 10, I've talked to somebody there and said, 'Tell me when to call,' and they've said, 'He just left dinner and just walked into the residence,'' this person told us. 'And I know multiple people who do the same thing, who game-plan it out and talk to the people around him and say, 'Tell me when it's a good time.'' The outside ally told us they are careful about how frequently they call Trump. 'I rarely call unless I'm asked to call. He's the president of the United States.' This person added that they've witnessed Trump pick up his phone and scroll through the list of chief executives and wealthy supplicants who have called, poking fun at their eagerness. 'That's why I'm really reluctant to call,' the ally explained. 'You don't want to be the guy who's the butt of the joke, who he's laughing at: 'Can you believe this guy is calling?'' Others give little thought to the timing of their calls. Trump's phone could be heard ringing during a recent press conference in which he discussed a proposed 50 percent tariff on Apple. The familiar sound of the default 'Reflection' ringtone—you know the one, the synthesized waterfall of xylophone tones—was a reminder that the tariffs targeted the company that makes his beloved device. Before the press entered the Oval Office, the president had placed the phone on the Resolute desk, next to his two secure White House landline phones. 'It's a phone call, do you mind?' he joked when the ringing started, before looking at the screen and telling reporters, 'It's only a congressman.' Seconds later, the phone rang again. 'It's a different congressman,' he joked, as he struggled to silence his portal to the wider world. Jonathan Lemire contributed reporting. Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Mannie Garcia / Bloomberg / Getty; Sipa / AP / Getty; Alex Brandon / AP; Evan Vucci / AP; Rich Graessle / Icon Sportswire / AP; Matt Rourke / AP. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The MAHA Crowd Is Already Questioning Biden's Cancer Diagnosis
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. It took just a few hours for devotees of the 'Make America healthy again' movement to question former President Joe Biden's prostate-cancer diagnosis. Tumors of the prostate are the most common serious malignancy identified in men: Even aggressive ones like Biden's are diagnosed roughly 25,000 times a year in the United States. Although Biden's condition is conventional, a certain segment of the public has been beguiled into blaming mainstream medicine for every unexpected death or health-related tragedy it comes across. The anti-vaccine community, including the group formerly led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has spent years promoting the idea that mRNA vaccines for COVID regularly push tumors into overdrive. (Rare anecdotes aside, there is no evidence to support this fear.) Now, predictably, the claim is cropping up again on social media. 'Prostate cancer takes years to metastasize to bone unless super aggressive or turbo cancer,' the Kennedy-endorsed physician Craig Wax suggested. That an 82-year-old man who had aged out of prostate-cancer-screening tests has been found to have an advanced malignancy should not be surprising. In my experience as a doctor who diagnoses cancer, many tumors are discovered out of the blue. Prostate cancer in particular may not become apparent until an individual goes to his doctor with a minor complaint—in Biden's case, urinary symptoms, according to the announcement—only to have further testing discover the worst. (Biden's cancer isn't curable; people with Stage 4 disease like his live for about three years on average—although the outlook is worse for men who are more than 80 years old.) Cancer is an enigmatic disease, one that is simultaneously influenced by genetics, environment, personal habits, the aging process, and—not to be discounted—bad luck. But its muddled nature can be uncomfortable for those who share the view that nearly all sickness is preventable with virtuous behavior and a clean environment. According to Kennedy, the current leader of the U.S. health-care system, tumors are a product of not only the vaccines in our arms, but also the fluoride in our water, the toxins in our school lunches, the signals from our phones, and surely many other ubiquitous aspects of modernity. Indeed, in MAHA land, cancer is not just a misfortune, but a cover-up. Before he became health secretary, Kennedy ominously suggested that doctors might find its cause in the 'places they dare not look.' [Read: The inflated risk of vaccine-induced cardiac arrest] It's not just Kennedy. Trump's health-care team routinely draws from the logic of this wellness-paranoia complex. Last year, Marty Makary, who has since become the FDA commissioner, told a group of MAHA wellness influencers convened by Senator Ron Johnson that cancer is a consequence of 'low-grade chronic inflammation' induced by a poisoned food supply. (Years ago, he also speciously declared that undetected medical errors were a leading cause of death.) Casey Means, Trump's new nominee for surgeon general, has claimed that 'the biggest lie in healthcare' is that high blood sugar, malignant tumors, and clogged arteries 'are totally different diseases requiring separate doctors and pills for life.' The truth is 'simpler than we are told,' she said. (Buy her book to find out what it is.) And Mehmet Oz, the former lifestyle guru and current Medicare administrator, recently informed Americans, 'It's your patriotic duty to be as healthy as you can. It's our job to help you get there, make it easy to do the right things.' Never mind that you can do everything right and still get sick. (For now, none of the administration's major health officials has weighed in on Biden's diagnosis.) [Read: Did a famous doctor's COVID shot make his cancer worse?] Joe Biden is no stranger to tough luck. His son Beau died of a brain tumor at age 46 in 2015, leading to Biden's participation in a government-funded 'cancer moonshot' to combat the condition. The moonshot initiative was an old-fashioned approach to medicine, one that sought to ameliorate illness through advances in science and technology. RFK Jr. and his MAHA acolytes are naturally suspicious of this approach. Now their weird discomfort with disease—and their outré views on cancer in particular—is being refracted through a sea of false, indecent speculations. No, Biden's cancer was not 'courtesy of the mRNA shot.' One can only hope that the government's bevy of vaccine skeptics will be able to resist the siren's call to join in saying otherwise. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans
The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing. This is going to require some explaining. This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. The story technically begins shortly after the Hamas invasion of southern Israel, in October 2023. The Houthis—an Iran-backed terrorist organization whose motto is 'God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam'—soon launched attacks on Israel and on international shipping, creating havoc for global trade. Throughout 2024, the Biden administration was ineffective in countering these Houthi attacks; the incoming Trump administration promised a tougher response. This is where Pete Hegseth and I come in. On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. Signal is an open-source encrypted messaging service popular with journalists and others who seek more privacy than other text-messaging services are capable of delivering. I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump's national security adviser. I did not assume, however, that the request was from the actual Michael Waltz. I have met him in the past, and though I didn't find it particularly strange that he might be reaching out to me, I did think it somewhat unusual, given the Trump administration's contentious relationship with journalists—and Trump's periodic fixation on me specifically. It immediately crossed my mind that someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me. It is not at all uncommon these days for nefarious actors to try to induce journalists to share information that could be used against them. I accepted the connection request, hoping that this was the actual national security adviser, and that he wanted to chat about Ukraine, or Iran, or some other important matter. Two days later—Thursday—at 4:28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the 'Houthi PC small group.' A message to the group, from 'Michael Waltz,' read as follows: 'Team – establishing a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. My deputy Alex Wong is pulling together a tiger team at deputies/agency Chief of Staff level following up from the meeting in the Sit Room this morning for action items and will be sending that out later this evening.' The message continued, 'Pls provide the best staff POC from your team for us to coordinate with over the next couple days and over the weekend. Thx.' The term principals committee generally refers to a group of the senior-most national-security officials, including the secretaries of defense, state, and the treasury, as well as the director of the CIA. It should go without saying—but I'll say it anyway—that I have never been invited to a White House principals-committee meeting, and that, in my many years of reporting on national-security matters, I had never heard of one being convened over a commercial messaging app. One minute later, a person identified only as 'MAR'—the secretary of state is Marco Antonio Rubio—wrote, 'Mike Needham for State,' apparently designating the current counselor of the State Department as his representative. At that same moment, a Signal user identified as 'JD Vance' wrote, 'Andy baker for VP.' One minute after that, 'TG' (presumably Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, or someone masquerading as her) wrote, 'Joe Kent for DNI.' Nine minutes later, 'Scott B'—apparently Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, or someone spoofing his identity, wrote, 'Dan Katz for Treasury.' At 4:53 p.m., a user called 'Pete Hegseth' wrote, 'Dan Caldwell for DoD.' And at 6:34 p.m., 'Brian' wrote 'Brian McCormack for NSC.' One more person responded: 'John Ratcliffe' wrote at 5:24 p.m. with the name of a CIA official to be included in the group. I am not publishing that name, because that person is an active intelligence officer. The principals had apparently assembled. In all, 18 individuals were listed as members of this group, including various National Security Council officials; Steve Witkoff, President Trump's Middle East and Ukraine negotiator; Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff; and someone identified only as 'S M,' which I took to stand for Stephen Miller. I appeared on my own screen only as 'JG.' That was the end of the Thursday text chain. After receiving the Waltz text related to the 'Houthi PC small group,' I consulted a number of colleagues. We discussed the possibility that these texts were part of a disinformation campaign, initiated by either a foreign intelligence service or, more likely, a media-gadfly organization, the sort of group that attempts to place journalists in embarrassing positions, and sometimes succeeds. I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor in chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior U.S. officials, up to and including the vice president. The next day, things got even stranger. At 8:05 a.m. on Friday, March 14, 'Michael Waltz' texted the group: 'Team, you should have a statement of conclusions with taskings per the Presidents guidance this morning in your high side inboxes.' (High side, in government parlance, refers to classified computer and communications systems.) 'State and DOD, we developed suggested notification lists for regional Allies and partners. Joint Staff is sending this am a more specific sequence of events in the coming days and we will work w DOD to ensure COS, OVP and POTUS are briefed.' At this point, a fascinating policy discussion commenced. The account labeled 'JD Vance' responded at 8:16: 'Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan. But I think we are making a mistake.' (Vance was indeed in Michigan that day.) The Vance account goes on to state, '3 percent of US trade runs through the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn't understand this or why it's necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.' The Vance account then goes on to make a noteworthy statement, considering that the vice president has not deviated publicly from Trump's position on virtually any issue. 'I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There's a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.' A person identified in Signal as 'Joe Kent' (Trump's nominee to run the National Counterterrorism Center is named Joe Kent) wrote at 8:22, 'There is nothing time sensitive driving the time line. We'll have the exact same options in a month.' Then, at 8:26 a.m., a message landed in my Signal app from the user 'John Ratcliffe.' The message contained information that might be interpreted as related to actual and current intelligence operations. At 8:27, a message arrived from the 'Pete Hegseth' account. 'VP: I understand your concerns – and fully support you raising w/ POTUS. Important considerations, most of which are tough to know how they play out (economy, Ukraine peace, Gaza, etc). I think messaging is going to be tough no matter what – nobody knows who the Houthis are – which is why we would need to stay focused on: 1) Biden failed & 2) Iran funded.' The Hegseth message goes on to state, 'Waiting a few weeks or a month does not fundamentally change the calculus. 2 immediate risks on waiting: 1) this leaks, and we look indecisive; 2) Israel takes an action first – or Gaza cease fire falls apart – and we don't get to start this on our own terms. We can manage both. We are prepared to execute, and if I had final go or no go vote, I believe we should. This [is] not about the Houthis. I see it as two things: 1) Restoring Freedom of Navigation, a core national interest; and 2) Reestablish deterrence, which Biden cratered. But, we can easily pause. And if we do, I will do all we can to enforce 100% OPSEC'—operations security. 'I welcome other thoughts.' A few minutes later, the 'Michael Waltz' account posted a lengthy note about trade figures, and the limited capabilities of European navies. 'Whether it's now or several weeks from now, it will have to be the United States that reopens these shipping lanes. Per the president's request we are working with DOD and State to determine how to compile the cost associated and levy them on the Europeans.' The account identified as 'JD Vance' addressed a message at 8:45 to @Pete Hegseth: 'if you think we should do it let's go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.' (The administration has argued that America's European allies benefit economically from the U.S. Navy's protection of international shipping lanes.) The user identified as Hegseth responded three minutes later: 'VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC. 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.' At this point, the previously silent 'S M' joined the conversation. 'As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. EG, if Europe doesn't remunerate, then what? If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return.' That message from 'S M'—presumably President Trump's confidant Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, or someone playing Stephen Miller—effectively shut down the conversation. The last text of the day came from 'Pete Hegseth,' who wrote at 9:46 a.m., 'Agree.' After reading this chain, I recognized that this conversation possessed a high degree of verisimilitude. The texts, in their word choice and arguments, sounded as if they were written by the people who purportedly sent them, or by a particularly adept AI text generator. I was still concerned that this could be a disinformation operation, or a simulation of some sort. And I remained mystified that no one in the group seemed to have noticed my presence. But if it was a hoax, the quality of mimicry and the level of foreign-policy insight were impressive. It was the next morning, Saturday, March 15, when this story became truly bizarre. At 11:44 a.m., the account labeled 'Pete Hegseth' posted in Signal a 'TEAM UPDATE.' I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts. The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command's area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing. The only person to reply to the update from Hegseth was the person identified as the vice president. 'I will say a prayer for victory,' Vance wrote. (Two other users subsequently added prayer emoji.) According to the lengthy Hegseth text, the first detonations in Yemen would be felt two hours hence, at 1:45 p.m. eastern time. So I waited in my car in a supermarket parking lot. If this Signal chat was real, I reasoned, Houthi targets would soon be bombed. At about 1:55, I checked X and searched Yemen. Explosions were then being heard across Sanaa, the capital city. I went back to the Signal channel. At 1:48, 'Michael Waltz' had provided the group an update. Again, I won't quote from this text, except to note that he described the operation as an 'amazing job.' A few minutes later, 'John Ratcliffe' wrote, 'A good start.' Not long after, Waltz responded with three emoji: a fist, an American flag, and fire. Others soon joined in, including 'MAR,' who wrote, 'Good Job Pete and your team!!,' and 'Susie Wiles,' who texted, 'Kudos to all – most particularly those in theater and CENTCOM! Really great. God bless.' 'Steve Witkoff' responded with five emoji: two hands-praying, a flexed bicep, and two American flags. 'TG' responded, 'Great work and effects!' The after-action discussion included assessments of damage done, including the likely death of a specific individual. The Houthi-run Yemeni health ministry reported that at least 53 people were killed in the strikes, a number that has not been independently verified. On Sunday, Waltz appeared on ABC's This Week and contrasted the strikes with the Biden administration's more hesitant approach. 'These were not kind of pinprick, back-and-forth—what ultimately proved to be feckless attacks,' he said. 'This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out.' The Signal chat group, I concluded, was almost certainly real. Having come to this realization, one that seemed nearly impossible only hours before, I removed myself from the Signal group, understanding that this would trigger an automatic notification to the group's creator, 'Michael Waltz,' that I had left. No one in the chat had seemed to notice that I was there. And I received no subsequent questions about why I left—or, more to the point, who I was. Earlier today, I emailed Waltz and sent him a message on his Signal account. I also wrote to Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Tulsi Gabbard, and other officials. In an email, I outlined some of my questions: Is the 'Houthi PC small group' a genuine Signal thread? Did they know that I was included in this group? Was I (on the off chance) included on purpose? If not, who did they think I was? Did anyone realize who I was when I was added, or when I removed myself from the group? Do senior Trump-administration officials use Signal regularly for sensitive discussions? Do the officials believe that the use of such a channel could endanger American personnel? Brian Hughes, the spokesman for the National Security Council, responded two hours later, confirming the veracity of the Signal group. 'This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,' Hughes wrote. '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.' William Martin, a spokesperson for Vance, said that despite the impression created by the texts, the vice president is fully aligned with the president. 'The Vice President's first priority is always making sure that the President's advisers are adequately briefing him on the substance of their internal deliberations,' he said. 'Vice President Vance unequivocally supports this administration's foreign policy. The President and the Vice President have had subsequent conversations about this matter and are in complete agreement.' I have never seen a breach quite like this. It is not uncommon for national-security officials to communicate on Signal. But the app is used primarily for meeting planning and other logistical matters—not for detailed and highly confidential discussions of a pending military action. And, of course, I've never heard of an instance in which a journalist has been invited to such a discussion. [Read: A conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg about his extraordinary scoop] Conceivably, Waltz, by coordinating a national-security-related action over Signal, may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act, which governs the handling of 'national defense' information, according to several national-security lawyers interviewed by my colleague Shane Harris for this story. Harris asked them to consider a hypothetical scenario in which a senior U.S. official creates a Signal thread for the express purpose of sharing information with Cabinet officials about an active military operation. He did not show them the actual Signal messages or tell them specifically what had occurred. All of these lawyers said that a U.S. official should not establish a Signal thread in the first place. Information about an active operation would presumably fit the law's definition of 'national defense' information. The Signal app is not approved by the government for sharing classified information. The government has its own systems for that purpose. If officials want to discuss military activity, they should go into a specially designed space known as a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF—most Cabinet-level national-security officials have one installed in their home—or communicate only on approved government equipment, the lawyers said. Normally, cellphones are not permitted inside a SCIF, which suggests that as these officials were sharing information about an active military operation, they could have been moving around in public. Had they lost their phones, or had they been stolen, the potential risk to national security would have been severe. Hegseth, Ratcliffe, and other Cabinet-level officials presumably would have the authority to declassify information, and several of the national-security lawyers noted that the hypothetical officials on the Signal chain might claim that they had declassified the information they shared. But this argument rings hollow, they cautioned, because Signal is not an authorized venue for sharing information of such a sensitive nature, regardless of whether it has been stamped 'top secret' or not. There was another potential problem: Waltz set some of the messages in the Signal group to disappear after one week, and some after four. That raises questions about whether the officials may have violated federal records law: Text messages about official acts are considered records that should be preserved. 'Under the records laws applicable to the White House and federal agencies, all government employees are prohibited from using electronic-messaging applications such as Signal for official business, unless those messages are promptly forwarded or copied to an official government account,' Jason R. Baron, a professor at the University of Maryland and the former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration, told Harris. 'Intentional violations of these requirements are a basis for disciplinary action. Additionally, agencies such as the Department of Defense restrict electronic messaging containing classified information to classified government networks and/or networks with government-approved encrypted features,' Baron said. Several former U.S. officials told Harris and me that they had used Signal to share unclassified information and to discuss routine matters, particularly when traveling overseas without access to U.S. government systems. But they knew never to share classified or sensitive information on the app, because their phones could have been hacked by a foreign intelligence service, which would have been able to read the messages on the devices. It is worth noting that Donald Trump, as a candidate for president (and as president), repeatedly and vociferously demanded that Hillary Clinton be imprisoned for using a private email server for official business when she was secretary of state. (It is also worth noting that Trump was indicted in 2023 for mishandling classified documents, but the charges were dropped after his election.) Waltz and the other Cabinet-level officials were already potentially violating government policy and the law simply by texting one another about the operation. But when Waltz added a journalist—presumably by mistake—to his principals committee, he created new security and legal issues. Now the group was transmitting information to someone not authorized to receive it. That is the classic definition of a leak, even if it was unintentional, and even if the recipient of the leak did not actually believe it was a leak until Yemen came under American attack. All along, members of the Signal group were aware of the need for secrecy and operations security. In his text detailing aspects of the forthcoming attack on Houthi targets, Hegseth wrote to the group—which, at the time, included me—'We are currently clean on OPSEC.' Shane Harris contributed reporting. Article originally published at The Atlantic
