Fox News immediately downplays bombshell release of full Signal chats about Yemen attack plans – UK Times

Calling the White House’s bluff, The Atlantic released the messages Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent to a Signal chat group — which inadvertently included Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg — detailing the attack plans on Houthi targets in Yemen.

Immediately and unsurprisingly, the denizens of President Donald Trump’s favorite morning talk show dismissed the bombshell revelation as a nothingburger, insisting that Goldberg had “overpromised” when he first reported that Hegseth had shared “war plans” in an unclassified text chain that included a journalist who was randomly added to it.

“So I think there is about to be a big debate about what a war plan is and is not,” White House correspondent Peter Doocy said on Wednesday’s broadcast of Fox & Friends.

Following Goldberg’s initial report that Hegseth shared highly sensitive information about a Yemen airstrike in the Signal chat, the administration has downplayed the story as nothing more than an “honest mistake” that didn’t include classified military details. “Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth grumbled to reporters on Tuesday. “There was no classified material that was shared in that Signal group,” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard insisted during a Senate hearing.

Trump, who claimed that there “wasn’t classified information” on the chat, has also backed national security adviser Mike Waltz, who Goldberg claims is the one who invited him to Signal and placed him in the “Houthi PC small group.” While Trump has conspiratorially suggested that a “lower level” mystery employee was responsible for Goldberg’s inclusion, Waltz admitted he created the Signal group — though he simultaneously accused The Atlantic editor of “tricking” his way into the chat.

With the White House and MAGA media primarily taking the tack of insulting Goldberg while shrugging off the staggering security breach, The Atlantic finally released the messages on Wednesday morning, which Goldberg had initially withheld due to them containing detailed information, timing and locations of the strikes.

Breaking the news on Fox & Friends, Doocy read off Hegseth’s text message to the chat group, telling Fox News viewers that “you can decide if this looks like a war plan.” After noting that the Pentagon chief (and former Fox & Friends host) ended his messages by letting the group know that they were “currently clean” on operational security, Doocy then offered up a defense for the White House’s insistence that these texts weren’t “war plans” and classified.

“We know the Pentagon has more detailed imaging and coordinates than that, and there is no imaging or satellite photos or targets listed here specifically, and so it would seem that if you’re going to fly F-18s and drones to take out Houthi guys where they are hiding out, the Pentagon has that information,” the Fox correspondent declared. “So when they say there is no war plan, maybe they mean that this text image did not include the full package of everything they knew and everything they could see and hear on the ground.”

After adding that “if it is not classified, it is not classified,” Doocy handed it off to his father, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy, who wondered if the president had seen this yet.

Assuring the Fox & Friends crew that Trump was likely aware of The Atlantic story at this point, the White House reporter stated that the president was “confidently telling us yesterday he did not think anything consequential in here.” The younger Doocy then said there will now “be a big debate about what a war plan is and is not,” teeing up guest host Sandra Smith to bring up White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s mocking dismissal of Goldberg’s latest story.

“I would just say President Trump says all the time the Houthis will have hell reigning down on them if they continue attacking U.S. vessels,” the Fox correspondent reacted. “That’s not that different than what Pete Hegseth is writing in this secure group chat. He’s saying this is when the first bombs will definitely drop; that is something that they talk about publicly.”

Co-host Lawrence Jones, meanwhile, wrapped up the segment by declaring that The Atlantic had overcooked the story and there was really no there there — a message the White House would echo a short while later.

“Looks like Goldberg overpromised,” he asserted. “There’s not war plans here. He at one point talks about a target. It doesn’t even say his name. It doesn’t say locations or coordinates. It’s probably sensitive information, but I’m not sure it is classified.”

Actual national security and military intelligence experts, however, have already weighed in and said that this “absolutely would have been classified information when“ Hegseth sent it to the text chain.

During a Wednesday morning appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Goldberg fired back at the White House for claiming he “conceded” and acknowledged these “were NOT war plans,” quipping that the administration appeared to be arguing semantics.

“I don’t even know what that means. I mean, the plain language in the text is — what are they arguing that an attack is different than a war? Or they put operational details of a forthcoming attack on a terrorist organization into Signal that include — into a Signal chat that included phone numbers that they didn’t recognize,” he proclaimed.

“I don’t even understand what that means. They’re talking about attacking and killing terrorists using various weapon systems,” Goldberg added. “She’s just playing at some sort of weird semantic game. I don’t understand.”