The United States is fortunate indeed that Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic magazine – and the surprise beneficiary of a leak of sensitive military plans – is a man of sound judgement. Had he not been, and had recklessly made public the top-secret details of US attacks on Houthi rebels, then the consequences would have been serious and possibly even fatal for US service personnel.
The irony is that the great care taken by Mr Goldberg when he inadvertently learnt the operational details stands in stark and shaming contrast to reckless blunders made by various senior members of the Trump administration. They should have known better than to have communicated this topic in this unclassified way, let alone neglected to check with whom they were talking and sharing secrets. The participants in the insecure chat group included national security adviser Mike Waltz; vice-president JD Vance; director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard; and defence secretary Pete Hegseth.
Yet, the great irony of this scandal is that rather than take responsibility, apologise and thank him for his restraint, Mr Hegseth launched a vicious and slanderous attack on Mr Goldberg, who is entirely blameless. Not only is Mr Hegseth a devoted disciple of (and advocate for) Donald Trump but he now seems to be undergoing a process of metamorphosis into a kind of snarling mini-me; ranting about Mr Goldberg and branding him “a deceitful and highly discredited, so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again, to include the, I don’t know, the hoaxes of Russia, Russia, Russia, or the fine people on both sides, hopes, or suckers and losers”.
“This is the guy that peddles in garbage,” he added, with increasing and bizarre vitriol. “This is what he does.”
We should not be so surprised about that remark. President Trump had previously dismissed The Atlantic as going out of business (a typically groundless claim about one of the great and successful magazines in America) because this administration is waging war on the media in a way that exceeds anything seen before – even in the Nixon White House at the height of Watergate. It is a decade since Mr Trump pioneered the concepts of “fake news” and “alternative facts” to attempt to protect himself from truth and reality; and his first term was littered with fictions about himself and his opponents, culminating in the ultimate exercise in truth-twisting, regarding the “rigged election”, the 6 January insurrection and its aftermath.
Now, reinstalled in the White House, Mr Trump has gone much, much further in using the presidency to muzzle, bully and intimidate the media. He has successfully forced television channels to settle his vexatious lawsuits out of court. He has cowed the tech giants into a state of self-restraint and, most notably and disgracefully in the case of Jeff Bezos, brought about the emasculation of The Washington Post.
None of that, though, has been sufficient to appease Mr Trump, who behaves more and more as though he is not only above the law – but is the law, by virtue of his relatively narrow election win. His press teams have begun replacing truly independent and respected media outlets at press briefings with “new media” client journalists, the most notorious of whom put that asinine question about wearing a suit to President Volodymyr Zelensky. Mr Trump threatened to order the Federal Communications Commission to “take away” CBS’s broadcasting licence.
Perhaps the most sinister of Mr Trump’s moves since he took the oath of office is his creation of a conspiracy theory that links his assaults on judicial power and the freedom of the press. In a social media world controlled by his ally, Elon Musk, such fantastical notions are boosted by algorithms, widely circulated and dangerous to democracy and the safety of public officials.
Recently, in terms unprecedented for a president, Mr Trump targeted CNN and MSNBC. He declared – as usual, with zero evidence – that they were illegal, politically motivated and corrupt.
What is actually illegal and unconstitutional is not journalists and lawyers going about their lawful work but a president – already a twice-impeached convicted felon – systematically dismantling the checks and balances of the American political system. Bombastic, vain and – as far as can be judged – not especially smart, President Trump has nonetheless displayed a certain gangster-like pernicious cunning in his steady aggrandisement of power.
He and his cultish Maga movement have captured the Republican Party like a parasite. Through that, Mr Trump enjoys a tight control of Congress. The Supreme Court has been mostly supine in the face of his abuses, with Chief Justice John Roberts only now stirring himself to object to the assaults on federal judges and defiance of court rulings.
We should not underestimate the historic threat that Donald Trump represents, both to his own country and the West.
