JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Tonight on Washington Week, we'll talk about, you guessed it, Signal Gate, my inadvertent inclusion in the suddenly famous Houthi P.C.

small groups, and the consequences of this astonishing security breach, next.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

Despite the Trump administration's enthusiastic efforts to deflect attention away from Signal Gate and the extraordinary security breach it represents, they're doing this mainly by calling me unpleasant names, Senate leaders of both parties are calling for an investigation and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who first included me in the Signal Group and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are both facing calls to resign.

Joining me tonight to discuss this controversy, Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent at The New York Times, Laura Barron-Lopez is the White House correspondent for PBS NewsHour, Susan Glasser is a staff writer at the New Yorker, and Shane Harris covers the intelligence agencies for The Atlantic.

So, hi, nice to see all of you.

Thank you for being here.

It's a little bit of an unusual show, but we're just going to act like it's not.

Thank you for all having your phones with you.

I want to be -- I want them visible at all times.

Let's start by talking about the consequences the serious national security consequences of this issue.

And I want to start with Shane, who can probably lead us through better than almost anyone what this means for security and safety in the national security realm.

SHANE HARRIS, Staff Writer, The Atlantic: Yes.

Well, first off, there's the question of how in the world did this happen that these top level officials thought it was a good idea to be planning a military operation on a commercial phone app, which is one reason I think that both of us thought in the beginning that this couldn't possibly be real.

So, there's real concerns about that.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Not just in the beginning.

Like right up to the -- yes.

SHANE HARRIS: Right up to end until the kind of the moment happened.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

SHANE HARRIS: But, look, there is -- you know, not just because you know, Signal is fine as an end-to-end encrypted app, but if your phone is compromised, if there's a hacker on there, we know, by the way, that J.D.

Vance's phone has been compromised by Chinese intelligence and he was part of the Signal group or the Signal group.

So, there are huge concerns about that, putting this kind of information into a form that it can be intercepted and used.

And, look, it is painfully obvious now to everyone involved that it is quite easy to add someone to that group who shouldn't be there.

This is precisely why usually conversations like this happen in a secure facility on classified government networks so that you can't inadvertently add Jeff Goldberg, you know, to the conversation.

That's a huge issue.

And, frankly, a lot of the conversation that was happening about trying to stick Europe with the bill is going to have diplomatic repercussions.

There are insights now into divisions within the administration over the policy wisdom of attacking the Houthis, which is not going to be a one-off, and those kinds of divisions could persist.

You know, in 25 years of covering national security, I have never seen anything approximating this story.

It is just replete with security and policy risks.

And now the explanation for it is, well, there was nothing really to see here.

This was all somehow normal.

I presume there are conversations like this going on other apps, and there have been probably for some time in this administration.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Laura, were you surprised that they were using -- you covered this administration.

Were you surprised that they were using Signal to talk about really sensitive stuff?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, White House Correspondent, PBS NewsHour: Yes.

I know that Signal has become something that's used a bit more amongst government officials, although there's questions about whether it should be used, period, because of the records keeping laws that are place.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Wait, we'll go into that.

What does that mean?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, just that, you know, they're supposed to be records kept of official government communications and Signal texts can disappear.

You can set it on the app to disappear as early as an hour or seconds after you send a text message on that app to a week afterwards.

And I believe in your group chat that you were involved in, it was set to about a week.

So -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: A week and then, and they changed it to -- Mike Waltz changed it to four weeks.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: To four weeks.

So, that's -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Which I didn't understand.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: But, I mean, that's also what, it's at the heart of the lawsuit right now that they're facing, which is that they need, and they were ordered by a judge to preserve these documents.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Peter, go back to this question of -- I mean, you've been covering foreign -- both of you have been covering foreign policy issues for a long time.

Is there any controversy analogous to this, any kind of just sort of like, I guess not to put too fine a point, a dumb mistake like this?

I mean, assuming it's a dumb mistake.

PETER BAKER, Chief White House Correspondent, The New York Times: There are.

You're right there.

Look, there were many screw ups in Washington since time in memorial, but I can't think of one quite like this.

I mean, it's really something.

because there are multiple levels, right?

There is the decision to use Signal in the first place for something so sensitive.

And then, of course, the question of who they happen to add to it.

And, you know, congratulations on being added.

Every journalist in town hates Jeff Goldberg this week because it wasn't us.

But the truth is -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Every journalist then Mike Waltz.

PETER BAKER: And Mike Waltz, right.

But the truth is it's very unlikely this was the first time that they were using Signal.

It just happened to be the first time that added Jeff Goldberg, right?

So, it raises the questions we're talking about, like how much have they been doing this?

What kinds of conversations have they been doing?

Have they preserved the records and who else has been listening?

If they didn't add Jeff Goldberg on these previous calls, who did get at it?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

I just want to say to the viewers at home, anybody who wants to add me to their sensitive Signal chat, please feel free.

Susan -- LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Or any of us.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes, or any of our panel, any of our guests.

Yes, don't go -- SUSAN GLASSER, Staff Writer, The New Yorker: Jeff is busy.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Don't go with the old the old hat.

The -- so I want to talk about secrecy.

Susan, why don't you start us off actually, but I obviously want to hear from everyone, including Shane, when is something secret and when it's not, and put it into the context of their response to this issue?

SUSAN GLASSER: Yes.

Well, I mean, look, anyone who's been watching Donald Trump and those surrounding him for the last eight years probably weren't surprised that their default setting was to attack the journalists, the people who brought you enemies of the people in fake news.

You know, a badge of honor for you, Jeff, that, you know, they immediately started impugning your integrity and attacking your -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Not my first rodeo, not yours and yours and -- yes.

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, you know, we've all had the pleasure at one point or the other of you know, being personally savaged by the president of the United States.

Not something any of us probably expected when we were growing up.

But to your point about their excuse, what's really interesting is that they moved, that wasn't enough, and you had the receipts, so they moved very quickly to, oh, don't believe you're lying eyes, which is another thing in the Donald Trump playbook, right, which is like that thing that you just saw, never mind the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

Actually, it was a totally peaceful, excellent protest.

In fact, he's now talking just this week, side note, on paying reparations to those poor people who stormed our Capitol and violently attacked it.

But I think this is of a piece with that, right?

So, they immediately went to don't believe your lying eyes.

They sent the CIA director, the director of National Intelligence, up to swear under oath on Capitol Hill.

Oh, no, no classified information.

And I think that's the conversation that we're having now.

That's interesting.

All you guys have a perspective on that in Washington.

Even for them, it's pretty shameless.

I mean, Shane, like I can't remember a moment where they would say something like this.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

Wait.

Shane, before you jump in, just watch Tulsi Gabbard for a second at the hearing on Tuesday.

SHANE HARRIS: Yes.

TULSIA GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I have not participated in any Signal group chat or any other chat on another app that contained any classified information.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I mean, what is that?

SHANE HARRIS: This is it's absurd.

Like the line that they're pursuing that what was in that chat, and we've all seen it now, was not classified, doesn't even pass the smell test.

You can literally look at the DOD and the I.C.

regulations that are public, where they give nice descriptions of the kinds of information that is presumptively secret or top secret.

A lot of stuff in that chat matches that.

You know, information is classified based on how severe the damage would be if it were released.

So, you have secret information, top secret information.

As you go up the ladder, the classification corresponds to the damage that would do if it fell into the hands of your adversaries or to the public.

So, by saying the information is not classified or is unclassified, what these officials would have you believe is that all of this could be made public and there'd be no consequence.

We talked about this, you know, in the course of reporting this story, had that information fallen into the hands of a U.S. adversary that had been in the group, or had you been a less scrupulous journalist and tweeted it, that information would then be known to the Houthis who would be able to prepare defenses and a counter attack that absolutely would jeopardize the lives of U.S. forces.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

PETER BAKER: And you couldn't believe that you have been attacked for jeopardizing those -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, I mean, that was not, and this is a conversation that Shane and I and others at The Atlantic had.

It's like the last thing that we want to do, maybe this is controversial in some quarters.

It's not controversial with me.

The last thing we ever would want to do is put Americans in harm's way by putting out information about a tactical issue, a technical tactic.

Well, let me read because this is - - I mean, so I'm sitting there, this is coming over my phone.

This is some from some of Pete Hegseth's statements in the group chat.

And this is all happening and this is the 11:44 A.M. Saturday text.

Trigger-based F-18, first strike window starts Target terrorist is at his known location show, and this is all caps, should be on time.

Also, strike drones launched, MQ-9s, which is the technical designation for Reapers.

And it goes on 14:10, more F-18s launch, second strike package.

14:15, strike drones on target, all caps.

Again, this is when the first bombs will definitely drop pending earlier trigger-based targets.

15:36, in other words, 3:36 P.M. Eastern Time, F-18.

second strike starts.

Also first sea-based Tomahawks launched.

Okay.

So, I mean, like pressure test this a little bit.

Like is there any plausible argument that Tulsi Gabbard is not dissembling when she says that's not classified information?

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, again, I mean they're offering us a farcical excuse.

And what's remarkable to me, Jeff, is that they're getting so many people to go along with it.

You know, you've seen a few skeptical Republicans.

But, essentially, you know, Trump prides himself on forcing people to go along with even the most absurd things.

My question to you is, in all of your, you know, concerns about publishing this article, your discussions with Shane, your colleagues, did you ever anticipate that they were simply going to look you in the eye and say, oh no, Jeff, it's actually top secret, the deportation flights of Venezuelans, but, absolutely, we can talk in public about war strikes that haven't happened yet?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Look, consistency is not something that we experience too much in politics and covering politics.

But, you know, what I thought honestly, and Shane might have a different view what I thought, and actually on that morning that we were posting or that we were getting ready, we asked the National Security Council, we asked the White House is the -- first, we had to ask, is this real?

I mean, obviously, I felt like it was real at that point.

Is it real?

And they came back with a reasonable statement that said, apparently, this is true and we're looking into it.

And then we published based on that.

So, at first, the reaction, and that gave me some indication, false indication, it turns out, that they were going to then come out and say, yes, this is a big mistake, a big breach.

We're figuring out who's responsible, who's going to take responsibility for it, and this is how we're going to fix it.

That's what would have happened, I think, in other administrations.

But they went to a sort of an automatic, aggressive posture, not fully thinking through the idea that we had all of the texts with us and they just confirmed that they're real.

So, I mean, you know, I don't -- at first they were heading down a pathway that we recognize as White House correspondents, right, which is like, okay, you turn it into a one or two-day story by saying, yes, when we make a mistake, it's a doozy.

But -- LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, they acknowledged that it was real.

They said, yes, the mistake was, you know, they said this was inadvertent, that Signal chat is real.

And then they went from that to Pete Hegseth coming off of the plane saying, no, it's all a lie, none of this was classified.

I mean, it reminds me of a story, Peter, that you actually wrote a few weeks ago that was about this Trump tactic, this White House tactic of essentially basing all of their actions on misleading statements, false statements, or outright lies.

And so a question I have, Jeff, is, you know, they decided to deploy that playbook with both of you, with The Atlantic, attempting to discredit you.

Do you think that there's a lesson for the press or others that are being intimidated right now by the administration in the way that The Atlantic handled this reaction?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, I mean, yes.

And it's not -- it's -- the playbook is just continue to do your job, which is, you know, you could only -- if you're willing to be intimidated, you have to be willing to be intimidated in order to have an effective bully, right?

So, when they -- and, you know, I think this has all been in public, but on Tuesday, as they're pushing back and saying, we're lying and we're this, and I'm a sleazebag, and all these other kind of things, you know, Shane and I kind of looked at each other with our other colleagues and said they're trying to goad us into putting out -- we have to defend ourselves against the charge that we are lying.

So, it didn't make sense as a strategy for their part.

But I suppose, and we could see this in other parts of journalism maybe, and certainly in other industries, I suppose there is a lesson here, which is -- and, again, you don't want to sound, you know, self-righteous or anything, but if you have the truth and you're aligned with the truth, this is a thing that happened.

Here's reality.

You got to keep pressing it because, you know, ultimately, the voters, the citizens will recognize reality.

I mean, I think it's not that hard to just say to yourself, I will not be bullied by any of this.

SHANE HARRIS: There's another lesson too is, I mean, is the way in the first story, you know, we handled the information that we had knowing that it was sensitive, knowing that it could have jeopardized people's lives, we put it out.

And we were very careful about not disclosing anything that kind of would hit that threshold and describing it and talking around it.

I was expecting that if the government did acknowledge this, and they had some concern that they wouldn't even acknowledge it at all, they might be, to some degree, grateful for our judiciousness and our prudence in that, right, and saying, thank you very much and we're so glad you left it out there.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So, here you have a veteran intelligence reporter who thinks that the administration is going to be grateful to reporters for pointing out -- and, by the way, say that is a universal, I don't think the Obama, Biden, Bush would -- I don't think any of them would be -- SHANE HARRIS: But there was stuff we did.

There were one or two people who I will say in conversation said, thank you for holding back what you did.

But then they turn around and say, oh no, there's nothing here and you guys are making it up.

We were more careful with national security information than the government.

SUSAN GLASSER: Oh, and, by the way, to your question about the handling of it, I think, you know, they will certainly study this one day in the future, assuming there are people around to do this, to go basically in 12 hours from, yes, it's our chat group, to Laura Ingraham on Fox News, the national security adviser say, well, I'm not a conspiracy theorist.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, thank you for bringing that up because maybe that's a -- SUSAN GLASSER: Do we have some tape of that?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: This is a -- well, we happen to have some tape of that.

So, watch this, because this is interesting and it's a very Washington kind of thing.

This is the play.

This is the play that they ran.

Let's watch it.

LAURA INGRAHAM, Host, Fox News: How did a Trump-hating editor of The Atlantic end up on your signal chat?

MICHAEL WALTZ, U.S. National Security Adviser: You know, Laura, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but of all the people out there, somehow this guy, who has lied about the president and he's the one that somehow gets on somebody's contact and then gets sucked into this group.

LAURA INGRAHAM: How's the number on your phone if you -- MICHAEL WALTZ: Well, if you have somebody else's contact and then somehow it gets sucked in.

LAURA INGRAHAM: Oh, someone sent you that contact?

MICHAEL WALTZ: It gets sucked in.

SHANE HARRIS: If all the editors -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And all editors and all the -- yes.

SUSAN GLASSER: Jeff, I know you can't comment on your relationship preexisting with Mike Waltz, but I mean, did he look like a man who had been, you know, fed aligned that he was not comfortable delivering there?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

And you're right, I'm not commenting on my relationship with Mike Waltz, but he looked like he was flailing and performing for the president, obviously, and I think the White House is very concerned.

Laura, you could speak to this, obviously, I think the White House is trying to figure out if anybody in there has been disloyal by talking to me or others about these kind of issues.

I just want to note for the record that I did not suck my phone number into his phone.

I don't know.

I mean, can I just tell you, and I mentioned this, but the funniest thing I've heard in all of this was in my family group chat, and I know that now has a fraught overlay in my family group chat.

One of my kids said the most amazing part of this story is that daddy has learned how to take a screenshot.

So, my ability to manipulate Mike Waltz's -- I mean, there is an explanation for why my phone number is in Mike Waltz's phone, and very frequently in reporting, we find out that the obvious explanation is the correct -- PETER BAKER: Do you have a theory though, Jeff, about like -- you know, we have all done that where we've typed in Jeff and it turned out to be the wrong Jeff, right?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

PETER BAKER: Is there another Jeff or another Goldberg that you think that was intended to be on that chat?

Have you had a -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It might have been Bill Goldberg, the professional wrestler.

PETER BAKER: There you go.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But probably not.

The speculation is that the trade representative, maybe James Grayer (ph) is a J.G.

I don't know.

I mean, somebody -- PETER BAKER: This would be weird though for a military operation, right?

Or is it because of the ship?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It's weird for a military operation, yes.

Well, notice who's not on the chat.

I mean, I've now that we've -- Shane and I have published the list, the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, there's no military representative on a chat about a military operation.

It's all political, including Susie Wiles, the treasury secretary.

It was interesting -- PETER: Stephen Miller.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: What?

And Stephen Miller comes into the chat and, as you read, shuts the chat down.

And says, this is what the president , wants.

But, you know, I have to ask, I mean, and, Laura, let me start with you.

You know, it's this question of, you know, what is the conversation now inside the White House about this, the question people are asking Washington, obviously, does anybody pay a price right for setting up this at least unauthorized Signal chat.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, there's a lot of defiance in the White House, right?

I mean, they are thinking -- President Trump is thinking that the tactic that we've all been talking about could potentially work, that he just defends Pete Hegseth, he defends Mike Waltz and that they're not going to change.

I mean, J.D.

Vance was saying that today, the vice president, that, essentially, we are behind our national security team.

Now, there is some action, a little bit of action, which you referenced earlier in Congress, which is that the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican and Democrat at the top of that committee have asked the DOD inspector general to investigate.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: That's Roger Wicker, the Republican of Mississippi, and Jack Reed, the Democrat.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And they've asked the Defense Department I.G.

And that is their -- that committee has jurisdiction over -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Acting I.G., by the way, because they fired the -- PETER BAKER: But that's actually important.

They're not having a hearing themselves, LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Right, they're not.

PETER BAKER: They've asked the I.G.

-- LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: they're not investigating in themselves.

They've asked the I.G.

You know, it's hard, I'm told, you know, for an I.G.

to just ignore a request like that, a bipartisan request.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

But, Peter, why is that notable?

PETER BAKER: Well, it's notable because of what Donald Trump has done structurally to the system of accountability since he took office in a very short amount of time.

One of the first things he did, of course, was fire all the I.G.s, right, the inspectors general, whose job is to find wrongdoing, waste, fraud, all that kind of stuff, what DOGE is supposedly doing.

And so the acting I.G.

at the Pentagon now watched what happened to his predecessor.

Now, he's a professional.

He's not a Trump-appointed political person per se, but he certainly knows what happened to an I.G.

who went across the line that Donald Trump's set.

And so there's going to be questions whether there's real accountability there.

At the same time, watch what Pam Bondi said this week.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: The attorney general.

PETER BAKER: Attorney general of the United States.

The normal reaction by an attorney general would be a judicious.

One might say, we want need to look into this.

I don't want to comment, whatever.

No.

She went off on a political attack about Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and said, this is not classified.

In effect, she said, I'm not going to investigate, right?

Much less sensational lapses in national security trigger investigations.

It may not be these guys did anything illegal, but usually at least there's a real investigation.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, let me point out something.

So, Peter -- LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The I.G.

would be the perfect place for that independent -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Let me point out something that that people are talking and you see this in Reddit and other places where junior military officers, junior CIA analysts, State Department, people are saying that, you know, in embassies and, you know, we know this, at the end of the day, security officers come through offices in embassies and they look for classified material.

Somebody left it on their desk.

They can get in real trouble.

I mean, you get fired in the military, you can get court-martialed for this.

So, that's a conversation that a lot of people are having, realizing that their bosses don't seem to be holding themselves accountable.

I do want to ask Susan and we might end here on this.

I mean, maybe because we live in this -- in a moment when the Republicans in Congress, Republicans who control Congress, are not doing oversight in the way that we've traditionally understood oversight.

I thought it was notable that Wicker, the senator who chairs -- the Republican senator who chairs the Armed Service Committee said, the information, as published, recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified.

I mean, you know, that statement from Wicker seems like a noteworthy statement in this maybe not in an ordinary time, but in this climate, that really signals something.

SUSAN GLASSER: Well, that's right.

I mean, it suggests that there are some senators who haven't quite let go of being reality-based in the interests of preserving relations with Donald Trump.

But I would also note that Wicker voiced public discomfort with the idea of Pete Hegseth as an unqualified nominee to be the secretary of defense, and then went ahead and voted for him anyways.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Very quickly, Peter, Pete Hegseth, Mike Waltz, jobs in trouble?

PETER BAKER: I mean, look, you know, as Laura said, they just doubled down on it.

The vice president doubled down on it.

The vice president's been wrong before in predicting what Trump was going to do.

If he decides that it's too much, he might toss one both overboard.

But I think he resists the pressure from the chattering class.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: If you release any more texts.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right, no more texting.

So, we need to leave it there for now.

I want to thank our panelists and our viewers for joining us.

You can find The Atlantic's latest reporting on the group chat controversy at theatlantic.com.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg.

Goodnight from Washington.

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