When you’re using the Signal app, you can set your chats to automatically disappear after a few days.
The Donald Trump administration is hoping that a scandal over top officials’ use of Signal to discuss impending military plans will similarly disappear, as so many other controversies already have.
It brought to mind the old World War II posters admonishing GIs against sharing information on troop movements: “Loose lips sink ships.”
It’s up to Democrats and responsible Republicans in Congress to make sure that doesn’t happen.
This is no ordinary offense. The conduct here raises questions about the handling of America’s secrets, the safety of our troops and the accuracy of our public records.
And the Trump administration has already shown that it can’t be trusted to police this matter itself, while a Republican call for the Defense Department’s inspector general to investigate is insufficient. Only Congress can do this job.
The scandal came to light when The Atlantic’s editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently added to a group chat on the encrypted messaging service Signal, where he was privy to messages from Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, national security adviser Michael Waltz and a host of others — all discussing with alarming detail planned strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
It brought to mind the old World War II posters admonishing GIs against sharing information on troop movements: “Loose lips sink ships.” But these weren’t privates getting overly chatty in a bar; these were some of the highest officials in the government deciding on the plans and sharing details of the timing and location on a commercially available app.
Make no mistake: It is only due to Goldberg’s integrity and sheer dumb luck that this recklessness didn’t result in dead Americans, yet the Trump administration is repeatedly making the conscious choice to lie to the American people, downplaying the shocking ineptitude these messages reveal.
From the White House briefing room, press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that the text messages — which included specific strike times and weapons systems — did not contain classified information but was rather a “sensationalized story.” Hegseth promised that no one was texting “war plans,” a claim that’s hard to reconcile with what Hegseth wrote in the chat: “THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP.” Waltz even shockingly suggested — without a shred of evidence — that Goldberg somehow surreptitiously infiltrated the chat.
For his part, Trump claimed not to know anything about the story before resorting to his cliched attacks on the press, calling it a “witch hunt.”
It’s clear this administration is hoping the colossal failure blows over and Americans move on. We — as a nation — cannot allow that to happen. Now is not the time for lawmakers to sit idly by. Every member of Congress who’s ever claimed to care about the lives of American service members needs to step in and exercise the body’s power as a co-equal branch of government.
This goes far beyond a group chat, an encrypted app, or even a single military strike. This is about the very machinery of national security — how this administration makes decisions that can ripple across the globe in an instant.
At stake is whether our allies continue to trust us with their most sensitive intelligence. Whether an enemy spots a covert operation before it’s complete. Whether a soldier makes it home to see their child grow up.
This isn’t just about policy. It’s about life and death, trust and betrayal, and the fragile line between order and chaos.
The the administration cannot be trusted to investigate itself.
It must be Congress that leads an investigation because the uncomfortable truth is this: The administration cannot be trusted to investigate itself.
On Wednesday, Leavitt claimed that billionaire Elon Musk’s team would look into how Goldberg ended up in that explosive chat. Let’s be clear: That’s not oversight, that’s gaslighting. We know how Goldberg was added — Waltz brought him in. The receipts are right there in black and white in the texts published by The Atlantic.
So ask yourself: Why would a tech billionaire with no jurisdiction and plenty of conflicts of interest be tasked with uncovering the truth? Why not the FBI? Why not the Department of Justice? Why not anyone with actual authority and accountability?
Especially when Musk’s own office, the Department of Government Efficiency, is already under scrutiny for attempting to access sensitive government information. This isn’t just a distraction; it’s a smoke screen.
Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker has called on the Department of Defense’s inspector general to probe the scandal, but that won’t work either. Acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins has “acting” in front of his title because Trump fired his predecessor. He’s in no position to hold the administration’s feet to the fire.
Only Congress can actively pursue a full-scale investigation to answer the questions raised by this scandal. It is up to the public to demand real accountability from their representatives.
For more thought-provoking insights from Symone Sanders-Townsend, Michael Steele and Alicia Menendez, watch “The Weekend” every Saturday and Sunday at 8 a.m. ET on MSNBC.
