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This is an adapted excerpt from the March 24 episode of “Deadline: White House.”
The fallout continues following a report from The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg that top officials in Donald Trump’s administration mistakenly added him to a group chat on a private messaging app in which plans for military strikes in Yemen were discussed. It’s a breathtaking breach of national security, and it raises several questions about the judgment and the competence of the people at the very highest levels of this administration.
Will Trump take decisive action? This entire story is inconceivable and unprecedented, and heads should roll. But will they?
Number one, given the recklessness and the carelessness with which officials shared this highly sensitive information, I think we can assume that it’s likely not just Goldberg listening in; it’s also our nation’s adversaries. At this point, is there any reason to believe that foreign powers, such as Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin or China’s Xi Jinping, don’t have access to this kind of information? This behavior runs counter to Trump’s pledge to “make America safe again.”
Secondly, these are the officials tasked with guarding our nation’s most sensitive information. So, if this is how members of the Trump administration treat our country’s secrets, how confident can we be that sensitive data from other agencies — such as Homeland Security, the Internal Revenue Service or Social Security — won’t also be compromised? This likely isn’t an isolated problem. The president has stuffed his administration full of loyalists and toadies, as opposed to people who are experienced and competent.
That leaves the final question: Will Trump take decisive action? This entire story is inconceivable and unprecedented, and heads should roll. But will they? This situation is a huge embarrassment and vulnerability for Trump.
If the president is looking for a scapegoat here, we know he has showed no hesitancy in going after journalists, and there’s no love lost between Trump and The Atlantic. Given his pattern of retribution, given the revenge tour that he’s on right now, it’s easy to imagine his next steps. He’s likely going to make this about the media as opposed to the incompetence, the recklessness and the carelessness of his own team.