March 25, 2025 - 3:10pm
“It’s not the crime but the cover-up” is one of the glib refrains of the Beltway. In the aftermath of Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg’s bombshell story about being added to a high-level national security Signal group chat, a cousin of that truism has come into view: it’s not the leaks but the fallout from the leaks that may divide the new Trump administration.
Other than the fact that they were shared with Goldberg, the contents of that Signal group chat are hardly surprising. Trump’s team of brokenists is a broad coalition, and the President’s national security team includes both Jacksonian hawks and restrainers who are more sceptical about projecting American power abroad.
Those divides were in full view in the group chat. Vice President JD Vance bluntly told the other members: “I think we are making a mistake” in striking the Houthis so soon. While he said he was willing to go along with the consensus of the national security team, he also warned that the strikes could have destabilising repercussions. Instead, he said that “there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”
Defence chief Pete Hegseth responded by claiming that delaying strikes on the Houthis could pose its own strategic risks, and he and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz argued that no American ally in the region had the technological wherewithal to accomplish those strikes — it was solely up to the United States. Vance ended up saying he would back strikes if Hegseth endorsed them.
None of this is shocking. In public, Vance has emphasised restraint-oriented themes, so it’s not an earth-shattering revelation when he offers the same argument in private. Likewise, Waltz and, to some extent, Hegseth are often identified with the hawkish wing of the Republican Party. It’s normal for policy principals at the highest level to have disagreements and debates before uniting behind a plan of action.
What might be more politically perilous for the administration is the infighting which has broken out among Republicans in the aftermath of Goldberg’s story. Tensions between hawks and restrainers, which had been simmering after the Houthi strikes, erupted after the leaks. In a series of media attacks, Waltz’s political foes have called for the axe to fall on him because he allegedly added Goldberg to the group chat, but his hawkish allies have pushed back hard.
Breitbart reporter Matthew Boyle — one of the most seasoned veterans of populist new media — took to X to warn about the risks of defenestrating a national security advisor: “Remember it was when Mike Flynn went down in Trump’s first term that things began to go off the rails. National Security Adviser a critical position. And the establishment media has been coming after Mike Waltz for some time now writing lots of hit pieces on him.” Trump’s national security team is still being staffed, and an NSA vacancy now would create yet another institutional power vacuum. Filling that position could set off an even more bitter proxy war between restrainers and hawks. That’s likely why Trump is, for now, standing by Waltz.
Trump prefers an adversarial mode of governance. Not only does he relish the Sturm und Drang of combat with his political adversaries, but he also seeds his own team with political disagreements. The clash of viewpoints gives him maximal policy manoeuvrability. However, the escalation of palace intrigue into public bloodsport short-circuits that strategy by replacing dynamism with stasis. The constant turnover of the first Trump administration sapped its political momentum. So far, the second Trump White House has avoided those endless internecine struggles, but this latest controversy may test its coalitional bonds.
On domestic and foreign policy, Trump’s instincts are heterogeneous, and the success of his administration will in part depend on whether those different teams — hawks and restrainers alike — can find a way of working together.
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SubscribeThere’s nothing surprising about the content. There is valid criticism about the leak…assuming it wasn’t intentional.
The current GOP is not a Party that demands absolute consensus and universal messaging. In fact, the entire reason the coalition is strong is because people aren’t forced to repeat platitudes that they don’t believe in. I’d be more concerned if everyone was just falling in line.
Precisely. If anything – the fact of the leak apart – this demonstrates how decision-making is being arrived at on a very serious issue and i can find nothing but credit in the way the participants (including the plus one) conducted themselves.
Perhaps that was the point.
Some people prefer the Communist Party. It always has the only correct opinion
The GOP requires absolute consensus – and every one of these guys delivers it absolutely. The thing is many powerful old GOP Uniparty Neo-Cons still exist and they cannot be forced fully into line. Then a Very few independent thinkers exist, say 3, and they do not join in this drive to destroy the Middle East which APIC Trump and his gang, and the Uniparty Neo-Cons are all pushing – but there are no real powers groups wishing for Peace and stability. 99% of them are totally ”Falling in Line”. And that line is to back Netanyahu up to any level of crimes against humanity and the divide and conquer.
Now I do realize there is no happy answer in this conflict BECAUSE the Arab states will not aid the Palestinians either. KSA, Egypt, (the now terrorist state of Syria), Qatar, Emiratis, Jordan, and so on – they want nothing to do with Palestinians either, and so one supposes Trump choses the easiest path (and best paid to USA Politicians) and has become Netanyahu’s banker and enforcer.
But it all sucks – They all are bought and paid for, plus they all want to destroy Iran, and this is the way that an excuse for than can be found.
USA (and UK) in the Middle East! WOW…… we keep it destroyed, divided, dependent, sanctioned, so it has to pump that oil and stay balkanized and poor. And have sine WWII – really since breaking the Ottomans in WWI.
Like any Postcolonial Theory, some of what you said contains kernels of truth until it gets overly Manichean and turns the US/UK into Bond villains and all the Iranian Proxies into an oppressed class.
I agreed with Vance’s point about the shipping lanes being a bigger economic problem for Europe than the US but reasonable people can debate it.
My question is in what world is Israel no longer an “ally” of the US and Europe? We hear so much about “standing with our allies” which is fine. But somehow Israel no longer fits that description?
They have never been our ally. Did the IDF help against Milosevic? Or Saddam Hussein? Or Putin? Netanyahu’s ilk take and take and never give.
It’s not what was said in the messages. It’s the bravado driven incompetence at the heart of a cavalier use of a non-secure communication system and the attempt already to cover-up, deliberately mislead and obfuscate. Jeez if this was Hilary or Biden they’d be foaming at the mouth. And were they Putin’s minions they’d be on their way to the Gulag.
Rather then fess up to a proper shambles they’ve already tried to contend it’s not classified – yet it includes details of the hit list amongst other operational detail. Couldn’t be more classified. There is then the fact there are members in the Group who were in Moscow and not at least in a Scif in the US Embassy – hence FSB listening and seeing every word. What else have they said on this about other stuff? This story not finished yet. I’d be cautious about the line one tries to defend as more may yet come out.
The allegations many nominees weren’t up to it, didn’t have the experience or temperament inevitably felt partisan. Much less so now.
I haven’t followed this closely at all. But it’s hard to imagine this is a good sign. It does feel like Trump’s government is built not only from habitual “rule benders” (I have to confess to being one), but active rule breakers (like Trump) who revel in not following established rules and processes. Much as I dislike bureaucracy, government and defence just aren’t sustainable without these things.
I’m not sure it’s incompetence. I suspect a lot of these people simply don’t care about following the rules. And don’t expect to be caught or punished.
The only good thing I see here is that JD Vance seems to be showing some common sense and doing some sanity checking and there was some sensible debate. For better or worse, he seems like a Vice President who’s actually going to do something.
On this one I lean towards incompetence and lack of experience. None of them seem to have recognised what they were discussing was classified intelligence info via a non secure means. Experienced Office holders would have known and interjected that this needed to be conducted in a different way and would have noticed who was in the Group chat. Experienced Office Holders may also have interjected with some recognition that whilst the strikes were legit some innocents were going to die as a result too and some gravitas required rather than the Jocks cheering chorus that it was.
I suspect we aren’t far off ‘peak Vance’. His political ambitions mean he inevitably starts to naff off the Boss. He’s knows one poss way to counter the enemies he’s creating (and within the Republicans where it matters to his ambitions) is get Elon and Elon’s money alongside his future ticket. But as Elon becomes more toxic that has jeopardy. Vance will also be smart enough to know an obvious attack line for non Republicans is the wealth of the Cabinet – c£60b, and that excludes Elon. That’s going to become more appreciated and MAGA won’t like it either. What’s that Cabinet done for Healthcare whilst getting all excited about Greenland etc? MAGA may have some crack-pots but they don’t like a Kleptocracy that does v little for the Little Guy. Thus Vance at some point got to decide which way he leans. And back to the messaging issue – questions he’ll be asked in much the same way as Hilary was now prepped and stored to be drawn on in good time. He’s not had to front-up yet on the issue, but it’ll happen.
There is nothing unusual or destabilising about a disagreement among the Signal group. That is a good sign in fact. The problem is that Waltz should admit to adding Goldberg to the CC list, if indeed he did. He should man up and resign. The other members should apologies for not spotting the mistake. Trump and his Press Secretary should applaud Goldberg for the way he handled the story. He could have said (and published) nothing but he is, after all, a journalist.
As scandals go, this one is small bore.
Which probably explains why most of the Comments are sort of un-hinged, or at least off-topic.
Still looking for the NeverTrump mole who put Goldberg on the chat.
They killed 53 people for no reason at all, achieved nothing, and now they’re bickering over the exposure of their plans like schoolchildren. Each and every one of them should be sacked, and if that paralyses Trump’s administration, so much for the better. He has achieved nothing of note anyway.
Socialism doesn’t work, Chris.
A fair statement in a general sense, but I’m not sure how it relates to the post you were commenting on.
GOP?
I rather think they should be called, in regard to all the Middle East policy:
The AIPAC Party.
Surely this – as Vance called the terror bombing of civilians in Yemen – ”Message” serves no goals but to please Netanyahu’s wishes.
Unherd, and the readers here, have a child like ignorance of the world outside their Western Cosmology. No one can understand the Houthis – a civilization going back 3000 years, one which has been unpolluted by the decadence of modern society for the large part, if they have never lived somewhere completely un-Western, it is like trying to understand the world of a blind, or deaf, person – we sighted and hearing, we can not unlive our reality to experience theirs fully.
The honour, the complete morality of this ancient Islamic land – its motives and thought are so outside out ken that I returned to this article to post a link to Pepe Escobar’s talk 4 hours ago. He is a Top global journalist, unsurpassed, and is, right Now, in Sanaa Yemen. He has met with the top people there, he is part of an exclusive international group of Acedemic there to have a conference on Palestine and the Palestine genocide.
So, just to say to you sheep, the Unherd staff and readers – watch his hour long talk, you will learn something great of things you would not otherwise. Link fallows as this place seems to be censoring me and I will not upset their algorithm more than needed. To search it yourself –
It is on youtube, on ‘Dialogue Works’, hosted by Nema, a PhD Civil Engineer who is a immigrant in Brazil, and was From Iran, an extraordinary Man! (Pepe Escobar is also Brazilian, haha… Bricks…..) So get some Yemen background, And current affairs – and by that get some view of the apes who are in charge of the USA War Machine. Clumsy, wrong, ignorant, without culture and in charge of the great war machine in a way a chimpanzee should not be given a loaded Uzi, as it is going to be a very bad thing..
link below
Pepe Escobar, 4 house ago, wile currently in Sanaa Yemen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vin-SvqWY40
I listened to Escobar extol the deep, 3000 year-old morality of the Houthis. This is an extraordinary interview. He is enthralled by what the Houthis tell him, about their deep commitment to the predicament of the Gazans. No mention that their flag contains the actual phrases “Death to America” (10000 miles away), “Death to Israel” (2000 miles away), “A curse upon the Jews” (there are essentially no Jews in Yemen since 1948). No mention that slavery has been reinstated by the Houthis (https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/1810456/exclusive-houthis-restore-slavery-yemen). No mention of child marriages (https://www.dw.com/en/child-marriage-on-the-rise-in-yemen/a-53390598). No mention that the Houthis are firing million dollars-costing missiles to Israel, ostensibly to help 2 million Gazans, while they must rely on the international community to help feed their own 21 million people.
Are we sheep for preferring Western morality to this unhinged barbarism?
Yes. Everything the US does- dem or republican – seems to be for Israel.
No why is that? It seems that what Israel wants Israel gets. All the time. Little weird no?