Last week the Trump administration reminded us of the Frank Zappa quote: “Government is the Entertainment division of the military-industrial complex,” — not so entertaining as the reality was an ominous leak of “imminent war plans,” as described by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic who was an inadvertent recipient of the shocking security breach, being added by Michael Walz, who implied “conspiracy“ during one interview. Included in a group chat on Signal comprised of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and seventeen other top officials who discussed upcoming strikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, Goldberg disclosed that he had hours of advance notice of the action, not sure that it was authentic initially, only to see the Trump announcement about a “very effective” operation later on March 15. When questioned about the leak by the press, Trump claimed not to “know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business.” though National Security Council spokesman Hughes was already on the case reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the Signal chain. If Goldberg had publicized the details in advance, it could have been deadly to our armed forces in the region, but he chose not to do so until the administration started defending its slip-up, and the Fox News talking heads began making excuses for their old colleague, Hegseth, with charges of “fake news,” a “hoax,” and other improbable spins about conspiracies. Democratic lawmakers were outraged by the security breach, with Senator Coons posting on X that “every single one of the government officials on this text chain have now committed a crime.”  Republican Mike Lawler, a New York representative, said: “Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels — and certainly not to those without security clearances, including reporters. Period. Safeguards should be put in place to ensure this never happens again.”

In the chat, Trump’s cabinet complained about “bailing out Europe” by attempting to keep international shipping lanes safe from Houthi missiles for passage through the Red Sea, with JD Vance expressing his doubts that his boss is aware of the inconsistency in regard to his messaging to Europe that they have to go their own way, essentially “loathing of European free-loading.” Vance wrote that only 3% of US shipping runs through the Suez Canal, with 40% of European trade doing so, with Hegseth’s complete agreement. Interesting that he fled shortly to Greenland with his wife — things a bit too heated in the Oval Office? Jeffrey Goldberg’s surprise at being included in the chat message led him to believe that he could be “part of a disinformation campaign,” since he had met National Security Advisor Mike Walz only briefly in the past, and with the “administration’s contentious relationship with journalists,” and him personally, it was clear that this was out of whack. “I also could not believe that the National Security Advisor to the President would be so reckless as to include the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior US officials, up to and including the vice president,” said Goldberg. These revelations are surely going to trigger major questions about security within the Trump cabinet and the handling of highly sensitive government information, echoing the scandal brought upon Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign when she was accused of using insecure servers for emails, a major factor in dooming her run for office.

Another shocker is that his team allowed the president to take to the podium before the assembled press, without briefing him on the security breach, raising questions about the care and qualifications of his inner circle, dumbfounding former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta about the entire episode. Panetta said there was “no question” that the chat was legitimate, referring to the incident as a “serious blunder,” and that a proper conversation should have been held in-person in the White House. “It has to be investigated, and somebody, frankly, needs to get fired. Somebody put that name on a list, and whoever that was deserves to be fired,” he told CNN. Regarding the leak, X users displayed a wide range of emotions and opinions, from disbelief to anger, with search terms encompassing ‘War Plans’ to ‘Hegseth.’ ABC’s late-nighter, Jimmy Kimmel commented on the ineptitude, saying, “Our national security is being guarded by a bunch of dudes he wouldn’t trust to throw your cousin a surprise party. The administration accidentally texted me its war plans. No one on the chain thought to ask, who is JG, what are these initials for? They could have been  leaking secrets to Jeff Goldblum for all they know. And not only did this happen, after it happened, no one thought to tell Trump.”

Typically, Fox News host Jesse Watters was indifferent to the accidental disclosure, likening it to an incident where a family member is inadvertently added to a group chat about “raunchy” bachelor party plans. “Well, that kind of happened today with the Trump administration. He (Goldberg) heard some things today he probably shouldn’t have. Could’ve been a wee bit of a security breach.” Goldberg disputes this, saying he removed himself from the group after realizing it was authentic and contained sensitive national security information, hitting back at the White House’s insistence that “no war plans were discussed” and “no classified material was sent to the thread.” Watters attempted to discredit Goldberg, calling him “not a good reporter” and “one of the biggest hoax artists around.” After Goldberg provided screenshots of the Signal group chat in a report to back up his story, Watters contended, “I’m sure it won’t happen again.” Fox’s Jessica Tarlov was absolutely taken aback by Watter’s nonchalance, standing her ground in calling the debacle a sign of “incompetence and recklessness on a scale unimaginable,” compounding Trump’s drop in ratings on his handling of the economy, inflation, and cost of living. “So they’re not doing this on a SCIF (a sensitive compartmented information facility), they’re doing it on an app that you and I, we all have on our phones, and it’s obviously incredibly reckless. National security risks — I don’t ever wanna hear ‘but her emails’ again,'” she added, referring to Hillary’s email server brouhaha. She called this incident a perfect example of what James Carville was asking of Democrats, to “run out the clock” and see what happens in Trump’s second term, where “folks have jobs that didn’t deserve them.”

Watters wasn’t done with Tarlov, trying to call it an accident, unlike “purposeful leaks from the Democrats” in the past. He began, “Yeah, they accidentally leaked something to the media instead of to the Democrats — ,” which brought Tarlov’s interruption to tell him, “They didn’t leak it; they invited him in.” “At least they didn’t home-brew a server and acid-wash it — ‘but her emails!’ I just did it,” Watters jabbed back. Hillary Clinton for her part, posted on X in response to the whole fiasco, “You have got to be kidding me,” alongside a side-eyed emoji. Secretary of Defense Hegseth, initially denying anything at all was amiss, jumped into the attack on Goldberg after he made his revelations, calling him a discredited journalist who makes a profession of peddling hoaxes, naming ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ or ‘fine people on both sides’ hoax, and the ‘sucker and losers’ hoax as examples of his “peddling garbage.” Donald Trump kept up his criticism by posting on Truth Social a link to the conservative satirical website, The Babylon Bee, and its article “4D Chess: Genius Trump Leaks War Plans to ‘The Atlantic’ Where No One Will Ever See Them.” Elon Musk stepped in to help by posting the link to the article, also writing, “Best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of The Atlantic magazine, because no one ever goes there.”

Pete Hegseth’s post claiming that “nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” brought a pushback from Fox’s Brit Hume who said, “Oh, for God’s sake, the administration has already confirmed the authenticity of the message.” Fox News anchor, John Roberts, praised Goldberg following his devastating exposé, saying, “I would think that there are worse people that you could text your secret plans to, but it appears Goldberg has acted responsibly here in writing this article.” Posts on X, call the operation “sloppy — the only thing worse would have been if they had used Facebook to communicate. We are the laughing stock of the world. Allies sharing intelligence is no more,” and “God, dude, this place is worse than China. They are not allowed to take responsibility for anything. Nothing they do is bad, ever. The media has to adore them, or it’s fake or illegal. This party belongs in prison before it’s too late.” The administration’s whitewashing started from the President on down to White House Press Secretary Leavitt, who said Trump “continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Walz,” followed by Speaker Mike Johnson rejecting the possibility that Walz or Hegseth might face disciplinary action. Both Leavitt and Johnson praised those involved saying, “top- level officials were doing their job, doing it well and executing on a plan with precision.” However, Politico is reporting that internal discussions among White House officials are considering ejecting Walz, supposedly with Trump to make a decision within a few days. Still holding your breath?

Satirist Andy Borowitz offered his take on the Signal breach in The Borowitz Report: “Defending his decision to use an insecure messaging app to discuss classified war plans, National Security Advisor Mike Walz said on Wednesday that he chose Signal because it offered more emojis. ‘Those sleaze bags at The Atlantic are acting like using Signal is some kind of scandal,’ Walz said. ‘You want to know a real scandal? The government spent billions of dollars on a secure communications system that has zero emojis.’ Walz said that he refused to use the government’s system when it became clear to him that it lacked even rudimentary emojis like fist, fire, and smiley face. ‘I stand by my decision to use Signal,’ he said. ‘When you’re planning to bomb another country, an emoji is worth a thousand OMGs or LOLs.'”

Back during the nomination process for Trump’s cabinet members, red flags were raised about Hegseth’s ability to handle the job he was offered, with many stories about his alleged abusive behavior, public drunkenness, financial mishandling, and bigotry — all ignored as the Senate Republicans approved him with flying colors. “Soooo, we thinking old Pete was drunk on the job or what?” Texas Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett asked. “It would be funny, if it wasn’t so scary! Maybe we need some DEI (Definitely Earned It) hires to get this together because incompetence is OVERWHELMINGLY problematic.” Spotted: A demonstrator’s sign with a photo of Pete Hegseth sipping whiskey from a bottle, captioned “WHISKEY LEAKS…LIKE WATERGATE BUT WITH MORONS.” Journalist Aaron Rupar writes that history repeats itself, but at increasingly high levels of stupidity: “It’s like Watergate, only in this version Nixon directly mails the tapes to Woodward and Bernstein.” And The Onion headline: ‘Teen Warned Not To Accept Group Chat Invites From National Security Advisors She Doesn’t Know.’ Interestingly enough, real estate mogul Steve Witkoff, who was included in the Signal chat group was physically in a Moscow meeting with Vladimir Putin — US military strategy leaking in real time to someone in Russia. Just imagine that — a face-to-face so Putin doesn’t have to bother with reading a text, unless Witkoff handed the Russian leader his cellphone on which the Signal thread was stored.

A US Department of Defense official explained to CNN’s Natasha Bertrand that “information providing indication or advance warning that the US or its allies are preparing an attack” — which Hegseth shared — is classified Top Secret. “It is safe to say that anybody in uniform would be court martialed for this. We don’t provide that level of information on unclassified systems, in order to protect the lives and safety of the service members carrying out these strikes. If we did, it would be wholly irresponsible. My most junior analysts know not to do this,” he continued. Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida is sending letters to all the identifiable officials in the ‘Hegseth Disaster Signal Chat’ demanding they retain all messages for any pending litigation and Congressional investigations, saying, “Any deletion of the chat is a willful destruction of evidence.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Hegseth “the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in American history” and demanded his immediate dismissal. Jeffries wrote, “The so-called Secretary of Defense recklessly and casually disclosed highly sensitive war plans — including the timing of a pending attack, possible strike targets, and the weapons to be used — during an unclassified national security group chat that inexplicably included a reporter. His behavior shocks the conscience, risked American lives, and likely violated the law.” Jen Rubin wrote on The Contrarian, “Proud of your votes for Hegseth? This is on you as much as Hegseth. You knew he was not remotely qualified,” as she called out Senators Ernst and Tillis. Fun fact: Former US Air National Guardsman Jack Douglas Teixeira was sentenced to 15 years in prison four months ago for doing the same thing Pete Hegseth and his band of idiots did when they leaked war plans to a reporter.

So, discipline, dismissal or firing? Jimmy Kimmel says the excuses don’t stop, with Trump dragging out one of his old favorites — “witchhunt.” “First, he blamed the reporter, and when that didn’t work, he blamed the Signal app, saying, ‘it could be a defective platform, and we’re gonna have to find that out.’ Right, maybe one of the wires came loose and the gasket got cracked,” Kimmel quipped, adding, “Blaming Signal for this is like blaming Tinder for when you get caught cheating on your wife.” He wasn’t through as he tore into the talking heads at Fox and Newsmax as they continued with downplaying the scandal, calling it “the perfect storm of incompetence, inexperience, dishonesty, and hypocrisy from the same people who spent the last 12 years screaming about Hillary’s emails and Hunter’s laptop, while calling Signalgate a ‘non-story.'” Why cover it if it’s a non-story? Taking a final swing by mentioning Trump’s DEI initiatives, Kimmel said, “Thank God they got rid of DEI. Now you can rest assured that the idiots in charge are not chosen for their race or gender. They were chosen purely based on being idiots. I believe that Pete Hegseth wasn’t drunk. I believe he was perfectly sober when he made this idiotic mistake.” His belief that President Trump might not be very happy with his national security and defense picks may lead him to calling them Eric and Don Jr.

Satirist Andy Borowitz provides another followup view of Hegseth: “Millions of Americans have been rattled this week by the bombshell that a former Fox News host might be a liar, reports on Thursday indicate. According to industry insiders, the revelation that a former employee might have knowingly disseminated falsehoods threatens to tarnish the image of the nation’s most trusted news organization. Harland Dorrinson, a crisis management specialist, said Fox News needs to ‘change the narrative’ by reminding Americans of its peerless and longstanding reputation for honesty. ‘Fox needs to remind people that they are the network of Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Tucker Carlson,’ he said. ‘One bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole bunch.'”