The Trump administration found itself red-faced this week after senior officials inadvertently added The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a Signal group chat dubbed “Houthi PC Small Group,” where they hashed out classified plans for U.S. military strikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

The gaffe, revealed in Goldberg’s bombshell March 24 article, exposed a stunning breach of operational security just hours before American bombs rained down on March 15, igniting bipartisan outrage and a scramble to contain the fallout.

The chat, launched March 13 by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, included heavyweights like Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Hegseth’s 11:44 a.m. message—detailing targets, weapons, and timing—landed two hours before the strikes, which killed 53 per Yemen’s Houthi-run health ministry.

Goldberg, initially skeptical of a hoax, watched X confirm the attack unfold as predicted, cementing the chat’s authenticity. “It was reckless,” he told CNN, countering Hegseth’s claim that “nobody was texting war plans.”

The White House admitted the thread “appears authentic,” blaming an “inadvertent number” addition, but offered no clarity on why Signal—a commercial app—was used over secure channels. Vance’s posts questioned the strikes’ timing, warning of oil price spikes, while others cheered post-attack with emojis.

Democrats like Senator Jack Reed slammed it as “egregious,” demanding probes, while even GOP Senator Roger Wicker called it concerning. Trump shrugged it off to NBC as a minor “glitch,” mocking The Atlantic’s reach.

With intelligence chiefs facing a Senate grilling today, the episode—already dubbed “Signal-gate”—raises thorny questions about competence, legality, and whether this was a one-off or a symptom of deeper chaos in Trump’s national security orbit.