Excerpts of a Signal chat published Monday by The Atlantic provide a rare and revealing look at the private conversations of top Trump administration officials as they weighed plans for U.S. strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
The chat, which was created by national security adviser Michael Waltz, included users identified as Vice President Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and C.I.A. Director John Ratcliffe, as well as senior officials who were not listed with their full names. Among them were “MAR,” the initials of Secretary of State Marco Rubio; “TG,” the initials of director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, “Scott B,” which appeared to be Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; and “SM,” the initials of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. At least two of those in the group — Ms. Gabbard and Steve Witkoff, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East and Russia — were traveling internationally during the course of the conversation.
President Trump on Tuesday downplayed the apparently accidental inclusion of Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, in the chat, claiming that officials did not share classified information. However, Mr. Goldberg reported that highly sensitive military operational information was posted in the channel. The Atlantic did not publish those details.
Below are excerpts from the chat.
Thursday, March 13
The principals committee is the highest level of the National Security Council, composed of cabinet members and their equivalents. The principals often debate various courses of action and present it to the president for a final decision.
The Houthis are an Iranian-backed group in Yemen whose attacks in the Red Sea have dramatically increased shipping costs. The Biden administration sought to curb their attacks with strikes from aircraft carriers, but with limited success.
A tiger team is a group of people assembled for a particular task by the National Security Council. Here, Mr. Waltz is talking about bringing together aides to the principals to work specific problems related to the stepped up campaign against the Houthis.
—Julian E. Barnes
Mr. Rubio has not personally addressed the matter. On Monday, the State Department spokeswoman said she would not comment on his “deliberative conversations” and directed further questions to the White House. Mr. Needham also serves as Mr. Rubio’s chief of staff, in addition to the advisory role of counselor.
—Michael Crowley
Ms. Gabbard was traveling internationally during the course of this text exchange. She was in Hawaii on March 12 before heading to Asia, for a trip that took her to Japan and Thailand before arriving in India on March 16, the day after the strike.
—Julian E. Barnes
Mr. Goldberg reported that, at this point in the chat, Mr. Ratcliffe shared the name of a C.I.A. official who is an active intelligence officer as someone to be added to the group. In a hearing Tuesday, Mr. Ratcliffe said the officer was not undercover. But the C.I.A. likes to keep its officers’ names secret so they can still take future assignments overseas.
—Julian E. Barnes
Friday, March 14
Government officials work sometimes in the “high side,” which is a classified system, and the “low side,” which is an unclassified government system. This entire conversation, however, takes place in neither the “high side” nor the “low side,” but in a publicly available messaging app.
—Devlin Barrett
1 Mr. Vance, a military veteran who was in Michigan touring a plastics manufacturing plant on March 14, has very consistently been skeptical of the U.S. being drawn into foreign conflicts. The point he makes here — in favor of holding off on a strike, and in the meantime convincing the public why one is necessary — is in keeping with his approach.
—Maggie Haberman
2 Mr. Vance, who has faced criticism for turning from a Trump critic to a loyalist, attempted to clean up the revelation that he questioned the president’s judgment in a large group setting after excerpts of the chat became public. In a statement, his spokesman said that “Vice President Vance unequivocally supports this administration’s foreign policy.”
“The president and the vice president have had subsequent conversations about this matter and are in complete agreement,” the statement said.
—Erica L. Green
Joe Kent, who was nominated by Mr. Trump to run the National Counterterrorism Center, has been serving as the chief of staff for Ms. Gabbard while he awaits confirmation.
—Julian E. Barnes
In the hearing Tuesday, Mr. Ratcliffe said the information discussed at this point in the chat was not classified. Without knowing the specifics, it is hard to judge. Mr. Ratcliffe could have been discussing sensitive material but withholding classified details.
—Julian E. Barnes
1 Since becoming defense secretary, Pete Hegseth has focused on “messaging,” using his experience as a Fox News anchor to launch broadsides at adversaries on social media and to amplify President Trump on pretty much all national security matters. So it makes sense that he would be focused on how to “message” the strikes.
—Helene Cooper
2 It is notable that Mr. Hegseth’s first concern here was “this leaks, and we look indecisive.” The public now sees just how much national security officials initially debated whether to move forward with the plan.
—Erica L. Green
3 In managing the fallout of the leak, the administration has focused on what the mission accomplished. One of the series of statements issued from the White House Tuesday proclaimed that the “Trump administration’s actions made Houthi terrorists pay.” It also criticized former President Biden’s lack of action against the group, which it said was armed “with precision-guided, Iran-provided weaponry.”
—Erica L. Green
4 This is among the more expansive foreign policy debates into which readers have had visibility since the administration began. Without knowing what more was discussed in the chat that The Atlantic did not publish, it’s notable that Mr. Trump, Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Waltz appear to have worked much of this out, and the rest of the group is being advised on what’s taking place.
—Maggie Haberman
5 The references to OPSEC — operational security or the idea the information had not leaked out — are in hindsight almost humorous, given that a journalist was inadvertently added to the chat.
—Julian E. Barnes
1 The vice president had already offended Europe in several ways before the release of these messages. There was a recent uproar in Britain after he said an American economic deal in Ukraine would be a better security guarantee for that country than “20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.” And he shocked Germany when he showed up to the Munich security conference and admonished Europeans about free speech laws.
—Shawn McCreesh
2 The idea of Europe not pulling its weight on military matters has been a frequent theme of the Trump administration, including during Mr. Vance’s and Mr. Hegseth’s February visits to Europe.
—Julian E. Barnes
The chance that American attacks on Houthis could prompt attacks on Saudi Arabia and a renewal of the kingdom’s brutal war in Yemen was a chief concern of the Biden administration, a prime reason that White House operated with a degree of restraint in its strikes on Houthi targets.
—Julian E. Barnes
1 Mr. Hegseth is echoing here a Trump-administration critique that the U.S. Navy does more to keep shipping lanes through the Suez Canal open than European naval forces do. Using words like “loathing” and “pathetic” will likely make his next meetings with European counterparts dicey.
—Helene Cooper
2 The internal back-and-forth here, if it had taken place inside the walls of a government building, might very well be considered classified: It is a debate among high-level officials about foreign policy. But on another, more basic level, it is far from a secret: Mr. Vance and others have spoken scornfully of European leaders in public settings.
—Devlin Barrett
3 The president was asked Tuesday afternoon whether he agreed with this assessment revealed in the signal chat. “Uh, do you really want me to answer that question?” he replied, adding, “Yeah, I think they’ve been freeloading.”
—Shawn McCreesh
Whether this was written by Stephen Miller or someone else, the mercantilist approach of the Trump presidency is in full relief here.
—Maggie Haberman
Saturday, March 15
1 This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to a disclosure that could have harmed American troops. Mr. Goldberg reported that Mr. Hegseth here described operational details of the strikes on Houthis, including sequencing of when American fighter jets would be striking. This is information that could have been used to bring down those planes if it got into the wrong hands. That’s why the Pentagon keeps such operational details close.
—Helene Cooper
2 The specifics in Mr. Hegseth’s message go to the crux of the debate about whether this information was classified and how risky this behavior was. Mr. Goldberg’s description of the type of information suggests that it was specific enough that it could have been used to keep some of the U.S. targets out of harm’s way, or put U.S. troops into harm’s way, if it had been intercepted. If that characterization is accurate, it is difficult to see how this information is not, by its very nature, classified.
—Devlin Barrett
This is an indication that the group knew what their boss ultimately wanted — a victory. In response to the leak, Mr. Trump and White House officials have focused on the successful outcome of the mission to deflect from the embarrassing and problematic way the deliberations about it were revealed.
“They’ve made a big deal out of this because we’ve had two perfect months,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday.
—Erica L. Green
The strikes were the opening moves in what Trump officials told reporters was a new offensive against the Houthis and a strong message to Iran. Announcing the strikes, Trump said: “To Iran: Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY! Do NOT threaten the American People, their President, who has received one of the largest mandates in Presidential History, or Worldwide shipping lanes. If you do, BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable.”
—Helene Cooper
Mr. Witkoff, who serves as special envoy to the Middle East and Russia, is said to use text message apps relatively sparingly. He was in Russia when he was added to the group and appeared to have been back in the U.S. when he responded, according to a person briefed on his whereabouts.
—Maggie Haberman
We do not know if the text chain continued because Mr. Goldberg removed himself from the chat. He wrote in The Atlantic that after the strikes, he was convinced the chat was genuine and dropped out.
—Julian E. Barnes
Note
The messages shown here are a direct transcription of what is described in The Atlantic’s article about the text chain. In some cases, exact punctuation or paragraph breaks in the message exchange could not be determined from the article. Timestamps are displayed as described by The Atlantic; where no timestamp was described, none is shown. The final three messages shown without timestamps from Saturday, March 15 are displayed in the order that The Atlantic listed them. If The Atlantic mentioned omitting content from a message, that is noted in bracketed italics. Any other omissions The Atlantic may have made are not represented here.