"Talked to Elon Musk": US security advisor has group chat scandal investigated

Following the devastating leak of military secrets and strategy debates in a group chat with a journalist, US President Donald Trump's National Security Advisor has taken full responsibility. He set up the group and therefore bears full responsibility, he told Fox News. Someone else was supposed to be part of the group, the telephone number of the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic had been switched: "Of course I didn't see the loser in the group, he looked like someone else." Whether the journalist was added on purpose or mistakenly is something they want to find out. He had also already spoken to Elon Musk, "some of the best technical minds are looking into how this happened".

Waltz also called the respected journalist a Trump hater and scum in the interview, whom he had never met and to whom he had never sent a text message. At the same time, however, he also explained that he does not want Jeffrey Goldberg to make further content from the chat public. So far, he had only published excerpts. The White House and several people who were part of the group chat have assured that no classified information was exchanged there. Goldberg denies this and, according to the political magazine The Hill, he has hinted that he could make further content public.

The dispute is about a group chat on Signal in which ministers and high-ranking people from the US government spoke in advance about the US attacks on Yemen. Jeffrey Goldberg was apparently part of this chat accidentally, but he does not believe it was genuine. It was only when the announced attacks actually took place at the time discussed that he was convinced of their authenticity. His article caused a huge uproar, partly because those involved used Signal, an unauthorized app, and thus made the leak possible in the first place. Moreover, this was apparently intended to prevent the debates from being archived. However, this is required by law.

Trump comes to Waltz's defense

US President Donald Trump – who was not part of the group chat – has rejected accusations against his team and defended Waltz. He "has learned his lesson and is a good man", NBC News quotes him as saying. The matter was "the only mishap" in recent months and then it turned out that it was "not serious". With intelligence coordinator Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, two people from the group also had to answer to the US Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. Gabbard repeatedly assured the committee that no confidential information was exchanged. However, they did not want to go into detail.

The contempt with which the previously close allies were spoken of in the document also caused a stir, particularly in Europe. Trump has now explicitly endorsed this, stating when asked, according to the news agency dpa: "Yes, I think they were parasitic. The European Union has been absolutely terrible to us on trade, terrible." Goldberg had quoted US Vice President JD Vance as saying: "I just hate to bail out Europe again." Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had agreed with him, saying, "I fully share your disgust with European mooching. This is TERRIBLE."

(mho)