The use of emojis in a leaked Trump administration group chat discussing strikes on Houthi targets has sparked outrage, with accusations that officials made light of the sensitive topics being discussed.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine, revealed on Monday that Trump’s national security advisor Michael Waltz had – seemingly inadvertently – added him to a group chat called ‘Houthi PC small group’.
The chat appears to have served as a virtual war room for some of the President’s top team, including Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard and Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles.
Goldberg said that Hegseth shared the war plan with the group at 11.44am eastern time on Saturday March 15, two hours before the bombs began dropping on Yemen.
As news broke of the strikes, the journalist checked the group chat where he found a flurry of emojis and congratulations flooding the text chain.
Waltz updated the group at 1.48pm, saying the operation had been an ‘amazing job’ before sending three emojis a few minutes later – a fist, an American flag, and fire.
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Washington Post: Trump’s shocking military plan leak epitomizes a sloppy operation
The second Trump administration has clearly made a decision to move fast and break things. Largely gone are the establishment Republican figures and steady hands that sometimes resisted President Donald Trump during his first term. In their place are a bunch of people with less subject-matter and governmental experience but with the zeal of MAGA true believers, eager to implement Trump’s complete governmental overhaul and to bust through the traditional guardrails in the process.
The result is a very — and increasingly — sloppy first two months, by any objective measure.
The editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, was added to the string of messages on Signal, an open-source encrypted messaging service. The group included the names of prominent administration figures, such as national security adviser Michael Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, all strategizing about the impending attacks.
The messages were sent before the strikes began last weekend and previewed almost precisely when they ultimately took place.
Trump’s shocking military plan leak epitomizes a sloppy operation