The editor-in-chief of the Atlantic revealed Monday that he had been in a Signal group chat with top defense officials as they discussed plans for strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Jeffrey Goldberg writes that he was mistakenly added to the chat, which included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Vice President JD Vance, among others. And all of the pearl-clutching from Republicans for years about the sanctity of protecting classified data really rings hollow right about now.
Whatever you think of Hillary Clinton and the decisions she made in her campaign for president against Trump in 2016, this really does seem like her moment to shine. Clinton shared the Atlantic story on Monday with the words “you have got to be kidding me.”
👀 You have got to be kidding me.https://t.co/IhhvFvw6DG pic.twitter.com/bnNG4dGSpI
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 24, 2025
Trump was asked about the breach during a press conference on Monday and insisted it was the first time he was hearing about it.
Trump asked about his Cabinet officials including Jeffrey Goldberg on a secret war plan Signal exchange:
“I don’t 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. It’s not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it.”
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona.bsky.social) March 24, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Republicans acted like Clinton’s email server was the most important thing in the world in 2016, including Marco Rubio, the guy who’s now Donald Trump’s Secretary of State.
Last night @seanhannity asked me about the latest news regarding Hillary’s emails. This is what I had to say: pic.twitter.com/a8undb7Qkv
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 12, 2016
Hegseth himself was extremely distressed by Clinton’s handling of classified data back in 2016.
“Apparently the standard operating procedure inside the Clinton Secretary of State Office was to send emails that couldn’t otherwise be printed to the maid to print them out of a secure area or from a secure area and then hand them off,” Hegseth told Fox News before the 2016 election.
“Any security professional, military, government or otherwise, would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct and criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information,” Hegseth continued. “The fact that she wouldn’t be held accountable for this, I think blows the mind of anyone who’s held our nation’s secrets dear, who’s had a top secret clearance like I have and others who know that even one hiccup causes a problem, let alone a standard procedure.”
What do you think @petehegseth_DoD thinks should happen to people who don’t protect our military secrets? Let’s listen, shall we: pic.twitter.com/TJuJqyKqjE
— Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) March 24, 2025
Trump himself said in 2016 that he would prosecute anyone who mishandled classified information, claiming that “no one will be above the law.”
August 2016 pic.twitter.com/6Fg3sq00CW
— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) August 15, 2022
Even elected Democrats got in on the fun, ridiculing the past statements of some members of the group chat like Tulsi Gabbard. Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota shared a screenshot of Gabbard from less than two weeks ago.
Unfortunately, hypocrisy doesn’t really seem to matter much during the Trump era. It’s an odd place to be for those of us old enough to remember late 20th and early 21st century politics. Hypocrisy was something that could sink your political career. A Republican hiring an undocumented maid? Devastating in 2010. The Daily Show’s entire premise in the first decade of this century was “look at these politicians being hypocritical.”
But those times are long gone. And it doesn’t matter if Trump or anybody else in his government isn’t adhering to the standards they set in years gone by. All that matter is the exercise of power. And that’s what we’re going to be living with for as long as Trump and his goons get to run this country.
