President Donald Trump said on March 25 that government officials likely will not be using the Signal messaging app after The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief was inadvertently included in a group chat with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz.
When asked about the Signal chat during remarks at the White House on March 25, Trump said: “A lot of times you find out defects by exactly things like that, but I don’t think it’s something we’re looking forward to using again.
“We may be forced to use it. You may be in a situation where you need speed as opposed to gross safety, and you may be forced to use it, but generally speaking, I think we probably won’t be using it very much.”
The fallout came after Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, alleged that he saw a discussion between Hegseth and other officials take place in a group chat he was added to in the Signal messaging app hours before strikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen ordered by Trump earlier this month.
The National Security Council has since said the text chain Goldberg reported “appears to be authentic” and that it is looking into how a journalist’s number was added to the chain.
