Why Signalgate Is Breaking Through: Incompetence, Hypocrisy, & Recklessness
This scandal succinctly encapsulates so much of what is wrong with the Trump Admin and showcases the risks that come from the hypocrisy, incompetence, and recklessness of their actions.
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Last week, the most stunning operational security (OPSEC) misstep in modern history was revealed.
It also happened to be a week I was on a pre-wedding vacation to Jamaica with my fiancée. What luck! While I did post some thoughts on the scandal, I’m a little late in publishing a full article on it. But since then, there’s been some new polling released that makes clear this scandal, which is being called “Signalgate,” is really breaking through to Americans.
A new CBS News/YouGov poll conducted between March 27-28 found that 75% of Americans say that this Signal messaging scandal is very or somewhat serious. 76% of Americans, including 56% of Republicans, say that using the Signal messaging app to discuss military plans was “not appropriate.” A standalone YouGov poll conducted on March 25, consisting of 6,000 respondents, found similar results, with 74% of U.S. adults, including 60% of Republicans, saying that the Signal chat was a “serious problem.”
There’s a reason this is breaking through. This is an easily understandable scandal for the public, and it encapsulates so much of what is wrong with the Trump Administration and its approach to politics. Few scandals so succinctly showcase the risks that come from the hypocrisy, incompetence, and recklessness of the Trump Administration.
As a quick refresher, the highest levels of the Trump Administration coordinated strikes on the Houthis in Yemen over Signal, a privately owned chat app. That, in my opinion, is bad enough, but what made it rise to a new level of OPSEC disaster is the fact that National Security Advisor Michael Waltz accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg, the Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic, to the chat, who witnessed the entire exchange of highly classified information.
Hegseth sent messages with specific strike times and descriptions of conditions on the ground, hours before the strikes even happened. Contrary to the Trump Administration’s later claims that there was no classified info shared, the truth is the chat was as sensitive as you can get. CNN confirmed that the information in Hegseth’s messages was highly classified at the time he sent them.
The chat included Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, DNI Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff - who was literally in Moscow while the group chat was active. As the flurry of messages was sent, not a single person stepped up and said the exchange or the use of Signal was wrong. Instead, they sent emojis and celebrated the strikes. It appeared this was not their first time using Signal for conversations of this nature.
After the initial report by Goldberg dropped last Monday, the Trump Administration jumped into disinformation mode. Hegseth said, “Nobody was texting war plans.” Ratcliffe and Gabbard told the Senate that there was no classified material shared in the Signal chat. Trump also said, “It wasn’t classified information.”
Since the Trump Administration now claimed there wasn’t any classified information in the chat, The Atlantic brilliantly read that as a green light to publish the full chat thread.
The chats made it incredibly clear that the Trump Administration was lying, and proved Hegseth sent specific strike times that could’ve put American pilots at risk. The Trump Administration is lucky, frankly, that they added Goldberg, who didn’t disclose the strike info immediately. If someone associated with Russian or Iranian intelligence services was added to the chat, they could’ve given a warning to the Houthis and triggered air defense systems. Or if a journalist of lesser character got hold of it, this strike info could’ve been publicized before the attack.
The OPSEC misstep was bad enough. How the Trump Administration handled its aftermath made it even worse.
After this bombshell story dropped, the Trump Administration came up with all sorts of gaslighting deflections, calling it a “hoax.” Michael Waltz went on the Ingraham Angle and tried to falsely claim that Jeffrey Goldberg might have nefariously found his way into the Signal chat, in spite of the screenshot showing Waltz added him. Some right-wing figures attempted to claim that the chat actually showcased how thoughtful the Trump Administration is when considering military strikes. Other right-wing figures went a different route, claiming that Goldberg was purposely added to the chat as part of some master plan from Trump.
The latter explanation is a classic from Trump defenders. They tend to retroactively apply 3D chess logic to the Trump Administration’s incompetent stumbles. The Trump Administration will trip over their own feet, spill shit everywhere, get up, point at the mess, and say, ‘Look at that totally planned work of art.’
When it comes to these dubious defenses, Ezra Klein put it well in a post on X: “The administration's response to the Signal debacle is just suffused with contempt for their own voters. Just an endless belief that the people who support them can be tricked into believing the laziest misdirection imaginable.”
Luckily, members of the mainstream media are not giving credence to the lies, and Democrats have not let the Trump Administration off easily.
In multiple hearings last week, Senate and House Democrats went hard on Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe. They appropriately treated this like the massive OPSEC scandal it is, applied the right amount of pressure, and asked the right questions. The question now is, how will they follow up on this scandal?
At the moment, there is still a somewhat bipartisan concern among lawmakers, with Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) and ranking member Jack Reed (D-RI) asking the Pentagon Inspector General to investigate the Signal chat. Senator James Lankford (R-OK) also supported an inspector general investigation. That movement is a recognition of how bad Signalgate is.
Signalgate comes as the Trump Administration is seeking to unlawfully dismantle congressionally created agencies, fire thousands of federal workers, and incompetently implement Project 2025.
President Trump wants absolute power, but has absolutely no discipline.
This scandal has landed so hard because it so thoroughly showcases the ridiculousness of the Trump Administration.
The Trump Administration is currently facing mounting criticism about the incompetent manner in which it’s gone about gutting the federal government. As I’ve repeatedly said, one of the biggest obstacles to Trump’s authoritarian ambitions is his own administration’s incompetence.
Signalgate fits right within that criticism. The Trump Administration has once again handed Democrats an easy mechanism through which to highlight the fact that this administration is careless and moves without regard for the consequences of its actions. They have unqualified appointees in positions that shape world affairs.
Signalgate also highlights their hypocrisy in undeniable ways.
The Trump Administration is currently in the process of firing thousands of federal employees under the guise of upholding merit, while his Defense Secretary and National Security Advisor made mistakes anyone with basic OPSEC training could’ve warned them against.
You couldn’t make up a more perfect scandal that displays the Trump Administration’s unfitness for office in a way Americans understand. And, hilariously, Americans understand it because it was the chief attack against Trump’s first political rival: Hillary Clinton.
Trump, Republicans, and the right-wing ecosystem engineered a scandal over the use of a private email server where no classified information was actually exposed. Not only have Trump officials used private emails themselves, they’ve now directly exposed highly classified war plans to a journalist in a leak that was far worse than anything Hillary Clinton was accused of.
The American public has been educated, largely by Republicans, on the importance of handling classified material with care. And now, they’ve committed one of the worst OPSEC failings of the modern era - and Americans get it.
It shows, once again, that Trumpworld bases attacks on issues they clearly do not authentically care about. And oftentimes, accuse their political targets of the very behavior they themselves are guilty of.
Signalgate also shows the limitations of the Trump Administration’s “admit no fault, deflect, lie, and attack” messaging approach. This was such an indisputable mistake that even some diehard MAGA supporters have been speaking out and saying the administration should just admit fault and move on instead of gaslighting the public.
Overall, Signalgate was a reminder that this is not an invincible administration on an uninterrupted march to ultimate power. While their authoritarian ambitions are certainly scary, they’re also very careless, and their incompetent stumbles distract them from their true objectives.
This is not a well-oiled machine, folks. And the opposition needs to exploit the cracks in their systems.
“Hands Off” protests Saturday! Thanks for the wrap up, Ahmed. Soon come as they say in Jamaica.
Thanks, Ahmed, and mazel tov to you and your beloved!