Dan Mitchinson: US correspondent on Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg accidentally being texted Yemen attack plans

US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says the Defence Secretary should be fired over texting war plans in a group chat.

Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to a Signal group chat where Pete Hegseth posted plans for attacks in Yemen - two hours beforehand.

Jeffries says that threatened national security, and likely violated the law.

US correspondent Dan Mitchinson says President Trump has attempted to downplay the incident.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dan Manchison's at US correspondent with US Now. Dan, Good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey Ryan, good afternoon.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
So Mike, how's this going down?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
This?

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You know, one day it didn't happen that you know,
the Atlantic is this evil media outlet, and then today
full responsibility.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Right, And I'm quite surprised that he came and he
raised his hand so quickly because I mean, like you said,
this is potentially classified information and appeared in this group
chat about the military strikes, and a journalist was included
in that chat. And like you mentioned too, I mean,
how do you get that phone number in without checking
on it? I mean that'd be like sending up well,
you know, not a picture to somebody that you didn't

(00:38):
mean to send it to. But obviously this was and
President President Trump came out and said, well, you know what,
this was a learning lesson. So just a short time ago,
Michael Waltz, as you just heard, came out and said,
you know, okay, that was me. I take responsibility. And
it's interesting because they used Signal, which is this encrypted

(00:59):
messaging platform, but it's a commercial app I mean, something
anybody can get and it's not approved for classified information.
So that's kind of a head scratch. I mean, who
would approve using something like this?

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, absolutely, you kind of Russia of a great to
ceasefire in the black seat, But these conditions, right Russia
line are going to do it if they dropped some
of the sanctions.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, they wanted a lot of the restrictions that we've
put on, and we've been the US on fertilizer and
food and the banks lifted by the US. I don't
know if it's going to get to that point. However,
earlier today the presidential reporters, he was looking at all
the conditions, at all the options. He says, quote, we're
thinking about them. And then you've got Zelenski who's accusing
Russia of trying to deceive mediators because he says they

(01:40):
keep adding new terms. He said, they're already trying to
twist the agreements and deceive both the mediators on the
whole world. And then I mean, the US in these
two countries have agreed to band strikes against a lot
of the facilities over there. But it seems like these
terms and conditions are getting longer and maybe a little
bit more complicated. But I I guess that's to be

(02:01):
expected when you now have three countries trying to broke
a deal like this.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah. Hey, the AP hitting to court to try and
get their access to the White House reinstated. Have I
got this wrong? Or is AP still allowed to the
White House press briefings but just not allowed to the
Oval office In other areas.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Well, they can be on the grounds of the White House,
but they can't go into the press briefings. If the
President flies to let's say, Georgia, they're not going to
fly on Air Force one. They have to pay their
own way, which is what they're doing right now. And
what people have to realize is the AP has provided
as a news source for hundreds of millions of people
around the world. They've got print in digital and video

(02:41):
and audio for decades and decades, and now you have
a White House who is saying, well, you don't agree
with us, so we're banning you from covering us. And
this sets a very bad precedent because you're bowing before
the White House or you get kicked out, or you
don't get called on by the Press secretary, which we've
seen in previous administrations. But the bottom line is the
government favoring certain news organizations over others is part of,

(03:03):
as many people have said over here, the authoritarian playbook,
and you just don't want to go down that.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Road, all right, Dan, Thank you very much for that.
Dan Medison, our US correspondent. For more from Hither Duplessy
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