The Signal Scandal Is Bad. But Team Trump Is Making It Worse

on Mar 27, 2025

SAN DIEGO -- They say the cover-up can be worse than the crime. And in politics, the spin can do more damage than the scandal.

At this point, what needs to happen next really isn't that difficult.

If the Trump administration would simply acknowledge -- even in gutless Beltway speak -- that "mistakes were made" and offer assurances that said mistakes won't happen again, they could stop the bleeding and move on from a scandal involving the reckless sharing of what military experts say was classified information on a massive group chat that took place on a less-than-secure messaging app.

But, after more than 35 years of covering politics at every level, I can you that it almost never works out that way. Instead -- in a familiar pattern where political scandals are concerned -- a group of stubborn and arrogant chuckleheads who are convinced they're so much smarter than the rest of us, despite all evidence to the contrary, have decided to try to talk their way out of the speeding ticket.

"Well, officer, it really depends on what the definition of the word 'speeding' is..."

At present, Trump supporters have huevos rancheros on their faces because the administration's crack team of supposedly superqualified, non-DEI national security hires was revealed to be a clown car full of incompetents who converse in locker room lingo and like to use technology even though they don't understand how it works.

Eighteen top administration officials -- most of them white men, whose competency was mistakenly taken as a given during the hiring or confirmation process -- screwed up royally. Their failures have unfolded like a three-act play.

In Act I, they knowingly shared during a group chat on Signal -- a less-than-secure messaging app that the Chinese and Russians can crack open like a pinata, internet security experts tell us -- what appear to be classified war plans about imminent bombings of targets in Yemen that mattered to Houthi rebels who have attacked U.S. vessels in the Red Sea with dozens of missiles and drones.

The "Houthi PC small group" included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, the White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and others.

"PC" stands for principals committee. In Washington speak, "principals" means big shots.

Because of the convenience provided by these messaging apps for group chats, we can assume that this wasn't the first time an administration "small group" had the big idea to use Signal this way.

In Act II, amateur hour expanded its audience when -- according to Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Magazine -- Waltz sent him an invitation to the group chat. Maybe it was by accident. Or maybe it was on purpose. We may never know which.

However, it is significant to note that Goldberg has been a vocal critic of both Trump administrations and that the president obviously holds the journalist in low regard. In fact, after Goldberg printed an account of how he found himself on the group chat, Trump accused the magazine editor of peddling hoaxes and falsehoods.

So if Waltz was, for whatever reason, going to invite a journalist into the group chat, Goldberg would seem to be an odd choice. Administration officials might take a look at Waltz's phone to see what other liberal journalists the national security adviser is chummy with.

Once Goldberg was on the chat, Hegseth shared with the group the war plan for the attack on the Houthis.

Finally, in Act III, failure is an orphan. No one wants to take responsibility for the security breach. The president and the principals are employing the same strategy to scuttle the story. They've all boarded the "D train": deny, dodge, deflect, demean, dismiss.

Instead of clearing this up, so we can move on, Team Trump is making matter worse and acting guilty by playing silly semantic games. Was what Hegseth shared really a "war plan" or more like a "battle plan"? Was the information really "classified," or merely "sensitive"?

After White House officials claimed that nothing shared with Goldberg was classified, the journalist decided to release -- on The Atlantic's website -- the full transcript of what appeared in the group chat so that readers could make their own determination.

Already, this much is clear: Hegseth and Waltz should resign or be fired. There are rules for handling classified material, and they broke them. That's the reality. And no amount of spin can change it.

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To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.