The editor of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg slammed national security adviser, Mike Waltz for lying about never meeting him prior to mistakenly adding him to a Signal group chat where national security officials discussed sensitive military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
Waltz claimed he has “never met” Goldberg, wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a police lineup and called the reporter “the bottom scum of journalists.”
However, photos emerged on Wednesday showing Waltz and Goldberg at an event at the French Embassy in 2021.
Another explanation Waltz gave for how Goldberg ended up in the Signal chat with top Trump administration national security officials is that his number was somehow “sucked in” to his phone via another person’s contact.
In an interview on Meet the Press Sunday Goldberg accused Waltz of lying.
“This isn’t The Matrix,” Goldberg said in a clip highlighted by Mediaite. “Phone numbers don’t just get sucked into other phones. I don’t know what he’s talking about there. You know, very frequently in journalism the most obvious explanation is the explanation. My phone number was in his phone because my phone number is in his phone.”
Goldberg continued: “He’s telling everyone that he’s never met me or spoken to me. That’s just simply not true. I understand why he’s doing it. But you know, this has become a somewhat farcical situation. There’s no subterfuge here. My number was in his phone. He mistakenly added me to the group chat. There we go.”
Goldberg released the full texts from the chat last week. He said Sunday that he wished he never had to.
“The only reason I did that was because they said we were lying about what we had, and they were trying to cover up what was obviously a massive national security breach,” he said. “Journalists, I hope, operate in the public interest. The public needs to know that they don’t take national security seriously, so that’s why I put out what I did.”
