House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) believes no one should be held accountable for Trump administration officials texting sensitive attack plans to a reporter.
On Monday, The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that Trump administration officials accidentally added him to a group text chat about strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
It was national security adviser Mike Waltz who invited Goldberg to the Signal group chat with other officials including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Trump has since come out to defend Waltz calling him a “good man” who “has learned a lesson” and Johnson is falling in line.
“They acknowledged there was an error and they’re correcting it. I don’t think someone should have lost their job over that because an errant number found their way onto a dialogue,” Johnson said, according to CNN
“The president said he has total confidence in him [Waltz], and we do as well,” he added.
Johnson did not say if there would be any congressional probes, though senior Republican members told CNN they do not expect any investigations to take place.
Over in the Senate, Republicans were similarly repeating talking points and dismissing the seriousness of the matter.
“I think the White House has acknowledged mistakes were made,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said. “I think … they’ll have to figure out now how to ensure that something like this never happens again. But you know, clearly there were errors in judgment.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) called the chat “a mistake that’s been corrected right now,” adding that he doesn’t believe Waltz should step down.
As Republicans shrug, Goldberg underscored the dangers of the Trump administration’s incompetence in an interview on Monday night saying he is glad it was not someone else who was added to the chat.
“It’s interesting because as I’m reading it at 11:44 a.m. on Saturday morning, the 15th, seeing that the Houthis are not going to know about this for another couple of hours, and I know about it,” Goldberg said on MSNBC’s Inside with Jen Psaki.
“I’m thinking to myself, I mean, honestly, I’m thinking to myself, well, I’m glad that Mike Waltz didn’t invite a Houthi into the group or a Russian spy or an adversary of the United States,” he added.
