The discrepancies in comments by Donald Trump and other members of his administration about the compromised Signal war chat continued Wednesday, with the president now saying he didn’t know whether the message chain contained classified information.
Asked in the White House Wednesday night whether he still believes none of the content was classified, Trump didn’t exactly support his prior statement.
“Well, that’s what I’ve heard,” he said. “I don’t know. I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask the various people involved. I really don’t know.”
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In a Newsmax interview that aired Tuesday night, Trump had seemed more sure that no classified information had been shared.
“Now, it wasn’t classified, as I understand it,” he said. “There was no classified information. There was no problem, and the attack was a tremendous success. So I can only go by what I’ve been told. I wasn’t involved in it, but I was told by—and the other people weren’t involved at all. But I feel very comfortable, actually.”
Earlier Wednesday, The Atlantic published previously withheld portions of the chat from the commercial messaging app in which Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth revealed the timeline of planned strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen and the type of aircraft involved.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified to Congress Tuesday that no classified information had been shared. Yet veteran national security officials say otherwise.
“This information was clearly taken from the real-time order of battle sequence of an ongoing operation. It is highly classified and protected,” former CIA paramilitary officer and Marine Corps veteran Mick Mulroy told The Washington Post.
Mulroy, a Marine veteran who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East in the first Trump administration, added: “Next to nuclear and covert operations, this information is the most protected.”
Trump’s public statements about the fiasco have not only been at odds with his own words, but those of others in the administration.
During his Newsmax interview Tuesday, Trump made a comment contradicting National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who Goldberg says invited him into the Signal chat.
While Waltz denied to Fox News that a staffer had been responsible for adding Goldberg, Trump placed blame on “somebody that was with Mike Waltz, worked for Mike Waltz at a lower level.”
Trump also insisted Wednesday that Hegseth “had nothing to do with this,” even though it was he who revealed detailed strike plans.
And in yet another instance of mixed messaging from the administration over the fiasco, Hegseth continued to deny texting about war plans as late as Wednesday afternoon.
“One more time... I see war plans every single day. No one is texting war plans,” he wrote on X.
The White House National Security Council, however, confirmed the message chain’s authenticity on Monday—more than 48 hours ago.
Some Democrats have since called on Hegseth to resign.
“Pete Hegseth is a f---ing liar. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could’ve gotten our pilots killed,” Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth said. “He needs to resign in disgrace immediately.”
