Messaging Guidance:

We Should All Be Outraged by the Trump Administration’s Policymaking by Group Chat

 

Background:

Yesterday, the editor in chief of the Atlantic published a shocking article explaining how he was mistakenly added to a group chat with the Trump Administration’s senior-most officials, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed highly-classified plans for a military operation hours before American service members launched strikes against a terrorist group in Yemen.

Here are six reasons why the American people should be outraged by the Trump Administration’s behavior: 

  1. Trump’s national security team is a walking national security risk. Leaking military planning — even by accident — and communicating on non-secure systems is a gift to our adversaries. It tells them what we’re thinking, what we might do, and when we might do it. That’s not just a leak. That’s a liability. And just ask yourself, what are the odds this was the first and only time that classified materials were shared in a group chat like this? More than a dozen senior officials were added to a text thread to discuss classified war plans – and not one of them chimed in to object – not even the leaders of our intelligence community.
     

  2. This behavior puts the lives of our service members at risk. Make no mistake about it, American service members could have lost their lives because of an intelligence leak like this. Hostile actors, like Iran, regularly target senior Administration officials for intelligence, and could easily have used this kind of information to target our men and women in uniform. This was a historic and unparalleled security breach – and we’re extremely fortunate that no service members lost their lives because of this Administration’s carelessness. 
     

  3. The gross incompetence and negligence on display from this administration is staggering. To say nothing of its legality, this policymaking by group chat in the presence of a member of the media is a shocking statement about the incompetence of the Trump Administration’s national security team. This is not just a “whoops” moment —  these are the people that we’ve entrusted to protect our secrets, defend our national security, and keep the American people safe from harm. These conversations should only happen in the most secure spaces. 
     

  4. The hypocrisy is off the charts. The president and his team clearly believe that they are above the laws created to keep our military and intelligence operatives safe. If a rank-and-file member of the military or intelligence community leaked highly classified materials like this, they would lose their security clearance and likely face criminal prosecution. 
     

  5. The members of the group chat have called for tough consequences for lesser acts. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz argued that there needed to be legal consequences for government officials using private servers for official business. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth argued that “any security professional – military, government, or otherwise – would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct, and criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio professed that no one was above the law and argued that “people are going to be held accountable if they broke the laws of this country.” CIA Director John Ratcliffe believes that “mishandling of classified material is still a violation of the Espionage Act.” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard argued (just last week) that “any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such. And White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller warned of the risks posed by foreign adversaries hacking personal devices to access classified operations and intelligence in real time. 
     

  6. The Trump Administration is playing politics with national security. When weighing a high-stakes military operation against terrorists overseas, the only question should be: Will this make Americans safer? Instead, Trump’s national security team — including Vice President JD Vance — focused on partisan optics. Vance reportedly wanted to go soft on terrorists to send a message to Europe, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth worried that a strike on the Houthis might benefit our allies too much. Whatever happened to politics stopping at the water’s edge?

Published: March 2025