Journalist in the Trump -downtown Chat Chat scandal talks to the BBC

When Jeffrey Goldberg published a story of bombs that describes how some of the senior US officials had erroneously shared confidential information with him, he obtained the greatest first of the year. The Atlantic editor also became the main objective for each Trump administration official in Washington.

In recent days, President Trump called him “loser” and “sordid”, as well as a liar and “slag” of the United States National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz, who seemed to have mistakenly added Goldberg to a group conversation earlier this month.

However, before becoming a political lightning rod, Goldberg observed on his phone when the Cabinet officials, including the Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, and director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, discussed the sensitive details, the times and objectives of a future military operation in Yemen. They did not seem to notice their presence.

In an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, he told me that it all started when he received a message on his phone, through the signal messaging application publicly available, which allows users to send encrypted messages. It is popular between journalists and government officials. An account under the name of Waltz had sent him a message, which assumed it was a hoax.

“I wish there was a quality of Le Carré here, you know,” he said, referring to the late British spy novelist. “But he asked me to talk. I said yes. And the next thing I know is that I am in this very strange chat group with the national security leadership of the United States.”

As the consequences of the episode have wrapped Washington, Waltz has assumed the responsibility of erroneously adding Goldberg to the group chat, which suggests that he intended to invite someone else.

He has insisted that he never met the editor, saying: “I wouldn’t know if I ran into him, if I saw him in a police alignment.”

According to Goldberg’s story, the two have met several times, although he refused to go into details about his relationship.

“You can obviously say what you want, but I’m not commenting on my relationship or not relationship,” Goldberg told me. “As a reporter, I do not feel comfortable speaking publicly about the relationships I can or not have with people who are news manufacturers.”

Even so, one thing is clear: you must have someone’s contact information to communicate with them on the signal, so Waltz had Goldberg’s phone number. The main security advisor has said that he has asked Elon Musk, the technological billionaire and the efficiency tsar of the White House Government, who investigates how the error occurred: a movement that Goldberg ridiculed.

“Actually, are you going to put Elon Musk in the question of how someone’s phone number ends on someone’s phone? I mean, most 8 -year -old could solve it,” he said.

The biggest question? “Should, as national security officials, be doing this on your phone?” Goldberg said.

In his history of the Atlantic on Monday, the first to inform his access to the chat, Goldberg retained the precise details that were shared around the bombing mission that attacked Houthi’s rebel goals in Yemen on March 14. But Trump administration officials minimized the report, calling it a liar and challenging their claims that classified information was shared.

And so, two days later, the magazine printed full text messages, including several Hegseth that included operational details. I asked him if that was a difficult decision to make.

“Once Donald Trump said there was nothing to do here, essentially, and once Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe said there was no confidential information or classified information, etc., we felt that, HM, we do not agree,” he said. “They are saying that, and we are the ones who have text messages, so maybe people should see them.”

There are text messages in the group chat, sent before the first wave of strikes, which details exactly when the f -18 combat aircraft would take off, when the first pumps would fall on hutis objectives and when the Tomahawk missiles would be fired. Hegesh has rejected, saying that they were not “war plans” and that none of them was classified information.

President Trump expressed his support for Hegseth on Wednesday, saying he was “doing a great job” and described Goldberg as a “Sleazbag.” The White House has also tried to argue that shared information was not technically war planning.

Goldberg did not appear influenced by his insults and claims.

“If Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, is sending me text messages, telling me that the attack was about to be released in Yemen, telling me what type of plane will be used, what kind of weapons will be used, and when the bombs fall two hours after the text is received, which seems sensitive information, war planning information for me,” he said.

This is not the first time that the veteran editor has received the receptor of Trump’s wrath: in 2020 he published an article in the Atlantic where the senior military officials cited Trump as if he referred to the American soldiers fallen as “sucking” and “losers”, something that the president and his administration have strongly denied.

I asked him how he felt about vitriolic personal attacks against him, from the highest levels of the government.

“This is his movement. You never defend, he just attacks,” Goldberg said. “So I’m sitting there, occupying my own business. They invite me to this signal chat and now they are attacking me as a bag of deafness, I don’t even understand.”

Trump, until now, has been defending his national security team and does not seem inclined to fire anyone about what he is calling a “witch hunt” press. But Goldberg says that there is a generalized sensation in the White House that Waltz made a serious mistake, as well as a deeper concern about how the incident is handled.

“If you are a Captain of the Air Force, who currently works with the CIA and the State Department, and you badly handled confidential information of the way you have obviously mistreated confidential information.

He said that now there are some “rumors” among the ranges around the apparently different standards of responsibility for leaders in the Trump administration.

Goldberg did not stay in the chat for the consequences. He decided that the responsible thing was to leave the group. Some journalists have expressed disbelief that he would voluntarily come out.

But what happens will be developed in the White House and Congress, where Democratic legislators and some Republicans have demanded an investigation.

“There is a part of me that would love to see what is happening there. But there are many different problems here related to the law and ethics and all kinds of other problems in which I really can’t enter,” Goldberg said. “Believe me when I say that I made that decision with good advice from various parts.”