Pete Hegseth and Jeffrey Goldberg's Meet Cute

Who Hasn't Sent a Sensitive Text to the Wrong Person? I Have. And I Know How to Turn it Into a Success

I am pretty excited about this Pete Hegseth and Jeffery Goldberg meet cute.

It started on March 15, when National Security Advisor Michael Waltz started a text chain on Signal, which is the free secure communication app I use to talk to my wife about my mom. It is not the one the Department of Defense uses. Not even to talk about each other’s moms.

This text thread, called “Houthi PC small group” include Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice-President J.D. Vance, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and CIA director John Ratcliffe. It also accidentally invited Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic. Then they discussed “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying and attack sequencing. To a journalist.

Not to brag, but I’ve got two emails for Jeffery Goldberg and have never accidentally emailed him. Though, based on his reaction to my story pitches, he might have thought so.

I do, however, text people by accident all the time. I receive them accidentally too. And it leads to surprising results. Which I suspect will happen with Hegseth and Goldberg.