Here are the Signal chat ‘war plans’ Donald Trump insists aren’t classified

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth detailed the time, weapons and target of a US military operation before it took place (Picture: Reuters/REX)

‘War plans’ shared by top Trump officials on an infiltrated Signal group chat have been published for the first time.

Ever since Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg revealed he’d accidentally been included in a group chat where plans for air strikes against Houthi militias were discussed, Trump’s team has denied the information was ‘classified’.

‘Nobody was texting war plans’, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump himself weighed in to say: ‘It wasn’t classified information.’

But the messages, published today by The Atlantic, tell a different story.

Opening the chat, national security adviser Mike Waltz said he was ‘establishing a principles group for coordination on Houthis’.

The Houthis are an Iran-backed militia in Yemen, from where they have been launching missiles against US ally Israel and western shipping through the Red Sea.

The Trump administration released this clip of a navy ship firing missiles at the Houthis after the mission was complete (Picture: US Central Command/Reuters)

In the chat, Hegseth, Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, discussed whether to move ahead with air strikes against the Houthis in order reopen shipping lanes. They agreed.

Then came almost minute-by-minute detail of US military operations on March 15.

‘Weather is favourable’, Hegseth said at 11.44am. ‘Just CONFIRMED w/ CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.’

In half an hour, he said, F-18 fighter jets would set off to launch a strike on a ‘target terrorist’ two hours after his message was sent.

By 2.15pm, more F-18s would have been dispatched, and drones would be ‘definitely’ dropping bombs, he told the group.

‘I will say a prayer for victory’, Vance replied.

Air strikes have continued since the initial plans were revealed (Picture: EPA)

Pete Hegseth’s messages revealing plans to hit the Houthis (Picture: The Atlantic)

Later, Waltz revealed the ‘first target’ – the Houthis’ ‘top missile guy’ – had walked into a building before it collapsed from the US military’s first strike.

But it may not have gone to plan had Goldberg been ‘someone hostile to American interests—or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media’, the journalist wrote in The Atlantic today.

Maybe, as Trump’s team says, the information revealed to Goldberg wasn’t classified’, but this could have meant ‘the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds’.

Goldberg said: ‘The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.’

Dr Steve Hewitt, an expert in American security and intelligence at the University of Birmingham, was stunned when he first read the Signal messages.

Members of the chat celebrated upon receiving news the strikes were successful (Picture: The Atlantic)

He told Metro: ‘There was a mention of one target having entered a building where his girlfriend lived.

‘That speaks to maybe even human intelligence on the ground, which then potentially could put people at risk – US agents or wherever that information came from.

‘I imagine there’s a fair bit of anger in the intelligence community in the US, because obviously secrecy is of paramount importance.

‘I’m sure if these were junior officials who had done this, they would likely be facing disciplinary action or being fired, or even potentially being prosecuted, so to see senior people do this so casually, it’s really stunning.’

Waltz has sought to downplay the significance.

Responding to the publication of the messages, he wrote on social media: ‘No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent. BOTTOM LINE: President Trump is protecting America and our interests.’

Hegseth’s response to JD Vance saying, ‘I just hate bailing Europe out again’ (Picture: The Atlantic)

The US National Security Council has confirmed the text chain ‘appears to be authentic’.

Senator Gary Peters, the most senior Democrat on the Senate security committee, said: ‘This is a flagrant failure and a huge breach of national security.

‘Our servicemembers deserve more from those in command. The carelessness of this level is simply unacceptable.’

Members of the group chat appear to be shifting the blame to Hegseth.

‘The Secretary of Defense is the original classification authority for determining whether something is classified’, CIA Director John Ratcliffe testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

‘As I’ve understood from media reports, the Secretary of Defense has said the information was not classified.’

Classified or not, it was only last month that the National Security Agencywarned employees about the ‘vulnerability’ of using Signal.

An internal bulletin said: ‘The use of Signal by common targets of surveillance and espionage activity has made the application a high value target to intercept sensitive information.’

While the messages sent on the platform are encrypted, the phones individuals use it on are susceptible to hacking.

Government-grade software like Pegasus can track keys, while phishing scams can give hackers access to devices.

Even a simple phone snatching could give access to the platform if the device is unlocked.

‘It’s just carelessness’, Hewitt told Metro. ‘I don’t know if you can call it a rookie mistake.’

Testifying before the Senate today, Gabbard said: ‘It was a mistake that a reporter was inadvertently added to a Signal chat with high-level national security principles having a policy discussion about imminent strikes against the Houthis and the effects of the strike.

‘National security adviser has taken full responsibility for this, and the National Security Council is conducting an in depth review, along with tech, technical experts working to determine how this reporter was inadvertently added to this chat.

‘The conversation was candid and sensitive, but as the president, national security adviser stated, no classified information was shared.

‘There were no sources, methods, locations or war plans that were shared. This was a standard update to the national security cabinet that was provided alongside updates that were given to foreign partners in the region.’

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