Fox News’ Jesse Watters blames catfishing for a major security breach
As Trump officials desperately try to excuse what happened when The Atlantic’s Editor-In-Chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was added to a Signal group chat with high-ranking officials like Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, reporters aligned with the president are defending what is arguably the biggest security blunder of the Trump administration.
When the news first broke, Fox News host Jesse Watters downplayed the Trump administration officials’ actions as an honest mistake on Jesse Watters Primetime. “Do you ever try to start a group text, you’re adding people and you accidentally add the wrong person? All of a sudden, your Aunt Mary knows all of your raunchy plans for the bachelor party,” Watters said. “Well, that kind of happened today with the Trump administration.” Later, Watters argued that “accidentally adding someone to a group text—which we’ve all done—is the new Watergate,” as if none of this has any political significance whatsoever.
“The reporter added to the text wasn’t a good guy,” Watters said of Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic journalist in question. Watters, like other Trump pundits, accused Goldberg of being a peddler of false information. To make matters worse, Watters alleged that Goldberg spoofed his way into the group chat, after National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, the man who added Goldberg to the chat, suggested that was what had happened.
Watters spared the Trump officials from even more criticism and made the issue seem illegitimate and partisan. He essentially accused the journalist added to the chat of catfishing. Shouldn’t the country’s National Security Advisor be able to sniff out a ploy like that?
“Journalists like Goldberg sometimes send out fake names with the contact with their cells to deceive politicians,” Watters said. “This wouldn’t surprise me if Goldberg sneaked his way in — he’s the lowest of the low.” The allegation from Watters is unfounded and irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that an Editor-in-Chief from The Atlantic was mistakenly added to a highly confidential group chat and was able to read war plans against Yemeni Houthis. If other malicious parties attempted to infiltrate the group chat, the consequences against United States military personnel could have been dire.
Watters and Trump administration officials should not be blaming arbitrary factors. Trump officials also resorted to sullying Jeffrey Goldberg’s reputation instead of owning up to the security breach. All in all, Trump officials should have been on the lookout for members of the group chat given the nature of the information they were about to share. Perhaps accountability only applies when criticizing the opposition.
What many right-wing pundits and politicians don’t seem to realize is that this isn’t just about who was added to the group chat. It’s about the fact that this entire discussion was being had on a messaging app like Signal in the first place.
Accountability doesn’t apply to the Trump administration
This security issue unified people from different points of the political spectrum. Surprisingly, even the Fox News YouTube comment section was not supportive of Jesse Watters’ defense of the Trump administration. One YouTube commenter reads, “Can we call a kettle a kettle? This is a horrible mistake. Why support them blindly? It’s not going to do the country any good!”
Another social media user warned that this incident is “extremely troubling and problematic.” Essentially, Trump’s biggest TV fans are fooling nobody by denying the glaring security breach. Even other administration officials are urging those involved to “own up to it and preserve credibility.” For once, it seems, there is a level of scrutiny that even Trump’s senior officials can’t escape.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
