Increasingly desperate Trump attempts to downplay huge security leak and his staff’s criminal incompetence

Donald Trump has suffered what we in the journalism business like to call “a bit of a whoopsie”. Yesterday it was revealed that national security advisor Mike Waltz had set up a Signal group to discuss impending military strikes on Yemen, in which the likes of Pete Hegseth, JD Vance, Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard, and various intelligence officials gathered to discuss the locations and timings of the attacks.

Sure, it’s a little odd to discuss critical and extremely secret military tactics over a messaging app, but it appears Waltz made a classic texting oopsie by inadvertently adding the wrong person to the group. Unfortunately for him, said person was editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg, who was then privy to highly confidential information that could have endangered the lives of service personnel.

Trump notoriously hates the appearance of incompetence and being made to look silly, so you can guarantee he hit the Oval Office ceiling when he discovered that Goldberg – a journalist he considers a personal enemy – was handed a scoop on a silver platter that deeply embarrasses the White House. Waltz, Hegseth, Vance and others are doubtless getting the hairdryer treatment as he chews them out for their stupidity.

All of which makes his official response on TruthSocial all the more pathetic. This is objectively one of the most humiliating moments in recent intelligence history and will have the Chinese and Russians giggling in the playground at the USA. So, what’s his response? To not only retweet a Babylon Bee article, but to retweet the terrible Elon Musk reposting of it:

To be fair, the Babylon Bee’s original post is objectively a joke, even if it is a frantic attempt to save face. Elon Musk recycling their joke in a much less funny way was unnecessary, but pretty much par for the course for the Most Embarrassing Man Online (2020 to present). But it reveals that the Trump administration’s official response to the situation will be a rictus grin and a stammered “N-no big deal! Hah, you uh, actually took that seriously? Jokes on you… heh”.

Sadly for everyone involved – but particularly the group organizer Mike Waltz – the incident seems to have been a massive breach of the Espionage Act, represents a jaw-droppingly casual attitude to national security, the disappearing messages violate federal records law, and may well have given foreign intelligence services a free pass to the highest echelons of American power.

The Trump White House’s first tactic is to downplay the incident, with those involved likely praying for something big to come along and change the news cycle. However, as this incident personally humiliates the Trump administration and by extension makes Donald Trump himself look bad, those involved may actually face some consequences.

Today the United States looks like a clown to the rest of the world but strap in folks, because that’s going to happen so many times over the next four years you should buy stock in big red nose companies and absurdly outsized shoe manufacturers.