Pete Hegseth, President Trump's secretary of defense, inadvertently included the top editor of The Atlantic in a Signal text chat group revealing the U.S.'s attack plans on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

Few journalists would presume, however, that the ideal leaker might, in fact, be the head of the U.S. Armed Services. That appears to have been what happened, when the U.S. Secretary of Defense and former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth reportedly texted detailed operational war plans to the head editor of The Atlantic.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth again on Tuesday dodged questions about whether the information he put in a Signal group chat was classified. In Hawaii, he repeated almost word for word his short statement from the day before that “nobody’s texting war plans.”

The administration has downplayed the importance of the text messages inadvertently sent to The Atlantic’s editor in chief.