The White House is setting the record straight after the administration of President Donald Trump suffered its first real PR calamity of the president’s second term.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, took to social media to provide an impassioned explanation of the text message snafu that has captured national attention.
For the unaware, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, made waves on Monday when he published a stunning report claiming that he had been added to what should have been a private text chain discussing military action in Yemen, targeting Houthis.
Goldberg obviously shouldn’t have been privy to those conversations.
The story took on a life of its own, with many outlets — particularly those like CNN or MSNBC — having a field day at the expense of those involved in the security breach, such as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, per the New York Post.
Now, Leavitt wants to set the record straight, and it’s important enough where she’s skipping over her usual White House media scrums and going straight to people directly on social media.
You can view her blistering X response to Goldberg’s article below:
Jeffrey Goldberg is well-known for his sensationalist spin. Here are the facts about his latest story:
1. No “war plans” were discussed.
2. No classified material was sent to the thread.
3. The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different…
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) March 25, 2025
Is this messaging incident troubling?
First, Leavitt questioned the editor’s integrity, saying, “Jeffrey Goldberg is well-known for his sensationalist spin.”
She then laid out “the facts about his latest story.”
First, Leavitt argued that “[n]o ‘war plans’ were discussed,” which direct disputes Goldberg’s headline: “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.”
Second, Leavitt emphasized that “[n]o classified material was sent to the thread.”
Finally, Leavitt said, the “White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible. As the National Security Council stated, the White House is looking into how Goldberg’s number was inadvertently added to the thread.”
Leavitt ended her X post by stressing that — while, yes, this wasn’t a good look for the Trump administration — people should ultimately be focusing on the end results of the non-“war plans.”
“Thanks to the strong and decisive leadership of President Trump, and everyone in the group, the Houthi strikes were successful and effective,” she posted. “Terrorists were killed and that’s what matters most to President Trump.”
Indeed, Trump seems positively unbothered by the entire situation, even making light of it with a Truth Social post by sharing a joke from Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk and The Babylon Bee.
In the post, Trump shared an image of Musk responding to the Bee, with both poking fun at The Atlantic’s readership.
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