Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic has released the full message chain from the Signal group chat he was erroneously included in with Vice President JD Vance, a chain he claimed included “precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing” of a planned attack on Houthi rebels who’ve been terrorizing crucial shipping lanes in the Middle East from their base in Yemen.

By reading the entire chain (which is included at the end of this post) it’s clear that his claim is inflated at best. 

Goldberg was added to the chain by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz’s account on March 11, and at the time the disappearing messages feature was set to one week. So, he had to have screenshotted the messages before they disappeared on the 18th. On March 12, Waltz told the group:

You should have a statement of conclusions with taskings per the President’s guidance this morning in your high side inboxes.

State and DOD, we developed suggested notification lists for regional Allies and partners.

Joint Staff is sending this am a more specific sequence of events in the coming days and we will work w/DOD to ensure COS, OVP, and POTUS are briefed.

So, obviously there were more complete and detailed plans that were not shared in this message chain.

At that point in the chain Vice President Vance weighed in with his thoughts about the advisability of the strike and discussion ensued.

Then on Saturday morning, about 31 minutes before the strike was launched, Hegseth sent the group a timeline for the mission:

1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)

1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)

1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)

1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.

MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)

We are currently clean on OPSEC

Godspeed to our Warriors.

That’s it. Where did the F-18s launch from? How many were there? Who was the target? What was his “Known Location”? What are the earlier “Trigger Based” targets? That information was undoubtedly in the actual attack plan, which this obviously was not.

After the strikes there was a message from Waltz with a brief damage assessment, directed to Vance:

After a few minutes, Vance replied, “What?” Waltz clarified:

“Typing too fast. The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.”

Hegseth informs the group that strikes will be ongoing for hours still and that a full initial report would be provided the next day, something not clear from the alleged “war plan” shared before F-18s took off – and then the group goes silent.

Other than those snippets, the rest of the conversation (there’s not much of it) is just a round of congratulations.

As Hans Mahncke, attorney and author of “Swiftboating America,” wrote on X:

That was a lie. What he’s actually released—something he could have shared from the start—is not a “war plan.” There are no names, no specific targets or locations, and no coordinates. It basically just says some F-18s will strike a terrorist somewhere today.

Waltz responded to the release on X:

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.

— Mike Waltz (@MikeWaltz47) March 26, 2025

Read the entire chain here.

 Signal Message Thread about Houthis with Jeffrey Goldberg  by  Jennifer Van Laar 

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