Americano: what did we learn from the war chat leaks?

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🗓️ 25 March 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

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Summary

Jeffrey Goldberg’s story in the Atlantic is so mind-blowing it’s hard to know what to say in response. It defies belief that Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, appears to have accidentally added a top journalist to a Signal messaging group with senior government officials – including the Vice President, Secretary of State, Defence Secretary and the Director of National Intelligence – to discuss top-secret military action. It boggles the brain that the people running the most powerful country on the planet, the Principals Committee of US national security no less, use childish emojis to discuss a bombing campaign which they helped co-ordinate in order to kill 53 people. It’s another painful reminder that, whether Trump or Biden is in the White House, the free world is not being led by serious people.

Deputy and US editor Freddy Gray is joined by Ben Domenech, editor-at-large of Spectator World, to discuss.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This Thursday, the 27th of March, we are hosting our Spring Statement Coffee House Shots Live.
0:05.8	Shots regulars, Michael Gove and Katie Balls, will be joined by very special guests, Lord David Frost and Lord Maurice Glassman,
0:12.2	just hours after the spring statement, or emergency budget, is announced.
0:16.8	They will be delving deeper into the measures and how they will reverberate throughout the political landscape, and this will be taking place at 7.30 at London's Cadogan Hall. To get your tickets, go to
0:26.1	www.spictator.com.com.com. We look forward to seeing you there.
0:48.1	Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics, power and prejudices.
0:54.7	It is 2025 and Donald Trump is president once again of the United States.
1:00.8	We will, of course, be following the moves of the Donald and his second administration very closely.
1:04.1	However, it won't just be politics for us this year.
1:09.5	We'll also talk a lot and cover American culture, life and the arts.
1:14.7	I should also remind you, because my producer, Natasha Natasha will not let me hear the end of it,
1:17.2	that we are on Spectator TV.
1:20.3	So head to our YouTube channel to watch that.
1:32.8	Today we are going to be talking about the extraordinary signal principles committee national security story that broke yesterday.
1:38.6	For viewers that don't know, this is about Jeffrey Goldberg, who is editor of the Atlantic,
1:49.1	and he wrote an mind-blowing, jaw-dropping, extraordinary story that was published yesterday about how he was added to a signal group on which there were, J.D. Vance, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
1:56.4	Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, Susie Wiles, Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, the Deputy Chief of Staff
2:03.6	for Policy, essentially all the most important people in the Trump administration, apart from
2:08.8	Trump, Tulsi Gabbard, I should add, Director of Intelligence, to a group. This group was
2:15.0	discussing the bombing of the hooties.
2:19.1	Jeffrey Goldberg thought it was probably a prank.
2:21.2	Jeffrey Goldberg, I should say, who is a long-term critic,
	...

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