The White House’s group chat screwup is even more ridiculous than we thought
1 min read
Summary
The Atlantic editor, Jefferey Goldberg, was added to a secret Signal chat about a potential Yemeni military strike planned by the Trump administration, by participating officials’ smartphone Siri function.
When attempting to add Trump campaign spokesperson, Brian Hughes, Goldberg’s number was mistakenly added to the invite to the group chat instead.
This was a result of a contact update suggestion by Siri, which had recognised the number of the Trump spokesperson, to which Goldberg’s number had been forwarded.
Goldberg had originally emailed the campaign about a critical story regarding Trump’s attitude to wounded service people, and as a result the national security advisor was enlisted to push back.
After the story was leaked, the White House reportedly said that the “contact suggestion update” by Waltz’s iPhone was the reason for the leak.