Democrats seized on the revelation that senior Trump administration officials discussed war plans in a group messaging app in an effort Monday to outflank Republicans on issues of competency and national security.
Repeatedly they called out what they saw as hypocrisy from Republicans who litigated much of the 2016 presidential campaign over Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information, evenwhile several of the nearly dozen Democratic elected and appointed officials, strategists and staffers who spoke to POLITICO were reluctant to politicize what they described as a grave national security lapse.
“Incompetence incarnate,” Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts, the Democrat and former Marine infantry platoon commander in Afghanistan, told POLITICO. “What national security and foreign policy does is it influences the trust of the electorate in the competence and strength of the governing party.”
Auchincloss likened the political ramifications of the incident to then-President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, even as one involved major military decisions and the other a discussion of war plans. He said, “His approval ratings took a 10-point hit and never recovered. I don’t think people went to the polls three years later and said, ‘I’m going to vote for Trump because of Afghanistan. But there’s no question that ended his honeymoon.’” (Asked whether this marked a similar end of Trump’s honeymoon, he said, “No,” adding that “we should be very cautious in declaring one episode that.”)
However, he said, “I think Democrats have an opportunity to be the party of national security.”
Chris Meagher, a former aide to the Biden-era Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: “They’re being sloppy with America’s national security.”
Doug Wilson, a former Pentagon public affairs official who has advised several Democratic presidential candidates, called it “amateur hour with the safety and security of our troops.”
Democrats have for years watched Donald Trump overcome myriad controversies and political setbacks, from the Access Hollywood tape to his refusal to accept a loss in 2020 and the riot at the Capitol in 2021. They have also long struggled to connect with voters who describe themselves as patriotic, and some Democrats cautioned the group chat episode alone would not likely reverberate for long beyond Washington.
But as they reacted to the shocking revelation on Monday, many Democrats — particularly those with military backgrounds and connections to the national security apparatus — were framing it in a broader narrative of dysfunction and hypocrisy by Trump.
“He called for the most severe punishment of Hillary Clinton for inappropriate email practices. You know what Hillary Clinton didn’t do? Post war plans on her email,” said Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Amid the chaotic opening to Trump’s administration, Himes said the Signal chat happened in the larger context of the “the American people learning what happens when you anarchically upset the apple cart.” Among the examples: “The people who look after our nuclear weapons get fired. Stupidity around tariffs takes 10 percent off of your 401(K).”
And now, he said, “Government is a deadly serious thing, and what we saw on these Signal threads were what you would expect if the brothers of Sigma Chi were running our national security.”
Early Monday, the Atlantic published a bombshell report that top Trump administration officials had included Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg in a private chat discussing a military strike on Houthis.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin called the group of Trump administration officials involved “incompetent people,” while former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who served six years as a Navy intelligence officer, told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins the administration that “this is part of a bigger pattern, right? The sloppiness and the incompetence.”
“Nobody in Donald Trump’s family is on a ship in the Mediterranean,” Buttigieg said. “Nobody in Elon Musk’s family is at risk from the kinds of economic or security arms that are going on here. They think all of this is a joke or a game, because these are incredibly rich, powerful men who, frankly, don’t have to worry about the kinds of things most Americans do.”
In this case, no known U.S. or allies’ lives were lost, and beyond the fate of national security adviser Michael Waltz’s job, which some White House allies are speculating is in trouble, the fallout is unclear. A spokesperson for the national security council said that the Signal chat conveys “deep and thoughtful policy coordination.”
VoteVets, a progressive veterans advocacy group, circulated a memo to Capitol Hill allies that said the incident was the “opposite of 100% OPSEC,” referring to the term “operational security,” which involves mitigating risks of exposing classified information. The memo, obtained by POLITICO, suggested “this is not a trivial matter,” and that their “decision to communicate on an unclassified messaging app puts U.S. forces at great risk.”
For her part, Clinton posted on X simply, “You have got to be kidding me.”
Some Democrats said the incident was above politics, suggesting at least some resistance to using it as a cudgel.
Freshman Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey, a former staffer to President Barack Obama’s White House National Security Council and an adviser to generals in Afghanistan, called it a “deeply scary breach of confidentiality that puts service members at risk.”
“I think we need to know exactly what’s going on and whether or not there is a constant, frequent use of unclassified phones for discussing some of the most sensitive national security issues that are out there,” he said. He also pointed to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s lack of experience. “These are the dangers when you have somebody who hasn’t operated, someone like Hegseth, who hasn’t operated in these types of leadership roles before.”
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the issue “isn’t about Republican or Democrat.” He suggested that “there’s possibly criminality involved here, and it needs to be fully investigated. And I think there are people that should be stepping down and resigning over this level of a crisis.”
It remains unclear whether the issue, like many others, will travel far beyond Washington and its digital environs. It does, after all, involve one of the most elite and rarified print glossy magazines, and its editor, who was looped into the Signal conversations.
Jason Bresler, a Democratic strategist, said the episode could play into “a waterfall effect” of news cycle after news cycle that “wears down on voters,” while Mike Nellis, a digital strategist, said Democrats “need to settle on 2-3 stories we’re telling people about how the Trump administration is hurting the American people. One of them absolutely has to be focused on how we’re less safe with these idiots texting war plans to unknown phone numbers.”
But the issue, for now, doesn’t immediately touch voters’ bank accounts, the key factor that decided the 2024 election. Instead, it involves foreign policy — an issue that doesn’t typically register among midterm voters.
“Let’s see how it plays out and how people understand it,” said Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois, who also serves on the Intel committee, “how they learn why it’s important to them that intelligence is kept secret, and why that keeps them safe.”
He added, “Eisenhower didn’t go on the telegraph and say we’re taking off on the sixth of June.”
