Trump’s Strategy for Signal Chat Fallout: Attack, Attack, Attack
Category: News & Politics
Via: hallux • 3 weeks ago • 18 commentsBy: Tarini Parti, Alex Leary and Josh Dawsey - WSJ
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON—The White House is going to war over war plans , dusting off a familiar playbook that President Trump has used for decades to blunt controversies: attack, attack, attack.
The president, senior advisers and top cabinet officials launched a campaign to dismiss one of the biggest crises of Trump’s second term, as Washington grappled with the news that top administration national security officials discussed sensitive military operations on a nongovernment message app that included a prominent magazine editor.
Trump has privately expressed frustration about the incident, people familiar with his thinking said, but he has made a strategic decision to paper over his annoyance and cede no ground in public. Instead, he has attacked the credibility of the Atlantic magazine and its editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, long a target of Trump’s ire . And he has played down concerns from former administration officials, Democrats and some Republicans that the episode exposed serious national security vulnerabilities .
“It’s all a witch hunt,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “There was no harm done because the attack was unbelievably successful,” he added. “And that’s the thing that you should be talking about.”
The circle-the-wagons strategy is the same one Trump has used in past moments of crisis, dating back to his days as a real-estate developer in New York: Keep the fire aimed at the media, deny wrongdoing and raise questions about the validity of the allegations.
Trump has long been confident in his ability to weather controversy, including the discovery of an NBC “Access Hollywood” tape late in the 2016 presidential campaign, in which Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals. He outlasted an investigation into alleged Russia ties to his campaign, two impeachments and numerous other scandals and personnel clashes. His comeback victory last November has given him a renewed self-assuredness and a willingness to test the limits of power, people close to him said—all with a mostly compliant GOP.
The president decided on Monday afternoon not to fire national security adviser Mike Waltz, who started the Signal chat and inadvertently invited Goldberg, administration officials said. But Trump privately viewed the incident as one of the first setbacks of his administration, according to the officials.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was particularly frustrated by the incident, a person with direct knowledge of his thinking said, partially because he believes the administration shouldn’t have been discussing such sensitive matters on Signal . Rubio was part of the Signal chat, though he stressed to reporters Wednesday he didn’t share sensitive information. “Someone made a big mistake” in adding Goldberg to the chat, Rubio said, in comments that appeared to go further than other administration officials. The State Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
But the president and his top advisers have largely been in lockstep in public.
Top administration officials seized on the Atlantic’s word choice to dismiss its reporting. The magazine, in its Monday story, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had shared “war plans” in the Signal group . Wednesday’s follow-up story described them as “attack” plans.
Goldberg, in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday, said the administration was playing a “semantic game.” The Atlantic said it decided to publish detailed texts of the chat after the administration said nothing that was discussed was classified—an assertion disputed by outside experts and former national security officials, including defense secretaries and generals.
In a testy exchange with reporters on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt characterized the Signal messages as a “sensitive policy discussion,” but maintained no classified material was disclosed. Trump, she added, has “great trust” in his national security team.
The National Security Council on Tuesday announced it was conducting a review of the incident. In past years, such a breach would likely have given rise to a separate and more thorough investigation by the FBI and Justice Department’s national security division to assess the extent of the potential harm and whether any laws were violated. But top Justice Department officials appear not to be mounting such an inquiry.
“We will continue to do our job, while the media does what it does best: peddle hoaxes,” Hegseth tweeted Wednesday, using a favorite word of the president, who has dismissed past investigations into him as hoaxes.
Hegseth, who sent sensitive details of the strike in the Signal chat, used a similar strategy to get confirmed as defense secretary, overcoming accusations of sexual assault and drinking and concerns about his lack of experience. The former Fox News host aggressively pushed back against the accusations as politically motivated “anonymous smears.” His campaign to defend himself persuaded Trump, who had considered replacing him, to double down on his nomination.
While some in the administration viewed Hegseth as responsible for sharing the most sensitive information in the Signal chat, Trump hasn’t directed his anger at Hegseth, according to people familiar with the matter. “Hegseth is doing a great job,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday.
The controversy has led to finger-pointing inside the administration, with some officials privately blaming a White House staffer for creating the Signal group, according to people familiar with the matter, though Waltz has publicly accepted responsibility for it.
The lack of clarity from Waltz on how Goldberg was added to the Signal thread and the White House’s decision not to provide detailed answers to reporters’ questions could prolong the fallout from the incident.
“The Trump administration is very good at taking a situation that is messy for them and making it even messier,” said Chris Meagher, a Biden administration Pentagon spokesman who criticized the current administration for its handling of sensitive war information in an unclassified setting.
The limits of the administration’s deflection strategy became apparent as some Republicans and Trump allies pushed back against their approach. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.), a Trump ally and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, challenged Hegseth’s comments calling the Atlantic story a hoax. “Like, what’s the hoax?” Cramer said. “Own it. It happened. And say it’ll never happen again. It’s an inappropriate platform for discussing highly sensitive information.”
Even outside Washington, influential Trump backers such as Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy called on Trump to hold an administration official accountable for the inclusion of a journalist in the Signal chat. “Somebody has to go down for this,” he said.
As concerns about the White House’s response continued to grow, Trump moved to the next part of his crisis playbook: changing the subject. During a Wednesday afternoon event that the White House added to his schedule, Trump said he would impose 25% tariffs on global auto imports to the U.S.
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lie and deny, lie and deny. blame it all on the other guy ...
Meh, the grammar sucked and was cross-polinating with abysmal mirth-i-ness.
that'll teach you not to mock the mentally handicapped ...
Ah ... that's why I get so many tickets. I should be outta here once tptb figure out all of my comments are self-mocking.
“The world is made for people who aren't cursed with self-awareness” ~Annie Savoy in ‘Bull Durham’
It’s interesting how nobody has mentioned how this “anti-war” administration, that reportedly just wants to stop the killing, dropped bombs in civilian neighborhoods killing dozens of people just to get the one or two combatants they were aiming for. Women, children, innocents - doesn’t matter to Trump, unless they’re Russian, of course. He’s got a soft spot for his true comrades.
I was thinking about that the other day
It's called the Clinton playbook. Democrats have been using it for 30 years. Nice to see some Democrats are finally able to recognize it.
Just amazing how often Republicans copy the 'antics' of Democrats all the while trashing them.
That's because they have no imagination. It's monkey see monkey do with them. But when the democrats play these games they get all bent out of shape and demand investigations and heads to roll. And they never see that they are doing the exact same thing they castigated the democrats for
It’s how some of them are programmed.
So we're back to the Witch Hunt of 2017-2021
'The Residence' on Netflix is a fun break from all the nonsense.
I will check it out.
"Electric State" is a good movie for draining your brain
Watched and enjoyed it! Mr Peanut was great.
So did I!