Jeffrey Goldberg

Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg has nothing to say about his relationship with national security adviser Mike Waltz. Added him accidentally A few days ago, a group chat about the highly sensitive U.S. plan to bomb Yemen.

“I just won’t comment on my relationship with Mike Waltz,” Goldberg told CBS News in an interview Wednesday.

Waltz claimed he had “never seen” with Goldberg, unable to pick out of the police lineup and wasted his reputation, calling him “the bottom of journalists.” But the photos surfaced online together at an event held in the French Embassy in 2021.

“If your eyeball sees us together, then I think your eyeball is seeing us together,” Goldberg said of the photo.

Walz also suggested that Goldberg somehow add signal chats to himself, which also includes Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, or some other technical accidents that resulted in violations. Goldberg calls these claims “crazy.”

“That’s what happened on March 11,” Goldberg continued. “I received a message request from Michael Waltz. I accepted the message request. That’s what happened.” The signal allows users to chat groups only by adding people through their phone number, QR code, or username of the person they want to add. The Atlantic Story published Wednesday showed screenshots of the group, including waltz, and served as a member of the Houthi PC team.

Goldberg said: “If I were such a vicious character, why am I on the phone with Mike Waltz? Why did he have my phone number? Why did he include me in the chat? What would you like a journalist to do when you are learning about the way the government is considering military operations?

Goldberg did not release the content of the message thread until more than a week after the Yemen strike. On Monday, he posted an article detailing how he was added to the 18-person chat and described part of the conversation about the plan to bomb Houthi targets instead of citing them directly, citing him fearing the details were too sensitive to posting. But after the group chat, we chatted repeatedly with President Trump. deny Goldberg posted a text message about the strike on Wednesday, checking with the government whether officials wanted anything missing.

Other news showed Hegseth provided the team with details on strikes against Houthi rebels earlier this month, including a timeline of when the fighter jets will take off and which weapon will be used.

Goldberg said it is in the public interest to have information and be able to judge the incident on its own.

“The public has the right to know if there are large-scale security breaches in the U.S. National Security Agency. There is obvious evidence here that national security officials are talking about real-time intelligence and military information on open source messaging applications, and they should not use such things for such things,” Goldberg said. “It is our responsibility to tell the public when journalists discover large-scale national security violations.”