Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Monday pushed for accountability in the wake of the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, getting access to a group chat in which top Trump administration officials talked about an attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
“Our current secretary of Defense hadn’t shown a lot of evidence of … running a large organization or, let alone running a large organization well, and he got put in charge of the largest organization in the United States of America and the most important organization in the world, which is the U.S. Department of Defense,” Buttigieg told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
“And, if there’s no accountability for a screw-up like this, especially from a president who used to fire people every day on television for sport, what are we even doing here?” he added, discussing Goldberg’s access to the chat.
Goldberg gained access to a group chat featuring Trump administration figures such as Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz, in which they discussed plans for an attack against Houthi rebels. The Atlantic journalist detailed his experience as a part of the chat in a Monday report that rattled Washington.
Earlier in the day, Buttigieg heavily criticized Trump administration officials over the discussion of the plans for the Yemen attack on the group chat with Goldberg on the social platform X.
“From an operational security perspective, this is the highest level of f‑‑‑up imaginable,” Buttigieg said in his post in response to Goldberg’s Atlantic report.
“These people cannot keep America safe,” he continued.
When asked about Goldberg’s access to the chat, Hegseth told reporters Monday that “Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,”
The chat’s existence was confirmed by a spokesperson for the National Security Council, Brian Hughes.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
The Department of Defense said they had “nothing for you on that” when reached for comment about Buttigieg’s comments.
