JFC the chutzpah of this guy. He's STILL trying to brazen it out. Sounds like maybe he got a little too used to performing for an audience that believes whatever it's told. The idea that the info in that thread wouldn't have been classified is laughable. It's not just false; it's absurd.
He was groomed at FoxNews. His first (and maybe only) instinct is to lie. Senators who confirmed him knew this going in, and should hang their own heads in shame.
I like how they’re claiming Jeffrey Goldberg is the bad guy in this situation. He has told the TRUTH about these Nazis for years, and the LIARS claim that he’s the untrustworthy one. If these people weren’t so fucking dangerous, this would be such a joke.
The fact that he’s “posting” on social media is a joke.
If he doesn't understand that it's classified information, maybe he's just unfit to hold that cabinet position. Classifications are a security measure. So maybe Hegseth should resign & the president could appoint someone who better understand and appreciate National Security to do the job right.
Hegseth looked a few sheets to the wind with his shirt not even fully buttoned up and a hat on just now as he hurled lies at reporters and ran away to his plane when they asked questions.
I had a former student from my days as an instructor at Tomahawk “C” school who mailed printouts of the strikes the Navy did in AFG in 1998 to one of his former shipmates as a “Hey, look what you missed out on by getting out” sort of FU. If you think he went to jail for that, you would be correct.
I note as well that DUI hire Hegseth believes only “guys” can make war plans in his military.
It’s not just false, not just absurd, but obviously absurd. More evidence that the problem is not that Trump supporters don’t know, it’s that they Do. Not. Care.
Pete’s pathetic and bothered. Keep it up
He learned from the biggest bully in the land, deny everything and blame others. All he had to say is this should never have happened and will never happen again. We have already made those adjustments. No his default is to bully everyone near him.
Says the ex-media guy who used to read the teleprompter for a living
Glad he wasn't in charge of the Normandy landings
We aren’t fools. I would be incensed if my son were in one of those missions. Everyone should be. He is making it into a joke.
Maybe he’s drunk?
Does he really think this all boils down to semantics? Is he that dumb, or does he think we’re that dumb? Never mind, I know the answers are yes and yes.
Well, he's still performing for that audience.
Why is his reaction surprising to you? This is the playbook and it always works. No one holds them accountable.
Hegseth is a Giant Idiot
So it looks like Hegseth has learned his lesson. His response, with all it's maturity and the gravity demanded, gives me complete confidence. I do not know how the men and women in uniform sleep at night.
Make lying wrong again.
The guy at the party that drinks too much and says something outrageous, assuming everyone else did too
This is the lesson that Trump taught them. Always stay on the offensive. Never admit to wrong doing. And it's worked for him, so why wouldn't they try it as well? They'd be stupid not to.
Claiming Goldberg hacked his way into the chat is such an admission of guilt.
Pete, if it wasn't a secret, why were you concerned about being "clean on OPEC"?
*OPSEC But, in this case OPEC might also apply
I’m 99% certain that Pete Hegseth knows that he’s lying. But I can’t completely rule out the remote possibility that Hegseth is literally too ignorant and stupid to know that he’s lying 🤔
He’s trying so hard to sound hard. He’s a sloppy-drunk fox weekend host and former Minnesota Nat Guard but he wants to be seen as modern day Audie Murphy.
If the operational details of a future military operation and potentially identifying information on an undercover officer are *not classified*, classification has no purpose
He needs to be fired YESTERDAY
Why the hell is he tweeting about it?
You expect this stunad to admit he was wrong? He'd rather saw off his foot first.
Definitely classified info. Obviously, haha. They said exactly when the attacks were taking place. Also, how in the hell are weapons systems not "methods." So we have classified info and methods, at a minimum.
Waltz: "I take full responsibility." That would mean resigning, asshole.
To be fair none of these people have experience in military leadership. Mind-boggling they're even in these positions.
When you're raised on FAUX News you're not raised with any understanding that words have meaning, that what you say & do have consequences... he's about to F'n learn. They all are.
🙏
No typos until the second word
So, let me get this straight: Pete Hegseth still has a job?
Urge Hegseth to keep on keeping on with this. Great look!
Giving him maximum benefit of doubt... Maybe he just doesn't actually know what is classified and what isn't at the level of the position he's in. He didn't do the reading. He hasn't studied it. He's just going with what he thinks it ought to be.
Fake it 'til you make it?
Dude is so stupid he thinks we're stupid, too.
This is what happens when you knowingly put an active alcoholic in charge of our national defense and on top of that he's an intellectual lightweight.
He is a Fox propagandist host
The super easy way to tell that it's bullshit is if they had had that conversation in public on twitter at the same time as it was being posted in Signal, and the targets of the strike had watched it unfold in real time, it is very plausible the attack would have failed to achieve its objectives
Another good test for this is to ask what the United States could have done with these details if the texts had been by top Iranian officials discussing an attack on Israel.
I stand by my earlier assessment. bsky.app/profile/ange...
Completely misses the point they were talking about F-18, weapon's packages and strike times. The enemy would have known exactly where they were going. And why the fuck are they discussing on SIGNAL?
Um can you say gaslighting? Don’t believe what you see or hear, believe instead what you are told. WT actual F.
Of course Drunkard Pete claims that no one was “texting war plans”, and he’s right! - They weren’t using “text”, it was the “Signal” app - We’re not at “war”, it was a “Special Military Operation” - There are no “plans” - MAGAts can’t plan a birthday party! So see, it’s all Fake News!
www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...
Pete you’re very lucky he didn’t run with the story so you you should be thankful.
Welcome to the world of his ex-partners.
“Those are some really shitty war plans” is a next level self-own
How many reporters will be accidentally invited to these meetings in the INDOPACOM region?
Gotta love that Hegseth is tweeting from his personal device, almost surely, as he's again travelling overseas and his personal device is accessible to foreign actors.
Are we going to ignore the part where Goldberg repeatedly highlights in his article that there was information communicated in the chat that he does not feel comfortable making public for national security reasons?
Thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous. Herman Melville
I think Hegseth is taking the exact right approach here for MAGA-world and the Trump administration.
It's all going horribly wrong!
Dipshit can't even proofread his tweets let alone run a fucking lemonade stand.
Hegseth can’t even get past the first sentence without messing that up. 🤨
He seems to think that being dumb is a valid defense. Maybe it is now?
@normative.bsky.social it's the "actually AR stands for Armalite Rifle so anything else you say I can dismiss" defense.
It's called pathological lying.
He’s performing for an audience of one
Also, didn’t they say (or did they break this today) that they, The Atlantic, wouldn’t publish the particulars as to be mindful of national security?
Yes, they did redact some of it to protect some identities.
Wrll they basically told him yesterday put up or shut up
Sorry, the Atlantic did? I think I made the mistake of thinking this Hegseth post was new…it’s clearly not. So he is now staking his claim on their not producing the specifics they know they have? he is as dumb as any person who’s ever been in public life, if so…
But that’s the lesson he learned from his confirmation — just lie and white knuckle through until people move on to something else
It’s so odd that rapists act this way.
And then this unbelievable clod tries to puff up his obvious lie with this smarmy, juvenile false machismo. "Excuse me while I go hang out with some HE MEN who know what REAL WAR PLANS look like." What a complete embarrassment. Does he think people find this buffoonish act impressive?
I'm afraid it's impressive to the intended audience, yes.
Very subtly, Ratcliffe yesterday tried to characterize the chat as “pre-decisional deliberation.” That is clearly not true. The decision had been made. Hegseth was giving them at heads-up that bombs would be dropping in approximately 30 minutes.
REAL MEN (who are likely incredibly embarrassed at my performance and angry at me for breaking many rules about sensitive military operations and unnecessarily risking American lives...rules that if they broke, I'd end their careers and possibly put them in prison)
He knows it works with his boss, who is the only person he is playing this for.
The first word in the chat name was Houthi but I guess they could have been talking about something else?
unfortunately yes
God help our troops. I'm terrified for them under his "leadership"
a lot of the men on twitter do find this kind of thing impressive, which may or may not be the real crisis of masculinity
Tbf He was really good doing the cookie reviews on Fox and Friends
It matches his butch pocket square.
"Hey, Goldberg, why don't you make like a tree and get outta here?"
That’s about as funny as a screen door on a battleship
Fox will mostly show whatever Hegseth says without an accurate alternative view or background about what he's referring to. That's what that statement is for there, that silo. X and others will essentially distribute that take. bsky.app/profile/jooc...
Hegseth worked for Fox News, so he's used to an audience that can't read.
It's just for King Donald...
TRAITORS VANCE, HEGSETH, WITKOFF, WALTZ & GABBARD MUST BE ARRESTED bsky.app/profile/kras...
Well he's a shitty SOD, so he should know.
No sources or methods? How about revealing to the Houthis they had a spy in their midst telling us who “their top missile guy” was, who his girlfriend was, where she lived, and details about the his movements?
Add another one to the list. Who is gonna want to work for the U.S now? thehill.com/policy/natio...
“Sounds like maybe he got a little too used to performing for an audience that believes whatever it's told.” Exactly right - Bravo!
He’s trying to sound badass by implying that “REAL WAR PLANS WOULD BE COUNTING GUNS AND BULLETS!” In reality, deciding whether to attack and why (what they were discussing on Signal) is the highest level of planning. Of course he doesn’t see that b/c he’s so out of his depth.
I guarantee that if Goldberg had published the text chain as soon as he received it, they would have charged him with treason.
If it's not classified it absolutely should be. You don't have to have served to understand why you don't want the enemy knowing what's coming and when and the targets. And those texts had all that info.
I'd bet real money that he would be diagnosed as an actual malignant narcissist. And that's bad fucking news.
Inconvenient for Americans that he just happens to be out of country when he should be in front of Congress answering questions about this SNAFU like others in this clusterfuck are! This whole administration should be apologizing profusely to America for their incompetence and then be impeached!
They absolutely shuffled him off because he'd never make it ten minutes in a hearing without aggressively exploding and getting caught out.
Hegseth is a traitor, a narcissist, and an incompetent. Perfect for a shit administration.
And if pete doesn’t know the difference, that just proves that he’s not qualified for the job.
And I appreciate those who have pointed out that his use of military acronyms like INDOPACOM in civilian contexts is classic imposters syndrome. Poor Pete…he know he don’t belong. Lol.
Yeah, he’s just LARPing with this shit. He wants to play the part. Elon does the same shit.
All they know how to do is break things and people. Anything they build will be flimsy, but enforced with terrible might.
Hegseth is performing for an audience of one: Trump. This is exactly what his boss wants to see, defiance in the face of all opposition regardless how true it is.
I wish there were a real chance of prison for him. His arrogance is nauseating.
JHFC, what an asshole.
this fool knows about peddling hoaxes. he's been doing it for years.
He forgot his training I guess.
I've facilitated/attended hundreds (if not thousands) of meetings during my healthcare career. Whoever's running the meeting has always either done a formal roll call or asked everyone to identify themselves. If I see someone who isn't on my list of invitees, I ask them to tell me who they are.
And those are just business calls between entities governed by HIPAA and related industry standards.
Hmmmm "some really shitty war plans"? Nah, that could never be possible, right? Not coming out of the Pentangle?
“So, LET’s me get this straight!”
Wait, is pisshead pete saying the Atlantic doesn't have that information? Or did the Atlantic understand opsec better than the current head of the DOD, and decide not to publish that information for everyone to see?
No, they never claimed to have that information. It’s just a moronic defense because just a timeline of when they’re going to launch airstrikes on Houthi targets would be extremely sensitive. It doesn’t really matter that the exact coordinates weren’t given.
Also, what a lying moron.
bsky.app/profile/fply...
To be fair they were some really shitty war plans.
Reread that first sentence slowly
I heard it in Jar Jar's voice
And yet they were all congratulating themselves on what?
It's playing to their base at least. It feels like the only scandal in conservative circles is the idea that Waltz might have had a non-conservative journalists' number saved on his phone.
This is like when cult leaders go public and try their BS on people who haven't spent years being broken down in their cult. It's insane how bad and transparent the lies are. It's like "I'm gonna make some random sounds and then we'll all agree to move on."
Wait. He tweeted this AFTER today’s screenshot dump??
He's performing for an audience of one.
The public statements from these folks should always be viewed as if they’re possibly for an audience of one. The DoJ folks keep using nutzo language in honest to grod court filings, clearly meant to appeal to one particular ego. Seems like this is more of the same that we saw in the first go-round.
Trump is going to stand by him in spite of this incompetence, because it will make Hegseth even more loyal. Then they can do their massive crimes against humanity together.
Hegseth had never seen or even talked about a war plan until now! What an ass; he can deny all he wants to ... we know the truth. He broke the law and shared classified information on an insecure line. He must be made to resign and be held accountable! Goldberg's integrity is intact!
It’s the 2+2=5 administration.
The idea that he's a drunken frat boy is also a lie.
Let’s see other similar examples of unclassified non-war plans from these people, maybe in their private emails and SMS if all of it is no big deal and ok for anybody to see.
He's performing for an audience of one right now
America went from leader of the free world to incompetent fascism in just three weeks.
Trump has set a precedent for bald-faced lying, but, whatever Trump has that lets him get away with it, Hegseth has none of it. Very few other politicians do.
He also literally just tweeted that he will be meeting with a regional command and is on route now.
Why do you need your ‘shitty war plans’ to auto delete?
Well, Goldberg said he would NOT publish the transcript, not endanger either secrets or people. He gave it to Congress, and THEY chose what to make public. Ooops, Pete - gotcha. Can't smear a good journalist for being a good journalist. It is as he reported. And you're toast.
agree except saying he's toast. Maybe we have a different definition, but I'm not sure he's going anywhere.
Even if he doesn't go anywhere, history will not be kind. That he can't admit an error and commit to improvement is worrying, though not surprising.
I'm worried that if no one loses their jobs here, we will be history.
They don't need to lose their jobs. They need possibly to go to jail for defying court orders, but so far that hasn't happened.
It hasn't happened and it won't. No one is going to jail and you're dreaming if you think they will. DJT can and will pardon anyone and everyone.
These are CIVIL offenses for which jail on contempt is not a pardonable action. And we're just two months in. Never say never. The minions have NO protection. Did you ever see loyalty from The Donald toward ANYONE? No one so far has violated a court order. Pay attention to THAT.
OK, but forgive me for not sharing the same optimism. There have not been any rays of hope in the last several years.
@brynntannehill.bsky.social posted "The optimists died in the gas chambers, the pessimists have pools in Beverly Hills." - Billy Wilder
It's depressing and quite scary. But I maintain optimism and hope. The alternative isn't an option for me.
To be clear: this isn't "optimism". I don't work on "feelings" but facts. I'm watching decisions being rendered by courts and the scuttling compliance in all but the Venezuelan flight case that is not done but falling apart for DOJ. It's all that, not optimism, that show patterns.
Totally different issues. Trump, even before last June, wasn't arrestable. Had courts not slowed the case 2022 on, he would have been convicted. He does NOT have total immunity. His previous staff did not break laws as these rancid idiots are. But they ARE complying w court orders. It's complex.
Sorry - I thought we were talking Musk. I'm moving too fast. What I mean by toast is absolute loss of ALL credibility. Maybe Trump will "coffee boy" him, too. He doesn't like be shamed by his appointees. We will see. He might not even be able mentally to care. But WE care. He has no cred.
He has handled his businesses SO badly his own investors are calling him to leave. He's burned his bridges for a fantasy with Trump. He has lost more of his fortune in just months than ANY other mogul in history even in 1929.
If he is ousted for defying court orders, he can be jailed. Then his falsifications gaining citizenship come into play. All speculative but not impossible. ONLY reason to strip someone's citizenship is if fraud was used to obtain it. He did. So... He is playing with fire. Judges don't like that.
Exact fucking times!
Who typically displays brazen macho hubris? A guy who has had too much to drink.
Hegseth lying is to be expected. He has been working as host on Fox.
Unless he is removed from power.None of this matters. That's why he's so brazen. He knows he's not going anywhere. Trump isn't going to remove him so who will? These people cannot stay in power for 2 years little on 4
I guess he hasn’t had time to complete his classification training
Trump and his administration is a national sabotage effort for the benefit of himself, billionaires, and foreign autocrats and the whole lot of them needs to be gone.
You know that’s pretty funny considering he used to be a part of the media that posts and conveys pretty much nothing but “alternative facts” or more to the point, just lies. I guess he got lots of practice there preparing for this job.
Thinks the whole media peddles hoaxes because that's what he did while part of the media.
Yeah, he’s just gonna tweet himself all the way to a “stepping back to focus on family” stint in rehab. I’m here for it.
LOCK THEM UP!
It is a mistake to keep looking at this with a rational mind. The people he is communicating to will believe this. Strategy is to always deny reality, lie lie lie, never give in, attack the messenger.
Jesus! They include the times and means of the attacks. It wouldn't be hard for an enemy force with access to help from Iran to deduce the rest. If you know that an attack is coming your way at a specific time by a soecific means, you move your shit or you attack preemptively.
Liar, liar Pants on fire. (I wanted to write at the guy’s level)
I would like to know why all of these people are not arrested. Had I been part of something like this, I would have been.
It remains an open question whether enough significant people will have enough integrity NOT to believe (or at least swallow) whatever he tells them. Because if they decide they need to change best practices to cover their own asses, I don't think they care who dies because of it.
To be fair most of these clowns have determined that their "audience" is one guy, and brazening it out is pretty effective with him as long as you manage to appeal to his vanity and sense of grievance.
"Just think of all the damaging stuff I COULD HAVE said and DIDN'T!" --Petey
Hegseth ignores the root problem, also... even if true that the actual info wasn't secret, it was already illegal to conduct government business on a platform that's not preserving comms in government records. (here the bug is a feature for them, of course, they're intentionally hiding things.)
They are fascists! We must stop treating them like human beings with a conscience, shame, and normal human emotions. They are fascists who will celebrate killing you, me, and anything that gets in the way of their quest for total power.
the only false statement is from hegseth and that's because he is false.
He certainly knows firsthand the truth of that last sentence.
With the information in his texts, it would be trivial to calculate range, speed, and bearing of the carrier group.
Pete Hegseth is without honor or integrity. Zero.
It’s kind of like when a 🐷 is being deposed by Internal Affairs & they’re used to half ass semantics tricks getting their wife (who they probably beat) to be quiet & then they become dumbfounded when they’re asked to explain what the bullshit they just said actually meant.
PH is such a Pogue, he is like a boot trying to be a toughguy.
“How about this: what if I make a statement that confirms that I don’t even know what classified means” —Pete Hegseth in the last 24 hours
Are Hegseth and his comrades too stupid to know that the reason Goldberg didn't put more detail into his article is that, unlike them, he's being RESPONSIBLE about national security?
So, one thing to remember is that, while service members typically need to maintain eligibility for a secret clearance, most service members don't deal with classified documents, let alone TS SCI info.
