Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), a military veteran, on Monday called for a congressional hearing following a news report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth texted The Atlantic’s top editor key details of the U.S. plan to bomb Houthi targets, just two hours ahead of the attacks.
“Only one word for this: FUBAR,” Ryan wrote in a post on the social platform X, using an acronym for the phrase, “f---ed up beyond all recognition.”
“If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self,” he added.
Ryan — a military intelligence officer in the Army who served two tours in Iraq — responded to The Atlantic reporting, published Monday, that gave a first-person account of Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s experience getting looped into U.S. war plans, which included details of weapons used, targets, and timing hours ahead of the attacks.
Goldberg said he was included on a text chain on the encrypted messaging application Signal that also appeared to be used by such senior Trump administration officials as Vice President Vance, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Hegseth.
In the stunning report, Goldberg claimed Waltz connected with him on Signal on March 11 and two days later was invited to join a chain called the “Houthi PC small group,” in which they discussed strikes against the Houthi militant group in Yemen that began on March 15 — seemingly unaware of the journalist’s presence in the group.
He wrote that he initially had strong doubts the text group was real, “because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans.”
Goldberg also said that he “could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include him in the discussions with senior U.S. officials.
Brian Hughes, the spokesperson for the National Security Council, confirmed the message chain was authentic.
“This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” wrote Hughes. “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security.”
The account prompted immediate blowback from congressional Democrats.
