As members of Congress returned from a break, Democrats had certain messaging goals for the day. By lunchtime, the party’s plan had to be thrown out the window in order to address an unexpected White House’s latest national security scandal.
The basic elements of the controversy are probably familiar. Top members of Donald Trump’s national security team chatted in a Signal group over the classified details of a military strike in Yemen, and they accidentally included Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief.
Those hoping to see Democrats take the controversy seriously didn’t have to wait long. The Washington Post reported:
Congressional Democrats on Monday called for investigations over the leak of highly sensitive military plans involving top Cabinet officials and the editor in chief of The Atlantic. … While the White House admitted that officials had made a mistake in adding Goldberg to the chat, Democrats in Congress argued that the acknowledgment isn’t enough and that the error must be investigated.
“The leak of sensitive national security information by the Trump administration on a non-classified system is completely outrageous and shocks the conscience,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement. “It is yet another unprecedented example that our nation is increasingly more dangerous because of the elevation of reckless and mediocre individuals, including the Secretary of Defense.”
The New York Democrat added, “If House Republicans are truly serious about keeping America safe, and not simply being sycophants and enablers, they must join Democrats in a swift, serious and substantive investigation into this unacceptable and irresponsible national security breach.”
Around the same time, on the other side of Capitol Hill, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer delivered floor remarks in which the New York Democrat said, “This debacle requires a full investigation into how this happened, the damage it created, and how we can avoid it in the future. If our nation’s military secrets are being peddled around over unsecure text chains, we need to know at once and we need to put a stop to it immediately. Every single Senator — Republican and Democrat and Independent — must demand accountability.”
Schumer added, “This kind of carelessness is how people get killed. It is how our enemies take advantage of us. It is how our national security falls into danger.”
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said the scandal “represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen.” Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia added via Bluesky, “Heads must roll. This is one of the dumbest security breaches in history, and it suggests a larger pattern of potentially criminal behavior that puts Americans at risk.”
There are 260 Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill, and it’s impractical to think that I can quote all of them in this blog post. Suffice it to say, most of them had exceedingly critical reactions to the blockbuster reporting. The next question, of course, is what they’ll do next. Because Democrats are in the minority, they can’t call committee hearings or send subpoenas to the Trump administration. That said, members can launch investigations — several Democrats have already indicated their examinations are already underway — and issue reports. They can also ask good questions during congressional hearings, including a Senate hearing that’s poised to begin with testimony from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Finally, they can at least try to organize unofficial hearings. “Only one word for this: FUBAR,” Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan of New York, an Army veteran who sits on the Armed Services Committee, wrote online. “If House Republicans won’t hold a hearing on how this happened IMMEDIATELY, I’ll do it my damn self.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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