In my column on Donald Trump’s nomination of Pete Hegseth, I noted, “Trump is tapping executive-level communicators and disruptors, rather than just administrators.” With a few notable exceptions, that has been a good strategy.

More recently, I noted that 10 years ago, Barack Obama summarized his guiding policy principle: “Don’t do stupid sh*t.” Of course, that is all Obama did for eight years — leaving a record of colossal domestic and foreign policy failures in his wake. Joe Biden proved there are no limits to “stupid sh*t” a sitting president can do.

Unfortunately, sometimes Trump’s communicators do “stupid sh*t,” and at best, the optics are terrible.

One notable Trump administration fail that triggered news-cycle loops of endless Leftmedia hyperventilation was the “big reveal” of the Epstein Files by Attorney General Pam Bondi — which turned into a laughable clown show flop. It was a relatively minor unforced error, but the optics were big and bad because Bondi promised something big and bad.

However, the “Signal SNAFU,” communications across the end-to-end encrypted Signal app about a pending U.S. military strike against Houthi terrorists — and the inadvertent inclusion of leftist Trump-hater Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, by National Security Advisor Michael Waltz or his Deputy Alex Wong, is an unforced error of epic proportions. Wong is the husband of J6 prosecutor, Candice Wong.

As Nate Jackson noted, Waltz was quick to own the error: “I take full responsibility. I built the group. I don’t text [Goldberg], he wasn’t on my phone, and we’re going to figure out how this happened.” And indeed they should get to the bottom of how Goldberg got into the loop. Moreover, there may be other legal implications according to a lawsuit about high-level officials communicating across unofficial channels. (Recall Hillary Clinton’s secret communications subterfuge back in 2015, when it was discovered she was communicating classified information using unclassified channels.)

For the record, the encrypted private-sector Signal coms app is used by many members of Congress and government officials, though not authorized for the transmission of sensitive or classified information. I have used it for years when communicating with individuals with sensitive missions in areas of the world where normal coms could be intercepted. But for the SecDef to be communicating in real-time about an upcoming attack involving F-18s, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and aerial drones on an unauthorized thread and exposing the thread to Goldberg, who published the entire thread, was inexcusable.

That being said, this colossal blunder could have been limited to the lead story slot for a few days. But even though President Trump has been uncharacteristically quiet about the issue, some of his “communicators” just won’t shut up. Most notably, SecDef Hegseth is keeping this FUBAR incident a lead story. When asked about it on Monday, Hegseth, who was providing the blow-by-blow on Signal to the others in the thread, responded to a reporter saying, “Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that.”

And that is all he should have said. But on Wednesday, again responding to reporters, Hegseth declared: “So, let me get this straight. The Atlantic released the so-called ‘war plans’ and those ‘plans’ include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information. Those are some really [crappy] war plans. This only proves one thing: Jeff Goldberg has never seen a war plan or an ‘attack plan’ (as he now calls it). Not even close.”

Well, actually, it’s close, and Hegseth is parsing “classified.” This is where hiring “communicators” like Hegseth goes off the rails.

For clarity on why Hegseth should button it, I turn to the most seasoned and sensible political analyst around, Brit Hume. According to Hume: “There are a couple of iron rules for dealing with a scandal. One: get the facts out as fast as possible and don’t be afraid to take responsibility. Two: Once rule one is taken care of, don’t feed the story. With regard to the Signal message case, the administration is making a mess of rule two by getting bogged down in a dispute over whether the details of Yemen bombing raids were a war plan and whether those details were, or should have been, classified. All that has done is prolong the story. The same goes for attacking the reporter who, through no fault or action of his own, received the Signal conversation. All attacking him did was give him a reason to release further details from the Signal chat, which appeared to contradict the administration’s claim that no ‘war plans’ were discussed. That gave the story at least another day of life.”

As National Review’s editors conclude, “Damage control is not supposed to cause more damage, but that is what President Trump’s team has created with its reaction to the Signal leak story.”

Republicans and Democrats are calling for an investigation into how this happened.

Meanwhile, Hegseth is also taking heat for brining his wife, former Fox producer Jennifer, to meetings with senior foreign military officials, where “sensitive” national security information was discussed.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

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