DAILYMAIL
MPs voiced fury today after an extraordinary security bungle revealed some of President Donald Trump’s most senior team condemning Europe as ‘pathetic freeloaders’.
A bombshell exchange on the Signal messaging app – accidentally shared with a journalist – showed an elite group including Vice-President JD Vance, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth and national security advisor Michael Waltz voicing ‘loathing’ for their long-term European allies.
They also discussed how to get money out of European countries in return for US military strikes intended to stop Houthis rebels disrupting critical shipping routes in the Red Sea.
But UK politicians said the glimpse behind the scenes showed America was ‘unreliable’ and accused them of plotting ‘extortion’. One normally US-friendly MP described the situation as a ‘nightmare’ and warned Europe must ‘take it seriously and not think it’s just casual chat’.
The brutal barbs in the conversation underline the gaps that have opened up between the US and Europe since Mr Trump returned to the White House – which appear to go far wider than the fate of Ukraine.
Bizarrely, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg was added to the confidential chat.
Mr Goldberg revealed it contained a large volume of highly classified information, publishing details of the conversation on Monday.
The chat appears to have served as a virtual ‘War Room’ for some of the top players in the Trump White House, as well as Mr Vance, Mr Hegseth and Mr Waltz the list included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard and Mr Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles.
The conversation was initially centred around the military strikes against the Houthis’ strongholds in Yemen, which started after the armed group threatened to begin targeting ‘Israeli’ ships again over Israel blocking aid entering the Gaza Strip.
In the chats, the user identified as Mr Vance expresses concerns about the strikes but ultimately agrees to go along with defence secretary Mr Hegseth’s plan – before adding ‘I just hate bailing Europe out again.’
Mr Hegseth responds: ‘I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It’s PATHETIC.’
There are claims that Mr Waltz is facing the sack over the saga – as he’s believed to have been the official who ‘added the editor-in-chief to the group’.
One source told Politico: ‘Everyone in the White House can agree on one thing: Mike Waltz is a f***ing idiot.’
According to Mr Goldberg, the messages featured information that could easily have been weaponised by enemies of the US to harm their personnel and assets. He wrote: ‘The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility.
‘What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.’
The chats were confirmed as legitimate by the US government, but a White House spokesman said it was a ‘demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials’.
Asked by about the leaked messages, the President Trump told reporters at the White House overnight that he hadn’t seen The Atlantic story – before attacking the publication.
Looking puzzled, Mr Trump said: ‘I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic. It’s to me, it’s a magazine that’s going out of business.’