Read the Full Text Chain From Trump Officials’ Group Chat (thedailybeast.com)
This is the full text chain from the groupchat.
JD Vance pipes up almost at the start to say, without any prompting, ‘But I think we are making a mistake.
‘3 percent of US trade runs thought the suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it's necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to said a message.
‘I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these conserns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.'
Immediately, a possible reason for this being leaked presents itself. QB doesn't agree with the coach. Also, the person it was leaked to seems to have handled it exactly how an admin would want it to be handled, so he could have been chosen. Even in his interview with The Atlantic, he refers to ‘a problem, by the way, they were left with by the Biden admin, which they did not handle the situation well or adequately...’ He was also in just the right position. Also, nothing was said in the chat that was something the admin wouldn't want to be public. There was nothing criticizeable said. A leak like this could only be possible if the people use a messenger like Signal. If they used WhatsApp, it might raise problems for WhatsApp, which belongs to a government cooperating company. A leak like this has never happened before, probalby because the White House has the best data protection and has things in place, so for it to happen is already suspect as purposeful. I doubt the White House uses regular Android or iPhones, because those are easily hackable and it's public knowledge. Anyone with a Pegasus-type software and their phone number could hack them. ... Also, the editor says he removed himself from the group ‘when I realized that this was real’ because he'd ‘rather not be engaged in that type of text chain.’
One reason, Hegseth says, for doing it, is that US is concerned Israel will do it first if US doesn't, and then US will not have it ‘on our own terms.’ He wants the attack to ‘restore Freedom of Navigation, a core national interest' and also to 'Reestablish deterrence.
Waltz says that whether now or later, ‘it will have to be the US that reopens these shipping lanes.’
But then, some of the messages start to sound as if not really directed to associates but as part of a message expected to be published, a PR message. No evidence that is the case, but the messages do start to sound that way.
One reason they may have used Signal could be that when they demand to know ‘who added the editor to the chat' they may try to get records or a backdoor into Signal, with high intensity motivation to convince whatever judge.
Walz said he accidentally added the editor.
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