US Secretary of State Rubio says adding journalist to Signal war chat was ‘big mistake’
Meanwhile, billionaire Elon Musk has offered his tech experts to help investigate the incident, the White House says
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that the inclusion of a journalist in a group chat on military strikes was a “big mistake” and expected reforms, while highlighting his own limited role.
“Obviously, someone made a mistake – someone made a big mistake – and added a journalist. Nothing against journalists, but you ain’t supposed to be on that thing,” Rubio told a news conference in Jamaica, as the row dominated headlines for a third day.
“I think there will be reforms and changes made so this never – so this is not going to happen again,” he said.
Rubio did not assign blame but quickly noted that he took part only twice in the chat – once to assign a representative and later to congratulate US troops after a public announcement of the strikes on Yemen.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, said he was inadvertently added into the chat on commercial app Signal by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, and that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed strike plans through it.
02:19
US officials accidentally share Yemen war plans with journalist in apparent security breach
Rubio repeated the Trump administration’s assertion that “none of the information on there at any point threatened the operation or the lives of our servicemen”.