Everyone was worried about Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News contributor with a well documented love for the sauce, heading up the Department of Defense. Well...homie just confirmed exactly why we were all terrified by making one of the biggest public blunders we’ve seen in national security.
On March 15, the United States planned to bomb the Houthis in Yemen. This was a covert operation, meaning that the people planning this attacked wanted to surprise their targets. Well, they surprised the Houthis, but they embarrassed America along the way: A group chat about the attack was created for American senior security officials on Signal, a decentralized, encrypted messaging app. Somehow Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor of the United States, invited Jeffery Goldberg, an editor at the Atlantic, to join in a discussion that included Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence.
Normally these kinds of communications are taken seriously and not haphazardly done on an app frequented by journalists and sex workers. That they used Signal to execute their plans appears obvious that they didn’t want anyone else within the government knowing what they did, and it makes one wonder what else they have going on on the app. But that’s a conversation for another column.
This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. You may not remember, but Republicans suggested that Obama purposefully leaked classified information in 2012. They were outraged over the possible security breach. Then, when Hillary Clinton was running for President in 2016, there was all this uproar with Republicans about how she used a private server for her emails. The issue was concern over national security. Then there were concerns over how Kamala Harris would pose a security risk if she was elected president.
So, to recap: There was outrage about a possible security breach during Obama’s administration, uproar about Hillary’s use of a private server for her emails, citing security concerns and worry concerning Harris’ national security bona fides.
But here we have a legitimate, actual, real deal security breach from Trump’s second administration, and what do we hear? Crickets.
Let’s call it like we see it: Republicans are hypocrites. Full stop.
Sure, there is a bit of hypocrisy in every corner of the American political system, but what we are seeing from the GOP is over the top. For years they have claimed to care deeply about American democracy (that was the whole issue with Trump saying he won in 2020), but then they do an about face on the topic when it suits them.
Then they claim to care about the economy (that was why he won this time) and then have nothing to say when Trump fires thousands of Americans and starts a trade war that will, unquestionably, lead to higher prices. And now the party that claims to care the most about national security has nothing to say about an administration that has put our national security at risk.
And why do they do this? Why are they silent when they would be crying wolf if a Democrat was in the White House? Because the guy they voted for sits behind the Resolute Desk.
I’m not wasting any more ink on this. The Republicans are a joke. I bet they put sugar in their grits.