Marco Rubio admits Signal chat leak was a 'big mistake' as Trump administration downplays the matter

While other top officials from US President Donald Trump’s government tries to downplay the situation, Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that “someone made a big mistake” in adding the editor in chief of The Atlantic into a group chat where the US attacks on Houthis was being discussed.

A major controversy stirred in the United States after The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported that national security adviser Mike Waltz added him to a group chat on the Signal app, where top Trump officials were discussing attack plans in Yemen. Soon after the revelation, Waltz took “full responsibility” for creating the group chat, which also included Rubio.

While speaking at a press conference in Jamaica, Rubio did not explicitly call out Waltz, but did admit that it was a “big mistake”. “Someone made a mistake, someone made a big mistake and added a journalist,” Rubio said, adding that the chat was set up as a “coordinating” mechanism.

Trump administration downplays the matter

The Trump administration has been trying to downplay the information Goldberg accidentally got access to. In his The Atlantic piece, the new outlet’s editor-in-chief shared the identity of an active official with the CIA and details surrounding the administration’s attack plans targeting the Houthis in Yemen, such as which fighter jets and drones would be used and the timing of their launches ahead of the operation.

However, top figures in the government insisted that the information shared in the Signal chat was not classified and did not pose a national security threat to the US operation. However, outrage started to brew from Democrats and some Republicans  who maintained that the Signal chat was an embarrassing and reckless sharing of classified information.

During the presser, Rubio said that the information in the chat was not meant to be divulged and that it did not threaten the operations of service members.

“I’ve been assured by the Pentagon and everyone involved that none of the information that was on there — though not intended to be divulged obviously, that was a mistake, and that shouldn’t have happened and the White House is looking at it — but that none of the information on there at any point threatened the operation of the lives of our servicemen,” Rubio said.

In his reportage Goldberg said that he received a request from a user identified as Mike Waltz adding him to the chat and that no one raised questions over his inclusion. He also mentioned that he received no communication even after he left the group.

With inputs from agencies.