Fox’s Brit Hume Unloads on Trump Administration’s Handling of Security Leak: ‘A Mess’
Fox News Chief Political Analyst Brit Hume said the Trump administration has managed to make an embarrassing story even worse for itself.
On Monday, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic published a shocking story, revealing he was inadvertently added to a Signal group chat that included more than a dozen top Trump officials who were discussing airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. Those officials included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. Rather than immediately admit error, several officials responded by attacking Goldberg, a longtime critic of President Donald Trump.
“So, you’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time,” Hegseth snarled at a reporter on Monday after denying the attack plan was discussed in the chat. Waltz, Meanwhile, accused journalists of “making up lies.” On Tuesday, Waltz admitted to the mistake by acknowledging he had assembled the phone numbers in the group chat.
On Wednesday, Hume tweeted a critique of the administration’s response to the report:
There are a couple of iron rules for dealing with a scandal. One: get the facts out as fast as possible and don’t be afraid to take responsibility. Two: Once rule one is taken care of, don’t feed the story. With regard to the Signal message case, the administration is making a mess of rule two by getting bogged down in a dispute over whether the details of Yemen bombing raids were a war plan and whether those details were, or should have been, classified. All that has done is prolong the story. The same goes for attacking the reporter who, through no fault or action of his own, received the Signal conversation. All attacking him did was give him a reason to release further details from the Signal chat, which appeared to contradict the administration’s claim that no “war plans” were discussed. That gave the story at least another day of life.
Shortly after, Hume appeared on Special Report on Fox News where he reiterated his “rules” for dealing with such a crisis and defended Goldberg from the administration’s attacks.
“Look, I’m not a particular fan of Goldberg or his magazine, but he didn’t do anything wrong here,” Hume said. “He got that thing sent to him passively. He didn’t do anything to get it. And when he reported on it, he left out a lot of the details. So, then they attacked him and said that he wasn’t telling the truth about it, which just gave him a reason to release the details as he did this morning.”
Watch above via Fox News.
