Trump has managed to spin Signalgate as a media lapse, not a major security breach

[Celerity]

The US administration believes it can divide public attention until there is a new scandal. It may be a winning strategy

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/29/trump-signalgate-media-lapse-us-administration



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But despite all this, no one is really taking the prospects of an investigation seriously. At heart, this is about politics – and the fact is that Democrats simply don’t have the votes or the sway to deliver a body blow to the administration at this point. It’s unlikely that anyone will be punished.

Donald Trump has told his aides that he doesn’t want to give the Atlantic a scalp, and vice-president JD Vance responded forcefully during a trip to Greenland on Friday: “If you think you’re going to force the president of the United States to fire anybody you’ve got another think coming … I’m the vice-president saying it here on Friday: we are standing behind our entire national security team.”

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But the Trump administration believes that it can simply divert and divide public attention until there is a new scandal. That may be a winning strategy. Trump is to introduce tariffs this week that will probably dominate the news agenda for weeks. And his deputies are out on cable news every day, pushing back at the media for covering the scandal and suggesting that Goldberg somehow sneaked his way into the chat rather than being added directly by Waltz, the national security adviser.

“They have treated this as a media event to be spun rather than a grievous error to be rectified,” wrote Phil Klay, a military veteran and guest columnist for the New York Times. The early indications are that the Trump administration will skate through this scandal, crossing into new territory in Washington where even a major security leak can be repainted as the fault of the media for covering it.

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[ThoughtCriminal]

1. This is how they treat everything

It is a creature of pure hate, corruption and incompetence. They Have no other strategy except to feed more idiotic excuses and deflection to their cult - which accepts it without question. They do not need or want approval from anyone but them and the billionaire fan club.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. MaddowBlog-As allegations against Hegseth mount, the Pentagon chief faces a new kind of problem

As Pete Hegseth flails, there are apparently Pentagon insiders eager to talk about the defense secretary’s struggles.
https://bsky.app/profile/stevebenen.com/post/3llopdxucnk2a

Hegseth's big problem: There's fresh evidence of his incompetence, failures, and abuses.

Hegseth's other problem: There appear to be Pentagon insiders who are willing to talk to reporters about his incompetence, failures, and abuses

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/allegations-hegseth-mount-pentagon-chief-faces-new-kind-problem-rcna198856

The Associated Press reported on Friday, for example, that Hegseth tapped his younger brother, Phil Hegseth, to serve as senior adviser to the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and liaison officer to the Defense Department — a title that has meant, among other things, a trip to Guantanamo Bay and traveling on the Pentagon’s 747 aircraft as the Cabinet secretary makes his first trip to the Indo-Pacific. The AP’s report added:

It’s common for the Defense Department and other federal agencies to have liaisons. Each military branch sends liaisons to Capitol Hill. The Pentagon, State Department and others all use interagency liaisons to more closely coordinate and keep tabs on policy. But it is not common for those senior-level positions to be filled by family members of the Cabinet heads....

Despite Hegseth’s apparent preoccupation with merit-based employment decisions, his younger brother received a position of influence at the Pentagon despite a background as the founder of a podcast production company.

Around the same time, The Wall Street Journal published another report about the defense secretary that raised eyebrows:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is facing scrutiny over his handling of details of a military strike, brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed, according to multiple people who were present or had knowledge of the discussions.

The Journal’s report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added that a Defense secretary “can invite anyone to meetings with visiting counterparts, but attendee lists are usually carefully limited to those who need to be there and attendees are typically expected to possess security clearances given the delicate nature of the discussions.”....

The reporting from the AP and the Journal dovetailed with a Politico report that said while Donald Trump has expressed public support for Hegseth, “behind the scenes, administration insiders are starting to express doubts about the Pentagon chief’s judgment.” CNN had a related piece that said, “Interviews with multiple current and former national security officials this week, including career military and civilian officials, reflect growing concerns about Hegseth’s leadership at the Pentagon.”

Taken individually, the revelations about his brother’s job and his wife’s access are certainly important in their own right. But let’s not overlook the story behind the stories: It appears increasingly obvious that there are some people at the Pentagon who’ve learned some unfortunate things about Hegseth, and they’re suddenly eager to share that information with journalists.

Or put another way, two months into Hegseth’s tenure, he’s generating the kind of chatter that his respected and qualified predecessor didn’t have to worry about at the department he ostensibly leads.

It’s a problem for the Pentagon chief that there’s evidence of his incompetence, abuses and failures, but it’s just as notable a problem that there are DOD insiders who are apparently willing to talk to reporters about his incompetence, abuses and failures.