Jeffrey Goldberg on Signalgate, Pete Hegseth, and the Risk of WWIII
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
4.7 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In March, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, began receiving top secret messages from national security officials in the Trump administration after he’d been inadvertently added to an internal Signal chat. Many of those same officials oversaw recent military strikes against Iran. On this week’s More To The Story, host Al Letson sits down with Goldberg to discuss what “Signalgate” taught him about the Trump White House and his concerns for the future of American democracy.
Producer: Josh Sanburn, with help from Steven Rascón, Artis Curiskis, and Julia Haney | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Digital producer: Nikki Frick | Interim executive producers: Brett Myers and Taki Telonidis | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson
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Listen: In Fallujah, We Destroyed Parts of Ourselves (Reveal)
Read: The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans (The Atlantic)
Read: All the Ways Trump Officials Are Downplaying the “War Plans” Group Chat (Mother Jones)
Read: New Report: Trump Administration Just Got Hit With Another Signal Chat Scandal (Mother Jones)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What I saw coming over my phone was, to some degree, a group of people, mainly Hexseth, |
| 0:09.7 | cosplaying at running the country and running the national security apparatus of the country. |
| 0:15.5 | This is why they were sort of putting things in signal like, the bombers leave it, whatever. |
| 0:19.9 | You know, it's like, and you know what the thought I had when I was seeing it? |
| 0:23.9 | The thought I had was, dude, you don't have to cosplay being Secretary of Defense. |
| 0:30.6 | You are a Secretary of Defense. |
| 0:32.1 | Exactly. |
| 0:33.3 | We're good. |
| 0:34.5 | We're good. |
| 0:35.1 | I got it. |
| 0:36.0 | You're cool. |
| 0:37.8 | As a shaky ceasefire holds between Israel and Iran, |
| 0:41.1 | I sit down with the Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. |
| 0:44.2 | We discussed the moment he learned he was included in a secret chat about military action in Yemen, |
| 0:50.5 | his thoughts on the recent U.S. strikes in Iran, |
| 0:53.2 | and why he believes World War III may have already |
| 0:56.7 | started. Stay with us. |
| 1:12.8 | This is more to the story. |
| 1:13.8 | I'm Al Letson. |
| 1:18.9 | Back in March, Jeffrey Goldberg looked at his phone and couldn't believe what he was seeing. |
| 1:25.1 | Messages from U.S. national security leaders about imminent military strikes in the Middle East. |
| 1:28.9 | A White House official had inadvertently added the Atlantic's editor-in-chief to an internal signal chat. The scandal called into question President Trump's |
... |
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