Signal chat endangered American service personnel

We recently learned key members of the Trump administration — including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard — used Signal, a widely used commercial messaging app, to discuss a March 15 military attack on the Houthis in Yemen before it happened.

This alone may have violated the Espionage Act, which establishes how officials must handle information about the national defense. But what makes this more mind-boggling idiotic is that Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic magazine — a reporter without security clearance — was included in the group chat.

This security breach endangered U.S. military personnel. According to Goldberg, Secretary Hegseth posted “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”

When asked about this, Trump responded: “I don't know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of The Atlantic.” We wonder what else the president doesn’t know about what’s going on around him. He nominated to key cabinet positions amateurs whose only qualification is their blind loyalty to Trump, Senate Republicans quickly approved those nominations, and this is what we get — shameful and arrogant incompetence.

David Duer

Iowa City