Dial D for Dumbass

Open chats, national insecurity & shouting matches.

I’ve made a lot of phone-related mistakes in my life. Like the other morning, I was talking on my phone when I noticed my phone wasn’t in my bag. So I figured I’d left it in the car and walked back to get it while still TALKING ON MY PHONE.

So I understand that telecommunication errors can and do occur, just not involving the most consequential national security breach in my lifetime, meaning 36 years. This train wreck was inflicted on us by the very people who swore to protect us. (No, I couldn’t write that with a straight face.)

I’m talking about defense secretary Pete Hegseth, national security advisor Mike Waltz, CIA director John Ratcliffe, vice president JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard. Throw in secretary of state Marco Rubio and we’ve got the full cast of White House Down.

What’s even better is that one of these morons mistakenly (OR WAS IT) added Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg (OR DID THEY) to the chat, which was named “Houthi PC Small Group,” not to be confused with “Houthi PC Larger Group Including Anonymous Journalists, Jeff Bezos and Jake Paul.”

The laid-back and almost quaint conversation about airstrikes in Yemen took place on the open-source encrypted messaging platform Signal, which is kind of like Reddit but not as secure. Shouldn’t confidential military plans be discussed in, say, the War Room as opposed to an adolescent girl emoji-infused chat?

OMG you’re so fire & you don’t even know it! SRSLY

Waltz appeared on Fox News to explain the innocent mishap of allowing a journalist to listen in on highly sensitive information. “Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name, and then you have — and then you have somebody else’s number there? Right? You’ve got somebody else’s number on someone else’s contact. So, of course, I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else.”

Yeah. He’s the loser. And, for the record, I’ve never had “somebody’s contact and then someone else’s number on someone else’s contact who looked like someone else.” What is he even talking about?

For security reasons, I hide the identities of all my contacts by using only the color of their hair: Dishwater blonde. Mousy brunette. Premature gray. Hot mess.

Yesterday, when CIA director Ratcliffe appeared before Congress, Representative Jimmy Gomez got into a shouting match with him over whether or not Hegseth had been drinking before he leaked classified information.

Honestly, that’s the best explanation I’ve heard yet.