TGIF: 👊🇺🇸🔥

Welcome back to where we do the news but, if you can imagine it, faker:

→ The Signal and the Boyz: Two weeks ago, key members of the Trump administration—Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, CIA director John Ratcliffe, and others—started a Houthi war text chain on Signal, which lets one easily send encrypted disappearing messages. Incidentally, they also added Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg. Why not!

Before we get to Jeffrey, it’s fun to parse what America’s finest military minds were saying. J.D. argued that we should let the Houthis have at it with the global shipping system to stick it to those Europoors, since they are impacted by Houthi shipping blockades more than the U.S. but: “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.”

This was interesting to me because it reveals that J.D. is a true believer in the “multipolar world,” in which America is kept as a tight, secure little island, no one can come in, and most importantly, no one can leave—because any time you leave America, you technically enter Yemen’s waters. Yemen’s a superpower now and we just have to accept that. Also: China! Anyone, but certainly not us. Understand, neocon? J.D.’s the captain now, and he says do not even look toward the horizon because that’s the Houthis’ land now. Do not think of going for a swim because frankly, it’s unclear if the Somaliland pole starts in the river or right at the beach. For now, J.D. Vance lost the fight, and we did indeed bomb the Houthis.

Jeffrey Goldberg was there for the whole thing. This week, after the bombs had fallen, and redacting some sensitive bits, he published the texts. It was explosive. Not quite as explosive as those bombs that hit the Houthis, but still. Big. The right snapped into action: It was a hack! It was a lie! It’s totally a fake, but if it was real, it was nothing!

Here’s J.D.: “It’s very clear Goldberg oversold what he had.” Yep, nothing to see here. Just run of the mill war plans on an iPhone. Vance is now spending his days tearing into journalists who cover it, especially one who misattributed an attack to the Houthis that was actually done by a totally different terrorist group. How dare you besmirch the Houthi name! [Five thousand J.D. Vance words later] And that is why Houthis are innocent of that particular attack, you fool! With all due respect, Mr. Vice President, just take the L. It’s okay. We’ll move on.

Here’s Pete Hegseth, calling it a hoax: “The Atlantic released the so-called ‘war plans’ and those ‘plans’ include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information.” Someone take this man’s car keys.

The texts included real-time bombing updates like: “ ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME — also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s).” Which does feel classified. If I’m using my intuition, I’m gonna say MQ-9s has a little “off-limits to the public” vibe.