오늘의 BBC 뉴스 스크립트: 2025년 3월 26일

President Trump has launched a blistering attack on the journalist who revealed that he was added to a group chat of US officials who were sharing plans for bombing Houthi rebels in Yemen. Mr. Trump insisted the details were not classified, he strongly defended the key official involved, and he accused the journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, of being a total sleazebag.

Tonight, The Atlantic magazine, for which Mr. Goldberg writes, defended his reporting and accused the White House of being hostile to journalists, while senior Democrats called the incident one of the most stunning military intelligence. Breaches of recent times, here's Sarah Smith, and it's an honor to sign this one.

Donald Trump would rather talk about the latest executive orders he's signing, or the new ambassadors he's appointed, but the looming questions are all about that shocking security breach. The excuse, no information that was strictly classified was shared on the group chat. Uh, there was no classified information, as I understand it.

Uh, they used a, uh, a, uh, app, if you want to call it an app, but sometimes somebody can get onto those things. That's one of the prices you pay when you're not sitting in the, uh, situation room with no phones. On which is always the best, frankly.

Another tactic is disparaging the journalist who was invited to join the group chat and read the messages about an ongoing military action.

[1] There's a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves making up lies about, uh, this president, whether it's the Russia hoax or making up lies about gold star families, and this one in particular, I've never met, don't know, never communicated with, and we are, uh, in, we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room. President Trump's top national security team often right beside him on the Oval. Office, so were all on the group chat, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and the National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz.

The messages revealed Mr. Vance was highly skeptical about taking military action to defend shipping in the Suez Canal, as fewer American ships use it than European ones. He posted one message saying to Pete Hegseth, "If you think we should do it, let's go, I just hate bailing Europe out again." Mr.Hegseth replied, "I fully share your loathing of European freeloading, it's pathetic." Hours before the American strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, the defense secretary shared Highly sensitive information, including details of the targets, the weapons to be used, and the strike sequencing. The group was told the mission had been a success, and these messages started flowing in. John Ratcliffe, the head of the CIA, said, "A good start." Mike Waltz added some emojis.

Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said, "Good job, Pete, and your team." And Mike Waltz said the team in Mara Lago did a great job as well. In Hawaii, the defense secretary also attacked the reporter involved as he denied sharing sensitive information.

 

[2] Why were those details shared on Signal, and how did you learn that a Journalist was privy to the targets, the types of weapons used. I've heard, I've heard I was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans, and that's all I have to say about that, thank you.

No, that's a lie. He was texting war plans, he was texting attack plans, when uh targets were going to be targeted, how they were going to be targeted, who was at the targets. Jeffrey Goldberg, the journalist invited into the group chat, didn't publish details of war plans, but he insists he did see them, facing some very tough questions today, some of the Trump administration officials who were part of that group chat, Director. Radcliffe, this was a huge mistake, correct? No, this is utterly unprofessional.

 

[3] There's been no apology, there has been no recognition of the gravity of this error. President Trump watched the Yemen strikes happen just over a week ago from Florida. He would vigorously attack any other president for a mistake like this, but so far he's supporting his officials, claiming this is just a glitch.

And we can speak to Sarah now, and Sarah, it's not just in Washington where there'll be alarm over what's happened. No, absolutely not. Think of all of the allies who share information and intelligence with the United States.

They have learned that highly sensitive information, whether or not it's classified, is sent around in messaging groups, uh, amongst these officials, really casually discussing what may or may not happen. Even if they hadn't inadvertently invited a journalist to join this group, it's still not the way that you think that these kind of national security conversations would be conducted. And you've got the things that both the vice president and the defense secretary were saying about Europe, about it being freeloading and pathetic.Well, Donald Trump was asked about that today as well, and he doubled.

 

[4] down on that, saying he quite agreed with his officials, um, that the European Union has been taking America for a ride, that America's being paying far too much money, and that sentiment is one that's shared across the administration, so none of this looks very good for the allies with whom America has to share this information. And the excuse that none of it was classified, well, at least one top security official, former Biden administration officials, told the BBC, "It's ridiculous to think that information about military attack plans wouldn't be classified, it's more likely to be highly classified." But here at the White House, they're not announcing an investigation into this, not trying hard to get to the bottom of how on earth this massive security breach could have happened. They're really eager just to change the subject and to move on, so they have just announced that the vice president is going to travel to Greenland at the end of this week.

Um, and of course, you wouldn't have forgotten that Donald Trump says he wants to take over Greenland. It's a very controversial proposal, so this is a rather provocative trip from the vice president to go to that territory, almost certainly designed to distract. us from this huge security breach here, but of course, if it doesn't work, if these denials aren't effective, Donald Trump may very well just change his mind and decide that he is going to sack one of his officials.

If that's the way to put an end to hostile headlines, that's the way things tend to operate here at the White House. Sarah, thank you very much, Sarah Smith reporting.