One journalist from Axios threw cold water on the controversy over the leak of the Trump administration’s plans to strike Houthi rebels in Yemen.
During a CNN panel Wednesday morning, Axios senior contributor Margaret Talev admitted that most American voters aren’t too concerned about the group chat between senior Trump officials leaking and are more focused on economic issues.
“Voters are thinking about the economy. Voters are thinking about their jobs. I don‘t think at this moment that most American voters are like, ‘What‘s going on on Signal chains?’ Talev said, describing her takeaways from listening to a recent voter focus group.
The chat leaks became a controversy in recent days after The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published a piece detailing how he was inadvertently invited to join a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal featuring Trump officials discussing plans to attack Houthi militants in Yemen.
The chat included Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Critics have called the accidental leak a major breach of national security, with Democratic lawmakers and liberal pundits hammering Trump’s team and calling for Hegseth and Watlz’s resignations. Waltz took responsibility for the breach Tuesday night, telling Fox News Channel host Laura Ingraham, “I take full responsibility. I built the group. It’s embarrassing. We’re going to get to the bottom of it.”
President Donald Trump revealed that Waltz’s staffer was the one who attached Goldberg to the group chat, telling NBC News in an interview Tuesday, “It was one of Michael’s people on the phone. A staffer had his number on there.” The president also defended Waltz’s job, telling the outlet, “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.”
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“He’s not getting fired,” Trump told Fox News. The president added the incident was a “mistake,” though there was “nothing important” in the Signal text thread.
Despite the political outcry, Talev said the leaks aren’t top of mind for most voters and that Democratic lawmakers and others concerned with national security need to be the ones to get the Trump administration to tamp down on these breaches.
“And the challenge for, not just Democrats, but the challenge for people who are concerned about the national security apparatus, people who are inside intelligence agencies and are still in the government — people who want to protect the government from other countries or potential adversaries seeing stuff — the challenge is going to be how do you apply pressure on this administration to change if the public barometer is what is going to decide how they proceed,” she said.
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When asked if the Trump administration believes that Americans are concerned by the Signal leak, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital, “Americans care more about the fact that terrorists were allowed to go unchecked all over the world by the Biden Administration, which is why they elected President Trump to kill terrorists, and that’s exactly what his national security team is doing.”
