Fox News personalities’ new argument in support of their former colleagues who discussed pending military strikes on an unsecured text chain is that those former colleagues — now America’s top military, national security, and intelligence officials — are easy to deceive.

On Monday, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that former Fox host turned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had divulged “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen” in a Signal group that included top officials like former Fox contributor and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Goldberg himself, who was apparently accidentally invited to the chat by former Fox contributor and national security adviser Mike Waltz. 

As experts and observers noted that such unsecured communications channels can be compromised by U.S. adversaries and endanger the lives of American service members, Fox scrambled to the Trump administration’s defense. The network’s stars initially focused on disparaging Goldberg, attacking other media outlets for covering his report on the chat, and suggesting that the text messages Goldberg produced actually showed President Donald Trump’s advisers acting responsibly. 

But on Tuesday, they came up with a new excuse — one which amounts to arguing that the nation’s top national security officials are morons.

When Fox host Laura Ingraham asked Waltz to explain Goldberg’s presence on the Signal chat, Waltz dissembled. 

“I'm not a conspiracy theorist,” Waltz began, before offering a conspiracy theory in which “somehow” Goldberg “gets on somebody's contact and then gets sucked into the group.”

The national security adviser added that Goldberg may have somehow “deliberately” ensured that his contact information was attached to a Trump official’s contact name, adding that the administration has “the best technical minds” trying to ascertain how such a thing happened.

Eventually he told Ingraham, “I take responsibility, I built the group.” 

But on the next hour, Fox host Jesse Watters took the ball and ran with it. 

“Journalists like Goldberg will sometimes send out fake names with a contact with their cells to deceive politicians,” Watters said. “This wouldn't surprise me if Goldberg sneaked his way in.”

In an interview with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, Watters added that Goldberg's addition “could have been an accident on your team’s side, but it also could have been something a little more mischievous on Goldberg’s side.” By Wednesday morning, Trump himself was alluding to this theory, saying in an interview, “A thing like that, maybe Goldberg found a way.”

Watters cited no evidence that this “fake names” tactic has ever actually happened, and given his record, we should assume that he is just saying stuff. But if we take his commentary seriously, Watters is saying that the person Trump picked as his national security adviser is easily fooled, and so are his colleagues who run U.S. intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, and the White House. 

Indeed, that’s a strong case that Trump should replace those aides with people who are not buffoons, that those aides should stop using unsecured communications channels to discuss matters of national security because they are too stupid to prevent interlopers from joining the chat, or both. 

In reality, Trump is standing by everyone involved, participants are giving no indication that they plan to stop using Signal in this manner, and Fox’s propagandists don’t actually care whether all of this puts lives in jeopardy. 

Anyway, here’s how Goldberg got added to the Signal group in which participants discussed war plans, according to The Atlantic’s follow-up report on Wednesday: