Fox’s MAGA hosts have struggled to respond to the text chain story since The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported on Monday that he had been inadvertently added to a message group in which top Trump aides discussed plans for the military strikes, apparently by national security adviser Mike Waltz. They initially tried to downplay the revelations and focused on attacking Goldberg, before concocting a baseless theory in which the reporter had somehow tricked his way onto the chat. 

On Wednesday, Goldberg published the actual text messages, which he had initially withheld over national security concerns. 

That stuck Fox’s resident Trumpists with an admittedly difficult task: How to explain to viewers that texting precise missile strike times over a messaging app is not only legal, but that it’s so immaterial as to barely be worth consideration. But they rose to the challenge, explaining on their shows that night that with the release of the texts, the story is over.

Fox host Laura Ingraham told her viewers: “The reality of the situation here, I think actually it's fairly straightforward. When you look at these texts in their entirety, and of course, more were released today, they show a serious and thoughtful group of advisers trying to carry out the clear wishes of the duly elected and totally competent commander-in-chief.”

“Sure, we're going to find out again who put the Trump-hating Goldberg on the chat chain and why, but it's abundantly clear that none of this put national security at risk,” she added. “And there was no risk to our troops, and the entire world is safer because of the actions that our troops took.”

Jesse Watters took the same view on the network’s following hour. “The first so-called scandal of the Trump second term, it's dead in 48 hours,” he crowed. 

“Forty-eight hours ago, Democrats thought they had the scandal of the year, and now it’s over,” he explained. “Officials leak to reporters all the time. This time they accidentally leaked to a reporter. It was a mistake. Hopefully it doesn’t happen again.”

Sean Hannity likewise told his viewers that the story was no big deal because “there was no classified material revealed in those texts.” He later described the messages as “an inadvertent, one-off text exchange surrounding a successful strike in Yemen without any details.”

“I would spend more time on this Signal issue, but it's such a nonissue, I don't even think it's worth talking about at this point,” he said to his guests later in the program. 

None of the three hosts read the actual texts or displayed them on-screen.

Indeed, the closest anyone got in Fox prime-time was Greg Gutfeld, who offered the following “joke” on his “comedy” show: “Now, the full leaked texts of the group chat have been released, and it turns out Pete Hegseth announced, quote, ‘This is when the bomb will drop.’ But in his defense, he was talking about the release of Snow White.”

There’s a reason they don’t want to talk about what was actually revealed on the text chain: The messages are incredibly damning to the administration.

The Atlantic’s Monday story revealed the existence of the Signal chat group, named participants — including Waltz, Hegseth, Vice President J.D. Vance, and several other top administration officials — and reported that Hegseth shared “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.” 

The Atlantic published the texts after several participants in the chain and President Donald Trump claimed that the information in the chats was not classified, writing that “people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions.” 

Here is the portion of that report detailing Hegseth’s posts about the March 15 strike:

At 11:44 a.m. eastern time, Hegseth posted in the chat, in all caps, “TEAM UPDATE:”

The text beneath this began, “TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.” Centcom, or Central Command, is the military’s combatant command for the Middle East. The Hegseth text continues:

•“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”

•“1345: ‘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)”

Let us pause here for a moment to underscore a point. This Signal message shows that the U.S. secretary of defense texted a group that included a phone number unknown to him—Goldberg’s cellphone—at 11:44 a.m. This was 31 minutes before the first U.S. warplanes launched, and two hours and one minute before the beginning of a period in which a primary target, the Houthi “Target Terrorist,” was expected to be killed by these American aircraft. If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests—or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media—the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds. The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.

The Hegseth text then continued:

•1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”

•“1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”

•“1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”

•“MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”

•“We are currently clean on OPSEC”—that is, operational security.

•“Godspeed to our Warriors.”

Will Cain, who spent years as Hegseth’s co-host on Fox & Friends’ weekend edition before he was promoted to weekday afternoon host and his couchmate was promoted to secretary of defense, actually did read Hegseth’s texts on Wednesday’s show. But he quickly sought to explain to his readers why they were unimportant.

He claimed that U.S. adversaries would have been unable to act even if they had accessed the information, because they “would have to determine then what is going to take place, where it's going to take place, and who is going to be struck, and share that with the Houthis.” 

But in a subsequent segment, Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), who served as a U.S. Army Ranger and did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, explained that due to the Houthis’ air defense systems, the information revealed in the texts was sufficient to put lives at risk.  

REP. JASON CROW: These are regional air defense systems — let me explain how an SA-3 and an SA-6 works. These are the two systems that the Houthis have that they got from the Russians. If they know that aircraft are flying over a region or an area, not even a specific target, they can launch an SA-3 and an SA-6, much like they did when they shot down the MQ-9 Reaper drone last year.

So they don't need to know the exact location. So here you have people on this Signal text chain, one of whom, by the way, was sitting in Moscow when this happened, was sitting in Moscow, the most dangerous environment in the world for a cell phone.

And they were saying that we are launching strikes. So, if the Houthis knew about that, they could have shot them down.

Other Fox employees with expertise in national security issues have further explained why the texts were so dangerous.

Fox’s Griffin wrote on X that according to the “current and former US defense officials” she consulted, the messages “could have placed US military pilots in harms way” and the information they contained was “clearly classified”:

There is a debate about whether the operational details Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared in the Signal Group Chat were “classified” or not. So I surveyed a range of current and former US defense officials who agreed “war plans” is not the right term but what was shared may have been FAR MORE sensitive given the operational details and time stamps ahead of the operation, which could have placed US military pilots in harms way.

What Hegseth shared two hours ahead of the strikes were time sensitive “attack orders” or “operational plans” with actual timing of the strikes and mention of F18s, MQ9 Reapers and Tomahawks. This information is typically sent through classified channels to the commanders in the field as “secret, no forn” message. In other words the information is “classified” and should not be shared through insecure channels. 

“Attack orders” or “attack sequence” puts the joint force directly and immediately at risk, according to former senior defense official #1. “It allows the enemy to move the target and increase lethal actions against US forces.”

This kind of real time operational information is more sensitive than “war plans,” which makes this lapse more egregious, according to two former senior US defense officials.

“This information was clearly classified,” according to former senior defense official #1.

The Defense Secretary can retroactively declassify information after the fact, but the fact that this was shared in real time before the strike took place makes it unlikely to have been declassified when it was being shared and seen by the journalist for The Atlantic who was inadvertently included in the Signal chat.

According to a second former senior US defense official, when Hegseth says he didn’t release “war plans” that is pure semantics. These were “attack plans.” “If you are revealing who is going to be attacked (Houthis – the name of the text chain), it still gives the enemy warning. When you release the time of the attack – all of that is always ‘classified’.”

Likewise, Fox contributor Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who regularly appears on the network to discuss legal issues, wrote in the New York Post that it is impossible to credibly contend that Hegseth’s messages were not classified, adding that the defense secretary “was reckless to disseminate information about imminent combat ops over a non-approved chat app” and noting that “it seems incredibly foolish to deny what he did.” 

Notably, Griffin did not appear on her network’s popular prime-time programs to discuss her reporting on Wednesday. McCarthy, meanwhile, has not appeared on Fox to discuss the story at all this week.