"Hey, Pete, IMHO I Heart Your War Plans!"

As numbingly reckless as the mess (the very polite term) is with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in which Trump officials were not only discussing detailed war plans on an unsecured texting app -- but also accidentally invited a journalist into the group chat -- I love that it at least is getting the massive attention it deserves, including calls in Congress for an investigation (at least called for by Democrats, silence by the supposed national defense-loving MAGOPs), rather then being swept under the rug, overshadowed by other Trump disaster stories.  This is the Trump administration Disaster Story of the Day.

Oh, I should note Defense Secretary Hegseth's chat group discussing sensitive war plans over an unsecured text app included VP "Vance," Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles.  The gang that couldn't govern straight.

Beyond just the ghastly sloppiness of such an action and danger it risked putting the lives of military personnel in, as well as naming an active CIA agent, and the inclusion of operational details of strikes against Yemen, what the story overlaps with, too, is the Constitutional issue that it’s Congress who declares war, not the White House which the officials’ discussion suggests, the potential criminal issue of passing classified material on mobile phones outside of a protected SCIF (which doesn't allow mobile phones that could have malware or be hacked), and also the intense hypocrisy of MAGOPs weeping tears at Hilary Clinton using private email...while this, on the other hand, was discussing actual war plans!

Man, who could have imagined seeing this happening with Pete Hegseth…?!  The Secretary of Defense with zero experience running an organization anywhere near the size of the Pentagon, the former Fox TV host, the accused rapist, the guy whose mother wrote him about his irresponsible behavior, the guy who had such a widely-known drinking problem that he had to promise he wouldn’t drink if he was confirmed to be Defense Secretary – because, yeah, that’s how stopping a drinking problem works.

And what was Hegseth’s response when asked about the security breach?  No, not calling for an investigation into how this could happen and if there were any ramifications of it.  Instead, he made a rant attacking what he called this “so-called reporter” who he claimed writes hoax stories.  Never mind that The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg is a long-admired journalist and editor of the magazine – and that even the White House confirmed the breach.  Never mind, too, that Goldberg patriotically left out of his article all the specifics of the attack that he heard.  And even quit the chat group when he was able to confirm that it was real.

Trump, on the other hand, pled his traditional "ignorance."  Not terribly unbelievable, given the source, though still improbable given the national security risk.  And ludicrous to claim it since it's more damning if true that he wasn't told.  (But then, of course, he knew.  After all, in response to Trump's claim, Jeffrey Goldberg has said, "I alerted the White House shortly after 9 in the morning.")

Almost more adorable is Trump saying that National Security Advisor Mike Walz, the one who accidentally invited reporter Goldberg into the group chat, had "learned his lesson."  As if this was a third-grader caught calling a classmate a mean name.  And coming from someone, found guilty of 34 felonies, twice found liable of rape, and been impeached twice who has shown he has no concept of "learning his lesson."

Mainly, though, what I love most is that this adds to the perception that the Trump team is wildly incompetent and out of control.  And this is something very easy for the public to grasp – discussing war plans over an unsecure texting app and including a reporter by mistake.

Of course, there are many other serious issues at play here, high among them whether the chat group broke the law in what they were doing. 

“Most certainly it did,” said Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “And it reflects a general sloppiness and negligence in the whole approach of the administration as they've gotten started here.”

Raskin went on --

“If you look at what the underlying plan was, it's Congress that declares war on Venezuela or on Yemen. It's not the President of the United States. So it's both this tremendous operational negligence and sloppiness that has been shown, but also the idea that they act in complete defiance of what the Constitution says and what the rule of law stands for.”

And it didn’t escape Raskin’s memory of how this all overlapped with MAGOP “outrage” with Hillary Clinton.  “Well, it'll be child's play to go back and find all of the Republicans who were demanding congressional investigations, and that Hillary Clinton apologize and leave the campaign and so on, based over her handling of the information, most of which was not classified."  Unlike, well…y’know, discussing detailed war plans.  On an unsecured app.  With a reporter accidentally invited in.

The Hegseth breach transcends bizarre.  But it once again confirms the biggest problem Trump has:  that he is not surrounded by the best who can help him get out of the disasters the administration is creating.  He's surrounded by incompetents, with little to no experience, whose main qualification is kissing the feet of Trump and doing his bidding, no matter how incompetent, disastrous or criminal.