Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in his first public remarks about the The Atlantic's reporting, said, "Nobody was texting war plans."

Former members of the defense and intelligence communities wonder who’s in charge of policy and operations — and if they’re qualified for the responsibilities.

The news about Waltz’s Venmo list comes as the former congressman from Florida has done his best to deflect from another operational security scandal that’s blown up this week. Waltz accidentally added the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine,

An inadvertent invitation to a group chat thrust The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg into the center of an explosive national security breach that's put the White House on the defensive. Why it matters: Goldberg's decision to disclose the discussion of planned strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen and publish the group chat's contents has embroiled top Trump officials in scandal and exposed them to potential legal jeopardy.

The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who was accidentally added to a group chat with Vice President JD Vance and nearly all of the Trump administration senior national security leaders where military plans were being discussed,

The focus of the group chat snafu that has consumed Washington this week has shifted to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s mishandling of sensitive military intelligence on an unsecure app. Obviously, Mike Waltz messed up: He somehow mistakenly added a journalist — a journalist who has sparred with the Trump team for years!