Jessica Tarlov Stunned at Fox Co-Host’s Version of Group War Chat Leak

Tarlov’s co-host Jesse Watters said the leak was simply an accident Monday, and compared it to Hillary Clinton’s server scandal instead.

Jessica Tarlov seemed absolutely flabbergasted by her The Five co-host Jesse Watters’ take on a shocking text message leak surrounding Trump officials’ war plans Monday, and stood her ground while labeling the debacle a sign of “incompetence and recklessness on a scale unimaginable.”

In an explosive essay, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg claimed he was added to a group chat on messaging app Signal by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. Goldberg said top security officials within the Trump administration, including what appeared to be Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were in the group chat and were seemingly discussing the March 15 strike on Houthi targets in Yemen.

“Donald Trump’s ratings on handling the economy, inflation, cost of living are all tanking, and we’re seeing this administration’s incompetence and recklessness on a scale unimaginable,” Tarlov said during The Five’s Monday segment on Fox News. “I’m sure you guys saw this incredible Jeffrey Goldberg piece from right before we got on air,” she continued, summarizing Goldberg’s story and noting how the nation’s top security heads were “planning, on just Signal, to drop bombs in Yemen.”

“So they’re not doing this in a SCIF [a sensitive compartmented information facility], they’re doing it on an app that you and I, we all have on our phones, and it’s obviously incredibly reckless. National security risks—I don’t ever wanna hear ‘but her emails’ again,” she added, referring to Hillary Clinton’s email server scandal.

When Watters later attempted to dismiss Tarlov by arguing that it was an accident as opposed to past leaks from the Democratic Party, which he deemed purposeful, the pair got into a brief argument.

“Yeah they accidentally leaked something to the media instead of the Democrats—,” Watters said before Tarlov interrupted him to say, “They didn’t leak it; they invited him in.”

Jeffrey Goldberg speaks on stage after the “The Atlantic Presents: This Ghost of Slavery” panel for The Atlantic Festival 2024 on September 20, 2024 in Washington, DC.Paul Morigi/Getty Images for The Atlantic

“Actually leaking classified information to the media,” Watters continued, prompting Tarlov to repeatedly say, “No, no.”

“At least they didn’t home-brew a server and acid-wash it—but her emails! I just did it,” Watters continued.

In a later segment on Jesse Watters Primetime Monday night, the anchor proceeded to outline his perspective on the leak further, likening it to accidentally adding a family member to a group chat planning a bachelor party.

“Do you ever try to start a group text? You’re adding people and you accidentally add the wrong person? All of a sudden your Aunt Mary knows all the raunchy plans for your bachelor party?,” Watters said. “Well, that kind of happened today with the Trump administration.”

Though Watters admitted Goldberg “heard some things he probably shouldn’t have,” the host seemed adamant on downplaying the incident as a “wee bit of a security breach” before bringing up Clinton’s server scandal again as a rebuttal.

Responding to the bombshell report on X, Clinton gave her own response. “You have got to be kidding me,” she wrote alongside a side-eye emoji.

White House National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told The Atlantic in a statement that the Houthi message chain appeared to be “authentic” and noted that they would be “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”

When probed on the debacle by a reporter Monday, Hegseth clapped back by criticizing Goldberg’s career. “So, you’re talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who has made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again—to include, I don’t know, the hoaxes of ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ or the ‘fine people on both sides’ hoax, of the ‘suckers and losers’ hoax,” Hegseth said. “This is a guy who peddles in garbage. This is what he does.”