The chat is out of the bag: a stunning leak

0:02The Economist

0:10Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

0:24Nigerian politics is a nasty place for women. Our correspondent says that's apparent in the details of a sexual harassment scandal that'll be litigated in a parliamentary hearing today.

0:39And there's one behavior that employees find more annoying than any other, having their ideas stolen. But our columnist says there are plenty of reasons to forgive thieving colleagues or to wait for the theft to backfire.

1:01First up, though.

1:09Ten days ago, America carried out the largest airstrikes on Yemen since President Trump took office again. The targets were radar and drone systems used by Houthi rebels, an Iran-backed militia that's been threatening trade routes in the Red Sea since 2023. You know who wasn't surprised by the strikes? Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine. You know why? Because he had been added to a group on the encrypted messaging app Signal, in which everybody who's anybody in America's security establishment was plotting out the attacks. And you know who claimed not to know a damn thing about it?

1:48You're saying that they had what? They were using signal to coordinate on sensitive materials. Having to do with what? Having to do with what? What were they talking about? With the Houthis. The Houthis? You mean the attack on the Houthis? Well, it couldn't have been very effective because the attack was very effective, I can tell you that. I don't know anything about it. You're telling me about it for the first time. Anybody else? It all adds up to a really genuinely breathtaking lapse in security, whether or not the president knew. You know, the kind of lapse that could derail a Clinton campaign.

2:25And journalists the world over are having a field day with the revelations. Every journalist looking at this story is thinking, why didn't they add me? Because this is an incredible scoop. Shishan Joshi is our defense editor. And then the second thought is, my God, this is just an extraordinary data breach. This is astonishing incompetence, astonishingly bad handling of classified information and very revealing about the inner workings of the Trump administration. OK, so let's go through how this came to pass. So it begins on March 11th. Jeffrey Goldberg, he's the editor in chief of The Atlantic magazine.

3:07He gets a request on Signal, which is for those who don't use it, this is an encrypted messaging app. It's a little bit like iMessage or WhatsApp. It's often viewed by people in defense and national security circles as being a little bit more secure than those other apps. And he gets a connection request from someone who appears to be Mike Waltz, who is the National Security Advisor of the United States, the NSA. Two days later, things take an even stranger turn when Goldberg is added to a discussion group called the Houthi PC Small Group. Now, I need to break that down a bit, Jason. The Houthis are the armed group in Yemen that's been attacking shipping.

3:43And PC means the Principles Committee, which is kind of the group of senior officials who make decisions in the U.S. government. So this looks like it's a group that's created to coordinate upcoming military action against the Houthi militia in Yemen. There are 18 members. They appear to include J.D. Vance, the vice president, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, many, many more as well. What then follows is an incredible series of messages deliberating over whether the United States should bomb Yemen.

4:18And then ultimately, Pete Hegseth tests the war plans themselves. Incredibly detailed messages about the weapons that will be used, the targets. So he ends up knowing about this strike two hours before the rest of the world. And this ends up being a quite remarkable leak of very sensitive information. And so in those messages beyond the detailed military plans, what do you see? There's lots. It's in a way the sort of chat you might have with your friends, Jason, except presumably you're not discussing the bombing of Yemen. It's laden with emojis. There's a great moment where, you know, there's prayer emojis after the strikes occur.

4:54There's one with flexed muscles and American flags and fire. It's a sort of very colloquial, casual conversation. Jeffrey Goldberg has been pretty responsible. He's redacted the most sensitive information in these chats. He's, for example, not told us the names of serving CIA officers. He's not told us details of the weapons, the targets. But what you see is that the way this administration talks about Europe in public is the way they talk about it in private. They do not like Europeans. You have J.D. Vance saying, I hate bailing Europe out again. Pete Hegseth says, I fully share your loathing of European free loading.

5:34It's pathetic. Stephen Miller, who's a White House official, basically says, how do we bill the Europeans for this operation? How do we bomb Yemen without consulting them and then send them an invoice for it? The concern they have is that reopening the Red Sea, which the Houthis are disrupting, would benefit Europe and Egypt more than it would benefit America. So they somehow want to know, why are we doing this? Why is America doing this? It gives you a hint of that opposition to kind of military entanglement abroad, particularly from J.D. Vance. This really shows you that contempt for Europe that we see in public.

6:15That's exactly what they think in private as well. And insofar as we haven't learned anything new about the stance of the administration on Europe, how serious is this breach really? I think it's a pretty serious breach. Look, officials in many countries use Signal to talk to journalists and others and to talk to each other. It's not unconscionable that Mike Waltz was using Signal. It's not unconscionable he has Jeffrey Goldberg in his contact book. You know, officials talk to journalists. Great shock. I think there's two mistakes here. One of them is Mike Waltz adding a journalist to this internal chat.

6:47But the much, much more serious breach is the use of this unclassified system. You know, it's an encrypted app, but it's operating on an unclassified, unsecure phone to discuss highly classified system. That's a breach of American law. It's a breach of the law. It's what the Republicans were very angry at Hillary Clinton about back in 2016. And by the way, one of the particularly concerning things here is that Steve Witkoff, who is really the point man on Russia-Ukraine talks, appears to have been in Moscow at the time that some of these messages were being sent to him. That raises the question of whether his phone, with these conversations, with that chat, and perhaps many other sensitive chats on Russia-Ukraine related issues, were on a phone that were accessible to Russian intelligence services.

7:36I think there will be real questions asked about this. You know, last week I spoke on the intelligence about the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance. I said allies would be wondering whether the Trump administration is capable of keeping secrets safe. This is not the kind of thing that will fill them with confidence on that front. But will there be any accountability is the question. This is an administration that can deny and deflect and delay ad nauseum. Do you think heads will roll? Well, you're right. It denies it deflects. Pete Hegseth's claim that he wasn't texting war plans appears to be a lie.

8:09I think that Mike Waltz is in real trouble. Let's remember here, Waltz is more of an orthodox Republican. You know, he's not a make America great again, super Trumpy guy in the way that J.D. Vance is, in the way that Steve Whitcoff is. And so I think Waltz was already probably on slightly shakier ground. He is also the man who is supposed to be coordinating these meetings. That's what the National Security Advisor does. I think that the White House will be very angry at him. Hexeth has also made a serious breach here. But Hexeth is more of a Trumpy guy. and you can see the way he's come out fighting is the way that Trump probably likes.

8:45So I have a feeling that Waltz could get in more trouble for this. The National Security Council says there's a review underway to find out how an inadvertent number was added to the chain. I don't think we need the FBI for that, Jason. I think we can see how it happened. Mike Waltz did it. But the funny thing I thought is that they're also insisting that this exchange was a quote, a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. All I'll say is that anyone familiar with the multi-decade history of American foreign policy deliberations has probably never seen a flexing bicep, an American flag, a fire emoji in the great historical record when discussing American wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Korea.

9:25Let's remember that this comes days after Steve Witkoff gave an interview to Tucker Carlson, a pro-Trump journalist, in which he exhibited breathtaking ignorance about most basic elements of his brief in negotiating with Russia. He couldn't name two of the five occupied regions that Russia claims, despite being apparently quite enthusiastic to give them away. I think that events like this will compound the sense that this is an administration that just lacks a basic sense of coherent foreign policy process. And that should be a concern to Congress. It should be a concern to Americans, and it will be a concern to allies.

10:07Shoshang, thank you very much for your time, as always. Thanks, Jason. I'll see you in the Economist Signal chat.

10:27My first trial into politics was in the year 2019. under the platform of the Social Democratic Party. In 2019, Natasha Akwoti Udoha unsuccessfully ran for governor of Nigeria's middle belt state, Kogi. It was a very tough journey. It was laced with violence. Violence in all forms. The physical attacks of my person, my constituents, my followers who were killed. The houses were burnt down. They were beaten up every time we went out to campaign. We were beaten up, we were shot at. She lost that election, but undeterred, she decided to run for the Senate. Ore Ogunbiyi is our Africa correspondent.

11:14The day before that vote in 2023, she faced yet another obstacle. Now all the roads, the five roads, they were caught, should I say, gullies, were made out of them. Five major roads to her constituency were dug out so that election materials couldn't get to them. And it took her six months before she was finally sworn in as senator because she had to appeal for rejected ballots to be included in the vote. Throughout her entire journey into politics, she's faced violence, verbal abuse, cyberbullying and more. It seems to be the regular norm here, especially when you're a woman. Her story is a reflection of the harsh conditions that women face in Nigerian politics.

11:55And Ori, before we get into that sort of bigger political picture, how have things gone for Senator Akhboti Udoha since she's been sworn in? Well, they're not going too well at the moment. Most recently, she struggled to get bills passed and was told to sit in a remote corner of the chamber where she'd basically be out of public view. For seven months, I have not been able to raise my motions, contribute to debates or take second readings of my numerous bills. That the Senate president had silenced me on the floor of the Senate for the past seven months. Senator Agbotti claims that the reason she's being singled out like this is retaliation by Godzul Agbabio, the Senate president, for rejecting his sexual advances.

12:40So, after refusing to sit where she was told, she formally accused him, the Senate President, of sexual harassment The Ethics Committee got together and hastily recommended that she be suspended And the Senate President did exactly that on March 6th Suspending her for six months, withdrawing all her security He said she's not allowed anywhere near the National Assembly or her office Basically, these are some of the harshest conditions that we've ever seen regarding a senator's suspension Now, the Senate president, Kozula Kpabio, denies sexually harassing her. And he says that Senator Akboti's suspension is actually unrelated to her complaint against him, that she was suspended for gross misconduct.

13:18And there's an initial court hearing which is slated for today. And coming back to that broader political picture you were hinting at, this is perhaps not so surprising in Nigerian politics, or is it? Unfortunately, it's not. Women are very, very underrepresented in Nigeria's politics. it has one of the lowest shares of female representation in government in the world. No Nigerian state has ever elected a female governor. No major party has put a woman on a presidential ticket. Of the 360 members in the lower house, only 17 are women. Senator Akwoti Udwahan is one of only four women in the entire Senate.

13:51And the few women who do then make it to politics often find themselves silenced, which is part of what is getting Senator Akwoti so riled up. She was laughed at when she presented her sexual harassment petition in the Senate. There's been comments about her outfits. Some people suggested that her husband should apologize on her behalf for making a scene. During the suspension ruling, her mic was turned off before she could even defend herself. And what's behind this? What is it that is causing this disrespect of women in politics? I think the reasons are mostly cultural. Ultimately, Nigeria is still a deeply patriarchal society, and a lot of people find and still find the idea of women being in such powerful positions just a little irksome and politics is just another area of life where we see that.

14:35Women are infantilized all the time. Senator Akpoti keeps being referred to by her first name, she's being called a girl, a troublesome girl and this is why it's near impossible for women without powerful backers, so whether that's husbands or bosses, to break into politics because they're sometimes treated as proxies for men. And it's because these attitudes are so widespread that Senator Aboti's case is resonating with so many people. There are parallels that can be drawn with Nigerian women across society who are just trying to be good at their jobs. And you say there's an initial court hearing today about her suspension.

15:09How do you think that's going to go? It's a tough question. I don't think it's looking good. If the court case goes her way, she could return to her seat. But it's going to be a very long fight because everything takes ages to go through Nigeria's courts, which means that there might not even be a ruling before her suspension is over. But also, all the suspensions that have ever been overturned through the courts before have only been of men, and of men with powerful backers. She doesn't even have that much support within the Senate, let alone beyond it. And even among the few other female senators who are in the House, their responses have ranged from weak to outright disappointing.

15:45So not only is she a woman, but she's politically unpopular and from an opposition party. In fact, the party that she beat to get the seat, the one that she had to fight for her victory against, is already trying to look for ways to kick her out. So the Electoral Commission has actually received a petition to recall her from her seat. So it's not impossible that she gets her seat back, that she finds a way to overcome this. But a lot is riding on the presumed independence of the judiciary. Ora, it's always a pleasure. Thanks for your time. Thanks for having me, Jason.

16:29I don't want to talk about the specific things that my colleagues do that annoy me, because I think they can hear me right now. So instead, let's talk about something we can all agree is infuriating. Someone stealing your ideas and getting credit for them. It's an innate kind of fury. Psychologists say that children as young as five disapprove of this kind of plagiarism. Ha, wait till they get jobs. The concept of credit stealing, I think, is pretty familiar to anyone who's been in the workplace. Andrew Palmer, No Relation, writes Bartleby, our column on work and management. You come up with what you think is a brilliant wheeze.

17:15someone else who you've just told that to then repeats it as if it was their own and doesn't give you the credit. And it is, according to most surveys, the single most annoying habit that people encounter. If something is really annoying and happens a lot, what are the reasons to try and remain calm? So just as a coping mechanism, are there arguments to think that actually this isn't terribly malevolent? And I think there are. Okay, go on. When someone nicks my idea, why do I not fly off the handle? So reason one would be that the person who's claiming credit doesn't necessarily realise that they're doing it.

17:51There is a phenomenon called cryptonesia, which is basically this idea of inadvertent plagiarism. And you can see this being tested in various studies where a group of people get into a room, they're asked to come up with ideas to solve a particular problem. And then a little later, there's another session where they're asked to recall the ideas that they came up with, but only their own, and also to come up with some new ideas to solve the same problem. And people routinely appropriate ideas of other people. They think they were their own ideas. And also when they come up with supposedly new ideas, they're actually building on things that were in the previous session.

18:30And that's supposed to calm me down. Oh, they probably didn't mean to nick my idea, so I should probably be cool about it. I think it should calm you down, Jason, because if it's not deliberate, if it's not malevolent, then you're probably doing it yourself. You should remain calm. Okay, I recognize that I have some role to play here, but give me more coping mechanisms. So another one would be that innovation, the idea of coming up with new things, is itself kind of a copying mechanism, that new ideas are not that new, that they recombine things that have already been thought of, and also that people are often working towards the same solution to a problem at the same time.

19:11They're doing so independently. That's the idea of convergent innovation. And you can see that in various fields. But there's a very nice new book called Like, which is about the history of the like button, popularized by Facebook back in 2009. But this book, which is by Martin Reeves and Bob Goodson, actually traces out how lots and lots of different companies for many years before that Facebook moment were basically trying to solve the same problem. Like, how do you have a very short, sharp signal from a peer that you like a piece of content? And that story and others like it basically suggest that if you do think of something as your own idea, actually others are likely to have had it too at roughly the same time.

19:54And it's probably building on other ideas too. You see the same sort of thing in science, ideas popping up in various places at about the same time. So I understand that. But what about the part where somebody nevertheless gets credit for it. That's the really annoying part of this. It is annoying and some people do, but they may not be getting as much credit as you fear. So hopefully people are able to see who's responsible for things, to see through someone who is relentlessly taking credit for other people's ideas. But also it can backfire. If you take credit for something, it might be giving a different kind of signal off from the one that you intend.

20:29So there's one study that suggests that managers who both brag a little and give credit do better, that that's a good strategy. Only ever boasting doesn't work for you. There's another which looks at how being proud of something, like really overtly proud of something, is actually a kind of negative signal. It suggests you've hit a ceiling, you've exceeded your performance, and there therefore is a worry that, oh, okay, we've maxed out here. So being slightly modest, being undemonstrative about doing well can play quite well as well. Implicit in all of that, I suppose, is that some sort of justice is served, then people who go around as braggarts then don't get the credit.

21:14Perhaps we think they do. There are reasons to remain calm. Credit stealing then is, I mean, in that casting, no big deal. Yeah, I'm not going that far. I'm basically trying to give some reasons why it may not be always malevolent, why it may not always pay off for the credit stealer. But there are bound to be instances where someone who's doing that a lot and is doing so deliberately and is doing so with a degree of self-knowledge is not behaving well and is probably therefore aggregating or appropriating credit in a way that they shouldn't. Andrew, thanks very much for your time. I'm really glad I had the idea that we should speak.

21:51Thank you, Jason.

22:05That's all for this episode of The Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.

22:23Thank you.