On this week’s episode of “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart went after President Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, for leaking top secret U.S. war plans to The Atlantic by accidentally including the publication’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, in a group chat.
Before diving into the brief segment, Stewart sarcastically prefaced the audience by saying he wanted to provide a “quick update on an administration that is, once again, carrying out its plans
with competence and professionalism.”
Stewart then played a series of news clips illustrating the situation. They explained that Hegseth had mistakenly included Goldberg in a group chat on Signal meant to discuss attack plans on Huthi rebels in Yemen. Other individuals in the chat included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, according to Goldberg’s story detailing the incident, which he published Monday.
“Oopsie poopsie!” Stewart exclaimed. “You know, back in my day, if you were a journalist who wanted leaked war documents, you had to work the sources, meet them in dark garages, you earned trust, pound the pavement. Now you wait for the national security advisor to be distracted by ‘White Lotus’ while he’s setting up his ‘Bomb Yemen’ group chat. ‘Are those guys jerking each other off?’”
Stewart continued, “By the way, I might also be in this. I don’t know. I don’t check my group chats. Perhaps my favorite text of the entire group chain was the one from our defense secretary saying, ‘We are currently clean on op-sec.’ For those of you who don’t know, ‘op-sec’ means operational security.
He said that in a group chat, a group chat with a journalist!”
Stewart added that Goldberg “didn’t think it could be real” until Yemen was bombed.
That detail invoked a mixed reaction from the crowd. Stewart then joked, “Oh, did I bring you down?”
Watch the entire monologue below.
