Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and his Democratic colleagues are calling for a full, unredacted transcript of the Trump administration’s Signal group chat.
“Yesterday’s revelations were alarming, but they were not enough. We need answers, more answers, because more damage may have been done than the public and all of us know,” Schumer said in a statement.
“That’s why my colleagues and I are calling on the Trump administration to release the full and unredacted text conversation from this Signal chat, including everything communicated after the journalist prudently removed himself,” the statement continued.
Schumer’s statement follows the news revealed by The Atlantic after its Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a Signal group chat along with top Trump administration officials to discuss plans for the recent attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Schumer argued that the Senate needs to know if there were other sensitive conversations happening on Signal and said Democrats in various committees are “taking action.”
Schumer speculated on what could have happened if someone other than Goldberg had been added to the group, such as someone who has ties to the country’s adversaries.
The New York Democrat has called for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to be fired after a second round of screenshots released from The Atlantic show he detailed the time, location and weapons used in the planned attack. Hegseth previously said there were no “war plans” shared in the chat.
“And once he got caught, did Secretary Hegseth take responsibility for his shocking lack of judgement, which is what he should have done?” Schumer questioned. “Any upstanding Secretary of Defense would have done that.”
He questioned if Hegseth exhibited the kind of leadership Americans need from the person who deploys troops into battle. “No, he didn’t,” Schumer said.