Loose lips: Trump officials defends themselves after accidental leak of attack plans | Opinion

Being MAGA means never — ever — saying you’re sorry.

Ever.

We knew that already. But we’re getting a fresh reminder this week, in the form of the Trump administration’s pushback against revelations in The Atlantic that the president’s national security team accidentally added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a group chat where officials discussed plans to attack Houthis responsible for disrupting shipping in the Red Sea.

It’s a big oopsie, one that potentially compromised national security.

Under normal circumstances, somebody — an adult in the room, say — would be required to show a little humility. Maybe even resign. And maybe that will still happen.

For now, though, the Trump White House has mostly decided that the proper response is to mount a sustained attack on the journalist, Goldberg, who broke the story.

“I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” National Security Adviser Mike Waltz started to explain Tuesday night on Fox News, and let’s stop right there: If you’re saying those words then everything that follows is probably going to be a conspiracy theory.

Sure enough, Waltz continued, it sure was strange that Goldberg “of all the people” — a journalist who has previously written critical stories about President Trump — somehow “was the one that somehow gets on somebody’s contact and then gets sucked into this group.”

Well. Goldberg didn’t get “sucked into” the group chat. Waltz added him.

Again, oopsie.

Loose lips sink ships

You will not be surprised to learn that Missouri Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, both Republicans, are taking up the party line. It’s just a real-time leak of attack plans that would normally be kept secret! What’s the big deal?

“This is what the leftist media is reduced to,” Hawley said on Laura Ingraham’s Fox show on Monday.

“They can’t argue with the policies, which the American people support, they can’t argue with this new demonstration of American strength that is keeping Americans safe at home and abroad, so now we’re griping about who’s on a text message and who’s not.”

And yeah, if you put it that way, it sounds silly.

But isn’t keeping track of “who’s on a text message and who’s not” kind of important when it comes to military maneuvers? Isn’t it important that the national security team was using a public app instead of secure government communications technology? Doesn’t anybody remember the old “Loose Lips Sink Ships” posters from World War II?

Just ask any military veteran if they would have kept their jobs if they’d been so cavalier with the nation’s secrets.

Schmitt, at least, was willing to acknowledge the goof before making excuses.

“Look, it was a mistake, right?” he told Ingraham on Wednesday. But, he said, “what this really is about” is actually “about the Democrats. They have nothing. They have no leader, they have no message. They’re grasping at something.”

Ask yourself: Would Schmitt be so dismissive if Joe Biden’s press secretary had leaked attack plans in real time? Or would have grasped at something?

I’m pretty sure I know the answer.

Moran: ‘I think that’s hard to explain’

Thankfully, there does seem to remain one adult left in the Kansas-Missouri delegation to the Senate: Jerry Moran.

Moran — a GOP member of the Intelligence Committee who still has a bit of the Reaganite cold warrior in him — offered a measured, mild critique of the president’s national security team.

“I can’t see the rationale for the kind of conversation that took place over Signal, for not taking place in a more secure manner than that, ” he told a scrum of reporters on Wednesday. “I think that’s hard to explain.”

There will be hearings on the issue, he said. “And I hope what errors seem to have occurred result in different ways of doing business in the future.”

Was that really so difficult?

Republicans had two choices this week: They could defend the Trump Administration, despite its error. Or they could prioritize America’s national security. Moran made the right choice. Too bad his regional colleagues didn’t join him.