When it was revealed this week that high-ranking members of the Trump administration had shared messages on the Signal app, chaos and recrimination ensued. And yet, as further details emerge, the left-leaning Fourth Estate appears desperate to keep animated a corpse of a story that is beginning to rot.
While inviting The Atlantic’s top editor to the group chat was a spectacular faux pas by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and his team, Democrats' calls for all those involved to resign are more than merely hyperbolic; they are massively ignorant.
Misinterpreted Smoke Signal
Let’s lay out a few of the basics. The initial uproar from the media and the political left was that these Trump officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, should never have used Signal in the first place. It was widely described as “amateur hour” in terms of operational security. Indeed, in congressional hearings throughout the day (Tuesday, March 25), the refrain of security lapses was repeated ad nauseam. But the facts don’t match the fiction.
As Scott Jennings – a conservative strategist and perennial guest on CNN – pointed out in the wake of the manufactured fury, the Signal app was already “preloaded” and “in use” when the new administration moved in.
In fact, as Fox News reported, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommended that high-ranking administrators and politicians use “end-to-end encryption” software, specifically citing Signal as an example. The CISA guidelines read:
“Adopt a free messaging application for secure communications that guarantees end-to-end encryption, such as Signal or similar apps.”
This recommendation was updated in December 2024 while Team Biden was at the helm. So it’s easy to make the case that the anger at Trump officials for using Signal should be equally directed at the Biden agencies that crafted the recommendations. But that, of course, would be a stretch too far for those hellbent on damaging President Donald Trump.
Media Overload
So, keeping in mind that the use of Signal was actively encouraged by the federal agency responsible for cybersecurity during the Biden administration, that leaves one point of contention: that a reporter was inadvertently added to the group. A big mistake, for sure, but was it worthy of calls for resignation and the domination of the entire news cycle?
Here’s the sheer amount of coverage dedicated to it two days after the story broke:
CNN’s March 26 digital homepage (above the fold) contained 17 articles, six of which were devoted to the Signal story – that’s 35%.
On Politico, 7 out of 11 above-the-fold digital stories covered this topic – 63%.
The New York Times had 8 out of 17 top-of-page stories devoted to the Signal saga – 47%.
The Washington Post takes the crown, with 6 out of 9 stories focusing on the Signal events – that’s 66%.
It feels as though journalists are actively encouraging each other to coin the phrase “SignalGate.”*
It is not as though no other worthy news stories are taking place. After all, the Supreme Court ruled on so-called “ghost guns”; Trump is challenging judges in courts; Greenpeace suffered a loss in a $600 million lawsuit – the list goes on. Yet the Signal saga has become the dominant trend.
When there is such close coordination among media outlets, the reason is either that the biggest story of the year just dropped or the new messaging strategy for the Democratic Party is underway. It seems quite clear which one this is.
*Notably, today, March 27, Politico's homepage has EIGHT uses of the word "SignalGate."
