Does Trump Bear NO Responsibility?

By Marvin Kalb

Standing above the “Signal group chat” scandal, undermining his administration, is an aloof President Donald Trump, who—last I looked—was elected in November 2024 to be the chief executive of the United States, responsible for the nation’s security.

Yet while his top officials, including key members of his Cabinet, are being buffeted with brutal (albeit justified) criticism, calls for “independent investigations,” and even demands that a number of them be fired, Trump has maintained a pose of detached innocence, as though it’s all simply a “mistake,” a “glitch” in the system having nothing to do with him.

With a straight face, this president claims he “knew nothing” about the “group chat” scandal; and that it was, using tired and familiar Trump language, a “hoax” and a “witch hunt,” concocted by the “deep state”; and that, in any case, the prize-winning journalist who broke the story, Jeffrey Goldberg, Editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was a “sleazebag” or, to quote Michael Waltz, his national security adviser who personally invited Goldberg onto the chat, the “bottom scum of journalism.”

In any case (asks the Trump chorus line), why all the fuss? Though the basic fact, disputed by no one, is that the group chat discussed in outrageous detail an upcoming American attack on a Houthi rebel stronghold in Yemen (i.e. “classified information,” as understood even by a newcomer to the Pentagon), there was, these top officials all proclaim shamelessly, no “classified information,” no “source,” no “method.” So why the hoopla? What’s the big deal? Why investigate?, asks an obedient Attorney General.

So far in this bureaucratic debacle, the administration’s deception, lying and misrepresentation are stunning—so much so, one must wonder ‘Why?’ And the answer seems to be Trump was not included in this “group chat.” The president of the United States was AWOL on an urgent matter of national security.

To be clear, again, the U.S. was in its final deliberation of an American military strike in a foreign country, and the president chose to be absent. He was busy. He may have had an important golf tournament to rig in his favor. According to the text, Trump had earlier indicated (though apparently not clearly, that he favored an attack on the Houthis, then left it to his national security adviser, Waltz, and his secretary of defense, Hegseth, to carry out his wishes. Americans easily could have been killed, but Trump’s style of presidential “leadership” allows his subordinates ample room for irresponsible improvisation—so he can remain absorbed with matters he considers more important.

His contempt for the military and our intelligence is no secret. He’s called soldiers “losers” and stated he trusts Russian President Putin more than he does his own intelligence officers. But Trump does strange things.

Watching Trump on TV, sitting behind his White House desk, while his new money man, Elon Musk, stood nearby, casually attired in a black tee-shirt and his dark MAGA hat, both of them absorbed not with Yemen but with tariffs, cars, and the mysterious hidden glories of DOGE, I could not help thinking about how other presidents have acted during American military operations against a foreign country.

• John F. Kennedy, huddled with top aides to discuss, deliberate, and decide on any U.S. action during the Cuban missile crisis. He wasn’t there to observe major decisions. He made them.

• Lyndon Johnson, staying up all night waiting for an official report on a bombing mission he’d ordered in South Vietnam.

  

• Richard Nixon, deliberating with his advisers in the Situation Room on his groundbreaking visit to China.

• In the Situation Room on the ground floor of the West Wing, presidents from Ford to Biden gathered with their senior advisers to reach decisions on major American military actions.

  

No journalist was ever admitted to these secret meetings. Often presidents waited there anxiously to receive reports on the success or failure of an action, sometimes through the night.

But that does not appear to be Trump’s style, and up until this latest scandal he has had little reason to change. But for the first time since returning to the White House, change may be in the air.

Late polls show that three out of every four Americans, including a majority of Republicans, “disapprove” of using a group chat to confer prior to an American military attack. The GOP chair and Democratic co-chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee have summoned Hegseth to a meeting to discuss the scandal.

Judge James Boesberg, who has already irritated Trump on the Venezuelan deportation case, has now demanded that several of the top “chat” participants save and secure their records of the Yemen scandal. The judge has given them until next week to provide the accumulated evidence. Formal investigations may yet happen.

Donald Trump has led a charmed life, but his luck may now be running out. We’ll all know soon enough.

Marvin Kalb, Murrow professor emeritus at Harvard, is the author of A Different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course.