It's amateur hour at the Pentagon. [View all]

It’s amateur hour at the Pentagon. Everyone knew it would be, with a comically unqualified Fox News personality in charge. But Pete Hegseth’s decision to ignore operations security and share battlefield plans on a commercial texting app, putting U.S. flyers at risk, is a doozy.

Because the well-thumbed Trumpian playbook then called for lying to the American public about what happened, that’s exactly what he did. He denied that he revealed “war plans” and he disparaged the editor of The Atlantic as a “deceitful…so-called journalist.”

The Trump administration's domestic battle plans, as always, are clear. Claim falsely that journalists got it wrong. Pretend that you’re the victim of a smear. Count on the MAGA base and the G.O.P. chorus in Congress to play along. Celebrate the misdirection and wait for the circus caravan to move on.

Harry Truman’s “The Buck Stops Here” sign, the one he kept on his Oval Office desk? That’s for suckers.

A couple of facts are worth noting, however.

First, the secretary of defense, the vice president, the national security advisor and others texted detailed attack plans on a commercial app. Second, Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic editor inadvertently added to the group, followed along, at first skeptical, then incredulous. After the U.S. attack on the Houthis, he wrote a careful story about what he read.

Then the Trump administration launched its attack on Goldberg. “Another hoax by a Trump-hater,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary. Hegseth tweeted, “We will continue to do our job, while the media does what it does best: peddle hoaxes.”

That word: hoax. If it sounds familiar, it might be because Trump loves to talk about the “Russia hoax,” otherwise known to him as “Russia, Russia, Russia.”

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Russian interference in the 2016 election wasn’t a hoax. As Dan Coats, director of national intelligence put it: “Russia conducted an unprecedented influence campaign to interfere in the U.S. electoral and political process.”

The Signal episode wasn't a hoax either. Goldberg wrote what he saw. As some of the most influential people in the country concoct false narratives, again and again, to pursue and preserve power, let's remember to separate fact from fiction and support the truth-tellers.