Sometimes the most serious news stories result in the best collection of satirical memes. On Monday, the Atlantic magazine posted an article by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg headlined The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans. And while that may sound like a parody story in The Onion, it was all too real. Goldberg was somehow added to a group chat using Signal, an open-source, encrypted messaging service, along with Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and other officials.
Read more: What Is Signal, the App Used to Accidentally Send a Reporter Military Plans?
Goldberg writes that he thought the chat must have been a prank or joke but soon learned it was a bona fide battle plan unfolding. Top Trump administration officials used the chat to discuss military strikes in Yemen before those strikes were carried out on March 15. White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes confirmed the messages' authenticity to ABC News.
It's especially worrisome news because, as CNET writer Zachary McAuliffe points out in his explainer on Signal, the Google Threat Intelligence Group reported in February that Russia-aligned malicious actors were targeting Signal users, trying to gain access to their accounts by abusing the app's legitimate "linked devices" feature with using fake QR codes.
"End-to-end encryption, like Signal uses, ensures your message isn't readable if it's intercepted by another person or group," McAuliffe notes. "That said, if you accidentally add someone to your group chat, you're going to have a bad time. But thanks to some dreadful operations security, we can at least enjoy some top-notch memes."
Here come the memes
Can something so serious have a humorous side? If you've been on the internet for more than a few minutes, you will know that almost anything can be turned into a meme. Many focused on the addition of Goldberg to the group, while others speculated about what was being said, with Hegseth coming in for much of the humorous targeting.
One new meme brought back the iconic meme format showing an 11-year-old Frank Giaccio, who was granted his wish to mow the White House lawn in 2017. A photo of him pushing a lawn mower, with President Donald Trump apparently speaking to him, has been captioned and recaptioned hundreds of times, and the Signal incident brought it up again.
From then on, the memes just didn't stop.