CNN's Scott Jennings praises Trump officials, says it's 'refreshing' to see them admit to war plans leak

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: CNN's conservative political commentator Scott Jennings praised the Trump administration for its handling of a shocking national security leak, where a reporter was accidentally informed about the US' plans regarding airstrikes in Yemen.

President Donald Trump's team found itself in a full-blown mess after a jaw-dropping intelligence leak landed right in the lap of The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg. On Monday morning, March 24, Goldberg dropped a bombshell report detailing how he ended up inside a top-level government chat group on Signal, an encrypted messaging app, Mediaite reported.

It wasn’t some hacker situation or a deep-state conspiracy. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz accidentally added him to the chat where Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth were openly discussing US airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Goldberg didn’t mince words about what he saw. “I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts," he said.

"What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” the journalist added.

Mike Waltz scrambles for damage control

Realizing he had just made one of the biggest national security blunders in recent memory, NSA Mike Waltz hit the Fox News circuit on Tuesday, March 25, to try and salvage the situation. And to his credit, he didn’t throw some poor staffer under the bus and owned it instead.

“Look, a staffer wasn’t responsible. I take full responsibility. I built the group. My job is to make sure everything’s coordinated,” Waltz admitted.

But that didn’t stop the backlash. Later that night on CNN NewsNight, guest host John Berman broke down the White House’s defense.

“The main thrust of the White House argument all day seemed to be, ‘Jeffrey Goldberg’s still a bad guy, which explains how we managed to invite him on this group chat. And secondly, it maybe wasn’t classified because Pete Hegseth sent it,’” Berman said.

Then, turning to CNN’s Scott Jennings, he asked, “Is that satisfying? I mean, that really was the message today from the White House.”

Scott Jennings says it was ‘refreshing’ that Trump admin owned up to the leak

Scott Jennings—CNN's conservative commentator—offered an honest take. While he acknowledged the leak was a major screw-up, he praised the Trump administration for at least admitting the mistake, as per Mediaite.

"Yeah, and, you know, none of us have seen what was supposedly war plans. And there’s still a dispute over just how sensitive it really was. But I do think it’s noteworthy that the White House is able to acknowledge a mistake, say they’re gonna learn from it, say they’re trying to figure out the technical issues that led to it," he explained.

He pointed out how this level of accountability was rare in Washington, DC.

"I mean, they did own up to it. I mean, obviously, there’s been some rhetoric and hyperbole around Goldberg and others who, by the way, I agree, acted responsibly in this particular case, even though if I have some quibbles with what he’s done in the past. He did absolutely act responsibly here," Jennings added.

He took the opportunity to contrast Trump’s response with Biden’s handling of past military blunders.

"So, I think that’s actually kind of a refreshing thing for the government to say, 'Ok, yes, effed up. We’ll fix it. This won’t happen again'—especially when you contrast it with previous military and national security snafus in our recent history in which no one was held accountable, no one was fired, no mistakes were admitted. Until the very end, Joe Biden was saying Afghanistan was a success," he continued.

"I like it here that Donald Trump, the president, said he’s a good man. But he learned a lesson. That tells me he and the president, with Waltz, had a hard talk," Jennings added.