--- title: "JD Vance Sent Bizarre Lonely Text to His Bombing Group Chat" description: "The group chat in question: the same one in which Pete Hegseth accidentally revealed secret military strikes to a journalist." date: "2025-12-04" modified: "2025-12-04" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/future-society/jd-vance-group-chat" categories: - "Cybersecurity" - "Future Society" --- # JD Vance Sent Bizarre Lonely Text to His Bombing Group Chat ![The group chat in question: the same one in which Pete Hegseth accidentally revealed secret military strikes to a journalist.]() *Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images* As the nation reels over Pete Hegseth allegedly [giving direct orders]() to carry out heinous war crimes, we are now being reminded of the defense secretary's other big scandal from earlier in the year: when he was caught texting secret war plans about launching airstrikes in Yemen in an unsecured group chat while totally oblivious to the fact that a journalist was in there reading everything. That context is important, though the latest embarrassing detail to emerge from the "Signalgate" scandal comes not from Hegseth but his vice president and [charisma]() [black hole]() JD Vance. As [spotted by *The New Republic*](), in the same group chat at the center of all that drama, Vance sent a bizarre late-night text just hours after it was [exposed by *The Atlantic*]() for [being a stunning violation of national security](). "This chat's kind of dead," Vance sent at 2:26 am. "Anything going on?" No one responded, according to a screenshot of the chat taken on March 27, two days after Vance sent the message. If it was meant to be a joke, it bombed. While Vance was making wise cracks, the others, like treasury secretary Scott Bessent, were covering their tracks by changing their display names and the chat's settings so messages disappeared more quickly. The strange text was brought to light in a long-awaited [report]() released Thursday by the Pentagon inspector general, the findings of which confirmed what everyone already suspected: that Hegseth's use of the Signal app to discuss bombing Houthi forces in Yemen violated security protocols and endangered troops in the field. The former *Fox News* personality and Army national guardsman has repeatedly downplayed the allegations. When *The Atlantic* first reported on the group chat, Hegseth insisted to reporters that "Nobody was texting war plans." The Signal chat proved to just be the tip of the iceberg. On top of accidentally leaking stuff to a journalist in the Yemen chat, he also discussed bombing the country [in another group chat that had his wife and brother](). He also [reportedly]() used the same phone that he conducted official top secret business on to peruse social media sites and try his hand at sports gambling. Hegseth refused to hand over his phone or be interviewed for the investigation. Instead, he provided a written statement explaining why he didn't actually leak classified information — his excuse being, in a nutshell, that he's the one who decides what's classified or not in the first place. "I retain the sole discretion to decide whether something should be classified or whether classified materials no longer require protection and can be declassified," Hegseth told the inspector general in July. "On 15 March 2025, at 1144ET, I took non-specific general details which I determined, in my sole discretion, were either not classified, or that I could safely declassify, which I then typed into the Signal chat." **More on Signalgate:** *[Pentagon Issued Warning About Signal Messaging One Week Before Its Head Was Caught Using It]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()