I do not envy the hosts of Fox News’ morning show, Fox & Friends.
For a multitude of reasons, but mostly because of the situation that arose earlier this week after a report from The Atlantic claimed that the outlet’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently added to a group chat on an unsecured messaging app as the United States military discussed plans to attack a terrorist organization in Yemen.
When former Fox News host Pete Hegseth was tabbed to serve as the Secretary of Defense, it was an inevitability that this situation would come up. No one — no matter the political affiliation — is perfect. Mistakes happen. And it was inevitable that Fox News was going to be in a position where it would have to report on an uncomfortable situation related to Hegseth.
I’m guessing that they didn’t believe it would be this early and to this magnitude, though.
In full disclosure, I didn’t watch the full, entire three-hour show. I am just focusing on the portions of the show dedicated to the coverage of the report from The Atlantic. Also worth noting that usual Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt was not on the show on Tuesday. Kayleigh McEnany was in her place.
In the 6 AM ET hour of Fox & Friends, Brooke Singman joined the show to lay out the story from The Atlantic and the response from Hegseth that argued that Goldberg is a “highly discredited” journalist and that “no one was texting war plans” in the group. Goldberg has maintained that there was highly confidential information shared in the group thread that he was accidentally added to. The introduction included sound from President Trump saying he was unaware of the story on Monday afternoon when asked for his reaction.
Steve Doocy took the reins after Singman’s appearance to lead the discussion. He said he spoke with several sources who all said they had not known national security leaders to utilize the Signal — — the app used by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Hegseth, among others — for communication purposes. He then turned to McEnany to ask about her experience utilizing more secure communication vessels from her time as the White House Press Secretary.
I thought this was a masterful job by Doocy to, first, showcase his connections in the political sphere by sharing information he had independently gleaned from national security sources. But to also utilize the expert on the panel. McEnany has deep knowledge and experience in government communications, and tossing the ball to her and letting her run with it in this instance was the wise choice. She’s obviously going to be able to lend more credence to this story than anyone else. He set up his teammate to shine, and she did.
McEnany explained the communications protocols from her time working in the White House. It gave more insight to viewers who likely didn’t have an intricate knowledge of the technology, the government policies, and why this is an issue. She admitted “This is an obvious mistake” by the national security team, which is as unambiguous as you can be about the situation.
She didn’t leave it, there. She made the case that the national security team had “eaten their crow hot” and accepted responsibility, which feels a bit disingenuous after playing a clip of Secretary Hegseth failing to take any responsibility or accountability for the incident. She echoed the statements made by her former Fox News colleague — who worked on the weekend edition of Fox & Friends — by stating the she didn’t trust Goldberg’s assertion that war plans had been shared in the group message.
Jones interjected by stating that his only question was how Goldberg was added to the chain. He said government officials aren’t supposed to use it, but they use it. When Doocy pushed back by saying they don’t use it for top-secret communications, Jones asserted himself again by stating “They use it.”
It was an interesting exchange. Doocy at one point made a face as if to insinuate “That’s not a great rebuttal,” but allowed Jones to continue, who added that he uses Signal to communicate with government officials. The next point made by the Fox & Friends host was that those involved in the group message shouldn’t have been communicating with Goldberg in the first place, which led to agreement from McEnany.
Later in the show, the hosts asked questions of Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR). The questions of Cotton were fantastic. McEnany asked what he thought the upcoming committee meeting would focus on as it was slated to meet in mere moments. Brian Kilmeade asked Cotton what questions he had to ask about of the national security team. Those are fantastic questions that viewers want the answers to. And when you have the leader of the upcoming Senate committee that was going to continue to advance the story, utilizing that time to get answers for your viewers is always an A+ move.
Now, that interview did devolve into partisan politics later. Lawrence Jones asked Cotton about Signal and how prevalent its use is among those in the national security world. Jones justified his question by stating that he “knows for a fact” that many in that realm utilize the messaging app.
That’s as leading a question that you can ask. Literally, the question was “Is that not correct?” It was an attempt to give Cotton the chance to normalize and trivialize the clear blunder and to avoid accountability for the national security team. Which he willfully accepted. Cotton’s answer — in my words, obviously, not his — equated to “Well, you ever read a recipe and it said to use a teaspoon but you used a tablespoon? It was sort of like that.” Not exactly the defense you’d ever hope to hear from a United States Senator about a mistake made by our military and national security leaders, but here we are.
The interview with Sen. Cotton lasted just over five minutes. It was a classic example of “get them on, get what you want out of them, and get them out.” It was quick work nearing the end of the show, where each host go to ask their one question to someone who would undoubtedly be impacting the news of the day.
Overall, I was impressed with the way the network handled the situation. Now, could that be because my expectations were so low? Maybe. But I thought it was interesting for Kayleigh McEnany to flat-out say “This was a mistake.” Because of the hyperpartisan world in which we live, neither side is ever willing to give an inch out of fear that a mile will be taken. But, she was right. This was clearly a mistake made by the national security team. Attempts to downplay it or explain it away shouldn’t be acceptable.
It certainly felt as if there was some disagreement on the couch between Steve Doocy, Lawrence Jones, Kayleigh McEnany, and Brian Kilmeade on how to handle this story. But that’s likely only perceptive to someone like me who isn’t as focused on the content of the show as much as the presentation of the show. But I found that conflict interesting and believe the hosts did a good job of masking those feelings on the air and to the audience.
This wasn’t an easy situation to navigate for a variety of reasons, most especially because hosts are deeply familiar with many of the players involved in the situation. I’m sure they, like me, hope this is one of the few or only times they have to cover a situation involving their former colleague.
It was bound to come up eventually. Could Fox News have done a better job covering this? Absolutely. But they also could have done a significantly worse job, too. And perhaps that’s lending too much benefit of the doubt. Maybe giving credit for not being as terrible as some would have expected might feel incorrect, but if you’re supposed to reinforce the good things, I think this was an overall good job done by the Fox & Friends group that likely wished they could have been talking about literally anything else on a Tuesday morning.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
