Trump’s Team Calls Europe ‘Pathetic’ in Leaked Signal Group Chat Messages

Trump administration officials haven’t kept their disdain for Europe quiet. But the contempt seems to be even louder behind closed doors.

Europeans reacted with a mix of exasperation and anger to the publication of parts of a discussion between top-ranking Trump administration officials, carried out on the messaging app Signal. The discussion, about a planned strike on Yemen, was replete with comments that painted Europeans as geopolitical parasites, and was revealed on Monday in The Atlantic, whose editor was inadvertently included in the conversation.

“I just hate bailing out the Europeans again,” wrote Vice President JD Vance, asserting that the strikes would benefit Europe far more than the United States.

“I fully share your loathing of European freeloading,” Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, later replied. “It’s PATHETIC.”

The exchange seemed to show real feelings and judgments — that the Europeans are mooching and that any American military action, no matter how clearly in American interests as well, should be somehow paid for by other beneficiaries.

A member of the chat identified as “SM,” and believed to be Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, suggested that both Egypt and “Europe” should compensate the United States for the operation. “If Europe doesn’t remunerate, then what? If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return,” SM wrote.