President Donald Trump is scheduled to sit down Thursday with Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, the journalist behind the Signalgate controversy.
“I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be ‘truthful,’” Trump said on Truth Social. “Are they capable of writing a fair story on ‘TRUMP’? The way I look at it, what can be so bad – I WON!”
Journalists Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker will also be present for the interview.
Trump criticized Goldberg while announcing the interview, calling him “the person responsible for many fictional stories about me, including the made-up HOAX on ‘Suckers and Losers’ and, SignalGate, something he was somewhat more ‘successful’ with.”
A longtime Trump foe, Goldberg has written numerous articles criticizing the president’s administration. Goldberg was accidentally added to a Signal group chat earlier this year in which numerous Trump administration officials discussed military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
The articles Goldberg published launched the so-called Signalgate controversy. They sharply criticized national security adviser Mike Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in particular and called for their resignation.
Trump has stood by both men so far despite Hegseth’s involvement in a second Signal group chat scandal for sharing information with his wife and brother using the encrypted messaging app.
Hegseth acknowledges sharing ‘unclassified’ info in Signal chats ‘then and now’
Trump, who was an entertainment and reality TV figure before he entered politics, seemed pleased with the premise of Goldberg’s piece.
“The story they are writing, they have told my representatives, will be entitled, ‘The Most Consequential President of this Century,’” Trump said.
