Ben Smith, co-founder of Semafor, discusses the political and media fallout after The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to a Trump administration Signal group chat.
“Trump has had this remarkable three months of, and I think we looked at, I'm not sure we'll say that he got a lot done. I think the jury is very, very much out on like, wait, what exactly didn't get held up in court and what happened, but of absolutely dominating the narrative, which is in some ways how they keep score. And I think this may, I mean, this was certainly the first massive breach in that. And it'll be interesting to see whether they can really regain it.”
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AssertionNot checkable as stated
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