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Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed on Wednesday that he took part in the group chat<\/a> on the Signal app earlier this month among top United States officials ahead of American airstrikes<\/a> in Yemen and said that someone had made a \u201cbig mistake\u201d by adding a journalist to the group.<\/p>\n Mr. Rubio\u2019s remarks were the most candid yet made by a cabinet member \u2014 and by a participant in the Signal group \u2014 on the presence of Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, in the chat. Democratic lawmakers and some Republican ones<\/a> have said that his addition, as well as the discussion of military operations, including possibly classified information, amounted to a serious failure of national security practices.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously someone made a mistake,\u201d Mr. Rubio said when asked by an American reporter at a news conference in Kingston, Jamaica, about the possible security failing. \u201cSomeone made a big mistake and added a journalist. Nothing against journalists, but you ain\u2019t supposed to be on that thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Rubio was speaking alongside Prime Minister Andrew Holness of Jamaica, after the two met at lunchtime during Mr. Rubio\u2019s first stop on a tour of three nations in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Rubio confirmed the substance of his part of the text messages that have been published<\/a> by Mr. Goldberg. Mr. Rubio said he took part in the chat twice: once to name a point of contact for his office, his chief of staff, Michael Needham; and a second time to congratulate the team on the operation once the American military had carried out lethal strikes against the Houthi forces in Yemen.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Pentagon has made it clear that nothing on there would have endangered the lives or the mission,\u201d Mr. Rubio said of the Signal chat texts. \u201cThere were no war plans on there.\u201d<\/p>\n