An Extraordinary Security Breach
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It is Tuesday, March 25th, and here's what's happening right now on CNN This Morning. He was texting war plans. He was texting attack plans. An extraordinary breach in national security. A journalist has added to a group chat about secret plans for airstrikes. Will someone be fired over this? Plus... We're going to continue to arrest public safety threats and national security threats.

Is the White House focusing on the right things when it comes to keeping the country safe? Today, President Trump's top intel officials will be pressed on their priorities. Then later... These are terrorists. Task Force Tesla, the FBI now looking to crack down on what it says is domestic terrorism. And... This is people's sensitive private information.

If you took a DNA test with 23andMe, your genetic data may be up for sale. How you can protect your private information right now. It is 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here's a live look at Baltimore. Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the Key Bridge collapse after it was struck by a cargo ship. There's going to be a new report card out today that shows how the nation's infrastructure ranks. We're going to bring that to you later this hour.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Adi Cornish. I want to thank you for waking up with me. We are learning about a shocking national security breach today involving some of the highest ranking officials in the Trump administration. So the story breaking on the Atlantic under the headline, the Trump administration accidentally texted me its war plans.

Now those plans involved intimate details on the U.S. strikes on Yemen that happened earlier this month. At least that's according to Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who saw them firsthand in a group chat. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent the plans to Signal. That's an encrypted messaging chat. And that happened in the days leading up to the strikes.

Hegseth thought he was speaking on a private group chat with high-ranking Trump administration officials that included the vice president, J.D. Vance, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, White House chief of staff, Suze Wiles, among others.

Now Goldberg says he later knew the chat was actually real when strikes in Yemen and other operational details started matching up with what he read in the group thread. Now that was two hours before the mission officially got underway. The strikes were celebrated in the chat with emojis like this fist bump, American flag, and fire combo by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. The news of the breach is now putting the defense secretary on defense.

- What was details shared on Signal and how did you learn that a journalist was privy to the targets, the types of weapons used? - I've heard I was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans and that's all I have to say about that. - No, that's a lie. He was texting war plans. He was texting attack plans. When targets were gonna be targeted, how they were gonna be targeted, who was at the targets, when the next sequence of attacks were happening.

I want to note that White House National Security Council spokesperson has confirmed that the message chain appears to be real. Later this morning, you can expect more questions on Capitol Hill because Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe, two Trump intelligence officials who were on the group thread, will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a previously scheduled hearing.

Joining me now to talk about all this, Michael Schnell, congressional reporter for The Hill, Chuck Rocha, Democratic strategist, and Jameel Jaffer, former associate counsel to President George W. Bush and founder of the National Security Institute at George Mason. Okay, so we used to call this the group chat. We will continue to.

unless we find out someone's under the table. But Michael, I want to start with you because lawmakers were actually coming back from the weekend. There were all kinds of hearings like we brought up, including one on global threats. What has been...

going on in your group chats in the last 10 hours? I've gotten probably three buckets of responses. A is Democrats who are just completely up in arms, very frustrated, very concerned and alarmed by what happened. A journalist being in a group chat, A, with those top administration officials, but B, this sensitive material being shared in an unsecure platform.

The second bucket of responses I've heard is from some moderate Republicans, national security focused military veterans who say that this was a problem and it was a concern. I spoke to Don Bacon yesterday. He served, he dealt with intelligence when he was in the Air Force. He called this embarrassing and wrong.

And then the third bucket of responses I heard was Republicans saying they hadn't yet read the report. And this was hours after Jeffrey Goldberg had published this essay on the Atlantic detailing what he had experienced. So giving you the I don't know her. It was after hours of news coverage. They had said, I haven't.

I haven't read it yet. I haven't parsed the details. I can't comment. A bit of a deflection, I would say, for not having to comment on this big news story. I want to follow up on one of the things you said because we actually heard from Don Bacon as well. He's a Republican from Nebraska and he was asked about the implications of this. So I just think it's just a security violation and there's no doubt that Russia and China saw this stuff within hours of the actual attacks on Yemen or the Houthis.

So that's wrong. This is a gross error and it's intentional. They intentionally put highly classified information on an unclassified device. I would have lost my security clearance in the Air Force for this and for a lot less.

Jamil Jaffer, I want to turn to you obviously because of your experience. There's a number of things he brings up there. One, it's a violation. Two, the idea of foreign entities being probably also seeing it. And third, that he would have lost his clearance had he done something similar.

which one of those would you like to take on? Well, I read the report. It is astounding. It's shocking to see this kind of conversation happening on a commercial messaging app. This isn't how you'd normally do it. Now, look, the president has the right to determine how classified information is transited or not. He could have given them top cover to say, look,

You guys were authorized to use Signal. I'm not saying he did, right? But it's possible President Trump, we know, once took a picture of a highly classified overhead image from a satellite, tweeted it out, a picture of an Iranian missile, right? Put it on Twitter or X within a few hours of him getting it. So the president could have made a decision. Look, my senior cabinet officials are allowed to use Signal's messaging app to have a conversation. No evidence that that happened. Nobody said that. That hasn't been their defense. But...

possible that could happen. You're opening the door for that. But can you answer the question about potential violations? Is this a fireable offense under other circumstances? Well, certainly people can get fired for this, absolutely. And I think certainly if any average government official had done this, you absolutely would have been fired. You could have been pursued for improperly handling classified information as well. Huge potential questions about all those issues.

One of the things that's coming up in terms of the politics is that Waltz, Hegseth, Vance, Trump, a lot of these folks, including Rubio, of course, have a long history of attacking their political opponents about the handling of classified materials. That's become such a story in Washington over the years, particularly in the area of Hillary Clinton. Here's an example of some of their past comments.

How damaging is it to your ability to recruit or build allies with others when they are worried that our leaders may be exposing them because of their gross negligence or their recklessness in handling information? Hillary Clinton put some of the highest, most sensitive intelligence information on her private server because maybe she thinks she's above the law.

Or maybe she just wanted the convenience of being able to read this stuff on her Blackberry. Any security professional, military, government or otherwise, would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct and criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information.

I want to add one more to this since Hillary Clinton is not here to defend herself. She did weigh in on the story on X with, given the rest of the context here, an emoji and the phrase, you've got to be kidding me. Chuck, do you want to jump in here about that dialogue? Sure.

I'd also like to say that this is where we are now with our national security to work when I'm on an airplane from the West Coast here today and the first thing I hear is Pete Hegseth and the signal chat war is not the first thing I thought of and it should have been the first thing I thought of because of all the drama we've been through with Pete Hegseth his signal chat baby mama drama

girlfriends, all these things alleged, not alleged, but it should be the first thing I think about when it comes to national security. And I think this gets to the political point you're making that the folks on TV were making, which is you can't have it both ways. If somebody gets fired, somebody should get fired. If somebody should be on signal or not on signal, whether it was authorized or not, that should be determined. When I think about national security, I want my nation to be secure.

What are the things I, you know, actually, Jamil, can I let you comment on that? Because I am curious about how you do talk about this, given that past, right? How, what are you going to be listening for and how Republicans defend this? Look, it's got things to be, it's an uphill battle.

Right. You have a situation where Hillary Clinton was set up a private server, had these conversations going on, these emails going back and forth. Clearly my classified information Republicans rightly came after her on that. Whether it was political or not, it was it was a fair criticism. You can't put classified material on an unclassified server.

At the same time, you cannot get on Signal Chat, an unauthorized messaging application, unless you've been authorized to do it, right? And send around, whether you call them war plans or not, they were talking about sensitive operational details of an ongoing military operation. That's a real problem. And here's the crazy thing.

it was always have official nobody objected to the vice president of the view the d_n_i_ nobody said i was business as usual and you know check your point earlier you made a clip about baby mama's political point for you but not totally accurate in this context but i think you were talking about the idea that democrats had raised serious questions about had sensibility

to run an agency of this size when he had not done anything prior? Are you going to be listening to the Tammy Duckworths, the lawmakers who raised questions about his leadership ability in the next coming days? We could very likely probably see this "I told you so" campaign from some Democratic lawmakers because there were obviously, Pete Huggins was the most contentious nominee that we saw. It was that nail biting vote that went into the late hours of the night that

required a tiebreaker. So Pete Hegseth has sort of been in the center of so much controversy throughout the beginning of the Trump administration because of his controversial nomination and then his uphill battle to be confirmed. So I wouldn't be surprised if we heard some of those comments from some Democrats who were really on the front lines of raising concerns. I want you guys to stick around because we're going to talk about this more. We have a couple of experts. This has been a great table setting for us for what we're going to hear next.

on CNN this morning delivering his resignation. The Postmaster General's is stepping down as the Trump administration looks to revamp the postal service. Plus, if you took a DNA test with 23andMe, keep an eye on this, why their bankruptcy could lead to your genetic data being sold and what you can do to stop it. And nobody likes a bad picture. President Trump complaining about his newest portrait, one that was commissioned for him by Republicans.

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If you're heading out the door, it's 50 minutes past the hour. I want to give you your morning roundup, some of the stories you need to get your day going. To start, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has resigned. And this comes as the U.S. Postal Service faces calls for privatization and intense scrutiny from the Trump administration. Under his watch, a first-class stamp rose from 55 cents to 73 cents, and that was in just five years.

Meanwhile, the online trading platform Robinhood now under investigation in Massachusetts after launching a program that basically allows you to bet on March Madness basketball games. These are called prediction markets and they've raised legal questions about trading and investing versus straight up online gambling.

And a sad ending to the season for USC basketball star Juju Watkins. During the second round of March Madness on Monday, she collided with another player, went down hard, had to be carried off the court. The team announcing overnight that she will need surgery. The team ended up winning the game and they will advance to the Sweet 16.

And you gotta see this, I'm gonna say it, utter chaos causing a steer standoff as a cow whooped it down the road. A freeway in Houston shut down Monday after six cows got loose blocking traffic. They escaped a rodeo trailer actually. It took four hours to get them all wrangled and back inside. Still to come on CNN This Morning,

are we doing when it comes to keeping up our bridges and infrastructure in the U.S.? There's going to be a new report out that details a lot of that. Plus, with 23andMe filing for bankruptcy, is your DNA data safe? Good morning, Phoenix. Temperatures there are, you guessed it, soaring, could reach 100 degrees. This is one of more than 75 record high temperatures that could fall by the end of the week.

So if you've ever used the genetic test from 23andMe, you might want to consider deleting your profile. At least that's what some consumer advocates are telling people to do after the company filed for bankruptcy this week. It's an unfortunate circumstance when we sign an agreement with a company. We don't really think through what might happen when a company gets sold or goes bankrupt. There's health insurance companies that are interested in this data. There's life insurance companies that are interested in this data.

Joining me now to discuss CNN business writer Claire Duffy. And Claire, I wanted you on because you're also the host of the podcast appropriately called Terms of Service. So let's start with that. Lots of people signed up for 23andMe. They read the Terms of Service. What is it that they might have missed that's coming into play now?

Yeah, it is a really good question because you sign up for these services thinking maybe you're going to learn something interesting or fun about your ancestry. But our DNA really is so core to who we are. It can tell us a lot about, for example, our future health risks. And people have to think about what that could mean if it could end up in the hands of a life insurance company, for example. How might that affect the future services that are offered to you?

I was also surprised to learn just how much law enforcement is increasingly using this data to help with investigations, solving crimes. Pharmaceutical companies can use this information to develop new treatments. You know, you have to sort of decide when you sign up for some of these services how much you're willing for your data to be accessed by other people. And that is especially true now that 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy and is pursuing a sale. And essentially this data is up for grabs to the highest bidder.

OK, let's talk about that more. First, the attorney general of California has basically warned customers straight up, get thee to delete, right? Get out there and get rid of this stuff. But help me understand that black market. You mentioned insurance companies. You mentioned law enforcement. But is there a scenario where someone could swoop in in this bankruptcy and make a legal purchase that could create real problems?

Yeah, look, it's really interesting because 23andMe's privacy policy, which currently, for example, says that you have to opt in if you want your data to be used for research, that privacy policy says the privacy policy will continue if the company is sold

But the privacy policy also says that the privacy policy can be changed at any time. So it really is an open question what kind of company could purchase this information and how they could use it. Now, the existing CEO co-founder, she actually resigned yesterday when the company announced it was filing for bankruptcy. She wants to make a bid for the company. So again, you know, it may be that this company doesn't fall into problematic hands. But for consumers, I think there really is a

question about how much are they willing to gamble their DNA and a lot of people are I think going ahead and deleting their account, deleting their data from this company.

Can you talk about the emotional part of this? So many people sign up and play around for all of these companies, right? And we just sort of assume they'll be around for reasons, like there's no reason to think this business model, so to speak, was going to work. Why are people so kind of attached to these kinds of apps?

Yeah, again, I think it really is because, you know, again, it's our DNA. It really is who we are. And so many people have made meaningful connections through these websites, found family members that they didn't know existed, learned new things about who they are and where they come from. And so I do think this is an emotional time. But

23andMe really always has struggled to find a sustainable business model. This company went public in 2021 and has never turned a profit. I think in part because they're collecting this potentially really valuable genetic data. But in order to get people to use the service, you have to have some safeguards around how you're using that. And that doesn't really translate to a successful business model.

No, and this is, I think, what I'm going to be listening to going forward is like how the industry responds, whether this raises greater questions. What are you going to be listening for? Yeah, I think I want people to understand that their data is not protected in the same way it is in the health care system. You know, if you go to the doctor, there are laws that require them to protect your data in a certain way. Outside of the health care system, it is much more open. There's fewer regulations. And I think that's the piece that I really hope people take away from this.

That's CNN business writer Claire Duffy. She's going to be digging into this in her podcast, Terms of Service. I want you guys to head out, download, follow, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. Next on CNN This Morning, America's top intelligence officials about to attend a Senate hearing on worldwide threats. Are they focused on the right ones? Plus, the Social Security Administration rushing to make changes as the man picked to run the agency faces questions today.

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No one on the chain thought to ask, "Who is JG? What are these initials?" For all they could have been leaking secrets to Jeff Goldblum, for all they know. Classified military strike plans leaked. Members of the president's own cabinet. How did this happen? Well, because they added a journalist to a group chat. Good morning, everybody. I'm Adi Cornish. Thank you for joining me on CNN This Morning. It is 32 minutes past the hour on the East Coast. Here's what's happening right now.

New questions over how that reporter was added to a highly sensitive group chat. That thread about airstrikes in Yemen was on an encrypted but publicly available messaging app. The defense secretary claims that no actual war plans were shared, but a National Security Council spokesman said the messages appear authentic.

Today, the Senate Finance Committee will consider the nomination of Frank Bisognano as the next Social Security Administration Commissioner. This comes as the White House is pushing for changes at the agency. And this morning, top U.S. intelligence officials were set to testify about worldwide security threats during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and FBI Director Kash Patel all expected to be there.

And with so many security threats in the world right now, the Israel-Hamas war, Russia's war on Ukraine, and of course, as we mentioned earlier, the U.S. airstrikes on Yemen's Houthi rebels, the White House is still laser-focused on rounding up people they say are Venezuelan gang members and deporting them.

President Trump is taking decisive action to rid our communities of these gangs that are operating in a paramilitary fashion and that we know Maduro is deliberately emptying his prisons in a proxy manner to influence and attack the United States.

I want to discuss more with CNN Senior National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem. Juliette, good morning. Thanks for being here. We're going to talk about this threats hearing, but this is sort of a strange day because we have spent the last couple of days hearing about immigration and fentanyl and all of these things as the top

priorities of this administration. What originally was this hearing kind of supposed to be about with all these security officials?

Yes, this is an annual hearing in which the senior leaders of any administration go forward and directly and without a lot of drama, tell the Senate Intel Committee in public and tell the American public what are the real threats against the United States and what might be a threat to our basically our safety and security that has.

And that goes to priorities. It's not a matter of will we learn anything new? We know Russia is a threat. We know China is a threat. We know that there are dangers out there. It's a question of how the Trump administration officials will prioritize what they're telling the Senate intel, because then that trickles down in terms of operational focus. And so it

seem to be focused on immigration right now. It's not that it's not an issue. It's just it's not the issue that threatens America's capabilities as a nation like China would. Julia, in the meantime, we've got this news, right, about this breach in security and using this Signal app. What are foreign allies doing?

viewing this right in terms of security. I know that there have been cuts in cybersecurity on the U.S. side. Put this in context in terms of global threats. Is this a problem? Yes. Look, I mean, the the we are strength.

is in the confidence other nations have in our capabilities and the personnel who run those capabilities as much as it does with fear by our enemies that we might do something. Trump and his administration are good with fear. That is their sort of strategy.

So the biggest challenge, I think, coming out of the signal hoopla in the last 24 hours is relates to the Pentagon and Secretary Hegseth and his sort of disastrous sharing, negligent sharing of the war plans. We base our safety and security on a belief that the Secretary of Defense is qualified and truthful.

There are serious questions, and I would say I have tremendous doubts about both of those. He lied aggressively yesterday about what happened in the Signal chat, and we already knew that he was not qualified for this position, barely got through, had professional limitations, personal baggage. And I think that will not only permeate with our allies, it permeates within the Pentagon. We have reported

that his focus on dei it's only it's only that's been his only focus it seems today and to purging dei is getting um uh is has a lot of senior pentagon officials saying this is just a waste of time and so i do think it damages the pentagon and therefore damages our safety and security can i just better understand this thing you're saying about dei are you talking about what his sort of

approach to the job has done within the Pentagon, meaning either trust or dismissal with other people. There's something about the relationships there you're getting at?

Yes. I mean, you have I mean, it's the part of it is just making people annoyed that you're like, you know, taking down websites about Jackie Robinson. But the more important part is this is a serious job. Be a serious person. And I think the combination of Hegseth not taking his job very seriously in terms of what his focus is.

I looked back. I couldn't find almost anything that he has done or said that didn't relate to some some perceived, you know, some purge of perceived DEI throughout the Pentagon up to this moment, up to the moment in which he shares, you

operational capabilities to in the signal chat room with Jeff Goldberg from the Atlantic on it. It is that lack of seriousness that came to him before that came, you know, as he was entering the job. No one thought that he was sort of the best in terms of the Pentagon leadership.

secretary that permeates both within, in particular, the Joint Chiefs, the military and, of course, abroad. The Joint Chiefs put up a plan to strike Yemen. They share it with the secretary of defense because of civilian oversight and check. And he puts it out there for people that not only I mean, this is what people are missing. Not only like is it on a signal signal

That information didn't really need to be shared with that group of people anyway. Even if they had been in the Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs rely on the capability and the stability of the Secretary of Defense. And that hurts our people.

are safety and impacts the threat environment you don't have competency and you don't have truthfulness in the secretary of defense i think this is a bigger story than was he on the signal chat room that's cnn senior national security analyst juliette kayyem thank you

Right now, we are also waiting to see if a federal appeals court will uphold or lift a judge's temporary ban on President Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members, while a Justice Department lawyer argued in front of a three-judge panel. Now, one of those judges said, quote, Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act.

My group chat is back. I want to tackle some things Juliet said, but I also want to get to this Alien Enemies Act question because what this judge said is going to go far and wide. It gets to the point of

due process. What are the circumstances under which you have due process and can you show that you've been doing that? Right, and we've been seeing folks of the administration, the judge, go back and forth for a few days now debating whether or not this move by the Trump administration was valid, was reasonable under the

statute right there that you mentioned. I think something that's important to note as we wait for this three panel, three judge panel to rule is that whatever happens is likely going to be appealed to the Supreme Court. And it's going to be fascinating to see how the Supreme Court handles this matter. We of course know it's very explosive. It's dealing with- And we're all kind of like skipping to the Supreme Court part. I feel like I've had some version of this conversation a couple of times, which goes, they get it to court, then they get it to the Supreme Court. There's still a ways to go in between, but Chuck, it's abstract to talk about.

I feel like trying to talk about this with my relatives, they're like, great, that sounds good, but they don't know why they should care about this. I think it's just one of the spokes in the wheel of frustration of people where you have to follow the rules. I think folks can agree if there's somebody dangerous in this country, they'd like them not to be in this country. I'm not arguing. This is about following the rules. But we're also a country that believes that in a way the rules don't apply to people who have done bad things.

That's a good point. But what I'm saying is that the point you're making about the rules and about bad things all are relevant to each other. And we have a due process and we have rules you have to follow. When Donald Trump doesn't follow the rules or his administration doesn't follow the rules, folks see that. They're like, I have to play by the rules every single day. Hell, my wife reminds me every day I got to play by the rules because I'm the first one to want to break the rules. But we have to follow the rules, even if you're the president.

OK, Jamil, I want to turn to you and a little back to what Juliet was saying, because she brought up several points of which fundamentally this, as The New York Post calls it, Operation Overshare was just not following the rules right in so many ways using an open source app, not using the computers you're supposed to, although like basics, frankly. So should someone be fired? Will someone be fired? Well, look, it certainly doesn't look at the president's aiming that way.

All the conversations with him thus far in the last 24 hours have been, well, I don't really know what's going on. I didn't hear about it, which is, of course, crazy. Of course, the president heard that his senior national security leaders are talking on Signal and discussing war planning or strikes in Yemen, making decisions and the like. It also means Goldberg exited the chat and in Signal it says, so one has left and nobody said a word.

So here's what gets interesting, right? So this JG leaves the chat. Nobody knows who JG is. There's two theories about the case, right? It could have been Jameson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, right? That may have been who they thought they were adding. It might have been somebody fat fingered it. You know, the D and the J, you're adding J.D. Vance, the D and the J and the G are close to one another on your keyboard, as my son pointed out. So, you know, it's like you old people, you all might just hit the wrong buttons, right? I mean, fat fingers is not better than Operation Overshare, to be honest. Yeah.

I wanna ask a question also about this idea of potential threats going forward. If you're a foreign adversary,

It seems like you're excited. You're taking notes. What are they learning from this experience? Well, look, you've got the worldwide threats here today. We know the Biden administration said it was China, Russia, Iran, North Korea. Transnational threats were like three quarters of the way into a 40-page document. Terrorism was at the end of that. I think the Trump administration will switch that up. We'll see what Tulsi Gabbard says. It'll be very interesting to see what she says, trying to coordinate with all the intelligence communities telling her. But is there any way the Democrats don't ask about this today? Oh, it's got its own.

100% coming up. It's going to come up at every confirmation hearing going forward. It's going to come up in every national security conversation. And they're going to make the point, you came after Hillary Clinton on the server. Now you guys were on signal doing this. What's the difference? Why should we trust you?

All right, still ahead on CNN this morning, we're going to talk about the FBI launching a new task force. And this one is about Tesla. Plus, why are some of the government's highest ranking officials using that messaging app we've been talking about? Anybody can download it to talk about secret information. We're going to hear more from the group chat after this. Because why would they do it on Signal? Why would they do this on a messaging app? And why would they invite the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic to watch?

All right. So with these new revelations surrounding the use of an encrypted messaging tap by top Trump officials to talk about military strike plans, we wanted to talk about how government workers decide to communicate, how they are communicating seems to be under a microscope with this administration and the ramifications of that. CNN has previously reported that many government workers have abandoned using work computers for digital meetings.

Now, this shift is driven by fear, fear of surveillance, fear of leaks and fear of political retribution. As Washington insiders increasingly turn to encrypted platforms, you've got concerns about division and mistrust within the government. One employee believes the new culture of fear is frankly by design.

I believe people need to speak out right now. They're expecting the silence, they're hoping for it, and they're counting on it. And I believe the way out of this is for people to speak up about what is happening. My group chat is back. These things might seem unrelated, but one of the things I noticed with Trump to this administration the last couple of months is the number of people talking about speaking on encrypted apps. What are you hearing as a reporter? Yeah, I mean, you get a lot of signal requests. People like to protect

themselves and they want to use these encrypted platforms. Something that I think is interesting is when you use Signal, you can set the messages to disappear after a certain amount of time. And this relates to the Atlantic story because in those screenshots that Jeffrey Goldberg had reported, you can see the timer

you know, emoji logo in the bottom right corner. That indicates that these messages were set to disappear after a certain amount of time, which is also another layer of the news that broke yesterday is the preservation of official documents and official communications. So we're supposed to have a record of these kinds of interactions. That's right. And that ticking clock means we didn't. That they deleted after a certain amount of time. That's right.

You know, one of the reasons why I thought about this is because when The Atlantic reported these messages at one point, Hegseth goes on to say, waiting a few weeks or a month does not fundamentally change the calculus. Right. Referring to this immediate risks on waiting. Number one, this leaks and we look indecisive. Number two, Israel takes action or Gaza ceasefire falls apart. I feel like those would be number one.

but it's not my group chat. So, Jamil, help me understand this. Is the obsessive search for leaks and disloyalty starting to have an effect on operational security? Absolutely. Look, I have seen tons of people getting on Signal, tons of people changing their Signal messaging apps to delete messages earlier, changing their names to be just letters and initials, removing their phone number. So you're seeing that happen with government officials, with people on the outside. Everyone's operating in a culture of fear.

it's partly because within the Trump administration, I mean, they operate like Hunger Games. You know, everyone's out for everybody. But on top of that, now you've got the president hunting down leakers, which he should do. That's the right thing. Go after people who intentionally disclose classified information. Here you've got an inadvertent disclosure of classified information. And so there are these challenges going on with the administration. They're out for

people they're out for their own people the president is not loyal to his own people this is a problem yeah you know i've run campaigns for a long time and we were one of the first to use encrypted apps because we're passing information and we're on the road with the candidate and we have to communicate back to the home base so we were once i didn't even know what an encrypted app was until i started doing a campaign but also during the incidents with russia and remember when they hacked the dnc email that's when it all started well they came into our computers and even if you got a gmail now you have to have double

authenticity and all the things went around that. But to your point about what people are feeling in D. C. I now to your point have way more signal chat asks other apps. I haven't even heard of folks being really, really cautious this week. I was contacted by a whole group of U. S. A. I. D. Workers who have been fired who now want to run for public office. And they said that's how they've all been talking to

each other. But the idea is you're afraid to talk. I mean, one of the things seeing in that chat, Hegseth saying like this leaks, it's like that means in a way you're having this chat because you somehow don't feel comfortable having it in DOD with the Defense Department. Is that how you read

That's exactly right. And even more, you see the internal discussion going on, the vice president disagreeing about some of the tactics being undertaken. But then you see other people chiming, well, you know, we can go with you, J.D. We might go with where the president is. And you see sort of people, you actually see them sort of Finlandizing inside the group chat to one another because they're afraid if I go too much in favor with where Waltz is or I'm too much in favor with where J.D. is,

I might be viewed as disloyal. I might get fired right away. You can see it even happening in the conversation. Very revealing insight into what's going on inside the senior most levels of the Trump administration. But basically, we're lucky Goldberg didn't hold it two years for a book, right? I mean, this dialogue, as you're saying, is no longer, it's not on the record somewhere. There's not going to be a photo of them

discussing you know what is going to happen and it's always fascinating to see how elected officials lawmakers are talking behind the scenes when they can speak candidly freely out of the public view this is something that a lot of republicans on capitol hill were saying speaker johnson for example said this conversation shows that the process works that people were having substantive conversations and came to a successful mission but again it begs the question of why are you having these conversations on let me follow up on this the process works

I think there's a special room that they should all go into where nobody can hear it. I've seen movies. I know there's a room you can go into that can't be nobody hear what you're saying. Okay. They should all get together there. You're relying on 90s depictions of high-level security operations. You open up the bookcase. We've all seen the movie. Yeah, Jameel, is there a bookcase?

There is a room. There are the rooms. There is an official room. The secure compartment information facility is the sit room. In fact, every senior government official has a SCIF, a secure compartment information facility, in their own home. Now, the reality is when you're operating in a high-pressure environment, things are going on in a war situation, it's going to be hard to do that. Oftentimes, you'll pick up the phone. You'll try to talk around the classified information. That's not legal, but that's how people do it. So it's not surprising this is going on. Frankly, this is probably going on.

for decades. Humans are very creative. When you put in place really strict security restrictions or cybersecurity restrictions, people always get around them. This is the biggest challenge with cybersecurity and security rules. That doesn't mean it's right, but it happens all the time. Is the military term for this snafu?

Yeah, that's exactly it. That's exactly right. Jamil Jaffer, Chuck Rocha, thank you guys so much for joining us. Appreciate your insights. It's now 55 minutes past the hour. I want to give you your morning roundup, more of the stories you need to get your day going. The FBI launching a new task force to investigate all the recent acts of vandalism against Tesla. The FBI says Tesla cars, showrooms, and charging stations have been vandalized, even firebombed in at least nine states.

An Oscar-winning Palestinian director of the film No Other Land was assaulted in the West Bank, then taken away by Israeli soldiers. That's according to witnesses and a fellow director on the documentary. The Israeli military says they took four people in for questioning after what they called a violent confrontation.

And the U.S. receives a grade of C when it comes to the nation's infrastructure in a report released overnight. But it says overall things have improved over the past four years. It also warns that more money will be needed to make sure things are modernized or replaced so they can withstand extreme weather.

And a portrait of President Trump at the Colorado State Capitol will be taken down after the president complained it was distorted on purpose. The painting was unveiled in 2019 at the time the artist Sarah Boardman described what she was trying to convey with the portrait. I wanted him to look strong and thoughtful, but I didn't want him to look angry. He's not shakable. At the door of my studio, I try to leave any politics behind.

Colorado Republicans say the portrait will be replaced by a better one that depicts President Trump's contemporary likeness.

- Okay, we're gonna talk now about things we're keeping an eye on. Michael, I wanted to take some extra time with you because obviously this is gonna suck up all the oxygen, this conversation. People are gonna hear about Signal apps all day. But there were actually a ton of really fascinating things coming up. What are you keeping your eye on? - Yeah, there are two things. One, we saw in recent days that push to impeach Judge Boasberg. We had discussed the case earlier.

So this is just lawmakers saying it's a leftist judge, we could get rid of them, and the Supreme Court Chief Justice, of course, said stop talking like that. And not just lawmakers, but President Trump as well. We heard him call for that impeachment push. Now, it doesn't look like House Republicans are going to take that up because there's just not enough support, but the House next week is going to vote on a bill that would limit the injunctions that could be imposed by some of these district court judges, Republicans seeing it as a way to push back

on some of these judges that really take the power judging out of their hands it's it's a limited you know to limit to put to place limits on it so that's one thing and the second thing but on the wonkier side a policy a policy issue at the Congressional Budget Office this week is expected to announce when the XT for the debt limit is which is essentially we hit the debt limit in January Treasury Department put an extraordinary measures and then there's a question up when will those extraordinary right measures run out and when does the debt limit limit need to be raised on the at that

Yeah, I want to ask about one more thing because we've got a minute left. Social Security. There is a new Social Security sheriff who could be in town. What do you expect Democrats to talk about today? Because he's got a background in business and in cutting.

Yeah, Democrats have for a while been warning that Republicans want to go after entitlements. It's been more about things like Medicaid because of that budget resolution that House Republicans had put forward that suggested that cuts to Medicaid would be necessary. But I suspect that they're going to bring in Social Security on this as well. And now, while Social Security cannot be touched during the budget reconciliation process, which is what Republicans are going to be using to move

President Trump's agenda. There have been Republicans in the past who have suggested that there should be changes to Social Security and Medicare. Democrats have really latched onto that. It's something that they think is salient among American voters because everyone benefits from Social Security. Yeah, it's literally called the safety net.

But this is such a long-running discussion within the Republican Party as well. How you talk about this, do you talk about this, under what circumstances. It'll be interesting to see what this conversation is like, whether it gets buried under all this security news today. We're drinking from a fire hose, as they say. Michael, thank you so much for being with us. I appreciate it. I also want to thank you for waking up with us. It's a busy day ahead. CNN News Central is going to start right now. I'm Adi Cornish.

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