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Senate Panel Questions U.S. Intel Officials; Shane Harris and Jim Sciutto are Interviewed about the Chat Mistake; Atlantic Reporters Refute White House Claims. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired March 25, 2025 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Gotten this from the EMTs.

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BOLDUAN: So, experts say even buprenorphine has its limits when it comes to fentanyl because fentanyl is just so powerful, and so too is the addiction to this drug.

There's so much more that we'll bring to you this Sunday on "Fentanyl in America: A Way Out," on CNN's "The Whole Story" presented by Anderson Cooper.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking just moments ago, brand new reaction from the White House on the stunning breach of national security. A text chain with war plans on it gone viral. The White House press secretary weighing in just minutes before top intelligence officials head to Capitol Hill. And now we're learning whether President Trump will stand by those involved.

Also breaking moments ago, the doctor treating Pope Francis when he was hospitalized says the team at one point considered ending the pope's treatment so that he could die peacefully. More details on that just ahead.

And meet the cannamoms. A group working to break the stigma around mothers who use marijuana.

I'm Sara Sidner, with John Berman and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BOLDUAN: An hour from now, an important meeting on Capitol Hill just got a lot more interesting. The nation's top intelligence officials set to face lawmakers for a previously scheduled hearing on worldwide threats. But this time they'll sit before senators one day after an extraordinary security breach was revealed.

The White House doing damage control after President Trump's national security team mistakenly added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg from "The Atlantic" to a group text chain. A chat where officials debated U.S. strikes in Yemen earlier this month, sharing operational plans just before they were carried out.

Now, we are waiting to hear more today from President Trump on this. Yesterday, he said he knew nothing about it. Just moments ago, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, she posted this on X. We will show it to you. In it she talks about no "war plans" being discussed, "no classified material was sent to the thread," she says, and also says, "the White House Counsel's Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump's top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible.

Does that include Signal?

OK, as for the - as for the official who accidentally opened the discussion to a reporter, it was Donald Trump's national security adviser, Mike Waltz, which is why "Politico" is reporting that Donald Trump could make a decision on whether Waltz will keep or lose his job now within the next couple of days.

Democrats, even some Republicans now, are demanding accountability over this remarkable breach.

CNN's Alex Marquardt has much more on the fallout that is coming from Washington.

Alex, what is expected to happen with the, I guess, where the first big questions will be asked, which is in this Senate hearing that will be - that will begin soon?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Those intelligence leaders are certainly going to be facing some very tough questions, Kate. This was already going to be a very important, very interesting day with this annual worldwide threats hearing, with so much to talk about, from Ukraine, to the Middle East, China and beyond.

But now we have this extraordinary story from "The Atlantic" about how these top intelligence and security - national security officials were talking about what is believed to be classified information about these strikes in Yemen on Signal with a journalist essentially listening in. That could have just as easily have been a foreign diplomat or a foreign official, which would have made this a lot more potentially dangerous.

So, to what extent will these intelligence officials face questioning from both Republicans and Democrats? Two of those officials on - in the Senate today, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the CIA director, John Ratcliffe. They were on this chat. And Ratcliffe was actively participating. At one point he names a senior CIA official to be looped in on the planning and the conversations about Yemen. And then he goes on, according to this piece in "The Atlantic," during this debate over whether this strike should happen, to talk about active intelligence concerning these strikes against the Houthis. According to "The Atlantic," he shared information that might be interpreted as related to actual and current intelligence operations. So, that's why it's interesting that this morning Karoline Leavitt is pushing back and saying that there was no classified information in that chat.

To what extent, Kate, will Republicans make a big deal out of this and ask tough questions? We'll be watching Tom Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Certainly the Democrats will.

Here's what Senator Mark Kelly, who is on the Intelligence Committee, had to say.

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SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): It should not be done on Signal. I don't know anybody on the Intelligence Committee here that I serve on that would have anything close to this kind of conversation.

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And I think it brings up a larger question about whether - are they following the rules that the rest of us live by when we handle classified information? If this incident is any indication, it looks like they do not.

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MARQUARDT: Kate, another senator who is going to be asking questions about this is Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee. I'm told that it will be his first question out of the gate to these intelligence officials. He tweeted about this just yesterday, saying, "make no mistake, our allies are reading this war plan disclosure story, too, and it's making it less and less likely that they will want to share sensitive intelligence with us."

So, Kate, one of the most immediate questions is going to be, to what extent will there be investigations about this. That will be put likely to the FBI Director Kash Patel. And then you can imagine questions to the director of national intelligence or the CIA director about whether it was acceptable to have these kinds of conversations on Signal. What would happen to rank and file intelligence officials if they were to do this same thing? Would they get to keep or would they lose their job? So, it's going to be a very tense and dramatic day up on Capitol Hill, Kate.

BOLDUAN: And your great reporting showing that this is going to be one of the first questions out of the gate from the top members on the committee.

It's good to see you, Alex. Thank you so much.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We've got one more bit of breaking news here, Kate. One of the open questions has been, what will President Trump say about National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and the fact that Waltz apparently shared this text chat?

Well, we now have heard, apparently, from the president for the first time. Garrett Haake of NBC News says that he spoke with the president, and the president expressed his confidence in Michael Waltz. The exact quote from Garrett is, "Michael Waltz has learned a lesson," the president said, "and he's a good man."

So, apparently, the president standing by the national security advisor for now.

With us, Shane Harris, a staff writer for "The Atlantic" covering national security and intelligence. Shane contributed to this report and was shown these Signal text messages. And with me here in New York, CNN chief national security analyst Jim Sciutto.

Shane, I want to start with you because we have what the president just said, and then White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt just went on the attack on social media. She went after your colleague Jeffrey Goldberg, but went on to say, "number one, no 'war plans' were discussed." And war plans are in quotation marks, which might be important here. And "number two, no classified material was sent to the thread." I think we have that tweet right there.

So, your response to items number one and number two there, no war plans, no classified material.

SHANE HARRIS, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": Well, the words "war plans," as you said, are there in quotation marks.

Look, the information that I saw that was shared in that thread by Secretary Hegseth included, as we say in the story, the types of aircraft that were involved in this airstrike, the targets they were over, the munitions that they were using, the times that they would be on target, the sequence that they would do the bombing run in, the individual human targets who were on the ground. I mean, I think most people would call that a war plan or a battle plan or an attack plan. If the secretary now feels that it's not classified, as the White House press secretary is saying, that's surprising to me. In my 25 years reporting on national security, it looked like classified information or certainly sensitive information. Then share it with people if it's not classified.

You know, this was highly sensitive operational information. For that very reason it's why we didn't publish it and only described it. So, I think there may be a little bit of a word game going on here. I think any reasonable person would look at what we saw and say, yes, I would call that a war plan.

BERMAN: Yes, look, "war plans," again, in quotation marks in her statement. She may be suggesting that a war plan is a specific thing. These, according to you and Jeffrey Goldberg, were clearly plans for an attack.

Jim Sciutto, one of the other things the president apparently said this morning, not a big deal.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes.

BERMAN: Why is this or is not a big deal? SCIUTTO: Whatever the administration claims, legally after consulting

with their lawyers, there is no more sensitive intelligence than targets and timing in any story, in any area of responsibility this century (ph), those are the two most essential things. And that's for two reasons. One, because it could give a head's up to those you're targeting that you're coming for them. And two, it relates to the safety of U.S. service members involved. The pilots, the ships, those in place, because if your adversary has that information in advance, they can put them in danger. So, not only can they protect themselves, they could put U.S. forces in danger.

So, whatever they claim, legally, and I'm sure they've had a lot of conversations with their lawyers, this is highly sensitive information. And to Shane's point, what else is it but a war plan? It's an attack plan.

Add to that this layer. Witkoff was in Russia as this was happening. Now, we don't know that he was on his phone while he was waiting in the Kremlin for eight hours. But - but - but here's the thing. Russia doesn't just have a general interest in this kind of intelligence.

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Russia has a quite specific interest in that Russia has been supplying targeting data and intelligence to the Houthis to target U.S. and others shipping in that area.

So, they didn't just have a - you know, any adversary would love to have this information about U.S. war plans, but they had quite specific interest in this war plan. And there, again, nothing more sensitive than that.

BERMAN: And, Shane, I imagine you were, other than Jeffrey Goldberg, the first, or one of the first people to see these exchanges. Just what went through your head when you first saw it?

HARRIS: I was astonished. I mean, as we say in the story, I mean initially when Jeff was being added to this Signal group, we both thought it could have been a hoax or some kind of a setup because why would senior national security officials convene, as Michael Waltz says, this is for the purpose of planning a Houthis strike, which, remember, when Jeff is added to the group, we don't know that there's a Houthi strike. We don't know it's coming.

So, as this information is playing out and then the bombs actually fell, I mean, it was quite astonishing. We suddenly realized that he was a fly on the wall to planning at the highest levels for military strikes that were going to put American personnel in harm's way.

Once we realized that it was real, and, of course, he removed himself from that chat, then began the process of figuring out, OK, how did this happen? And, really, that's kind of a normal reporting process that kicks in there. But the actual seeing of it and realizing what had happened was astonishing. In all of my years of covering national security, I've never seen a story like this. BERMAN: Questions before Congress today - Tulsi Gabbard, the Director

of National Intelligence, the CIA director - Jim, what are the reasonable questions that both Democrats and Republicans should be asking?

SCIUTTO: How did this happen? One, quite basic. How do you make such a - such a mistake? Why are those senior officials, including yourself, John Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, using a Signal app, which is outside the way folks handling this kind of information are supposed to be accessing?

I had a security clearance when I was in government. You couldn't touch this stuff on a mobile device, right? You had to be on a high system that's a secure type top secret system, you know, at your desk, or in a Skiff, you know, a secure room to access it. And there's a reason for that, because other stuff is highly penetrable. Even Signal is not 100 percent impregnable to our adversaries.

So, why - why were they using that device? Why were they discussing those plans in that way? They're quite basic questions. And will there be an investigation or any consequences?

BERMAN: And by whom. Who will do this investigation, if there is one?

SCIUTTO: Right.

BERMAN: Shane, it's a delicate question here, but since "The Atlantic" and Jeffrey Goldberg have come under attack by the administration, by Pete Hegseth, by the secretary of defense, by Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, calling into question the analysis in this article, would you consider, do you think, releasing these Signal text messages that you held back for national security concerns?

HARRIS: It's not my decision. It's a fair question. I'd have to defer to, you know, the lead reporter on this story.

But look, if Secretary Hegseth thinks that this information is not as we've described it, why doesn't he release it? It's on his phone, if it hasn't already been deleted.

BERMAN: Shane Harris, thank you for sharing your experience in all this and your expertise.

Jim Sciutto, thank you for helping us understand what we are seeing here and what it means going forward. Appreciate it.

Sara.

SIDNER: It is remarkable.

All right, is damaging a Tesla an act of terror? The White House thinks so. A whole new FBI task force has been formed. More on that. And the warning they are sending people.

And a shocking admission from doctors who looked after the pope. Why, they say, they considered ending his treatment early so that he could die.

Those stories, ahead.

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SHANE HARRIS, STAFF WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": The information that I saw that was shared in that thread by Secretary Hegseth included, as we say in the story, the types of aircraft that were involved in this airstrike, the targets they were over, the munitions that they were using, the times that they would be on target, the sequence that they would do the bombing run in, the individual human targets who were on the ground. I mean, I think most people would call that a war plan or a battle plan or an attack plan.

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BOLDUAN: That is the latest from Shane Harris, just now speaking to John Berman. One - and he is one of the reporters who contributed to the bombshell report in "The Atlantic," where the publication's editor in chief was added to a group chat with the president's national security team.

Now, Shane Harris saw the Signal chat messages from the defense secretary, the VP, the president's national security adviser, and more. So, he should know.

We're also just now hearing from the president himself. According to NBC, the president's apparently standing by Mike Waltz, his national security advisor. The president, just this morning, telling NBC News the following, quote, "Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he's a good man."

Let's talk more about these new developments on this astonishing breach of national security with the former deputy director of the FBI, Andy McCabe.

Andy, thanks so much for coming in.

First and foremost, just, what do you think of this whole thing? And additionally, Shane Harris said something interesting. If they now do not think this is - any of this was classified, they should just release it.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, thanks, Kate, for - for having me on.

It - first of all, thoughts about this.

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I - I attended many principals meetings during my time in government. And the idea that a principal small group meeting, which, by the way, small group is a code word that indicates that they are going to discuss a matter that is so sensitive they're not even comfortable discussing it with the rest of the principals. So, they bring together only those principals who are directly involved in the operation. So, convening a small group to discuss a military strike on a commercially available messaging app is outrageous. It's absolutely unthinkable. I can't even imagine a scenario in which that would have happened, or that anyone who was asked to engage in it would agree without very quickly objecting and saying, hey, this is - this is content that we can't possibly expose on a non-classified system.

As for Mr. Harris' comments on the previous interview, I absolutely agree with him. And I'll take it one step further. If the white house has taken the position that there was nothing classified discussed on this thread and that there was no war plan, then I think that Mr. Goldberg and Mr. Harris have been given essentially the green light to expose it and do what they wish with it. So, I -

BOLDUAN: That's - yes.

MCCABE: At this point, the - by obfuscating this, the White House is really elevating the danger involved here. It's very - it would be totally reasonable for these journalists to decide, well, you said it, there's no danger for us - for anyone to discuss this. If it's not classified, we'll just go ahead and put it out this afternoon.

BOLDUAN: That's actually - I hadn't even gotten to that thought as we were processing what the - what the president is saying -

MCCABE: Yes.

BOLDUAN: And also what Karoline Leavitt, the president's press secretary, says very clearly in her statement put out this morning. You may have seen it, but for everyone, just a reminder, not only does she go on - to try to trash Jeffrey Goldberg, a very respected journalist, she also says no, quote/unquote, "war plans" were discussed, no classified information was sent to the thread and the White House Counsel has provided guidance on a number of different platforms that the president's top officials can communicate safely."

That kind of speaks exactly to the point you're making. You think even what they're doing, not just what they did on the chat, but how they're trying to defend the actions now is even upping the danger more.

MCCABE: Absolutely. There is no - this is indefensible. And there's an opportunity here for the White House to take a very hard line about this sort of activity. I mean, especially a White House run by a president who has his own disgraceful record of failing to protect national security information, right? This is an opportunity for him to come out and indicate some responsibility, some level of oversight, because what you're dealing with here is absolutely reckless conduct in terms of discussing this material on Signal.

And I should also say that her - you know, very careful use of words saying there was nothing - there was not a "war plan" on there, first of all, is absolutely, from its description, sounds like it was war planning. But every person with access to top secret material knows that the restrictions on using only classified systems don't apply simply to documents that are stamped. It applies to the content of what you're saying, or texting, or emailing. You know, as a person with top secret clearance, how things are typically classified, and you are expected to conduct those conversations in classified systems.

For instance, when the - when the vice president is talking about his views on U.S. foreign policy vis a vis Europe and the fact that they should essentially pay for this strike they didn't ask for, everyone who has classified access knows that the U.S. foreign policy intentions and plans are, at minimum, considered - always considered secret. They're always classified at the secret level. So, knowing that you're going to discuss something in a classified - that involves classified content, absolutely you have to do that on a classified system.

So, she's being too cute by half. And by doing that, I think they're backing themselves into a position of missing an opportunity to do the right thing and elevating the chances that the journalists might just put the stuff out there.

BOLDUAN: Well, Andy, as - coming from someone who's been in many one of these principal committee meetings, it's really important to have your perspective this morning on all of these now new developments with this.

Andrew McCabe, thank you so much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, an incredible story of survival. A man crashed his plane onto an icy Alaskan lake. Just how long he managed to survive with his two children. Look how small it is and how huge that lake is.

All right, plus, marijuana and motherhood. A group of so-called cannamoms are working to destigmatize the use of marijuana.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Moms that smoke weed should be just as acceptable as moms who drink wine. It should be, you know, something that is exactly the same.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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SIDNER: New this morning, we're learning that the medical staff treating Pope Francis considered ending his treatment so that he could die. That is according to the doctor who led the team caring for the 88-year-old pontiff. Sergio Alfieri told an Italian newspaper the most critical moment happened on February 28th when the pope had a breathing crisis. The decision to continue with treatment was made by the pope's nurse, who reportedly told Alfieri, quote, "try everything, we won't give up."

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Pope Francis was eventually discharged from the hospital in Rome this past Sunday.