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Top Intel Officials Testify Amid War Plans Group Chat Fallout; Trump Speaks Amid Fallout From Yemen Chat Security Breach; Zelenskyy, Ukraine & Russia Agree To Stop Using Military Force In The Black Sea After U.S. Talks. Aired 3-4p ET
Aired March 25, 2025 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:00:21]
MAX FOSTER, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. I'm Max Foster. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
We are watching the White House. Donald Trump is speaking, waiting to hear what comments he has to make. We're particularly interested in the fallout, of course, in Washington from a government group chat that leaked U.S. war plans to a journalist in what one top Republican even called a huge screw up.
In an already scheduled hearing on global threats facing the U.S., Senate Democrats called the leak mind boggling. They grilled top Trump intelligence officials, including the heads of the CIA, the FBI and national intelligence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Yesterday, we, stunningly, learned that senior members of this administration and according to reports, two of our witnesses here today were members of a group chat that discussed highly sensitive and likely classified information that supposedly even included weapons, packages, targets and timing, and included the name of an active CIA agent.
Putting aside for a moment that classified information should never be discussed over an unclassified system, it's also just mind-boggling to me that all of these senior folks who were on this line and nobody bothered to even check, security hygiene 101.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Yesterday, Donald Trump said he didn't know about this conversation. Let's hear what he has to say about it now.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- very hard. There was no classified information, as I understand it. They used a app, if you want to call it an app, that a lot of people use, a lot of people in government use, a lot of people in the media use. And I think I'll ask Mike, Mike is here.
Do you want to respond to that, please? MIKE WALTZ, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Yes, Mr. President, you asked
about lessons. I think there's a lot of the lessons. Theres a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves, making up lies about this president, whether it's the Russia hoax or making up lies about Gold Star families and this one in particular I've never met, don't know, never communicated with, and we are -- and we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room.
But I'll tell you what? The world owes President Trump a favor. Under Biden, global shipping was shut down. Pinprick attacks, months between them, our destroyers being fired upon dozens of times. President Trump took decisive action with his national security team, took out the head missileer, knocked out missiles, knocked out headquarters, knocked out communication sites, and for once, as we hear, as you all hear from every one of our allies, thank God for American leadership again, thank God for American strength.
(APPLAUSE)
WALTZ: And we had a national security team that was coordinating these efforts. As Director Ratcliffe testified today, his first day on the job, he was introduced to this app on his government systems at the CIA and at the State Department and otherwise.
So, look, this journalist, Mr. President, wants the world talking about more hoaxes and this kind of nonsense rather than the freedom that you're enabling. And a key part of our sovereignty is open sea lanes and knocking the crap out of terrorists, which is exactly what your team and Pete Hegseth, a good friend and fellow veteran, is leading the charge on. And it's an honor to be --
TRUMP: Yeah, very, very successful. Excuse me. We had a very, very successful evening and we've had numerous successful evenings and days in that area. The Houthis are absolutely on the run. The worst of them have been killed.
This should have been done a long time ago by Biden. But Biden was an incompetent president. He couldn't do anything. He wouldn't -- he didn't know where -- where he was going.
He had no clue. This guy had no clue. This should have been done a long time ago, as they shoot missiles at ships -- randomly shoot missiles at ships.
And they make their own missiles. You know, this is not an incompetent group of people. They make their own missiles. They get the missiles also from Iran. It's an offshoot of Iran, another offshoot.
You have Hamas, you have Hezbollah, you have the Houthis. You got a lot of stuff going on with Iran.
And we sent a letter to Iran. You're going to have to be speaking to us one way or the other pretty soon, because we can't let this happen. But that's an app that a lot of people use. And somebody got on. I happen to know the guy is a total sleazebag.
[15:05:00]
"The Atlantic", "The Atlantic" is a failed magazine, does very, very poorly. Nobody gives a about it. It gives -- this gives it a little bit of a shot. And I will tell you this, that they've made up more stories and, and
they're just a failing magazine. The public understands that.
He's a very good man. That man is a very good man right there that you criticize so strongly.
He's a very good man, and he will continue to do a good job. In addition to him. We had very good people in that meeting, and those people have done a very, very effective job. And you're going to see it.
And it goes on, by the way. It's going to go on. And I think the Houthis wish that it didn't happen, but that's what it's all about. We have to create a safe country, a safe world, and that's what we're doing.
Yes?
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: -- national security was put at risk, Mr. President, of senior officials using Signal --
TRUMP: Who?
REPORTER: The use of Signal to communicate from senior officials, especially --
TRUMP: I don't know anything about Signal. I wasn't involved in this, but I just heard about it.
And I hear it's used by a lot of groups. It's used by the media a lot. It's used by a lot of the military. And I think successfully.
But sometimes, somebody can get onto those things. Thats one of the prices you pay when you're not sitting in the Situation Room with no phones on, which is always the best, frankly.
But, you know, you -- the best is to be there. In fact, oftentimes I've been in the -- in fact, just last week, I was in the Situation Room when something very important and we had a couple of people hooked up by line and I said, cancel the line. Sorry, fellas. What you do is -- we'll tell you all about the meeting because I know people do get on those lines, whether its Signal or anything else.
Yeah?
REPORTER: Are you going to change any procedures as a result of this?
TRUMP: Well, I mean, look, we look at everything and, you know, they've made a big deal out of this because we've had two perfect months. We're bringing in -- we are bringing in business. We have another one announced tomorrow, a big one, very big like in the history of our country. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. And I think probably a lot of people are saying it's -- they started by saying it was the greatest first month that a president has ever had. And I think that's true.
And now, they say it's the best second month. And they had to find something.
And this certainly will look at this. But the main thing was nothing happened. The attack was totally successful. It was -- I guess, from what I understand, took place during and it wasn't classified information. So, this was not classified.
Now if it's classified information, it's probably a little bit different. But I always say, you get -- you have to learn from every experience. I think it was very unfair the way they attacked Michael. He's a good person.
The person that was on just happens to be a sleazebag, so maybe that's just coincidence. I don't know.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Would it be a problem if "The Atlantic" released all the text messages, if they're not classified?
TRUMP: Well, I don't know. I'd have to ask the military about that, because, you know, maybe you wouldn't want that. I don't know.
I will say this that from what I heard, the man that we're talking about who's not somebody that I don't think most people have ever heard of. He left -- he found it very boring. And he left early. He got off the line very early.
So, I can't speak to it other than that. So he's made up a lot of stories. And, you know, I think he's basically bad for the country, but it's a failing venture, a very failing venture. They're very upset.
And a thing like this is publicity for them. But I don't think we should allow people that are very good. Like that man sitting right at the end of the table who's done a great job. We shouldn't allow them to be hurt by it.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Yeah, go ahead.
REPORTER: Are you -- so are you saying you're okay with the continued use of Signal by administration officials?
TRUMP: No, that's not what I said. I said we'll look into it, but everybody else seems to be using it. It seems to be the number one used device or app, whatever you want to call it.
And we will certainly -- look, if it was up to me, everybody would be sitting in a room together. The room would have solid lead walls and a lead ceiling and a lead floor. But, you know, life doesn't always let you do that.
In the meantime, the attack itself that we were talking about and discussing has been an unbelievable success.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: -- will conduct an investigation, is what you're saying into this?
TRUMP: We'll look into it. Sure.
REPORTER: Mr. President --
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: I would look into it. Sure. I want to look into anything like that. I would -- I would ask them.
It's not really an FBI thing. It's really something having to do with security. Security like, will somebody be able to break in? Are people able to break into conversations? And if that's true, we're going to have to find some other form of -- of device. And I think that's something that we may have to do.
Some people like Signal very much. Other people probably don't, but we'll look into it.
[15:10:01]
I think, Michael, I've asked you to immediately study that and find out if -- if people are able to break into a system. Now, in this case, it wasn't that the -- this attack was going on and nobody found out anything. And again, the person that was on, as I understand it, he left very early because he didn't find it very exciting. But I think it's something you should look into.
WALTZ: Yes, sir. We are -- we have our technical experts looking at it. We have our legal teams looking at it. And, of course, we're going to keep everything as secure as possible.
No one in your national security team would ever put anyone in danger. And as you've said, and we've repeatedly said, the attack was phenomenal. And it's ongoing.
But the media wants to talk about everything else except for the hostages you're getting out of the Middle East. Iran on its back foot, sea lanes getting reopened, peace in Europe. As we just saw today with the Black Sea ceasefire, we were just on with Steve Witkoff, myself, our team in Saudi Arabia.
They want to talk about all this other stuff except for your amazing successes and the successes of your team.
TRUMP: One of the other things. And sometimes you have to move very quickly, and there are other devices that are very good, but they are very, very cumbersome and you're not able to use them, and from a practical standpoint.
So, we -- all we can do is find out the best we have with modern technology. They'll probably get better over the years.
Yeah. Go ahead.
REPORTER: Sir, on the Black Sea. So, the kremlin has said that there were several conditions that would need to be met for this agreement to happen. This includes sanctions relief for banks and some companies. Did the U.S. agree to all of those conditions that they laid out?
TRUMP: They will be looking at them, and were thinking about all of them right now. There are about 5 or 6 conditions. We're looking at all of them.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: -- the White House has said that it's looking into how journalist got added to that. Signal chat. Is it possible that there could be a firing of even a lower, mid-level official once that person is identified?
TRUMP: About what?
REPORTER: About the Signal chat that we've been discussing?
TRUMP: We've pretty much looked into it. It's a pretty simple, to be honest. It's not -- it's just something that can happen. It can happen -- you can even prepare for it. It can happen.
Sometimes people are hooked in and you don't know they're hooked in. They're hooked into your line, and they don't even mean bad by it.
But it's not a perfect technology. There is no perfect technology. The really good ones are very cumbersome, very hard to access.
And I think we're going to look at -- we always want to use the best technology. This was the best technology for the moment. But again, it wasn't classified. So, they probably viewed it as being something that wasn't that important.
And it obviously -- with the attack being -- I mean, I don't know if it's been read out to you yet, but that attack was a tremendous success for the U.S., a tremendous success.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Who said the information was not classified?
TRUMP: Go ahead, please.
REPORTER: Do you think that Mike Waltz made a mistake and does he need to apologize? TRUMP: No, I don't think he should apologize. I think he's doing his
best. Its equipment and technology, that's not perfect. And probably he won't be using it again, at least not in the very near future.
What do you think?
WALTZ: Sir, I agree with you. Let's get everybody in the room. Whenever, whenever possible.
TRUMP: A lot of times you find out defects by exactly things like that. But I don't think it's something we're looking forward to using again. We may be forced to use it. You may be in a situation where you need speed as opposed to gross safety, and you may be forced to use it.
But generally speaking, I think we probably won't be using it very much.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: -- on that train. The secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, and J.D. Vance, the vice president, said that the Europeans were freeloading. Do you agree with that assessment?
TRUMP: Do you really want me to answer that?
Yeah, I think they've been freeloading. The European Union has been absolutely terrible to us on trade. Terrible.
And as you know, NATO, I got them to pay hundreds of billions of dollars. They were way behind.
And if you look, even -- if you look at Ukraine. So, we're in for $350 billion because of Biden, should have never happened, this war shouldn't. All these dead people should not be dead. All these broken cities that are demolished down to the ground, those gorgeous towers, the most beautiful in the world, the most beautiful spires in the world.
The spires in Ukraine were said to be the most beautiful of all. Just about every one of them is lying on its side. And a million pieces. It's so sad to see what's happened to a heritage.
No, I think that -- I think when they say the European Union and the -- and you could say NATO also. Look, NATO -- and I don't blame NATO for this. I don't blame Europe for this. I blame Biden for the fact that he didn't make them equalize.
And to this day, I said to 'em, you got to catch up, you got to equalize.
[15:00:01]
But why are they in for 100 billion and we're in for possibly $350 billion? It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be.
And you could say more important for them, because we have an ocean in between. So, you know, it's -- it's one of those things.
You'll be seeing liberation day -- I call it liberation day in America. You're going to be seeing it on April 2nd. Didn't want to do it on April 1st for the obvious reason. April 2nd.
But you'll be seeing tariffs. And I think I've been very fair. I've had -- I have them set. But I think I've been very fair to countries that have really abused us economically for many, many decades.
(CROSSTALK)
REPORTER: Mr. President, (INAUDIBLE) that information was not classified.
TRUMP: Another question, please? Go ahead.
REPORTER: Just following up on your comments on the economy, there is reporting that consumer confidence fell for the fourth straight month. What is your message to Americans who are concerned about tariffs?
TRUMP: Well, I notice, for the first time in like 50 years, right track, wrong track. We were on the right track. And I think people see that.
And if you look at prices, prices are way down. You know, when I first came here, the first time I met with you people, officially, they were screaming at me about eggs. I said, I've been here for a week, and I'm being yelled at about eggs.
Eggs -- egg prices have come down 45, 50 percent in the last week and a half. And our secretary of agriculture has done a great job. As you know, Brooke, she's done a fantastic job and others working with her have done a great job. But we brought eggs down at a level that nobody thought we could get at.
I inherited that situation and I inherited a grocery situation. The groceries went way up, an old fashioned word, but it's a very descriptive word. Grocers have gone through the roof and I used to campaign on it. I used to say, we're going to get groceries down and we have got it down.
I watched a certain newscast over the weekend, and a congressman, Democrat congressman said -- well, Trumps done a lot. I agree, he's been great on the border. He's been great on the military. But, you know, he hasn't brought prices down.
That's false. Gasoline is way down. Eggs are way down. Groceries are down very substantially, but down. Almost everything's down.
Now, I'd like to see interest rates come down a little bit. And you're going to see billions of dollars, even trillions of dollars coming into our country very soon in the form of tariffs, because we were abused by presidents. And frankly, in all fairness, it wasn't their expertise, but they had no idea what they were doing.
REPORTER: Mr. President, you say tariffs will create more jobs here in America. So which states which states do you --
TRUMP: It'll create a lot of money and more jobs. But if you look, so in the last -- these gentlemen would know about it, and ladies because some of the ladies are great businessmen in this room that are becoming ambassadors. Great. Really great. Top of the line.
When you look at the number of companies that have said, look, were close to, I would say close to $4 trillion, we never had numbers like that. The number one chip maker in the world from Taiwan, coming in with $200 billion.
We have Apple -- look at Apple, $500 billion, $500 billion. They're going to build plants all over the United States. They were all being built in China.
You have many, many companies. And maybe above all, you have the car companies coming in at levels that nobody's ever seen before. We have -- Honda is opening up one of the biggest plants in the world in Indiana. And many car companies are coming in.
We have A.I. We're leading China by a lot in A.I., and we're going to keep it that way because we've made it very good for them, and we're going to protect them. Once you're here, we'll protect them through taxes, through incentives, and also through tariffs.
Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
FOSTER: Donald Trump at this time yesterday wasn't aware of this conversation on Signal. That was a clear breach of security. He's now saying there is going to be an investigation into that. And they may be using Signal less.
And he brought in Mike Waltz as well, his national security advisor, very much showing his support for him. And Mike Waltz saying they are looking into this. It was more about how this journalist got into the room.
Kevin Liptak is with us.
So, there was some progress here. They do appear to be aware of the risks of signal, but the investigation appears to be focused on how the journalist got into the room, as opposed to why they were having it on -- you know, why they were having this chat on signal in the first place.
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah. And the way the president framed it and the way Mike Wallace framed it, is that somehow Jeffrey Goldberg suddenly materialized in this encrypted group chat without anyone having made the actual error of adding him in the first place, which is how Goldberg describes this having happened, and Mike Waltz says that they'll bring in technical experts to try and determine exactly how this happened.
And it's clear that this is what they have told President Trump about how all of this transpired in the lead up to the strikes on Yemen.
You do hear in Trump and Waltz, this sort of annoyance, that this has overshadowed in some way the success, in their view, of the strikes on the Houthis. That is what Mike Waltz returns to again and again in his remarks, is trying to praise President Trump for going after the rebel group there and trying to open up the shipping lanes.
But, certainly, when you hear them talking, you do hear sort of multiple strains in some ways, conflicting strains about how this all moves forward. President Trump saying that Signal is an app that everyone uses, that in his view, the military often uses it, but at the same time, he thinks that potentially it should not be used anymore, that he thinks everyone should be in the same room when they're discussing these kinds of sensitive information. You also hear the president saying that there was no classified information discussed, but he says that -- all of these conversations should have been happening on the actual classified channels.
So, you do hear different things from these men as they try and explain exactly what happened here. What is clear from the president is that he doesn't feel like Mike Waltz is deserving of any consequences here. Mike Waltz is the national security advisor, who Jeffrey Goldberg says added him to this chat in the first place. There had been some sort of speculation inside the White House yesterday that this could potentially put Waltz on thin ice with the president, but throughout the course of this event here, you heard the president repeat again and again that he thinks Waltz is a good man, that he's doing his best and that he doesn't seem to have firing on his mind as he goes forward, Max.
FOSTER: Okay, Kevin. A lot to digest there.
With me now for more analysis, Carrie Cordero is a CNN U.S. national security analyst. She was also general counsel at the office of director of national intelligence, amongst other positions.
Also joining me, another CNN U.S. national security analyst, Peter Bergen. He's also vice president for global studies and fellows at New America, and the author of "The Cost of Chaos: The Trump administration and the World".
Thank you for joining us.
I want to come to you, first, Carrie, because I just want to get your view of this investigation as it shaped up during that briefing. So, Mike Waltz, according to "The Atlantic", invited a journalist into the chat. They've accepted there's a problem there.
Mike Waltz was -- has been put in charge of the investigation, according to Donald Trump. That happened in that meeting. And he's looking into the legal investigation and the technical investigation.
What do you think about the way that investigation has been set up for a start?
CARRIE CORDERO, CNN U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think what it sounds like is -- is they know that a mistake was made within the White House, and it sounds like they're going to do a review of how cabinet level officials, how principals committees, how senior national security officials are going to communicate with another -- one another in a quick, informal but secure way going forward.
And it sounds from the remarks made at that press conference right now that they're going to do that review completely within the White House. So within the National Security Council, I would imagine that the White House Counsel's Office, the legal counsel to the National Security Council will be involved, and they'll basically look at it, figure out what went wrong in this particular circumstance, how the journalist was added to the Signal chat, and they'll come up with some rules going forward for who manages it. Maybe they'll have staff manage putting together communications between the principals instead of them doing it themselves.
And maybe they will require more that things take place using the proper classified communication networks and channels and devices that are available to them in a more stringent way.
FOSTER: Peter, the investigation seems to be focused on how the journalist got into the chat, rather than why the chat was happening on Signal in the first place. What do you think of that?
PETER BERGEN, CNN U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, that's a good question, Max.
I mean -- you know, as the president himself said, that conversation should have been happening in the Situation Room or in other SCIFs. Now, Carrie would be quite familiar with this. I mean, in -- in other administrations, you know, the SCIFs are not just the Situation Room.
You can set up a kind of informal SCIF at a place like Mar-a-Lago using these special tents that basically make it very hard for people to listen in on your conversation.
[16:25:03]
That happened in the first Trump administration when they were doing strikes against Syria. You have also had administrations where if you were at the level of the defense secretary or the level of the national security advisor, you have a SCIF at your house.
So, you know, and the president referenced cumbersome communication devices that would have been essentially preferable. And clearly, I think if you're having a discussion about a fairly large military operation that they seem very proud about, you know, it's not so much just the fact that its Signal, which is encrypted better than WhatsApp, but it's happening on ordinary phones. I mean, any phone can be compromised.
CBS News is reporting that Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy and the Russia envoy for the Trump administration, was in Russia at the time. Well, of course, the Russians would have a pretty strong interest in finding out what Steve Witkoff was discussing on his phone. So, I think it goes -- I'm not a technical expert -- but it goes
deeper, deeper than simply Signal. If your phone is compromised, it's, you know, it doesn't really matter what app you're using. People can also detect what -- what keyboards, what particular keys you're using.
So I think you raise a good point, Max, which is this conversation shouldn't be happening on this on this platform in the first place.
FOSTER: Okay. And, Carrie, their main defense seems to be this group that there wasn't classified information in the chat that came up in the hearings as well. Today, didn't it? I mean, can I just ask you for a definition? You're the person to ask. What is classified information and from what you understand, from what was discussed, I mean, was there classified information on there?
CORDERO: So there's different definitions -- there's different levels of classified information. At a very general level, it's information which is publicly released would cause harm to the United States. And depending on the classification level, it could cause serious harm to the United States if released. If it's a higher level, it could cause grave harm to the United States. And so there's sort of different tranches of classified levels of information.
I will say, it is difficult for an outside observer to definitively be able to say whether the information in this chat was classified or not, because the most -- the information that the journalist thought was the most sensitive was not published. And so that was in his judgment, not to publish that information. And so, there are general descriptions of what was classified, but without actually being able to compare what was in the chat and what the journalist was privy to versus actual classified documents. It's hard to make that judgment.
And then you layer on top of the fact that the senior, many of the senior officials who are purportedly in this chat group are also official classification authorities. So they are individuals who have the legal authority to declassify information.
FOSTER: Okay. And, Peter, the other thing we keep hearing is that this was a great success, this mission, wasn't it, against the Houthis and that, you know, that means that this chat didn't have any material impact.
But the other way into that is by, as you were suggesting, if it was compromised, if it wasn't a, you know, a public service, legitimate journalist in this chat, and it was a Houthi, then the outcome would have changed. And that's what we're really concerned about here, isn't it?
BERGEN: Well, I think there are a few things. First of all, what other chats don't we know about? I mean, clearly this was -- it's not the first time they've been using Signal to discuss sensitive issues. It seems to be kind of a routine thing. I mean, there were up to, I think, 16 people potentially part as part of this chat.
So, the only reason we know about it is Jeffrey Goldberg was -- was admitted to the chat. So, what else has been discussed is one question.
The second question, you know, the United Kingdom has done plenty of joint operations with the United States against the Houthis in Yemen. Do you think the British intelligence service, which is part of the Five Eyes, which is the five countries that share intelligence with each other, is going to be wildly enthusiastic about sharing intelligence about Yemen or any other issue now that they know that in a sense that some of this intelligence is potentially being handled in a cavalier manner?
So, I think those are two issues.
What other discussions have been happening or Signal that we don't know about? And what are American allies like the Canadians, the New Zealanders, the Australians and the brits who are all part of the five eyes kind of cooperation on intelligence going to make all of all of this. Are they going to say, well, this is an administration that doesn't seem to treat classified information carefully.
And I, you know, as Carrie points out, we were just right now, we're being told this information is not classified. What it, at a minimum, it's highly sensitive.
[15:30:00]
And, you know, we can argue whether its top secret or secret or, you know, whatever classification there's TS, you know, there's a kind of several classifications above, you know, top secret that are for special access programs, et cetera. We just don't know.
I've been in Washington for a long time reporting on national security. I would be blown away if this information was something that you can publish. And, you know, in a sense, they're making a bit of a mistake with Jeffrey Goldberg by calling him publicly a sleazebag and somebody who makes stuff up because, you know, at a certain point, will Goldberg say, well, I'm not a sleazebag. I didn't make this stuff up, and I'm going to release all of this.
FOSTER: Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, isn't it? He was he had to out himself from the chat. He wasn't outed.
Carrie and Peter, thank you both for joining us with your excellent analysis as ever.
More after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Now, we have just been hearing from Donald Trump. He's been speaking for the first time in some depth about this Signal chat, which created a real security breach. Although he does clarify that no classified information was included in that group about military strikes in Yemen that was accidentally shared, as we understand it, by the journalist.
And then we heard that he did show a lot of support for Mike Waltz, who this journalist said actually allowed the journalist into the chat.
Mike Waltz will now head an investigation, he said. That's already started. The directors of the CIA, FBI, national intelligence all appeared before a Senate panel earlier today as well. They were there to testify during an already scheduled hearing about global threats facing the U.S.
[15:35:05]
But Democrats took the opportunity to question them about the security blunder, which they believe is part of a broader pattern of carelessness by the administration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): If this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer, and they had this kind of behavior, they would be fired. As I think this is one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless incompetent behavior, particularly towards classified information, that this is not a one off or a first time error.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox is on Capitol Hill for us with the very latest.
So, a lot of criticism from the Democrats, but we didn't hear so much about that from the Republicans on the panel, of course. So just give us a taste of how the atmosphere is down there.
LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I mean. There certainly is a lot of concern from many Republican senators. You saw yesterday, several of them pointing out that this was a mistake, that this was a colossal failure, that this had been a security breach.
I think the extent to which Senate Republicans react to this, though, will depend on whether or not there's a full investigation.
Now, the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, made clear that he does want to get additional answers as to what the other messages that were not revealed by that "Atlantic" story were, you know, you had in this hearing today the insistence that these were not classified messages, that this was not classified information.
But Mark Warner, who you heard earlier in that soundbite, made clear to me that if there's nothing to hide, why can't those officials just turn over the messages to United States senators so that they can read them for themselves and make a determination about whether they believe sensitive or classified information was exchanged over this app. Signal.
Now, I think there's a key question as to whether or not there's going to be public hearings. You have seen suggestions from Republicans on the Hill that there possibly could be. Theres also questions about what else could be investigated.
And some Democrats are arguing an investigation may be useless here. They are.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): It is careless. It is reckless. There should be an investigation, and folks need to be held accountable for this level of incompetence.
SEN. PETER WELCH (D-VT): We're still investigating. They put somebody, a journalist, on a secure text chain. We know what happened. What I want is accountability.
I don't know what the law is, but I know that you don't share secret war plans with civilians.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOX: Now, after the public section of this worldwide threats hearing with Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, there was a closed door session for lawmakers to press those two intelligence officials. And I'm told from one senator that there still are concerns after that closed door session, Senator Mike Rounds, who had held off on any criticism of what had taken place on Signal, said that he still wants to see the full extent of the messages.
He said he's not sure if he's going to have an opportunity to review them, but that is clearly one of the places where lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are starting to rally around. They want to see the full extent of these messages because they do want to have a good, clear sense of how much damage was done and where they go from here.
FOSTER: Lauren, thank you for joining us from Capitol Hill.
The extraordinary group chat pulls back the curtain on the level of disdain the Trump administration appears to have for Europe and its reliance on the U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth derided Europeans as, quote, pathetic freeloaders. Vice President J.D. Vance added he just hates bailing out Europe again.
For reaction, let's bring in Mara Karlin, a professor of foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University. She worked under six secretaries of defense, most recently in the Biden administration.
Thank you so much for joining us.
You know, Donald Trump in the last hour was asked about those free loading comments. And he basically backed them. Hasn't gone down particularly well here in Europe, of course. But there is an acceptance here as well that they've over relied on the U.S.
How damaging, do you think, the "freeloading" comments are?
MARA KARLIN, PROFESSOR OF FOREIGN POLICY, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: Look, it is just adding to what we have seen as this administration's approach to allies. We have to look at the broader context. We've seen this with discussions about the future of Ukraine, excluding Ukraine and excluding the Europeans, despite the Europeans being expected to both resource and be a military leader in Ukraine's future.
So, we've seen just so many examples. We saw this in Vice President Vance speaking to a number of Europeans at the Munich Security Conference in mid-February.
[15:40:04]
So, it is stunning, and yet it is also not at all shocking to see so many senior leaders in this administration speak just so negatively toward the Europeans, so much so that, in fact, you get the impression that some would rather not prioritize fighting a terrorist group like the Houthis because the Europeans, U.S. allies to boot, would actually also benefit.
FOSTER: And, you know, the one legitimate thing that Europe does give America is this intelligence sharing, right? They have a close intelligence relationship, particularly the UK, through Five Eyes. We were hearing about that earlier on in the show.
And one of the opposition leaders here in the UK said it has to make our security services nervous about the intelligence were sharing with them because they're nervous that, you know, the Trump administration can't handle their intelligence safely. And that is going to damage U.S. intelligence, right?
KARLIN: Absolutely. You know, what helps the United States is having this unparalleled network of allies. You mentioned Five Eyes. There's NATO, there's a number of different relationships where countries come together and say to the United States, here's how we understand a situation, here's how we assess it. What do you think is happening? How do you understand it?
And seeing what's happened now with the Signal chat, I think has got to be quite worrisome to a number of these countries. Look, so many people are focused on the journalist element here and the sloppy, irresponsible addition of a journalist to the chat. That's problematic.
But the much bigger issue here is that incredibly sensitive dilemmas like how to -- how the U.S. military should flow, U.S. military troop movements, targets and strike packages are all on an unclassified system in what seems to be a routine way. That is astonishing, stunning, and simply put, it's not normal.
These are conversations of which I've probably spent thousands of hours in over the last two decades. These are conversations that happen in sensitive locations like the Pentagon or in the White House Situation Room, or on classified phone systems. They don't just happen on your regular old iPhone.
FOSTER: Donald Trump was saying, you know, they need to learn from this. He obviously made it clear as well that he thinks the Situation Room is the place for very high level stuff, but it's pretty difficult when things are moving fluidly. And a lot of this, you know, official secret communications equipment is very cumbersome, he said.
Is it really? I mean, do they have to rely on their phones sometimes? Is that fair?
KARLIN: Look, the other systems can be cumbersome, but there's a reason that that's the case. You're talking about incredibly sensitive information, information that protects the lives of U.S. service members, for example, or protects classified information involving allies and partners, information that, frankly, your adversaries would be over the moon to get.
FOSTER: Yeah. I just want to ask you as well, we've had this, it's a tweet from a former Belgian prime minister, a member of the European parliament. It's gone a bit viral here in Europe as well, saying another wake up call for a real European defense. When will E.U. leaders act?
I mean, this is the other broader reaction were seeing from the Trump administration's foreign policy, isn't it, a realization, frankly, that Europe has been over-reliant on the U.S. They're going to build up their own military about time. Many people in Europe would agree. Donald Trump would probably agree.
But does that weaken the U.S. in any way, do you think?
KARLIN: Ideally, what would happen is what we've seen over the last few years, which is a large number of European countries have really invested in their defense, have worked on strengthening their militaries. Of course, that has not least been due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but we've seen a number of countries across Europe, and I should note in Asia where they've been watching this as well, decide that they actually need to need to make those investments. Thats a good thing.
It's also very useful, frankly, for the United States to still play that leadership role, to have its military closely cooperate with all these as well.
And what I fear, and this is just yet another example here, is that Europeans will want to invest in their own militaries, and they're going to want to cooperate much less and engage much less with the United States.
[15:45:00]
Fundamentally, that is not good for U.S. national security interests.
FOSTER: Mara Karlin, thank you. You've made it really clear, and it's fascinating to hear from you today. Thank you so much.
We'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia and Ukraine have agreed to stop using military force in the Black Sea. This announcement follows separate talks with the U.S.
Mr. Zelenskyy also said Moscow and Kyiv have agreed to pause air strikes on each other's energy infrastructure, although civilian infrastructure isn't included.
The Kremlin, however, says the Black Sea initiative will only go into effect once sanctions on Russian financial institutions are lifted.
CNN's Fred Pleitgen joins us live from Moscow.
I mean, the ceasefire is quite a simple idea to begin with, but it's getting more complicated.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it certainly is. And if you look at what the U.S. had initially said, Max, that's absolutely right. I mean, the Trump administration in its early stages, back when President Trump was saying he would solve the Ukraine conflict within a couple of days, was saying that they essentially wanted a ceasefire to be in place immediately, a 30-day ceasefire, and then to try and solve all of these problems from there.
But of course, the Russians have said that's absolutely not going to happen. They want the underlying issues to be brought out of the way and to be solved before the weapons are completely silenced.
Nevertheless, of course, the ceasefires that are in place now or the moratoriums, if you will, that are in place now, are already fairly significant achievements, especially the one that we were just talking about, about energy infrastructure. I was actually just in touch with the spokesman for the Kremlin a couple of minutes ago, and he said that both Ukraine and Russia have agreed to a list of sites on which there is going to be a moratorium and that will not be hit, and that these are energy infrastructure sites.
And they do say that that list is very a very important one. But if we look at the Black Sea initiative, that really is one where it seems as though progress seems to be more difficult, both sides or all three sides, if we include the United States, have agreed that there should be a moratorium on fighting in the Black Sea, that there should be freedom of navigation on the Black Sea, and also that commercial vessels should not be used for military purposes in the Black Sea, and that all of that should be monitored as well.
[15:50:16]
However, the Russians, as you mentioned, have said that they want essentially their agricultural bank to be able to do international business again and also to be reconnected with SWIFT as well, to be able to do electronic international payments. And there also the kremlin spokesman said, look, the reason why the Russians are doing that is, of course, there was already once a Black Sea grain deal from July of 2022 until the summer of 2023, where the Russians felt that they got the shorter end of the stick, that the Ukrainians were able to export grain from their ports. But the Russians still had all of these issues pertaining to the sanctions that made it more difficult for them to export agricultural goods and, of course, fertilizers as well.
And so, right now, the Russians are saying that they are going to take a harder line on this, and they want those issues to be sorted out. Unclear, however, whether or not the U.S. is going to be able to do that, because of course, a lot of those sanctions are not only U.S. sanctions, but actually sanctions that are also levied on Russia by the U.S.'s European allies as well -- Max.
FOSTER: We'd just about kept up with it.
Fred, thank you so much indeed for bringing us the latest on all of those discussions.
After the break, we'll be looking at -- we'll be looking at a controversial proposal about the future of Gaza.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Just in to CNN then, the U.S. vice president says he will visit Greenland on Friday. J.D. Vance's wife Usha, was already going to visit to watch a dog sled race. Apparently, Greenland's prime minister earlier slammed the planned trip by U.S. officials. This amid President Trump's threats to annex the Danish territory. And that trip is certainly going to get a lot more coverage now.
Arab nations are condemning a controversial proposal approved by Israel's security cabinet to relocate Palestinians out of Gaza. Israeli officials say any emigration would be voluntary and in line with international legal standards.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt disagree, calling the plans illegal under international law. The proposal comes as Israel continues its strikes on Gaza.
And there are reports two Palestinian journalists were killed in Monday's strikes, one from Qatar based news network al Jazeera and another from Palestine TV today.
[15:55:07]
Now to developing news in the region, this video just in. Thousands of Palestinians demonstrating against Hamas in northern Gaza on Tuesday. It appears to be the largest protest against the militant group since its attacks on Israel on October 7th of 2023.
Well, thank you for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster.
Richard is walking slowly into the studio ready for "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS". What's he got?
