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Pete Hegseth Allegedly Shared Yemen Attack Details In Personal Signal Chat; U.S. Stock Futures Fall After Roller Coaster Week; Alito Slams Supreme Court Majority Ruling To Pause Deportations, Defense Secretary Shared Detailed Military Plans In Second Signal Chat that Included His Wife And Brother; Tech Giants Taken To Court. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired April 20, 2025 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:00]
JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Signal chat is in addition to the one Hegseth used to communicate about military plans with Cabinet officials last month that is now under investigation by the Defense Department's acting inspector general.
I want to go straight to CNN's Kevin Liptak, who is at the White House for more on this.
Kevin, what are we learning about this?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And if this all sounds sort of reminiscent of that scandal that engulfed the administration about a month ago, it should, because the secretary of defense, we are now learning, shared very similar details about the U.S. attack plans on the Houthi rebels in Yemen on a second Signal group. And we understand that this included things like takeoff times for some of those fighter jets as they were preparing to strike those targets in Yemen.
The big difference here is who comprised each of these Signal groups because remember that first time around, that group was created by the National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz. It was intended to coordinate this attack with members of the Cabinet officials who were in top National Security positions in the administration, and he inadvertently included the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.
This new Signal group that we are just learning about this evening included some members of Pete Hegseth's inner circle who are -- it's not clear what reason they would have to have this information about the strikes that the U.S. was planning to carry out. It included his brother and his personal attorney. They both work at the Pentagon. It's not clear whether they have security clearances. It also included his wife, Jennifer, who has accompanied him previously in meetings with other foreign officials, which has raised some eyebrows among certain officials at the Pentagon.
Now, as you mentioned, that original Signal sort of snafu is now being investigated by the inspector general at the Pentagon. It's not clear whether this latest revelation will be included in the review. The Pentagon officially has not commented on these latest revelations, which I should note were first reported by "The New York Times." But this does punctuate a period of chaos inside the Pentagon and inside the inner circle of Pete Hegseth.
You'll remember just last week, senior officials who were in sort of his front office at the Pentagon were fired essentially for what officials described as a leak investigation. And this is all sort of drawing questions, including from some loyalists, some allies of Pete Hegseth, at how this chaos has been allowed to perpetuate. We just heard from John Ullyot, who until recently was Pete Hegseth's press secretary at the Pentagon. He says that it's been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon from leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings. The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president, who deserves better from his senior leadership.
Ullyot goes on to say even strong backers of the secretary, like me, must admit, the last month has been a full blown meltdown at the Pentagon, and it's becoming a real problem for the administration. Part of the problem, of course, is that this is not sort of a quiet period for national security. You have Pete Hegseth making sort of preparations on the president's command. These designs on the Panama Canal, he was just there visiting earlier this month.
You also have this buildup of U.S. assets in the Middle East in preparation for a potential Israeli strike on Iran. You also have tensions in Asia. So this is a fraught period for the Pentagon to be undergoing this period of chaos. And certainly I think now you'll hear from officials who are questioning whether Pete Hegseth is sort of the man for the job at this very fraught moment.
I should also note that when those original war plans, attack plans were shared in the Signal group, the administration and the White House, and President Trump denied that there was anything classified contained to that information. Of course, that drew a lot of skepticism from almost every national security analyst that we talked to -- Jessica.
DEAN: Yes. All right. Kevin Liptak with the breaking news there at the White House. Thank you so much.
And joining us now to talk more about this CNN senior military analyst and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. Also with us, former Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh.
Sabrina, I want to start first with you. Let's just -- let's zoom out for a second. I want to get your thoughts just as you're hearing all of this information, this idea that there was a second Signal chat where he was sharing this information about these strikes with people like his wife, his brother, his personal attorney who don't have security clearances.
What are you thinking as someone who stood at that podium at the Pentagon and knows how this information is typically handled?
[19:05:0030] SABRINA SINGH, FORMER DEPUTY PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: I mean, it's truly shocking. I think when I saw this reporting coming out from "The New York Times," at first, you know, there was no question there were going to be more Signal threads. You know, who started them, this one in particular was started by Pete Hegseth. And for him to add, you know, his wife, his brother, his personal attorney, people that don't need access or need to know about classified information about operations involving the Houthis in any way.
I mean, this is something that we would never do under a previous administration. And on top of that, putting these classified details into a commercial texting app like Signal, again, that puts our fighter pilots at risk. That was something that, you know, certainly concerned me deeply when these texts were first exposed just a month ago. It's that same concern. It's putting the operation, those fighter pilots who are in the air about to conduct this operation at risk with people that don't need to know this information.
DEAN: And, Cedric, I want to go off what Sabrina is saying there from the military perspective. Again, just the potential for danger for our men and women in uniform. What kind of potential for danger is there if this information were to get leaked or get into the wrong hands? Again, this is an encrypted app, but it is not a secure line. And in fact, his advisers had warned him that it wasn't a secure place to be sharing information like this.
COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, that's right, Jessica. And Sabrina is exactly right. You know, first of all we look at the fighter pilots and all of the effort that goes into planning air operations of this type. People don't realize if you're not involved in air operations, a lot of people don't understand that these are very complex operations, and there's a lot that can go wrong as you plan them.
And one of the key things is when you actually plan these operations and you have specific things like time over target, the type of ordnance that's going to be dropped, the type of targets that you're going after, the exact target that you're going after, all of those kinds of things are absolutely essential elements of information, and those essential elements of information are exactly what makes these kinds of texts classified.
And no matter what they will spend at this Pentagon, this stuff is classified, no doubt about it. And, Jessica, this is the kind of thing that gets people in trouble. You know, when the first Signal chat scandal broke, we talked about the old World War II adage, loose lips sink ships. This is exactly the kind of thing that happens because Signal chats can be intercepted by sophisticated adversaries like the Russians, like the Chinese.
It's difficult for them to do so, but they've proven that they can do it in Ukraine. And it's the kind of thing that we have to guard against. And, you know, these types of Signal chats, even if they happen in the United States, in the D.C. area, you can bet that the Russians and the Chinese are working very hard to intercept them. DEAN: And we know that the Chinese government has been trying to hack
into a number of elected officials' phones, including, you know, all the way up to the vice president and others.
Sabrina, I want to go to the statement that we that we obtained, that CNN obtained from John Ullyot, who was most recently Hegseth's press secretary. Again, a role you're quite familiar with. And our colleagues, Natasha Bertrand, Jake Tapper, Haley Thomas and Zachary Cohen write in this piece that he said in the statement, it's been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon from leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president, who deserves better from his senior leadership.
For his former press secretary, again, very -- just recently former, to be saying that and to be quoted saying that, what do you what do you make of that?
SINGH: I mean, I have to agree he's not wrong. We're nearly 100 days into this presidency, and it does seem that America and our military is less safe. I mean, from the Signal threads that have been now exposed to what you're seeing, you know, Secretary Hegseth say about our allies and partners to turning our back on Ukraine to being willing to engage and get closer with countries like Russia and kind of, you know, succumb to what Putin wants.
Yes, these last few months have been absolute chaos. And I think it really shows the incompetence of what we have, you know, in Secretary Hegseth sitting at the top, we don't have qualified leadership. And this was something that, you know, we were sort of sounding the alarm bells on when he was confirmed. And so you obviously want the best, but, you know, he's fired all of his senior, you know, members around him.
And so you're seeing the chaos kind of unfold, not just in the text threads, but being played out on the world stage. And that, of course, is so dangerous, not just in sending a members to our allies, but really sending a message to our adversaries as well.
[19:10:03]
DEAN: Yes. And, Cedric, to that end, what messages are these sending to both of those groups of people, our allies, but also our adversaries, knowing that the Defense secretary is using his personal phone to be sending this sort of information to people like his wife, his brother, his personal attorney?
LEIGHTON: Well, there's a whole trust issue there, Jessica, isn't there? And, you know, when you look at it from the allies' standpoint, they share a lot of sensitive information with us. You know, whether it's countries like Israel or France or Great Britain, even Germany, they are going to try to assess what they can share with the United States and whether or not they can share things with us, because they're afraid, they're going to be afraid that the types of information that they share could very well be revealed, either inadvertently or deliberately, by either Secretary Hegseth or somebody else in this administration.
And their track record of handling classified information is not good as far as the adversaries are concerned. They are looking at this, you know, as a bonanza. They see this as the perfect way for them to gain information on our abilities. And, you know, whether or not we're going to do certain things. And the secretary of Defense plays a very key role. And he, as a result, is a prime intelligence target. And he needs to understand that and act that way. And frankly, it may be too late for that.
DEAN: And, Sabrina, we do want to note that Hegseth's brother and attorney do have jobs in the Pentagon, but I'm hoping you can help us understand. It's not clear why either of them, though, still would need to have this particular information. Who typically gets this sort of information? How closely is it typically held?
SINGH: Yes, this type of information is very closely guarded. I mean, anything around a military operation is held to, you know, the ultimate classification. And you're really talking about operations in these classified spaces. So it's really, you know, members of the Joint Staff the secretary of Defense, of course, the chairman would be involved in an operation like this, but it is a really small group of people that know the innermost details about an operation.
And so not only to put that chat -- that information into a commercial texting app and, you know, kind of give away some of these timelines, but share it with people that have absolutely no reason to know that information other than the fact that they work at the department it's really astounding. And, you know, while there is an investigation being led by the inspector general, you know, Congress really needs to play a role here.
And I hope that this sends another message, yet again, that Congress needs to intervene. And we just we more information about how our men and women in uniform are potentially being put at risk every single day by the secretary of Defense.
DEAN: All right. There is certainly, yes, we're going to see how this plays out when Congress comes back from recess.
To that point, Cedric Leighton and Sabrina Singh, thank you, both of you. We really appreciate it.
LEIGHTON: You bet. Thanks, Jessica.
SINGH: Thank you.
DEAN: Still ahead, will this be another roller coaster week on Wall Street? Market futures still in the red. We're going to be joined by a former White House economist about the potential for a recession.
You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.
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[19:17:57] DEAN: We are just hours away from the New York Stock Exchange opening bell. Let's take a look now at U.S. stock futures. If you take a look, they are all in the red as we sit at 7:17 p.m. on the East Coast. This past week, the Dow went through a wild roller coaster of ups and downs as it's been doing. But the president insists his trade war with China and some of America's biggest trading partners will help make the U.S. richer.
The president posting on Truth Social today, quote, "The businessmen who criticized tariffs are bad at business, but really bad at politics. They don't understand or realize that I'm the greatest friend that American capitalism has ever had."
Joining us to talk more about this, Gene Sperling, he served as director of the National Economic Council under Presidents Obama and Clinton, was also a senior adviser to President Biden.
Gene, thanks so much for being here with us. Let's just start first with what President Trump is saying about. He's the greatest friend that capitalism ever had. There are a lot of business people and also I think just everyday Americans who are very concerned about the lasting damage that could be done to this economy when we were looking at a soft landing and a much stronger economy just not that long ago.
GENE SPERLING, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: You know, absolutely. I think that so many people at both the main street and Wall Street level are truly concerned about the prospects for our economy this year and also the potential long-term danger to this historic confidence in the United States in investing in us, in the dollar, in our competence, in our independence and our respect for the rule of law.
But let me start with just taking off on something you said. You know, I was leaving the Biden White House and I think if some of us were honest, we were probably feeling gnashing our teeth a little about the fact that President Trump would be able to come in and a little bit take credit for the good things that were happening in the economy. Obviously, we know people very much didn't like what happened to price levels during and after the pandemic.
[19:20:06]
But there was almost consensus across the world and across every forecaster that the U.S. was headed for this beautiful, soft landing. And what does that mean? That means that we were going to come back to a period where growth was going to be steady, reliable, and inflation was universally projected to come to around 2 percent. All of that has changed, not because of some terrible war or terrorist attack.
It is changed just because of policies that this president has proposed. So I know there's a lot of focus on Wall Street and no doubt however much the market moves around, it's still down about 12 percent. Trillions of dollars since the president started his, you know, talking about his trade policy. But let's just look at average people. I mean, these are -- I'm going to just get two numbers that are striking. When the election took place, most American consumers expected
inflation over the next year to be 2.6 percent. Not too bad. Could be a little lower. Not too bad. Today they expect it to be 6.7. I didn't misspeak. People have gone from expecting inflation to being consumers, regular folks. 2.6 percent to 6.7 percent and only due to one thing, to President Trump's trade -- erratic trade policy.
And let's look at Consumer Confidence. Consumer Confidence has gone down four straight months. It is now at the lowest level since 1980. So think about it. Consumer Confidence, just due to announcements and erratic policy proposals by the president is lower than it was during 9/11, during the financial crisis, during COVID? And these were extraordinary events. This is the ultimate self-inflicted wound.
So this is not just about traders, you know, trying to get ahead of the next news. This is a global economy that is looking at the U.S. consumer and saying President Trump has so scared them and there is so much uncertainty that now places like JPMorgan have gone in just a few months from a 20 percent prediction of a recession to a 60 percent due solely on President Trump's trade policy.
DEAN: And I have two follow-up questions to that. Where do you stand on the chances of a recession?
SPERLING: Well, what worries me is that, you know, there's kind of a saying that all you need for a significant slowdown is for everybody to pause at the same time. And if you see this kind of negative consumer confidence, if you see small businesses not knowing what products they can stock, if you see companies not knowing whether they should import or export, a lot of people are just going to pause.
But you know what happens if everybody decides not to go on that vacation, not to maybe hold back on their spending, to not build that new wing of a building or start a new plant? If everybody does this at the same time, that inevitably could lead to a dramatic slowdown.
Now some people say, yes, there could be some behavior where people rush out to buy cars, to beat the tariffs, so you could get some temporary bumps. But overall, what we see is a slowdown in economic activity, which tends to, you know, be self-reinforcing. And, you know, I'll just say that what you are also seeing going on is something I've never really seen in my lifetime, where people are looking at -- people pulling out of equities, out of markets. They're being less risky, understandable.
But then instead of investing in the one safe thing you know, U.S. treasuries, the dollar, there, you're seeing signs of people just losing confidence in the United States. When people just pull out of everything, that's something that happens to a developing country with shaky inflation policy, not the country that's starting with Alexander Hamilton has been the kind of beacon of confidence.
And I can't say this enough, to the degree that people see this lose all confidence in the seriousness of our economic policy making, and at the same time, see, you know, lawlessness, not respect for the rule of law, you know, bullying whether it's universities or law firms, if you're a company thinking about making your future in the United States, you're going to think twice.
[19:25:29]
And that I'm very much worried about. It's not just that people flee the dollar and U.S. treasuries, which is itself a terrible, scary thing, but I think they'll go against what is President Trump's clearest goal, which is to encourage more location. I mean, a few places will come because of the tariffs, but a whole lot of people could lose confidence in the U.S. and none of us want that. And that is where we need to see the real change from the Trump administration.
DEAN: Gene Sperling, thank you for your time. We really appreciate it.
SPERLING: Thanks for having me.
DEAN: Still ahead, President Trump is making it clear he's fed up with federal judges ruling against his administration. But how do Americans and Trump's own supporters feel about his conflict with the courts? We'll run the numbers. That's next.
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[19:30:31]
DEAN: And tonight we're hearing from one of the Supreme Court justices in a scathing dissent, criticizing his colleagues for temporarily blocking the Trump administration's use of a wartime law to speed up deportations.
CNN's senior reporter, Marshall Cohen, joining us now from Washington with the details, Marshall, walk us through what happened here?
MARSHALL COHEN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Jessica, we are talking about a law that was literally signed by President John Adams in the 1700s. It's the Alien Enemies Act, which the Trump administration is trying to use to speed up deportations of Venezuelan migrants that it claims are gang members.
Now, lawyers for some of these migrants from the ACLU rushed to court on Friday to raise the alarm that, in their view, these people were on the brink of deportation, being loaded into busses, heading to a tarmac without due process, without the due process that the Supreme Court said earlier this month, is legally required.
And because of that petition to the high court, the justices, early Saturday morning around 1:00 A.M., hit the pause button. It appeared to be a seven to two majority, with conservatives and liberals teaming up to hit the pause button for now on these deportations.
But it was not unanimous and there were very strong objections from Samuel Alito, one of the most conservative members of the court. And here is what he said in his dissent. It's scathing, "Literally in the middle of the night, the court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support and without providing any explanation."
He clearly thought this was a terrible outcome, but he was in the minority the rest of the -- most of the justices on the Supreme Court decided that it was appropriate to hit the pause button. This won't be the final word, Jessica. It's just a temporary emergency order and in the coming days, the Supreme Court will likely issue more orders spelling out what the administration needs to do to comply with the law -- Jessica.
DEAN: All right, Marshall Cohen with the very latest on this. Thank you very much for that.
And some legal experts warn the deportation fight between the Trump administration and the courts could turn into a constitutional crisis. But how does the public see all of this? For that, we turn to CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten. Hello, Harry.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Hello.
DEAN: Harry, how do Americans and then of those Americans, those who identify themselves as members of the Republican Party, feel about the right of the courts to review Trump's actions?
ENTEN: Yes, so you've got Americans, and then, of course, you got that subsection of Republicans and the larger electorate and Republicans, they can't be further apart. It's like they're on two different planets. What are we talking about here? So, just the simple idea of judicial review, a bedrock of the judicial system, allow judges to review Trump's policies. Look, 77 percent overall say absolutely yes.
But look among Republicans, yes, the bare majority, 56 percent say yes. But look at the substantial minority, 44 percent of Republicans do not believe that the judicial system should be allowed to review Trump's policies, despite that, as I said at the beginning, being a bedrock of the judicial system, something that has gone on pretty much throughout our entire democracy. And yet you get nearly half of Republicans saying, no, I didn't quite ever think I'd see the day, Jessica. But again, overall, Americans 77 percent say yes.
DEAN: And how do they feel if Trump refuses to obey a Supreme Court ruling?
ENTEN: Yes, of course, that's something I think we're all kind of thinking about a little bit. I don't think Trump would go that far, but we do have the poll question on that. If a President ignores a SCOTUS ruling, get this 58 percent of the overall public says, absolutely not. You should impeach and remove that President. But again, look, among Republicans, it's just an entirely different universe, 39 percent say keep him in office, which is larger than the 27 percent who say impeach and remove that President.
Again, this would just be basically unprecedented. I kind of go back through my mind. I only think about Andrew Jackson maybe in the late 1820s into the 1830s, in which he, in fact, did pretty much ignore Supreme Court rulings to find any sort of precedent for this. And that is why the clear majority of Americans say a President should not ignore a SCOTUS ruling. If he does, he should get impeached and removed. But again, among Republicans, the plurality actually say keep them in office -- Jessica.
DEAN: And so, speaking of impeachment, some, including Trump, have talked about the idea of impeaching judges for ruling against Trump. How does the public feel about that?
ENTEN: Yes, okay. So, you see these numbers here, right. And when we go about impeaching judges instead of impeaching the President, we get a flip flop, a reversal. What are we talking about here?
So, if impeach judges who rule against Trump, look, two thirds of the overall public opposes that idea, 65 percent. But look, among Republicans, hello, 59 percent of Republicans support the idea of impeaching judges who would go against Donald Trump.
[19:35:35]
So, the bottom line is, if you get Donald Trump disagreeing with the judges going against him, what you see is that overall, the public says, you know what? President Trump, in fact, should be impeached. But Republicans feel the exact opposite. They feel the judge should be impeached. It's truly a switcheroo. Republicans and the overall electorate are just completely on different sides when it comes to judges reviewing Trump's policies and the actions that would have to occur if, in fact, Trump did not -- Jessica.
DEAN: Okay, lets depart from this topic for a second, because there was also some news this week. This is a very cool story, I think --
ENTEN: I love it.
DEAN: There may be life on other planets. What do Americans think?
ENTEN: Yes, I just love it. You know, sometimes we do the hard news, but sometimes we get to have a little bit of fun, Jessica Dean and I'm glad that we get to have some fun together here on a Sunday night.
So, yes, is there intelligent life on other planets? Back in 2010, it was only 46 percent of Americans who said that there was. Jump ahead to now. Over the last few years, I took an average of the polls. Look at this, the clear majority. Two-thirds of the public now believes that there is, in fact, intelligent life on other planets.
And, you know, earlier on in this segment, we were talking about Democrats and Republicans disagreeing, being on different planets. Hello? But on this particular issue, more than 50 percent of both Democrats and Republicans now believe that there is, in fact, intelligent life on other planets. Whether or not I believe that, you'll have to check the dark web for that -- Jessica.
DEAN: Yes, we will have to do some digging.
ENTEN: Yes.
DEAN: Do Americans think we're going to have contact with intelligent life anytime soon?
ENTEN: Okay, so, you know, you see the 65 percent who say that yes, there is intelligent life on other planets, but are we ever going to actually contact that life anytime in the near future?
How about in, say, next hundred years? No. Now 57 percent say no, 37 percent say yes. Although, I really do love this picture that I picked out. I think that's like a stereotypical alien on a cell phone. I think that'd be kind of cool if aliens could in fact use cell phones. But at least according to the polling data, Americans don't believe we'll find out anytime soon if in fact, the aliens do in fact use cellular technology the same the way we do, because 57 percent say no, we will not be contacting intelligent life at least within the next hundred years.
DEAN: We don't know if they're carrying around those flip phones. Who can say?
ENTEN: We don't know. Who knows, who knows? We'll find out.
DEAN: Harry Enten, thank you so much. Good to see you.
ENTEN: Thanks, Jessica. Nice to see you.
DEAN: When we come back, more of our breaking news as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth allegedly shared detailed military plans in a second Signal chat. This one, including his wife and brother.
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[19:42:31]
DEAN: Back to our breaking news. Now, as multiple sources tell CNN Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed attack plans for airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen in another Signal chat, this one, including his wife, brother and personal attorney.
The second Signal chat is in addition to the one Hegseth used to communicate about military plans with Cabinet officials last month that is now under investigation by the Defense Department's acting inspector general.
Let's go now to CNN's Kevin Liptak, who is at the White House. Kevin, what more are you learning about all of this?
LIPTAK: Yes, and it appears that the information that Hegseth shared in this second Signal group is very similar to information that he shared in that first signal group that we learned about a month ago, including flight schedules for the F-18 -- the Hornet fighter jets that were used to attack those Houthi sites in Yemen.
The big difference here is who is included in each of these two groups. You remember that original Signal group that we learned about was created by the National Security adviser Mike Waltz, including Cabinet level officials in the National Security realm, in the U.S. government, and was inadvertently included Jeffrey Goldberg, the journalist from "The Atlantic" Magazine.
This new group that Hegseth formed that we are learning about this evening included individuals including his wife, his brother and his personal attorney, people for whom it's not clear why they would need this information about these pending attack plans in Yemen.
Pete Hegseth's brother, and his attorney do have jobs at the Pentagon, although it's not clear whether they have security clearances. His wife is not an official employee of the Department of Defense, and she has raised some eyebrows among Pentagon officials for attending meetings with foreign officials joining her husband for those talks.
So, you know, all raising questions sort of about the competence of Pete Hegseth as he commands the Pentagon and the Department of Defense, this massive workforce and massive responsibility at a moment of global tensions. And it sort of punctuates a period of chaos at the Pentagon that is causing concerns even among some of Hegseth's allies, including the former Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot.
He was Hegseth's top press secretary until very recently, who is writing tonight. "It's been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon from leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the President -- who deserves better from his senior leadership."
Now, I should note that we have not heard from the Pentagon officially about these latest revelations. But when the previous Signal leak occurred, the White House, the Pentagon, the President himself all denied that the information shared in there was classified, although that was met with some intense skepticism from most National Security analysts -- Jessica.
[19:45:36]
DEAN: All right, Kevin Liptak at the White House. Thank you.
Still ahead, two of the biggest names in tech, both facing court battles that could force seismic shifts in how they do business.
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[19:50:10]
DEAN: Two big tech giants were in court this week as regulators look for ways to check the power of major players in the industry. Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg took the stand in Washington at the start of a blockbuster antitrust lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission. And Google's fight with the Justice Department took a turn as a federal judge ruled the company violated antitrust law by creating an "online advertising monopoly."
Joining us to talk more about it, Sarah Fisher, CNN media analyst and media correspondent for AXIOS. Good to see you, Sarah, let's start first with this Google case. The judge issued a mixed decision in the case. Google says it plans to appeal what it calls the adverse portion of that ruling. Break it down for us. What does it all mean? SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, so the government, Jessica, said that Google did three things wrong. That it abused its dominance in the ad-technology that's used by publishers. So, think about news sites, travel sites, all that type of stuff. The ad-tech that is used by sort of advertisers, marketers, brands and then the software that links all of it.
The government, this judge found that Google was guilty of two of those things. The publisher ad-tech, as well as the software, but it did not find Google guilty of abusing its dominance in that advertising piece.
So, Google is sort of playing this like it's a half win. But, Jessica, if the government said that Google is guilty here, that does mean that they're going to have to decide on some sort of remedy or punishment. That's the next thing that we're expecting here and this could be huge, because if Google is forced to divest part of its ad-technology, I mean, those tools bring billions of dollars to the company. You're looking at, you know, high single digit percentage of its overall revenue to around 10 percent.
DEAN: Wow, and that could be very big for them. And then walk us through this Meta lawsuit.
FISCHER: Yes, so the DOJ under the first Trump administration were the folks that sued Google, the Federal Trade Commission was the body that sued Meta also, during the first Trump administration. They're finally going to court right now. We had about a week of testimony, and the government has essentially said that Meta bought companies like Instagram and WhatsApp to squash its competitors, and that that is an abuse of its dominance in social media.
Meta this week argued in trial, no, we weren't trying to squash our competitors. You know, we bought these apps because we needed to remain competitive, you know, when Instagram, for example, Instagram was very dominant on mobile and with photos. Meta at the time was mostly desktop.
But Meta is really fighting for its life here, Jessica. Because if a judge finds it guilty and its forced to divest Instagram, I can't tell you how massive of a deal that would be. Instagram analysts say, is about half of Meta's overall U.S. revenue. WhatsApp, with more than three billion users worldwide, is one of the largest messaging platforms globally.
Being forced to get rid of those platforms would not just fundamentally shift Meta's business, it would upend the entire social media landscape.
DEAN: Yes and how real of a possibility is that outcome?
FISCHER: I think it's not super likely. I think the FTC faces a very big uphill battle in trying to convince a judge that Meta abused its dominance, especially because if you take a look right now, the social media landscape has gotten very competitive. You take a look at not just TikTok, which is sort of the big elephant in the room, but there's all these other smaller platforms that are becoming bigger and more dominant.
I think about Reddit IPO-ing just a few months ago. Snapchat is publicly traded. You have small niche platforms like Pinterest and Etsy. When it comes to the online landscape, you know this better than anyone, Jessica. Attention is the whole game, and so anyone that Meta has to compete with for your time and energy, they consider a competitor.
It's going to be tough for the government to argue that they did such anti-competitive work when the landscape has changed so much.
DEAN: Yes, it is really interesting. I also thought it was interesting Zuckerberg was testifying or he was on the he was about ten hours on the stand in that case, and he said he originally built Facebook to connect with friends and family and share content. But he told the court that that kind, that use of his product is on the decline, which I thought was interesting. What did you think?
FISCHER: Definitely, and it is. If you take a look at what they're up against, it's no longer sharing stuff from people, you know, like think about TikTok. It's actually about sharing videos that are viral from strangers. And so, for Meta, connecting people was its business in the beginning. That's just no longer the case.
DEAN: Fascinating, Sara Fischer, great to see you. Thank you so much for being with us.
FISCHER: Thanks, Jessica.
DEAN: And thank you for joining me tonight. I'm Jessica Dean. The CNN original series, "Finding Jesus" is next. We're going to see you right back here again next weekend. But before we go, a reminder that Eva Longoria is back with an all new culinary adventure. She is exploring the vibrant and daring cuisine of Spain, one bite at a time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you think is that chicharon?
EVA LONGORIA, AMERICAN ACTRESS AND FILM PRODUCER (on camera): Shitake Mushroom
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a duck tongue.
LONGORIA (on camera): Duck tongue. I didn't even know ducks had tongues.
Hello.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eva Longoria.
(EVA LONGORIA speaking in foreign language.)
[19:55:11]
LONGORIA (voice over): Eleven generations ago, one of my ancestors left Spain for the new world and a new life. Four hundred years later, I'm back.
LONGORIA (on camera): I'm so excited.
LONGORIA (voice over): To see how the land and its people have created one of the world's most exciting cuisines.
LONGORIA (on camera): I have an important question.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you hungry?
LONGORIA (on camera): I'm hungry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Perfect.
LONGORIA (on camera): Wow, you can taste the land, the grass, what they eat.
Look at that guy, hmmmm, oh yes.
Food makes me so happy.
Is it supposed to be in one bite?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
LONGORIA (on camera): Oh she's a pincho expert.
I have to visit a long lost family
Ola, familia.
LONGORIA (voice over): If you can preserve your food and your recipes, then you can teach the rest of the world who you are.
LONGORIA (on camera): This is so beautiful, salute to that.
Oh, this is cuisine at a different level.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is the best place to be a chef.
LONGORIA (on camera): Oh my God. We have found Spain.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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