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Intel Officials Testify After Stunning National Security Blunder; Speaker Johnson Says No One Should Lose Job Over "Errant Number" On Text Thread; Consumer Confidence In The Future Sinks To 12- Year Low; Lawmaker With Newborn Pushes Congress To Change Voting Rule. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 25, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:30:30]

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR: And we're following breaking news. President Trump's top intelligence officials just faced an onslaught of questioning over the administration's decision to use a group chat to coordinate a highly sensitive military operation.

Now it's still unclear if there will be an investigation into this massive security error. But here's what I heard from the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee just yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

RAJU: So there'll be an investigation by your committee?

SEN. ROGER WICKER (R), ARMED SERVICES CHAIRMAN: I think absolutely we'll be looking into it, no question.

RAJU: And do you think that anyone should be held accountable for this?

WICKER: Well, I think that depends on the investigation, but it's definitely a concern. And it appears that mistakes were made, no question.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

RAJU: But that's not what most Republicans are saying.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R), ALABAMA: Well, it was a mistake. You know, we make mistakes. You know, we all make mistakes, and I don't know how it happened. It might have been, you know, a communication problem with somebody in the communications department.

RAJU: Do you think that Congress should investigate this?

TUBERVILLE: No, no. They need to -- they know something went awry here.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: They've acknowledged that there was an error and they're correcting it. I don't think anyone should have lost their job over that because an errant number, you know, found its way onto a dialogue between leaders.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

RAJU: All right, my excellent reporters are back. Leigh Ann, you're on the Capitol every day with me. Do you -- what do you expect to actually happen in the Capitol? I mean, you heard Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He indicated that there's going to be some level of investigation. There'll probably be some classified briefings.

But how -- will this go as far as what Democrats want --

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, PUCK: No.

RAJU: -- which is a full-blown probe?

CALDWELL: Absolutely not. Speaker Mike Johnson gave the signal very clearly just now that this is something that does not need to be discussed anymore. It was something that was corrected, ignoring the fact that these are the top national security advisers in the country and they know what is -- when -- how to discuss very important information, including attack plans.

But talking about mistakes, you know, I spoke to a member of Congress this morning, Representative Ralph Norman, and I asked him about this. And he's taking his cues from Pete Hegseth. And he's saying, well, we don't even know if this is true. And so --

RAJU: It was a peanut to figure that out, perhaps, you know.

CALDWELL: Right.

RAJU: You can learn if it's true, if you wanted to learn if it was true.

CALDWELL: Exactly, exactly. And so there's a lot of obfuscation here and dismissal. And of course, there's a lot of Republicans who don't want to criticize or get in the way of the president.

RAJU: Yes. And the question is, who also could investigate this? Yes, there's Congress. It doesn't sound like there might be one. Certainly not in the House. Maybe in the Senate. We'll see if anything changes over the next 24 hours or so.

But who else could investigate this? Inspectors General? Well, a lot of them have been dismissed. And that's also being litigated in court, the legality of those dismissals.

But the Department of Justice, we know those in FBI, run by Trump loyalists. And will they actually go further and look into this? It doesn't seem that way. Could the White House Counsel's Office do this? Jeff, what is the White House -- are they actually -- they said they're going to look into this to some extent. What do we expect from the White House to review what happened here?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I mean, there's no doubt that this is viewed, I think in the President's words, as the only glitch of the administration. So it is viewed as a mistake inside the White House, despite the fact that the CIA director would not even go that far. But we shall see what the review is.

We heard yesterday from White House officials. I talked to them. They said there is going to be a review of how much signal is used. It's become, you know, almost as commonplace as picking up the telephone and have a conversation with someone or to send an email.

It was used, obviously, a lot on the presidential campaign. Some of these threads are still active. So there is going to be, apparently, a review of that. The White House press secretary this morning said that the White House Counsel's Office is sort of looking into some protocols and advising people.

But the reality is they're going to try and move on from this and downplay it. So I'd be very surprised if they're -- I mean, to Susan's point earlier, there would have already been a special prosecutor. There would have already been an investigation.

Phones would have been examined and seized and things. And time is over for that. But I think in the court -- we don't know how this will impact the President. He sees coverage. It takes a few days. But he will be agitated by this.

RAJU: Yes. Look --

ZELENY: And we don't know what the ultimate reaction will be.

[12:35:06]

RAJU: We haven't really heard from the President much at all. I mean yesterday in the aftermath of the story breaking, he said he had reviewed it, which seems, you know, for someone who consumes news the way he does, quite remarkable. He said he hasn't seen it. But we have not heard much from the President on this yet.

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: We haven't. But he does watch coverage, we do know that. And I also think it's important to note that Democrats are not powerless in this moment. I was speaking to one of my sources, a Democratic strategist.

And what -- in some corners, they are hoping to see are Democrats withhold their votes for anyone related to national security in this moment, or vote no on every single cloture vote until Thune agrees to a real investigation.

They can play hardball here. Democrat --

RAJU: Will they? MCKEND: Will they? Democratic voters have been demanding it. So let's see if they capitulate again or if they use every available mechanism to really stick it to Republicans and get answers.

RAJU: Before you jump in, Susan, just on the Democratic side of things, this is how the members of the Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee talked about the security lapse.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't have it both ways. These are important jobs. This is our national security.

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D), COLORADO: This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for them is entirely unacceptable. It's an embarrassment.

SEN. JON OSSOFF (D), GEORGIA: It's an embarrassment. This is utterly unprofessional. There's been no apology. There has been no recognition of the gravity of this error.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

RAJU: And a much different tone than, say, Speaker Johnson just said, this is just an errant number.

SUSAN GLASSER, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Yes, look, of course, it's embarrassing for the United States of America to have its top officials being so careless with security, including a journalist in a conversation. We'll find out more.

I mean, if a proper investigation was done, you'd want to know what access the Russians might have had to Witkoff and his devices at the time that this chat was ongoing, number one. Number two, I think it's really important to note that this is consistent with Donald Trump's own history going back to his first term in office with a disregard for the norms of security, classified information, not only the indictment that he was under for taking classified documents after he left the White House, which was dismissed when he won re-election.

But also, I remember reporting at the time contemporaneously in Trump's first term, many senators, including perhaps some who were on that panel today, the Intelligence Committee, Republicans telling me back in Trump's first term they were concerned with Trump's own use of unsecured devices to talk to foreign leaders, to discuss ongoing deliberations over military strikes.

So, again, is he going to be tougher on his own advisers for engaging in behavior that he himself has engaged in?

RAJU: Do you think Republicans will be able to brush this aside and move on on the Hill?

CALDWELL: That's a good question. I'm not sure that this is an issue that voters necessarily care about, that this is not hitting their pocketbooks. They're more concerned with other things. I think that Democrats will continue to use this to show what they say is incompetency in the administration.

But, you know, we'll see if they get any sort of results. And I'm not sure if this is a voting issue, though.

RAJU: Yes.

ZELENY: The internal dynamic is something to watch. Do people turn on Secretary Hegseth or Mike Waltz? I think that's the only really thing that will happen here. I mean, Democrats can scream all they want, but the reality is that they, you know, they're not powerless, like you said, but I mean, he did get his Cabinet confirmed.

But I think that's what's fascinating to see --

RAJU: Yes.

ZELENY: -- if Hegseth is like, you know --

RAJU: A chopping block?

ZELENY: -- he -- yes. He'll have to testify before Congress --

RAJU: Sure. Yes.

ZELENY: -- at some point, too, so.

RAJU: Yes. And --

MCKEND: That's the task ahead, though, for Democrats to make that connection to voters, to say, hey, if it were you or me, we would face much tougher consequences.

RAJU: Yes.

MCKEND: That's the burden for them ahead.

RAJU: Sure, no question about it. And we'll see what Trump says. Still remarkable he hasn't really said a whole lot about this in the last 24 hours.

All right, American anxiety is on display. New numbers have consumer confidence falling to levels we have not seen since during the pandemic. What that means for the U.S. economy.

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[12:44:00]

RAJU: Brand new warning signs on the economy. Consumer confidence fell again in March for the fourth straight monthly decline. It also showed confidence for the future, hitting a 12-year low.

CNN's Matt Egan joins me now. So, Matt, give us some context. How significant is this?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Manu, this is a big deal. This is not a one-time dip in confidence. This is a sustained drop over four months. Confidence has not been this low since January of 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. It's lower than at any point during the Biden-era inflation crisis.

This is another reminder of how fragile confidence can be. Americans are just trying to make sense of all of this turbulence out of Washington and on Wall Street and what it means for their wallets.

What really stands out in this report is how much more pessimistic Americans have become about the future. Consumer expectations about the future plunging to 12-year lows in March. They fell across the board, including on business conditions, labor market outlook, and also people's perceptions of their income prospects. And that's notable.

[12:45:13]

The conference board said that that suggests that some of these worries about the economy have started to spread into how people feel about their own personal situations. And the cost of living, of course, is a major factor here. That's something that helped to get President Trump elected back in November.

The conference board said that people are increasingly concerned about the impact of tariffs and about the high cost of consumer staples like eggs. And Americans, they're bracing for higher prices ahead. The 12- month inflation expectation metric in this report heated up to the highest level in almost two years.

You see that 6.2 percent. That's how much consumers expect prices to go up over the next 12 months. Now, look, a shift in sentiment, it's not going to cause a recession by itself, right, only an actual change in behavior. And history shows that sometimes Americans tell pollsters that they hate the economy, especially when their party is not in the White House, but they keep shopping anyway.

We have to look to see if this causes people to really slash their spending. But I talked to Stephen Moore, a former senior economic adviser to President Trump, and he said he is concerned about this drop in consumer spending because at some point perception can become reality.

And, Manu, he said he thinks that there's a message here for Republicans, and that is stop talking about tariffs and start focusing on tax cuts.

RAJU: We'll see if the President takes that message from his former adviser.

Matt Egan with the latest on the consumer confidence number. Thank you so much.

EGAN: Thanks, Manu.

RAJU: And coming up, a Republican congresswoman is teaming up with a Democrat to push for a House rules change, and she's stepping out against her own leadership to do it. We'll tell you what they're pushing for, that's next.

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[12:51:35]

RAJU: Nowadays, there are very few things on Capitol Hill that earn bipartisan support, but Dana Bash sat down with two new moms in Congress, one Democrat and one Republican, who have found common ground on an issue that hits close to home.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

REP. BRITTANY PETTERSEN (D), COLORADO: Thank you all for caring about this.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Sam's mother wishes her newborn baby could be home in Colorado, not on Capitol Hill.

PETTERSEN: I rise today with my newborn Sam.

BASH (voice-over): But Sam's mother is Brittany Pettersen, a member of Congress.

PETTERSEN: Unfortunately, I wasn't given the opportunity to vote remotely after giving birth.

We went straight from my house to the U.S. House, so Sam's first outing was being on the House floor, which was wild.

BASH (voice-over): House rules require her to vote in person, but she and others want new parents in Congress to be able to vote remotely by proxy for up to 12 weeks around the birth of a child.

PETTERSEN: It's about changing Congress and making it, you know, bringing it out of the dark ages and doing things that are in alignment with 2025. You know, we should be able to be parents and still represent our constituents.

OK, I hear you.

BASH (voice-over): Pettersen is a Democrat. She teamed up with Republican Anna Paulina Luna, who gave birth during her first term in Congress to her son Henry, who is now a year and a half old.

REP. ANNA PAULINA LUNA (R), FLORIDA: It's effectively telling members of Congress, two women specifically, that you either have to choose between like having a family and representing your constituency, or you come up here and vote and put your life and your child's life at risk, depending on if there's medical complications.

BASH (voice-over): Luna is bucking her Republican leadership by pushing for this rules change.

LUNA: I've gone to the speaker, both speakers, Kevin McCarthy and the current speaker on this. I've met with them. I've looked at the legality of it. And they said that it was not constitutional because when the Constitution was written, it said that you must be present to establish a quorum. Right.

Well, in an effort to make sure that it's in line with the Constitution, we actually removed that. So this will simply allow you to vote, not to establish the quorum.

BASH: When the Constitution was written, it was written by men for men.

PETTERSEN: You're right. This place is not built for young families, and it's definitely not built to meet the needs of young women.

BASH (voice-over): Proxy House voting was allowed during the coronavirus pandemic, but House GOP leaders opposed returning to the practice.

BASH: The argument is that it was abused?

LUNA: Correct. But I would say that that in itself is not a good argument for this because we're siloing it. It's very specific. It is to female members who have given birth and male members who have just had a child, their spouses given birth. And sometimes they need to be there for that recovery process.

I mean, everything that we've campaigned on being pro-family, pro- life, yes, it's a massive slap in the face.

BASH (voice-over): In a statement to CNN, the House Republican leadership said, quote, "We sympathize with our colleagues who face circumstances that prevent them from being present, but proxy voting raises serious constitutional questions. It also changes more than two and a half centuries of tradition, abuses the system, and creates the risk of a slippery slope toward more and more members casting votes remotely".

BASH: He's such a good baby.

PETTERSEN: He's -- yes.

LUNA: He's like -- his eyes like (INAUDIBLE).

PETTERSEN: Yes. He's making this look a lot easier than it can be.

BASH: We all know it is not easy.

PETTERSEN: We have life events that happen. And giving birth, having a baby, we want to make sure that those members still have a voice in Congress because we don't want to lose the representation of parents who understand the struggles of -- that families are going through, who are currently going through it and not what it was like so many years ago.

[12:55:16]

LUNA: Perspective is important.

BASH (voice-over): Luna was just the 12th sitting member of Congress in history to give birth. Pettersen, the 13th.

BASH: You are in the minority, not the political minority, but the age minority.

LUNA: Birthing age.

PETTERSEN: Yes.

LUNA: Minority.

PETTERSEN: My joke is that when you go to Congress in your 40s, you're young again.

LUNA: It's hard and then you have to choose. And so that's why you see a lot of younger families not stay in Congress, which, you know, is unfortunate. But --

PETTERSEN: Yes, we always --

LUNA: -- that's why we're trying to reform --

PETTERSEN: -- when we lose our voice.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

RAJU: Now, Speaker Johnson just told reporters he addressed this matter in Republican conference meeting this morning. And he had a conversation with Congresswoman Luna last night, but his opposition has not changed. And a GOP leadership source tells me the vote could come up as soon as next week. And there's little the leadership can do to stop it, at least not yet.

Thanks for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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