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Soon, Top Intel Officials Testify Amid War Plans Group Chat Fallout; Top Senate Intel Democrat Says, Highly Sensitive and Likely Classified Information Shared in Group Chat Included Name of Active CIA Agent. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 25, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, group chat fallout. Any moment, lawmakers are about to grill top intelligence officials over war plans shared with the journalists. The chairman of the committee holding the hearing saying this.

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SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): I agree with the president. I think Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth and the whole national security team is doing a great job.

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BLITZER: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. Pamela Brown is off today. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in The Situation Room.

And we begin with the breaking news. In just moments, the nation's top intelligence leaders will testify up on Capitol Hill, two of those facing questions from lawmakers, the director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the CIA director, John Ratcliffe. Both of them were in that group chat that discussed very detailed strike plans in Yemen.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally added the editor-in- chief of The Atlantic Magazine to that messaging thread. And a spokesperson for the National Security Council now says this, and I'm quoting, this appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain, close quote.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are now calling for accountability.

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SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): There's got to be a consequence for this. We need to be told how this happened, what they're doing to fix it, and whoever was responsible for this kind of thing should be severely disciplined.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): I've long said Mr. Hegseth is not qualified to be secretary of defense, and this is yet another example of the fact that the Trump administration continues to play fast and loose with this nation's national security. And somebody needs to get fired. Hegseth should be stepping down.

REP. DON BACON (R-NE): This is a gross error and it's intentional. You intentionally -- they intentionally put highly classified information on an unclassified device. I would've lost my security clearance in the Air Force for this and for a lot less.

SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS): We're going to look into this and see what the facts are, but it's definitely a concern and you can be sure the committee, House and Senate, will be looking into this.

And it appears that mistakes were made, no question.

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BLITZER: And joining us now, CNN's Chief National Security Correspondent Alex Marquardt and CNN's Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez.

Alex, the timing of this hearing, which is about to begin, it's not great for the Trump administration by any means. How are you expecting this hearing to go?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It's not great timing for them, but certainly it's perfect timing for all the questions that we have over how this story erupted, how Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic was included into this signal group. I mean, this is always a very important hearing for those of us who cover national security. It's a good look at the threats coming from around the world.

Wolf, this hearing is going to be hijacked by this scandal, and that's really what it is for the Trump administration. Big questions about to what extent there will be investigations, whether heads will roll.

And, certainly, we are looking at these different committee members to try to get a sense of who is going to be really drilling down on this. Senator Tom Cotton is the chairman of the committee. He's a Republican. We just got his opening statement moments ago that he's about to read in front of this committee. There is no mention of this story of this Signal chat that included, we believe, classified information, though the White House is now denying it.

On the opposite side of the aisle, you have Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat, who I'm told is going to go in on this right from the start in his opening statement, in his opening question to this panel of top intelligence officials. We already heard from Warner on Twitter raising the specter, the possibility that the allies may no longer share as much intelligence with us as a result of this. He wrote, make no mistake. Our allies are reading this war plan disclosure story too, and it's making it less and less likely that they'll want to share sensitive intel with us.

Wolf, there are two officials who are going to be up there today, the director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, who were in this chat with, I believe, 16 other top security national security officials. Ratcliffe himself revealing information that The Atlantic did not print because they believed it was too sensitive information Jeffrey Goldberg wrote that was related to actual and current intelligence operations.

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So, there will definitely be some very tough questions to Gabbard, to Ratcliffe, and then to the FBI director, Kash Patel, in terms of what investigations we could see out of this?

BLITZER: Presumably going to be some major, major investigations, how this blunder occurred. The defense secretary, Evan, Pete Hegseth, is denying that war plans were actually discussed. That's something that Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, is refuting. Listen to this.

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PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Nobody was texting war plans, and that's all I have to say about that.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE ATLANTIC: No, that's a lie. He was texting war plans, he was texting attack plans, when targets were going to be targeted, how they were going to be targeted, who was at the targets when the next sequence of attacks were happening.

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BLITZER: So, Evan, what's the likelihood that a full scale investigation of what happened is going to be taking place?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, at this point everything we're hearing is that they don't believe that, they don't expect that the FBI is going to launch an investigation. Now, the question is whether that changes because Congress will put some pressure on them. It does seem like someone should investigate, Wolf. And, look, if it was anyone else, lower level people on this group text chain, absolutely there would be consequences.

BLITZER: Hold on for a second, because this hearing is just about to begin. It's beginning, in fact, right now. I want to listen to the chairman,

COTTON: -- National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, the CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, the FBI director, Kash Patel, the director of the National Security Agency and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, General Tim Haugh, and the Defense Intelligence Agency director, Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse.

Thank you all for your appearance. Thank you for your leadership. I also want to recognize the hard work and dedication of the thousands of men and women in our intelligence community, whom you're here to represent today. Their successes are seldom celebrated, their accomplishments are often unseen, but our nation is grateful to each one for the vital work they do to keep our nation safe, prosperous and free.

Our Annual Worldwide Threats Hearing allows for the American people to receive an unvarnished and unbiased account of the real and present dangers that our nation faces. As we will hear from our witnesses, many of the threats we face are truly existential.

Communist China is actively working to replace the United States as the world's dominant superpower. China uses coercive military, economic and influence operations short of war to shape a world favorable to its interests and hostile to our -- ours. These methods include the biggest peacetime military buildup in history, rapidly expanding its nuclear forces, providing critical assistance to help Russia withstand U.S. sanctions, obscuring its role in accelerating the spread of COVID-19 beyond Wuhan, turning a blind eye to Chinese companies that enable the production of fentanyl flooding into the United States and putting space weapons on orbit, among other tactics.

Iran, despite set -- setbacks inflicted on its so-called axis of resistance by Israel over the last year, still aims to destroy what it calls "the little Satan", the state of Israel, and what it calls "the great Satan", the United States. It continues to arm Yemeni rebels to attack global shipping, though these outlaws have suffered terrible losses over the last two weeks, thanks to decisive action by President Trump and our brave troops. I commend the president, Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth and his entire national security team for these actions.

Iran also continues its decades-long effort to develop surrogate networks inside the United States to threaten U.S. citizens. Furthermore, Iran's nuclear program continues apace (ph). It's actively developing multiple space-launched vehicles, which are little more than flimsy cover for an intercontinental ballistic missile program that could hit the United States in a matter of years.

But all this will soon come to an end. The supreme leader of Iran now faces a stark choice, thanks to President Trump. The supreme leader can fully dismantle his nuclear program, or he can have it dismantled for him.

Finally, today's report also acknowledges that illicit drug production endangers the health and safety of millions of Americans. For the first time, the Annual Threat Assessment lists foreign illicit drug actors as the very -- very first threat to our country. As the report highlights, Mexican-based cartels, using precursors produced in China, continue to smuggle fentanyl and synthetic opioids into the United States. Last year alone, these deadly drugs tragically killed more than 52,000 Americans, more than the number killed in attacks by foreign terrorists or foreign nations.

Given these threats, we have to ask, are our intelligence agencies well-postured against these threats? I'm afraid the answer is no, at least not yet. As the world became more dangerous in recent years, our intelligence agencies got more politicized, more bureaucratic and more focused on promulgating opinions, rather than gathering facts. As a result of these misplaced priorities, we've been caught off-guard and left in the dark too often.

I know that all of you agree that the core mission of the intelligence community is to steal our adversaries' secrets and convey them to policymakers to protect the United States.

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At the same time, it's not the role of the intelligence agencies to make policy, to justify presidential action, or to operate like other federal agencies. After years of drift, the Intelligence Community must recommit to its core mission of collecting clandestine intelligence from adversaries whose main objective is to destroy our nation and our way of life.

The reason is not that our Intelligence Community lacks dedicated patriots who show up to work every day to protect the American people. On the contrary, it has an abundance of them. The reasons are a misuse of resources, bureaucratic bloat, a default to play it safe, and a past administration that prioritized social engineering over espionage.

Coupled with recent failures, the finding of today's worldwide threat report should be a wakeup call to all of us to get our house in order. The status quo is proving inadequate to provide the President and Congress with the intelligence needed to protect the American people.

As more storms gather, America's intelligence capabilities require urgent reform and revitalization. As the Chairman of this committee, I look forward to working with each of you to strengthen America's intelligence edge and refocus our Intelligence Community on its core mission, stealing secrets. The American people deserve nothing less.

We've assembled an impressive team to get this done, and I look forward to hearing your comments.

Now, I recognize the Vice Chairman for opening remarks.

WARNER: Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, everybody. I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here.

I got to say, I -- I've been on the committee now for 14 years, and this year's assessment is clearly one of the most complicated and challenging in my tenure on the -- on the committee. Now, I want to get into that in a moment, but I want to first of all address the recent story that has broken in the news.

Yesterday, we stunningly learned that senior members of this administration, and according to the 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 the 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. Who are all the names, who are they? Well, it apparently included a journalist. And no matter how much the Secretary of Defense or others want to disparage him, this journalist had at least the ethics to not report, I think, everything he heard.

The question I -- I raise is, like, you know, everybody on this committee gets briefed on security protocols or told you don't make calls outside of SCIFs of this kind of classified nature. We don't know what I'm going to ask obviously.

Director Gabbard, is (inaudible) charge at all, keeping our secrets safe, or these government devices or the personal devices? Have devices been collected to make sure there's no malware? You know, there's plenty of declassified information that shows that our adversaries China and Russia are trying to break in to encrypted systems like Signal.

And again, I just say this -- 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'm -- 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.

Let me take a couple minutes and review some of the other reckless choices that this administration has made regarding our national security.

We all recall -- it seems like it wasn't that long ago, but less than two months ago, in the first two weeks, the administration canceled all U.S. foreign assistance. Now, some may say how can that -- how can -- bad can that be? It's foreign assistance.

Well, U.S. foreign assistance paid for the units in Ukraine that provide air defense to civilian cities being attacked by Russia. Foreign assistance paid for guarding camps in Syria where ISIS fighters are to pain -- detained. Foreign assistance paid for programs abroad that ensure that diseases like ebola don't come home. And until recently, it paid for the construction of a railway in Africa that would have helped given the United States much needed access to critical minerals in Congo. Now that project, China's going to try to finance it.

As well in the first two weeks, Director Patel, the administration fired several of our most experienced FBI agents, including the head of the Criminal Investigative Division (ph), the head of the Intelligence Division, the head of the Counter-Terrorism Division, the heads of the New York, Washington, and Miami field office, all individuals who were distinctly and directly responsible for helping to keep America safe.

The irony in -- a little bit was that currently, of -- the recently dismissed head of the Counter-Terrorism Division was involved in disrupting the ISIS attacks planned for Oklahoma City and Philadelphia, and helped lead the effort to bring to justice the key planner of the Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. servicemen and 150 civilians.

That very Abbey Gate effort was actually praised by the President in his State of the Union address, yet the response -- the administration's response to these agents', I believe, good works and years of service was to force these folks out. It's hard to imagine how that makes our country safer.

Nor can I understand how Americans are made more secure by firing more than 300 staff at the National Nuclear Security Administration, including those responsible for overseeing the security and safety of the nuclear stockpile, or by ousting 130 employees at CISA, the agency directly responsible for trying to take on China's Salt Typhoon attack. Again, after Salt Typhoon, I would have thought folks on that group chat might have thought twice.

Or how we're made safer by sacking 1,000 employees at the CDC and NIH who are actually directly working on trying to keep our country safe from disease, or by pushing out hundreds of intelligence officers. The amazing thing is that our intelligence officers, they're not interchangeable like a Twitter coder.

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These intelligence officers -- our country makes $20,000 to $40,000 of an investment just in getting a -- a security clearance. It literally goes into six figures when you take the training involved.

Can anyone tell how firing probationary individuals without any consideration for merit or expertise is an efficient use of taxpayer dollars?

And just to make clear that yesterday's story in The Atlantic was not this rookie one-off. It's a pattern.

And I want to acknowledge, Director Ratcliffe, was not here in his position when this took place but again, earlier in the administration when a nonclassified network was used thereby exposing literally hundreds of CIA officers identities, those folks can't go into the field now. How does that make our government more efficient? You know, again this pattern of an amazing cavalier attitude towards classified information is reckless, sloppy, and stunning.

And perhaps what troubles me most is the way the administration has decided that we can take on all of our problems by ourselves without any need for friends or allies. I agree that we've got to put America's priorities first but America First cannot mean America Alone. The intelligence we gather to keep Americans safe depends on a lot of allies around the world who have access to sources we don't have. That sharing of information saves lives. And it's not hypothetical. We all remember it because it was declassified, last year when Austria worked with our community to make sure -- to expose a plot against Taylor Swift, in Vienna, that could have killed literally hundreds of individuals.

However this -- these relationships are not built in stone. They're not dictated by law. Things like the Five Eyes are based on trust, built on decades but so often that trust is now breaking literally overnight.

Yet suddenly and for no reason that I can understand, the United States is starting to act like our adversaries or our friends. Voting in the U.N. with Russia, Belarus, and North Korea, that's a rogues gallery if I ever heard of them; treating our allies like adversaries, whether it's threats to take over Greenland or over the Panama Canal; destructive trade war with Canada or literally threatening to kick Canada out of the Five Eyes.

I feel our credibility is being enormously undermined with our allies who I believe -- and I think most of us on this Committee regardless of party believes makes our country safer and stronger.

But how can our allies ever trust us as the kind of partner we used to be when we without consultation or notice, for example, stop sharing information to Ukraine in its war for survival against Russia?

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Or how can our allies not only not trust our government but potentially not our businesses with such arbitrary political decision?

Let me give you a few examples. You know, as a result of a lot of work from this Committee and others, in Congress, we made sure America's Commercial Space industry is second to none. From SpaceX to Launch, to Commercial Sensing and communications, the United States has taken a record lead. Yet overnight this administration called into question the reliability of American Commercial Tech industry. When Maxar and other Commercial Space companies were directed to stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine.

I got to tell you, I'm not a business guy. I can't say longer than being an elected official but pretty close. That shockwave across all of Commercial Space and frankly not just Commercial Space. I've heard it from some of our Hyperscalers in the Tech community has sent an enormous chill. Who's going to hire an American Commercial Space company. government or foreign business. with the ability to have that taken down so arbitrarily?

And it's not just in the case of Commercial Space. We've seen that Canada, Germany, Portugal, have all been saying they're rethinking buying F-35s. I've heard from Microsoft and Google directly, and Amazon, that they're having questions about whether they can still sell their services.

We've also seen foreign adversaries and friends take advantage of this riff in our national security areas, and our scientists. Germany has already put out ads, trying to attract some of our best scientists who've been riffed. And the Chinese intelligence agencies are posting on social media sites in the hopes of luring individuals with that national security clearance, who have been pushed out perhaps arbitrarily, to come into their service.

So no. The signal fiasco is not a one off. It is unfortunately a pattern we're seeing too often repeated. I fear that we feel the erosion of trust from our workplace, from our companies, and from our allies and partners, can't be put back in the bottle overnight. Make no mistake these actions make America less safe.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

COTTON: Before I turn to the witnesses' hearing, I want to welcome everyone in our large audience today.

I also want to note that we will not tolerate any disruptions of the witnesses testimony or senators questions and the witnesses answers.

You'll note that we have a large contingent of Capitol Police in the room. Any disruptions either opposed or in favor to the witnesses will result in prompt removal from the Hearing Room. And my encouragement to the U.S. attorney to throw the book at the person disrupting the hearing. No offense but we all came to hear the witnesses. No one else in the room.

Director Gabbard, I understand you'll make a statement for the Panel of Witnesses.

GABBARD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, thanks for the opportunity for us to be here to present you the Intelligence Community's 2025 Annual Threat Assessment.

I'm joined here this morning by my colleagues from the CIA, DIA, FBI, and NSA. Our testimony offers the collective assessment of the 18 U.S. Intelligence elements making up the U.S. Intel Community, and draws on intelligence collection and information available to the IC from open source and private sector, and the expertise of our analysts.

This report evaluates what the IC assesses most threatens our people, and our nation's ability to live in a peaceful, free, secure, and prosperous society. As you know, we face an increasingly complex threat environment that is threatening us here at home and our interests abroad.

I'll begin by focusing on what most immediately and directly threatens the United States and the well-being of the American people. Nonstate criminal groups, and terrorists, putting American lives and livelihood at risk. Then I'll focus on the key nation states who have the capability to threaten the interests of the United States.

In this complex environment nonstate and state actors are able to exploit or take advantage of the effects of each other's activities. Conventional and asymmetrical capabilities, even the traditionally weakest of actors are able to acquire from available advanced technologies, creates an even more complex and serious threat landscape.

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First, I'll highlight the threats presented by several nonstate actors, cartels, gangs, and other Transnational Criminal Organizations in our part of the world are engaging in a wide array of illicit activity, from narcotics trafficking, to money laundering, to smuggling of illegal immigrants and human trafficking, which endanger the health, welfare, and safety of everyday Americans.

Based on the latest reporting available for a year-long period ending October 2024, cartels were largely responsible for the deaths of more than 54,000 U.S. citizens from synthetic opioids.

Mexico-based Transnational Criminal Organizations or TCOs, are the main suppliers of illicit fentanyl to the U.S. market and are adapting to enforcement and regulatory pressures by using multiple sources and methods to procure precursor chemicals and equipment primarily from China and India, many of which are dual-use chemicals used in legitimate industries.

Independent fentanyl producers are also increasingly fragmenting the drug trade in Mexico. The availability of precursor chemicals and ease of making illicit fentanyl have enabled independent actors to increase illicit fentanyl production and smuggling operations in Mexico.

Cartels are profiting from human trafficking and have likely facilitated more than 2 million illegal immigrants encountered by law enforcement at the U.S. Southwest Border in 2024 alone, straining our vital resources and putting the American people at risk.

Criminal groups drive much of the unrest and lawlessness in the Western Hemisphere. They also engage in extortion, weapons, and human smuggling, and other illicit and dangerous revenue-seeking operations including kidnapping for ransom, forced labor, and sex trafficking. These and other human traffickers exploit vulnerable individuals and groups by promising well-paying jobs while confiscating their identification documents. They operate in the shadows. Exploiting lawlessness in various areas, and using coercion and intimidation to control their victims.

While these key drivers of migrants are expected to persist, heightened U.S. border security enforcement and deportations under the Trump administration are proving to serve as a deterrent for migrants seeking to illegally cross U.S. borders.

U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions along the Southwest Border in January 2025, dropped 85 percent from the same period in 2024.

Transnational Islamist Extremists such as ISIS, and al Qaeda, and affiliated jihadi groups continue to pursue enable or inspire attacks against the United States, and our citizens, abroad and within the Homeland, to advance their ultimate objective of establishing a global Islamist caliphate.

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