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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Trump Claims "No Classified Information" Shared In War Plan Group Chat; New Economic Fears. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired March 25, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:01]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: This takes a fun story and makes it serious. But there's so many animals out there that need love and care in shelters right now. And you're like, no, I want to be cool. I want to get a skunk. So, people could see me with the skunk.
All right.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Well, here it is on TV. So, something worked.
All right.
SANCHEZ: Shout out to Mr. Sushi.
KEILAR: "THE ARENA WITH KASIE HUNT" starts right now.
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KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: It's secrets versus lies?
Let's head into THE ARENA.
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HUNT: Right now, breaking news. The blame game in overdrive. President Trump and top officials attempting to downplay texts of secret war plans, insisting no classified information was shared with a reporter.
And intelligence leaders shifting responsibility up the chain, deferring questions on key details of the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. We'll speak live with former marine and member of the Homeland Security Committee, Arizona Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego.
And breaking this hour, stocks on shaky ground. The new report out today on consumer confidence and what it might signal about the chances of a recession.
I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. It's wonderful to have you with us on this Tuesday.
And as we come on the air, the keepers of the nation's secrets are vowing to keep secret something they say is not secret. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Those new comments from President Trump, coming just hours after the nation's top spies appeared before senators today, defending and downplaying their role in that now infamous group chat where American war plans, including targets, U.S. weaponry, and timing of a strike in Yemen, were shared on a commercial platform with a reporter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN RATCLIFFE, CIA DIRECTOR: I was not discussing classified information in this -- in this setting.
TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: There was no classified material that was shared.
RATCLIFFE: There was no classified information.
GABBARD: There was no classified information.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, there you have it, nothing classified. No American intelligence available for the world to see. No source and compromise. No one put in danger.
Those officials, echoing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: I've heard it was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans, and that's all I have to say about that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Now, all of this requires that you take them at their word that those texts did not include classified secrets. Right now, all we have is their word against Jeffrey Goldberg, who has called that a lie, saying that what he saw most certainly would have been classified.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFFREY GOLDBERG, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE ATLANTIC: It was a minute-by- minute accounting of what was about to happen. The specific time of a future attack, specific targets, including human targets, meant to be killed in that attack. Weapon systems, even weather reports.
(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: So the weather in Yemen not classified, the location of the strike so that you might need to know where to look for the weather is probably classified, but we digress.
Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, seems to have a simple solution to this problem. If it's not classified, show us the transcript.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): If you've got it here, it's not classified, stand by your position. Or is this just one more example of a careless approach to how we keep our secrets in this administration?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So getting it is easier said than done, as Democrats are fully out of power and unable to launch any sort of formal investigation. Though they did press the FBI director Kash Patel on whether he would start one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARNER: Director Patel, has the FBI launched any investigation into this?
KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: Senator, I was just briefed about it late last night. This morning, I don't have an update.
WRNER: I would like to get an answer by the end of the day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: As for congressional Republicans -- well, listen for yourself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS): Mistakes were made, no question.
SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): Well, it was a mistake, you know? We make mistakes.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: It was a mistake. And they'll tighten up and make sure it doesn't happen again.
SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): It's a mistake that's been corrected right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, they are admitting that it was a mistake. That was more than the director of the CIA was willing to do today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): Director Ratcliffe, this was a huge mistake, correct?
RATCLIFFE: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, were these group texts not secret, or are we being told lies?
My panel is here. But, first, let's get to CNN's Jeff Zeleny. He's live from the White House.
Jeff, we just heard from President Trump last hour. What did we -- he talked for some time about all of this.
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He talked about the journalist who broke the story.
What more did you learn?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kasie, what we learned is the president is circling the wagons and in real time, creating a set of talking points to tell Republicans on Capitol Hill. And beyond that, there's nothing to see here. So, at once downplaying it and diminishing any of the concern that was raised in the hearing this morning.
The president's day started without any public events on his schedule. One was added in the middle of the day for him to be seated in the cabinet room with some of his ambassador nominees around a table. But the real point was to be asked about this, and for him to be able to put his stamp on all of this. He started by saying there was no classified information.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: There was no classified information, as I understand it.
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, 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: And perhaps that was the most important point overall of that meeting with the president to show that the national security advisor, Mike Waltz, still has a seat at the president's table, quite literally. He was sitting there in the room. The president brought him in.
It was Mike Waltz who sort of launched into an attempt to discredit Jeffrey Goldberg, something this White House has been trying to do all day long. That is a classic page out of the Trumpian playbook. Attack the messenger there.
But the president taking it one step further and really sending a message for all Republicans to hear. So, we shall see if the if it changes any of the concern on Capitol Hill. Republicans were pretty much on board before it. Afterward, my guess is they will be significantly on board.
The question now is, though, is everything that was happening in that room, the fact? Has Michael Waltz never had any conversations with Jeffrey Goldberg at all? We still do not know how his phone number got added onto that group text, Kasie.
HUNT: Jeff Zeleny at the White House, because, you know, nothing is stranger than real life these days. Thanks very much.
Joining us now is our panel.
Kara Swisher, host of the "On and Pivot" podcast; Jonah Goldberg, co- founder, editor in chief of "The Dispatch"; former Biden State Department spokesperson, Ned Price; and the former Republican House Speaker Patrick McHenry.
Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here.
Congressman, I actually want to start with you because you have the distinction of having been a pair of heartbeats away from the presidency at one point and a little bit more of a window, certainly, than those of us sitting here into what the stakes are when those realities are presented, the lives that are on the line, et cetera.
They claim none of this information was classified. Is that plausible on its face, based on what you know about this?
PATRICK MCHENRY (R), FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE: Based on what we've seen, this is a serious mistake. I mean, there's no getting around that. Based off the contents that has been -- that have been disclosed.
The mistake was adding somebody into a group chat, right, initially. The mistake was compounded by somebody else adding information.
So, imagine this. We all have a group chat. We set up an encrypted --
HUNT: We should make one when we're done.
(LAUGHTER)
MCHENRY: Yeah.
But someone here, maybe it's Jonah, will add something that is a meme that we might find hilarious, but if exposed the public would be really catastrophic and bad for our careers, right? We always know somebody does that. It's probably not going to be Jonah, though.
So having said that, in this setting, when you add something of that character from a classified setting which looks to be clearly classified about an attack, a future attack, and the time and all the information stamps to this, that mistake is not because you added somebody initially that's not -- should be in the group chat. That should not be in commercial even encrypted software. It should be in its own set of channels that are official in nature. That's for sure.
HUNT: Appreciate that.
And, Kara, can you talk a little bit about -- I mean --
KARA SWISHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Signal.
HUNT: Right, Signal, and what the vulnerabilities are and why? I mean, again, I think the congressman is right. It seems clear this information was classified.
SWISHER: Yes, yes.
HUNT: But any of that in this platform.
SWISHER: No. It shouldn't be there at all. I mean, thank God they didn't use Yahoo Messenger, I guess, I suppose. That we're better for that. This is an encrypted service. It's like Telegram. Theres a whole bunch of them. Meta has one, WhatsApp, and they're encrypted.
But it is a commercial app and should -- and is probably more easily attacked by Russians or other hackers than not -- not than others. I think it's a very good app, and the person who runs it is terrific, Meredith Whittaker, but it shouldn't be used by government in any way to be talking to each other.
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One, because it's not transparent. It could be disappearing.
I also want to know what phones they were on using it, how did they load it up to any government phone? I doubt they could. So, they were using commercial phones.
HUNT: You know, it's interesting --
JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's against the rules, right? They're not supposed to do it because it's against the rules and it's against the rules for all the reasons that Kara said.
SWISHER: Yeah, but I don't know what. What -- were they on Verizon? Were they on AT&T? It just goes on and on and on.
HUNT: John Ratcliffe at the hearing today said that he went into the CIA, got a computer and that it had Signal on it. That was one of the things that he testified to, that it was -- now, there are separate channels. And I'm sure, Congressman, you know this, right? Like you have your red phone and your black phone. If you're in kind of a situation like this, right?
Not out of the realm of possibility that it would be perfectly fine for them to communicate with coworkers about, hey, like, let's go to lunch in an hour, right on Signal on their computers.
SWISHER: It's not -- no.
HUNT: That's not okay either?
SWISHER: No, they should -- they don't want TikTok on their phones. They don't want -- they shouldn't have any of these commercial apps on these phones. Period.
They are such a wide -- it's such a landscape of attack for hackers. It's completely insecure. And I am certain it was on some iPhone or something like that. It was not on a government app. It shouldn't be on a government app. It shouldn't be used by a government.
And then there's the idea of knowing what happened there, like it doesn't -- anyway.
HUNT: Yeah. I mean, that's kind of why I was pushing you about it because he says, like he walks -- he walks into the CIA and they gave him a platform with Signal on it.
SWISHER: It's not an excuse.
MCHENRY: But to be clear, this is not something that is just this administration. We've seen this dating all the way back to the Obama administration. It doesn't make it right in any one of these settings to use something that is not the official channel.
I think these commercial encrypted pieces of software are fantastic, which is the reason why government users are using them against the rules. So we've got to go clean up that process for the government to have the best in class software and encrypted setting for these various --
SWISHER: One hundred percent.
HUNT: Yeah. Ned?
NED PRICE, FORMER BIDEN STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: But let's not both sides this by saying that this is all administrations. What we have seen over the past 24 hours is a far cry from anything I have ever seen in my 20 years or so in government, serving both Republicans and Democrats.
The cardinal sin that we're talking about here is not the sort of fat fingering of the wrong number into the Signal chat. The cardinal sin is using a commercial private sector application to have a principals committee discussion. The principal -- principals committee being the apex of the national security decision-making process, the most consequential, complex and sensitive discussions that are had within our government. They are almost by definition held in the Situation Room around the
table. If you're not there in person, which is understandable -- if you're the secretary of state or the secretary of defense, you have a team with you that sets up a tent in your hotel room that connects you via a top secret secure video teleconference connection.
The idea that they were discussing these issues anywhere but the Situation Room, using any technology, but U.S. government provided top secret technology that itself is a body blow to our national security.
SWISHER: Thats another thing. What phones were they using? Where were they using those phones and how and what and what?
HUNT: Well, there was a report, or at least there was a conversation that somebody was in Moscow while the conversation.
SWISHER: Well, that we need to know --
GOLDBERG: Witkoff.
HUNT: Witkoff, right.
So, let's -- let's look at a little bit more of what Donald Trump said today, because to what Ned was just speaking to, it's very clear that President Trump, who, you know, famously, is not a heavy user of technology himself. He said -- well, just watch what he said about lead rooms, because I think it gives you a sense of how he is probably feeling about his team making a mistake like this. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And, Jonah Goldberg, he also spoke about how sometimes in these meetings and Mike Pompeo was speaking about it afterwards as well, that there would be people on the kinds of lines that Ned describes. And he would announce, cut them off. Anyone that's on the phone, I don't want you to be able to listen to this because he is so worried about the degree to which this could be a problem.
GOLDBERG: Yeah. Well, first of all, it is true that lead walls are the only thing Superman can't see through. So he's on to something.
HUNT: Obviously.
GOLDBERG: But, like I honestly, I -- I'm nostalgic for the days where we were mad about Sandy Berger stealing classified documents in his pants, right? So --
HUNT: I have that on a graphic somewhere in here.
GOLDBERG: So, I think -- well, I take all your points. I think you make perfectly fine points. The sense that elites in government are not applying the rules, that they're willing to put the little guys in prison for is a huge frigging problem.
But moreover, I personally look, I think the administration is setting itself up. Either they've got some sort of legalistic thing where they say this technically wasn't classified, it was just secret, and therefore it wasn't designated classified, or they're just trying to smear Jeffrey Goldberg, no relation, to say he's lying.
And if they're going to call him a liar, Jeffrey Goldberg has, you know, redact names, but he should release everything you know, because they're saying --
SWISHER: Probably will have to.
GOLDBERG: I think eventually that's where this is going to go.
SWISHER: And we're getting to an even worse situation. Every 13-year- old knows how to do this. That is the one part about it.
[16:15:01]
It's like, everyone knows not to get in a certain group chat, what to say on chats and how to handle your phones, and the fact that a top national security people don't know how to do this or don't care to, I think that's more of it.
PRICE: There are really two possibilities when they say this was not classified information. Neither of them are great.
The first is that they're lying. They may well be lying because military plans, tactic -- tactics, techniques, procedures are by definition classified. It's actually one of the categories when you go to classify a U.S. government document that you can allude to.
The second is what I think would be a distortion of the most technical of technicalities by relying on the simple fact that senior officials within government can wave their magic classification wand and declassify something. That would obviously not be within the spirit of how we protect classified information.
But you can imagine whether it's Pete Hegseth or the vice president or even the president in this case, upon realizing that Jeffrey Goldberg was in there, making the decision that, ipso facto, this is all now declassified. And here, nothing was classified in the chat because of that.
But the -- there -- first of all, there's a transcript here. And so, the intelligence committee should see the transcript.
Second of all, thank God Jeffrey Goldberg was in that chat. If publicizing this prevents them from using Signal to have principals committees going forward, that's probably the best outcome that we can hope for, for our national security.
HUNT: All right. Ned, thanks very much for being with us today. PRICE: Thank you.
HUNT: I really appreciate your insight.
Everyone else, stand by.
Right now, we want to know what are you hearing to all my sources and friends, you know who you are. Check your inbox. Here's our question for you today. Will anyone face consequences for the war plans Signal group chat?
You have to the bottom of the hour, send us thoughts, tips, exclusives. If it's the wrong question, tell us it's -- you know, there's a lot of questions here today. We'll let you in on the conversation later on this hour.
All right. Coming up next, the potential legal implications of this text leak. Democrats want to find out if anything sensitive was leaked. While the White House wants to find out just how Jeffrey Goldberg entered the chat.
And later this hour, Senator Ruben Gallego, a key member of the homeland security committee, will be live right here in THE ARENA.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:21:29]
HUNT: All right, welcome back to THE ARENA.
A hearing with intelligence heads on Capitol Hill, it's only brought up more questions about the legal implications for those involved in the messaging thread coordinating missile strikes, of course, ended up including journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. And wouldn't you know it, as those legal implications loom, the head of the CIA and the director of national intelligence had a lot of trouble recalling specifics about the message exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GABBARD: I don't remember mention of specific targets.
I don't recall specific weapons systems being named.
I don't recall specific timing.
KELLY: Any mention of any military unit whatsoever, Mr. Ratcliffe?
RATCLIFFE: Not that I recall.
KELLY: Ms. Gabbard?
GABBARD: Not that I recall.
RATCLIFFE: In that setting, I don't recall.
I don't -- as you -- as you --
OSSOFF: You don't recall seeing that?
RATCLIFFE: Read that, I don't.
OSSOFF: It included the private opinions of the secretary of defense on the timing of strikes in Yemen, correct?
RATCLIFFE: I don't recall.
OSSOFF: Director Ratcliffe, surely you prepared for this hearing today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I don't recall.
Let's bring in CNN legal analyst Elie Honig.
Elie, wonderful to have you in the arena.
This is a classic tactic. I remember watching Alberto Gonzales testify for hours and hours and the things he didn't remember about the thing that he was there to testify about was really kind of remarkable. And you could really see this on display here in terms of what they could or couldn't remember about this Signal thread.
What does it tell you about the way that they perceive their own potential legal liability? And what do you think the biggest potential problem areas are for these -- for these people?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Kasie, I think clearly, there are some nerves there on display. If prosecutors are to look at this case, they'd have to show three things in order to establish a crime. I think two of them are fairly easy. One of them is tricky.
So, first of all, they'd have to show that the information relates to national defense. I'd note, not necessarily classified. The law actually just says related to national defense. As you and your panel were just discussing. I think that's an easy call.
The second thing prosecutors have to show is that this information was removed from its proper place of custody, which just boils down to this stuff should not have been on Signal. I mean, signal is a commercially available app. You can download it from the app store. I know how to use it, hence they should not be using it at the highest levels of the U.S. government.
And then the third one, that's I think the trickiest, is prosecutors would have to show that somebody was grossly negligent.
And here's where some of the questions that Kara Swisher with her prosecutorial focused mind was sort of laying out in the prior segment, which is how long were they doing this? Were they on personal phones or government phones? Who got them onto Signal? Did anyone warn them? And did anyone say, hey, we shouldn't be doing that? And so, if I was in charge of investigating this case, I'd really be
focused on those types of questions.
HUNT: Kara Swisher, your name was invoked also.
SWISHER: Also, where were you? Where were you when you were using it at the same time, especially if you were in Russia, for example, or anywhere that was and what network you were on? Theres so many pieces and directions to go here. It's kind of hard to -- I mean, it's a mess.
GOLDBERG: But there's another reason why they will not be prosecuted is because the Justice Department is run by Pam Bondi and Donald Trump, and there's just no way on God's green earth that they\re going to launch an actual prosecution of any of these people.
HUNT: Right. Well, and, Elie, we have some -- a couple of high profile cases.
And this is your Sandy Berger reference. Back in 2005, he was fined and sentenced to community service for removing classified documents from the National Archives. Our graphic does not include the colorful detail of where he put the documents, which Jonah provided to us earlier.
Then there are also, of course, was famously President Trump, who was prosecuted as well as David Petraeus.
[16:25:01]
I had actually forgotten about this until I was reminding myself of this today.
And again, there is a -- Congressman, sort of the -- there are people who leak information on purpose, classified information with malicious intent. The examples here are a little bit murkier, but there were people who were prosecuted for doing something like this. It's hard to believe, I think, for a lot of people.
Let's play what some of these officials had said about Hillary Clinton and her emails, obviously, that were on a private server, and they allege there was classified information on them. This is a series of -- of now Trump national security officials talking about that. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HEGSETH: If there was anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they would be in jail right now.
MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: Nobody is above the law, not even Hillary Clinton, even though she thinks she is.
RATCLIFFE: Mishandling classified information, is still a violation of the espionage act.
WALTZ: When you have the Clinton emails, on top of the fact that the sitting president of the United States admitted he had documents in his garage. They didn't prosecute. They didn't go after these folks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, the tape is a little tough.
MCHENRY: It's great to be on the outside of government. What can I say?
I mean, look, the facts matter on this. And just because people are in a group chat does not mean all of them broke the law. It could be the person who added information that was sensitive or classified that was the rule breaker here .
In and of itself, a text group is not breaking the law necessarily.
HUNT: Right.
MCHENRY: So the idea that this is unheard of, unprecedented, I think is absurd. I mean, Signal and encrypted software here in D.C. is a mode that journalists use to communicate with policymakers, and they do it on a regular basis.
HUNT: I refuse to talk to anyone on another like platform aside from Signal, basically, for this reason.
MCHENRY: Here we go. And you're one of the foremost journalists in D.C. So, this is like this is not an unprecedented circumstance. What is unprecedented is a journalist being added to a war planning document discussion. That is what is frankly absurd.
SWISHER: Although I don't think our government officials should be on signal doing that. I can see a journalist talking because that's essentially leaking, right?
MCHENRY: What should they --
HUNT: Nobody's going to give me a government phone. It's the best tool available to me.
SWISHER: They can use government -- government -- you've had them. I know that. My ex-wife was --
MCHENRY: What software would we have in government that they don't otherwise have in the private sector?
SWISHER: That's correct. But we still -- maybe we should contract with them to create it for government or something else. But the government should stay on, on, on secure systems as best as they can and shouldn't be sloppy the way everybody is.
As you do note, everybody is sloppy, but they should not be on commercial systems. I know the people at Signal don't want them to be doing this. They want them to be in a SCIF. They want them to be. Theres like a million other ways they could have done this.
And of course, because they're lazy and sloppy, they did this. HUNT: Jamal Simmons is with us. Sorry, we didn't get a chance to
introduce you. Former communications director for VP Harris.
Weigh in here.
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. When I was at the White House, you were not allowed to have Signal on your government phones, so I'm not sure what they're talking about. Maybe things are different at the CIA than they were at the White House. You were not allowed to have Signal on your government phone.
So, the question for me, now you can talk about talk about --
MCHENRY: Did you have it on your personal phone? Just as a -- just as an example.
SIMMONS: I mean, sure, people have Signals on their phones. The question on their personal phones. But your personal phone is not secure and you shouldn't be talking about classified or important information on your personal phone, nor government information, right? You're supposed to be using that for personal purposes.
The question here is, if you're a person -- that's like having a conversation and what you think is a private restaurant room about top secret things, and the waiter comes in and, oh, well, it was an accident. I didn't know the waiter was listening. Well, you shouldn't have been having a conversation about the war outside of a SCIF. That is the problem here.
HUNT: All right, Elie Honig, let's -- I want to button up this conversation with you, because Jonah, of course, made the point that we're never going to see repercussions for something like this. If Democrats ultimately were to retake the House or retake the Senate, much less likely. What tools do they have to follow up on this, if any?
HONIG: Well, they would have to issue subpoenas and hold hearings. But I think Jonah makes an important point that sadly, I agree with. We are very unlikely to see any action from the primary entity that needs to investigate this, which is the United States Department of Justice. I think this is going to be a litmus test for Pam Bondi.
Look, they have a division of national security that does cases like this for a living. If she opens up an investigation and I don't think she will, that will be a powerful statement about her independence and her integrity. But if she refuses to, I think that will undermine both of those things.
And if we look real quick, just at recent precedent, you mentioned this before, Kasie. Look, Donald Trump had classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. He was prosecuted. He was indicted. They tried to lock him up.
Hillary Clinton kept -- kept classified information on an email server. She was investigated for years and just barely cleared. Joe Biden had classified information in his garage. He, too, was
investigated by a special counsel, an extensive investigation. And he, too, was just barely cleared.
[16:30:01]
The point is whether any of these people are prosecuted or not, there has to be a thorough investigation. I don't think there will be, but there should be.
HUNT: What does that -- I mean, what does that tell us overall, Eli, about the state of -- I mean, I realize we've been kind of moving toward this in slow motion for years now, but it -- I just kind of want to stop for a second on this pretty remarkable reality
HONIG: I think it tells us that the Justice Department is in a very bad spot right now. I think it tells us that the way they've conducted themselves, even over the first two months in office, and I mean, Pam Bondi, I mean, Emil Bove, I mean, Todd Blanche, I mean, several other bosses at DOJ, the way they have pursued an overtly political agenda, I think has changed the way certainly, that I see the department where I worked for a long time and the level of public confidence in them as a whole, to be fair and independent.
SWISHER: Well, you know, Elie, they're very busy protecting the world's richest man. They are very busy doing that.
HUNT: Tesla, et cetera.
All right. Elie, thank you very much. I love having you on the show. Do come back soon.
HONIG: Thanks, guys.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here, is the American Dream becoming out of reach.
Plus, a little something to lighten the day. Late night pokes fun at the massive blunder at the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY KIMMEL, COMEDIAN: No one on the chain thought to ask, who is J.G.? What are these initials? For all they could have been leaking secrets to Jeff Goldblum for all they know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:35:43]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Concerned about -- TRUMP: For the first time in like 50 years, right track, wrong track.
We were on the right track. And I think people see that. You're going to see billions of dollars, even trillions of dollars coming into our country very soon in the form of tariffs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Donald Trump promising new jobs and billions in revenue from his tariff agenda, as new numbers show that Americas economic mood has continued to sour for the fourth consecutive month. Consumer confidence dropping to the lowest level since January 2021. You may remember that that was when the world was still in the throes of the COVID 19 pandemic. How happy were you in January of 2021?
This, according to new numbers from the conference board. Their latest survey indicates more Americans believe that the U.S. economy will slip into a recession. And amid President Trump's frenetic back and forth on tariffs. The survey also shows that Americans expectations for future income, business and labor markets have dropped to a 12- year low.
So, of course, Jonah Goldberg, we've all been sitting here wanting to talk about the salacious headlines in "The Atlantic" for obvious and good reasons. But I think that what we're learning today and the kind of state of the economy is the thing that ultimately is going to really drive the trajectory of the country.
GOLDBERG: Yeah. And if you really want to extend the conversation from "The Atlantic" piece a little bit longer, I think there is some connective tissue.
HUNT: Great, let's do it.
(LAUGHTER)
GOLDBERG: Insofar as -- I mean, the thing about the Signal thing. Whether it's classified, whether it's secret, all that kind of stuff, what comes across as its amateur hour. It's sloppy. They don't know really what they're supposed to be doing or how to do it.
That is the biggest problem with the tariff stuff. I think it's economically illiterate for the most part, but like the fact that they got their on again, they're off again. They're changing the numbers. When asked why he's doing this with Canada, he says, we'll, it's not really about the tariffs. It's because we want to make a mistake, right?
There is this sense in which it is shambolic and chaotic and can turn on a dime. And that uncertainty, I think, is one of the things that is reflected in these numbers, is this just this sense that like, oh gosh, I kind of thought this was going to be like Trump 1.0 where they kind of knew what they were doing.
And it's dawning on markets and it's dawning on consumers. It's just a different time. And they really don't have a theory of the case for the economy. SIMMONS: Yeah. It's obvious that they don't. I mean, listen, the
tariff problem is something I think that's spooking people. If you go back -- Howard Lutnick gave a speech October 27th when he was at Madison Square Garden, and they asked -- he asked himself, what was making America great. When was America great? He said, 1900.
You know what was happening in 1900? He said, because there was no income tax, and we had so much money that all the rich people in the -- all the rich businessmen got together to figure out how to spend all the money.
You know what happened after that? The biggest burst of progressive activism that we had in the -- in the early part of the 20th century, women got the right to vote. The income tax got a amendment got passed. We saw the NAACP got created. All these things began.
HUNT: Briefly, we weren't allowed to drink.
SIMMONS: Yes, that did happen as well.
HUNT: But all these things began when people realized that, like, they didn't want a government that was just decided by a bunch of rich businessmen. Now, what seems clear now is that those rich businessmen want to take it all back. All the things that we've got passed in the last 100 years are all sort of being smashed.
SWISHER: You said Lutnick, but we had Gary Cohn there who actually did push back on tariffs. We had people who were a little more competent in that way. And if you go to Wall Street and you compare Gary Cohn and Lutnick --
SIMMONS: But they're not there now.
SWISHER: No, they're not there now.
SIMMONS: The secretary --
(CROSSTALK)
SWISHER: I'd just say, but if you stop any person on Wall Street and you say Lutnick versus Cohn, they laugh in your face, like that kind of thing. And so, it's not the -- it's chaos that's a problem. And there's chaos that's then -- that then goes online and goes, you know, everybody's in this sort of constant chaos moment because it's the stop and go thing.
The red light, green light gets further amplified when it's seen online. We're going to do this now. We're going to do this now. We're going to do this.
And it does feel chaotic and sloppy more than anything else. And then obviously not thought out. And I think that gets amplified in this environment, media environment.
HUNT: Well, and the point about -- that Signal point is, is well- taken, Congressman, because it does. I mean, in many ways tie together. And part of it too is the content of what we did learn, the stuff that Jeffrey Goldberg did report in "The Atlantic". He kept back a lot of these targets and the things he felt were classified.
[16:40:01]
But he talked about, for example, the policy positions, the things that the vice president, J.D. Vance, was saying about our European allies and how he felt they would owe the United States or not based on what the United States was willing to do in this situation.
I mean, do you feel like the level of chaos, the level of expertise, the type of people that are in this administration is all materially different this time than it was in Trump One, when you were serving in government or not?
MCHENRY: No -- not, no, not -- not particularly. If you look at the economic team, if you look at treasury top to bottom, highly competent people, that would fit in any Republican administration. You look at the economic, you look at Hassett and the NSC team, same thing. We have highly skilled folks in the economic team.
The rollout of the tariffs has been chaotic. Theres no reason to -- to try to contort my -- you know, Republicans shouldn't contort themselves and say anything different than it is chaotic.
SIMMONS: But you're ignoring the chaos. You're ignoring DOGE, right? So, you might have Bessent there, who seems normal, but then Elon Musk is coming in with his 19-year-olds and they're uprooting the entire system.
MCHENRY: What I would tell you is Republicans want DOGE to succeed because we need government efficiency. And it was the Biden administration and the last 20 years of build up that we've not really cut government spending. Republicans want that to succeed.
What we're looking at is a broader strength of the economy. The strength of the economy is Donald Trump's strength, political strength. That means that he's got to have a tax cut package. He has to have regulatory relief.
That's what the market is banking on. That will give him political strength for all these other things.
The reset in Europe is driven out of what Donald Trump actually campaigned on, that Europe needs to pay their fair share for their security, and they have not done that. They are now doing that from every country in Europe, is now stepping up to defend themselves, because they see that this Donald Trump policy is now the policy of America. And pulling back.
SWISHER: But, Patrick, guess where the stock market is strong right now. European stocks. Everyone's moving out of American stocks into European stocks. So, it's kind of an interesting situation because a lot of people say the stock market isn't Main Street, but it is. It's a reflection of it. And the fact is everyone's now moving like the satellite companies,
the defense companies in Europe are all benefiting enormously. While U.S. stocks are not.
MCHENRY: We'll see where we are in two and four years.
SWISHER: Yeah.
HUNT: We will see.
All right. Coming up next here, Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego says the defense secretary needs to take responsibility for leaking confidential military plans. He joins us up next, right here in THE ARENA.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:47:04]
HUNT: All right. Welcome back.
At this hour, it is still unclear if there will be an investigation into the massive security error involving the administration's decision to use a group chat to coordinate a highly sensitive military operation. But in testimony today, it seemed like intelligence leaders involved were pointing the finger at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RATCLIFFE: The secretary of defense is the original classification authority for determining whether something is classified or not. And as I've understood from media reports, the secretary of defense has said the information was not classified. I can again confirm that with respect to the communications that were related as to me, there was no classified information.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Joining us now is Arizona Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego.
Senator Gallego, thanks so much for being here today. You, of course, just heard Ratcliffe say there that it seems the buck stops with the secretary of defense.
You have called on the Secretary Hegseth to step down. If he refuses, do you think he should be impeached over this?
SEN. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): Look, I think, first of all, before we jump to that conclusion, we should at least have an open, transparent investigation. What you just heard is CYA politics, cover your as politics, that Ratcliffe is involved in.
The fact that the secretary has determined that this is not classified, therefore, it's not classified doesn't actually end the story here. This is a very dangerous thing that that secretary of defense did. He compromised the mission to begin with, potentially compromising our Armed Services Committee. And also not disclosing exactly to Congress what is -- what was said or what was not said on these chats.
Let's at least have an open, transparent investigation. This is what we would do under any Democrat if this had occurred to them, and the fact that secretary of defense is not taking leadership, it's a horrible example to all the men and women that are -- that are under his leadership right now, that all you have to do is lie, lie, lie and not take ownership of this as a leader. And that's a horrible example for them.
HUNT: Yeah. So, Senator, you did vote to confirm the CIA Director Ratcliffe. Do you regret that vote based on what you know now?
GALLEGO: Look, a lot of these voters -- I'm sorry, a lot of these votes that we took, we took with a grain of salt. We understood that we're going to have to do the best of what we had. And a lot of times, some of these votes ended up incorrectly.
But I knew exactly what was happening. This is the best of one of the few nominees that we understood we could work with. I hope Director Ratcliffe will live up to some of the standards we expected him when we voted for that.
But let's be clear: the reason we're having this discussion because of bad leadership and a bad culture that's been established as secretary of defense, national security team, they're the ones that made the problems. They're the ones that should be held accountable, and they're the ones that are potentially continuing to put our country in danger.
We don't know where they were with these phones. We don't know when they were communicating. This is why there needs to be a full and transparent investigation. And if not, at least at a minimum, Secretary of Defense Hegseth should retire because -- he should resign because he is a bad leader for our men and women in the armed services.
[16:50:03]
HUNT: Sir, we heard today from the president of the United States about this story.
Let's watch a little bit of what he said, and I'll ask you about it on this side. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It wasn't classified information, so this was not classified. Now, if it's classified information, it's probably a little bit different.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, he's saying there that this was not classified. Do you think that that's plausible on its face?
GALLEGO: It's not plausible. It's absolutely lying.
He is using -- you know, again CYA words now because, you know, the president can say what is classified and not classified, but let's just put this to the, you know, pure common-sense test. If we're about to attack a country, do we want to know -- do we want our opponents to know what the coordinates are? Do they do we want our opponents to know what weapons that we're going to use, the timing and the nature of that?
Of course not. This is pure B.S. to cover the fact that he is running an incompetent administration, and who knows what else they are covering up in these types of Signal chats. This is why Secretary of Defense Hegseth should turn over all information. Everyone that was in the chat should turn over all information. We can do a thorough investigation about how this happened, how far it goes, and whether or not people need to be held accountable.
HUNT: Senator, your counterpart at your fellow Arizona senator, Mark Kelly, he said today that the intelligence committee didn't see the rest of this Signal chat. I'm curious how far you think Democrats should go? And in the event that it was deleted, because a lot of these chats automatically delete, depending on how they're set up, what kind of a problem that presents?
GALLEGO: Well, it presents a problem, number one, that they're doing that. You know, there's a reason why we have these protocols.
Protocol number one, when we don't have conversations like this in in these types of challenges, because just because they say signal is, you know, encrypted does not necessarily mean that very sophisticated in military intelligence companies, as well as countries could be tapping this. So, we need to investigate that fully.
What else was being said along these chats? Theres just a lot of things that we're missing. The reason we asked for operational security is because this may have gone well this time. Maybe they didn't -- our opposition did not actually hear about this. But you don't know what the standard operating procedures going forward should be considering, you know, what is the national security team doing?
So, everything needs to be thoroughly reviewed. Everything needs to be reviewed from when this started to the beginning of when they got together on this chat, everything that was discussed and going forward, how are we going to continue to have operational security? Because that's going to put a lot of our other operations at risk, and we don't know how far this vulnerability is at this point.
HUNT: Sir, finally, on a different topic entirely, I know it's Tuesday, and, of course, senators convene for their regular party lunches. And obviously there has been a lot of anger at the senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer.
What was the room like today? And have you been happy with Senator Schumer's leadership of your caucus? GALLEGO: I've been very clear where my position was with this, the
leadership of Senator Schumer. I was disappointed in what he and how he reacted to -- the keeping the government open in the last couple of weeks and, and the rationale behind it. Weve had some very frank conversations between he and I, between us as a caucus.
And we know going forward that we have a plan that is going to effectively do a couple of things. Number one, protect our senior citizens from these random cuts that Elon Musk is having. Number two, protect Medicaid from these cuts that are going to affect rural Arizona more so than urban Arizona to give Elon Musk and his friends more tax cuts. And three, preserve our veterans their ability to keep their jobs, as well as the veteran benefits they receive from the V.A.
Thats how we're going to focus on the fight, and not these internal fights that at the end -- at the end day, only makes this country weaker.
HUNT: All right. Senator Ruben Gallego, thanks very much for being with us today. I hope you come back.
GALLEGO: Thank you.
HUNT: All right. Coming up next here, a 90-million-year-old dinosaur discovery. We'll explain next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:58:48]
HUNT: All right. Welcome back.
Earlier, we asked our sources and friends. Will anyone face consequences for the war plans Signal group chat? The panel seems to have agreed that no one is going to.
Here's what we heard from many of you.
One Republican campaign operative wrote in this: Because the mission was a success, this remains a very inside baseball story. Nothing detrimental occurred as a result of the mistake. Thank God for that.
And another Republican campaign operative writes this. We are living in an episode of Veep. There will be no real fallout from this. And it will be ignored too soon.
Occasionally, it does feel like "Veep" is real life.
GOLDBERG: It does. It does.
SWISHER: It is real life.
GOLDBERG: Yeah. Better that than "House of Cards", right?
SIMMONS: I lived a version of that. So, this is not --
(LAUGHTER)
HUNT: Oh! Oh, you're going to get a call after this.
GOLDBERG: She said it herself.
(LAUGHTER)_
MCHENRY: Oh, that is a lot of the show. Oh.
HUNT: What were you going to say, Congressman?
MCHENRY: I was going to say, it is the only true show about Washington. "Veep" is the only true show about Washington.
SWISHER: A hundred percent.
HUNT: I love it.
All right. One more thing. It turns out that the great Tyrannosaurus Rex wasn't the only two-legged dinosaurs with the T-Rex arms. There was another one with two T-Rex like arms. I'm sorry. What?
Paleontologists recently unearthed a 9-million-year-old fossil in Mongolia's Gobi Desert. Researchers say it is the largest complete claw ever to be found. They think the claws were an adaptation to grabbing and pulling down branches or clusters of leaves more easily.
Really? It just wanted to eat the leaves. I don't know about that.
The fossil suggests the dinosaur looked like a bizarre mix of a sloth and a giraffe. Okay, I guess that probably makes it a vegetarian.
All right. "THE LEAD" -- it looks like we're out of time. "THE LEAD" with Phil Mattingly starts right now.
