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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Distances Himself from Breach, I Wasn't Involved; U.S. Defense Officials Say, Details Hegseth Shared were Classified; Senate Intel Democrats Say, Trump Officials Absolutely Misled Congress; "NewsNight" Tackles Signal Chat Security Breach; DHS Agents Arrest Tufts Student. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired March 26, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the president's men go back to the drawing board to find new excuses as the world sees proof that secrets sent over Signal were super sensitive and may have been classified at the time.
Plus, little lies or crimes, did Trump administration officials break the law by trying to cover for their group chat glitch?
And detained for deportation, the Trump administration arrests the Tufts student with a valid visa a year after she scolded her school for ignoring her words the Palestinian genocide.
live at the table, Ana Navarro, Shermichael Singleton, Gretchen Carlson, Tim Pawlenty.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN (on camera): Good evening. I'm John Berman in New York in for Abby Philip.
Let's get right to what America is talking about, the receipts. Tonight, if you're Pete Hegseth or Michael Waltz or Tulsi Gabber or Stephen Miller or any of the 17 Trump officials on the Signal chat not named Jeffrey Goldberg, what you hope would stay private is now public. The Atlantic has now published screenshots of the Houthi PC small group. What they show is exactly what Goldberg said, they would show, a back and forth over operational details leading up to U.S. war planes hitting targets inside Yemen.
If the first rule of the group chat is do not talk about the group chat, and the second rule of the group chat is do not accidentally add a journalist to the group chat. The third rule probably should be, don't say anything about the group chat that screenshots can prove that you were dissembling, obfuscating, spinning, or more, phrases like, this is when the first bombs will definitely drop, posted two hours before the bombs dropped seem to have a certain level of specificity that might give away details of an attack plan, details like when the first bombs will definitely drop.
So, what do you do now when your entire international security team is careening in equivocation? Maybe you say so many things and blame so many people and the technology itself, or deny what was done was bad or wrong or unintended, that you hope the country loses the threat of the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It's equipment and technology that's not perfect.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Goldberg is an anti- Trump hater.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: You're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited, so-called journalist.
MICHAEL WALTZ, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: If you have somebody else's contact and then somehow it gets sucked in.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Oh, someone sent you that contact.
WALTZ: It gets sucked in. Now, whether he did it deliberately,
TRUMP: It wasn't classified, as I understand it. There was no classified information.
TULSI GABBARD, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR: There were no classified or intelligence equities.
JOHN RATCLIFFE, CIA DIRECTOR: I was not discussing classified information in this setting.
WALTZ: No classified information.
REPORTER: Do you still believe nothing classified was shared?
TRUMP: Well, that's what I've heard. I don't know. I'm not sure. You'll have to ask the various people.
LEAVITT: There were no locations, no sources or methods revealed.
HEGSETH: Nobody was texting war plans.
LEAVITT: Why did The Atlantic downgrade their allegation about war plans to attack plans?
HEGSETH: They even changed the title to attack plans because they know it's not war plans.
TRUMP: I think it's a witch hunt. I wasn't involved with it.
HEGSETH: I know exactly what I'm doing and exactly what we're directing.
Keep everybody informed. That's what I did. That's my job.
TRUMP: Hegseth is doing a great job. He had nothing to do with this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BERMAN: All right. With us now for our fifth seat at the table is Paul Rieckhoff. He's an Army veteran who served in the Iraq war and the founder and CEO of Independent Veterans of America.
As a veteran of America, how do you feel now that you've seen these messages in the group chat, and how do you feel about the administration's explanation of it today?
PAUL RIECKHOFF, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: Outraged, disgusted concerned. And I think that's the response from just about anyone who's served in the military from any political background, except for maybe some people in the administration.
Generations of Americans who've served in the military know loose lifts, sink ships. We're taught it in basic training. Everyone understands you have an obligation to ensure you don't disclose anything that could harm your fellow troops.
And that's the most important part here. Whether it's an attack plan or a war plan, we are all taught not to divulge anything that could violate operational security. So, the question is, did you violate operational security? Did you release anything that could potentially hurt someone who's in operations, right? And the answer is, yes, that's obvious. Everyone can see it.
[22:05:00]
And the harder they spin, the worse it is. And you could see. That's why they're spinning so hard, this is damning.
I think Hegseth has to step down or be fired because he can't command the respect of the people he leads if he holds himself to a different standard. And maybe most of all our enemies are celebrating. You know, chaos, mayhem, just dysfunction. This has become normal around the Pentagon and that is very dangerous for our national security.
BERMAN: Look, the administration all abated Goldberg to release these today. Did they get what they wanted out of this?
GRETCHEN CARLSON, CO-FOUNDER, LIFT OUR VOICES: Well, I think it's because these kinds of spins for MAGA have worked in the past and for Donald Trump, for that matter, there have been no repercussions when you actually see something said on videotape and they say it's not true, and nothing happens to them.
And so I will say from a P.R. point of view, not from a veteran point of view, they should have nipped this in the bud. This could have been a done story by yesterday had they just fessed up, been adults about it, said we made a mistake, it's not going to happen again, end of story. Instead, this deny, deflect, defame other people, that is not working. And this is going to be a story again for a third day tomorrow.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm going to tell you, obviously these people do not watch Real Housewives. Because you don't go to the Real Housewives reunion and go the other housewife when that person has receipts in writing, on text, which is what Jeffrey Goldberg had.
I was hearing last night when Waltz was calling him a looser and scum and they -- I mean, they had been calling him every name in the book. How do you do that with somebody who's got receipts in writing that he can then divulge and share with the rest of America? Just from like psychological aspect, it seems stupid.
And, you know, I was thinking today, Tim, about our friend, John McCain. You and I supported John McCain when he was running. And I remember him grilling Rumsfeld pretty hard on issues like that. Because it used to be that four Republicans, when it came to veterans, when it came to national security, when it came to soldiers, it was above partisanship. John McCain, chair of the Armed Services Committee, didn't care whether it was George W. Bush or whether it was Bill Clinton. He was going to question them exactly the same, and I'm talking about questioning exactly the same.
I'm so damn old. I remember when, about a year ago right now, Lloyd Austin had to testify in front of a congressional committee because he did not divulge that he was having prostate surgery and would be in the hospital. And he got reamed pretty hard by that congressional committee. He admitted that he had not handled it correctly. And I think Pete Hegseth, at the very least, needs to have the cojones to show up in front of a congressional committee. And there needs to be a full investigation, like there was about Lloyd Austin's prostate.
FMR. GOV. TIM PAWLENTY (R-MN): John, I think there's one other important point here. We should stop and step back one second and applaud the men and women in the United States military who received these orders and executed this mission brilliantly and executed it to perfection. And so, again, kudos to the men and women in the military, and particularly those on this mission, we, you know, really owe them our respect.
Beyond that, this is really simple. It's hard to deflect the obvious and the obvious is they screwed up. And so just say it. Just say it. And to everybody's point, I think we all agree, when you make a mistake, own up to it. When it's this obvious, you can't deny, deflect, obfuscate. That doesn't work in this case. And so just come before the cameras and say, the mission was great. Thank you to our warriors. Thank you for the people who delivered this result. But we had a communications problem and we goofed it up and we own it, and we're sorry, and we'll make sure it won't happen again.
BERMAN: If it's so simple for the governor, Shermichael, why doesn't the administration see it as that?
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I don't know. I mean, look, I'm a political strategist, and from my point of view, I'm looking at the special election we just had in Iowa. Republicans maintain control there. That was a bit of an upset. We had a race that just occurred, I think, days ago in Pennsylvania. We actually lost by around 480-something votes. Whatever the liberal zeitgeist may be as it pertains to this particular issue, I'm not certain that it's attached to the realities on the ground in terms of what the average everyday individual American is actually focused on. I would acknowledge the mistake occurred. I would move on. I'm not certain that this is going to be a news story beyond next week.
And so from a political perspective, if I'm Democrat and you're trying to find something to sort of leach onto, to frame an argument about why you think the administration is handling things in general incorrectly, I'm not certain that this is my issue.
NAVARRO: But, Shermichael, it's not the liberal zeitgeist just as you describe it, because I read today Republican senators, people like Lisa Murkowski, I have read people who support Donald Trump, like Portnoy, the guy from Barstool.
BERMAN: We're going to talk about that later.
NAVARRO: Like Piers Morgan come out and say, this was stupid, this was reckless, this was classified. It shouldn't have been on. And you all have to own up to it.
SINGLETON: Everyone agrees with that. I think everyone agrees with that.
NAVARRO: So, let's not talk about Iowa and liberals.
[22:10:00]
This is above partisanship --
(CROSSTALKS)
RIECKHOFF: We talk about accountability, because that's the issue here, right? Men and women could have died. They were on combat missions when this information was flying around a Signal app. I mean, they were wrong for even being on that unsecured app and having this kind of cover (ph). This is not going away and shouldn't and it shouldn't go away if we're serious about our national security. People need to be held accountable just like they are in the military. Because if a 19-year-old private did this, they'd be in prison. They'd be court-martialed, they'd be facing UCMJ action. And this leadership crew cannot be immune from that same accountability.
CARLSON: Here's why I think it's different this time, to Shermichael's point, is that you do have leaders now in the Republican Party. You have John Thune and you have Wicker, who are now saying that they're actually going to open an investigation, a bipartisan one. That hasn't happened when other turbulence has been going on in this administration.
So, I think it's different this time. Maybe that election was reflective of what was going on in the first six weeks.
PAWLENTY: Quick footnote, is this also opens up this question. There is a lot of use of encrypted apps in Washington, D.C., by journalists, officials, government officials, some of whom it's appropriate, some of whom are trying to dodge archival and records keeping, some of whom are trying to leak and don't want to be caught. And so I think the subsidiary question to all this, like who the hell's using all these apps in Washington who shouldn't be?
BERMAN: We're going to talk about legality in just a sec because it is an interesting discussion. I just want to read something that Ezra Klein tweeted a little while ago here, and it gets to accountability, but it also gets to what the administration did today. Ezra writes, the administration's response to the Signal debacle is just suffused with contempt for their own voters, just an endless belief that the people who support them can be tricked into believing the laziest misdirection imaginable.
CARLSON: Like the reporter put himself into this on purpose, or that somehow Signal just magically had his name appear.
One thing that people are not asking about is why? Why was Jeffrey Goldberg in Mike Waltz's contacts? Why? That to me, as a journalist, is a really important question, because maybe they've been discussing other things together with one another.
SINGLETON: Well, I would look at this a little differently from Ezra Klein, and I get the point that he's making. I spent a lot of time around voters who support the president, ardent supporters of the president, and I've talked with many of them about this. They don't care about this issue. I'm going to be honest. They're focused --
RIECKHOFF: That's just not true.
SINGLETON: Can I finish my point please?
RIECKHOFF: Yes, you can, but it's just not true.
SINGLETON: And then you can rebut if you disagree.
RIECKHOFF: Please.
SINGLETON: That's the way I like to do this.
RIECKHOFF: Go ahead.
SINGLETON: So, my point is, they're not focused on this. They care about immigration. They like what the president is doing there. They care about tariffs. They like what the president is doing there. When you ask about this issue, yes, it was stupid. They shouldn't have done it, but I'm not really focused on this. And I think if you were to do a focus group with many Trump supporters, that's probably what the qualitative results would be of that focus group.
Go ahead. RIECKHOFF: I entirely disagree, and I encourage us to bring that focus group in here tomorrow night and fill it with veterans and people who understand national security and understand the stakes and understand this is beyond politics and even --
NAVARRO: Many of whom voted for Trump.
RIECKHOFF: Many of them all, all different. I've been hearing from folks across the spectrum and everybody's saying, whiskey, tango, foxtrot. How could this possibly happen? And where's your honor? You want to lead the military, you want to lead young men and women, send our sons and daughters into combat? Where is your honor? You have to uphold the Army values, and that starts with telling the truth and demanding accountability and accepting failure when it's on you.
Pete Hegseth is responsible for everything they do and everything they fail to do. That's what Americans want to see, someone take accountability and responsibility.
SINGLETON: I think you're right that I don't think you're going to find a single person who would disagree that the way they're handling this is incorrect. My argument --
RIECKHOFF: It's a big deal though.
SINGLETON: No, this is a big deal. But my argument politically is, as a motivating political factor, this is not going to move the political needle one way or another.
RIECKHOFF: I disagree. I mean --
BERMAN: But is that the most important question?
SINGLETON: As a political strategist, for me it is, because that's my job.
NAVARRO: Well, for me, as an American, the most important question that I have is how do I know that this won't happen again? Because, but for the grace of God, this didn't fall into the wrong hands? The journalists that they have been maligning now for two days handled it with incredible discretion. This could have -- it could -- instead of being Jeffrey Goldberg, it could have been somebody entirely different and the results could have been devastating.
PAWLENTY: Also, the federal government has to get its act together. You have different directives and guidance from the NSA, the DOD and CISA, which is acronym for a cybersecurity agency, on the use of Signal, and they contradict with each other. And not -- for one example, they said telecoms in the United States were compromised by Russia and China not long ago, and CISA actually encouraged government officials to consider using Signal in contrast to what NSA has said, in contrast to what DOD has said.
So, it starts with, we don't even know for sure when government officials have been encouraged or allowed to use or not use signal and they got to get their house in order. RIECKHOFF: Or that they're not using it anymore right now.
PAWLENTY: And it may not even be John. I know you want to get into it later, but it may not even be inappropriate in certain circumstances for government officials to use it if they got a piece of paper from CISA, the cybersecurity thing, saying we think the other stuff is worse.
[22:15:00]
BERMAN: In this case --
NAVARRO: But not for this content.
PAWLENTY: Yes. Yes. I agree with that.
BERMAN: Not for the time with the bombs were going to drop.
All right, everyone, standby. Paul Rieckhoff, great to see you, thank you for coming in.
Next, so did these officials, and we just touched on that, did they break the law and did intelligence officials lie or mislead Congress in their testimony over the last 48 hours. We're going to have more special guests, the kind with law degrees at the table.
Plus, it is the Trump mantra, deny everything, admit nothing, and that has some Trump supporters, despite what Sehrmichael Singleton says, has some Trump supporters furious about the handling of this breach.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE PORTNOY, BARSTOOL SPORTS FOUNDER: You have to lose your job. You should step down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
BERMAN: So, the stench of this Signal scandal may linger for a bit longer than a week, certainly longer than this week. That's thanks to what Trump administration officials put in the group chat and what they said under oath about the group chat. Both those things have Democrats wondering aloud if some of the highest ranking officials in the American government broke the law.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you think that she misled you guys?
SEN. MARTIN HEINRICH (D-NM): Absolutely do.
I rarely try to ascribe intent, but I think it should be very concerning that she was willing to come in front of this committee and represent a set of facts that don't exist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: All right. With us at the table two lawyers, Michael van der Veen, former attorney for President Trump during a second impeachment trial, and Donte Mills, a criminal and civil attorney and law professor at Temple University.
So, really, two separate issues here. Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, who testified before Congress, could they be in jeopardy for telling things that were less than truthful? That's one. Let's dismiss with that -- let's dispense with that quickly, shall we say, anything that could put them in legal jeopardy that they testified to?
DONTE MILLS, CIVIL AND CRIMINAL ATTORNEY: No, we can dispense with that quickly because it has to be designated as top secret, or secret or classified information, and the people who would designated as such are involved in this scandal. So, they're simply going to say, we'd never determined that that information that was included in that Signal text chain was top secret.
NAVARRO: No, but that's not the question. I think the question is did they perjure themselves under oath in front of a congressional committee.
MILLS: If they say there was no top secret information --
NAVARRO: No, when they -- no, that's not the question. All the things -- I mean, yesterday all she said was she didn't recall. Like I wanted to send some Prevagen, some memory supplements to the White House because it's like, my God, these people have no memory of anything.
MICHAEL VAN DER VEEN, FORMER TRUMP IMPEACHMENT ATTORNEY: That's it. You know, the perjury statute requires the element of intent. And if there's no intent, there's no crime. And not only do you have to prove that intent beyond a reasonable doubt. But when you look at the testimony, her testimony is, you know, I don't really remember. And are you going to convict her on that? You're not going to. It's really -- that's a red herring to really what are the bigger issues here and what's in the interest of our country's national security.
BERMAN: And the bigger issue has to do maybe with the Espionage Act. So, explain to me gross, negligent and who may have been either gross or negligent?
VEEN: If I may, the Espionage Act comes from 1915 and it came at the end of -- right at World War I, when Woodrow Wilson in his State of the Union asked for that piece of legislation. And it was always intended until recent amendments, it was always intended for somebody who had information and try to use it to hurt the country. There had to be an intent to harm the nation. They did amend it to add gross negligence, you know?
But gross negligence, you know, some people could even say, is unconstitutionally vague. What's negligence? What's gross negligence? What's reckless negligence? There're standards that are going to be hard to really apply, particularly in this circumstance because nobody alleges, and I don't myself believe that anybody intended to hurt the country. This was certainly negligence because somebody pushed the wrong button to get the wrong guy out.
MILLS: But when you add gross negligence, you no longer need intent. And the one thing about the Espionage Act is it came before the classifications of top secret information, so it doesn't have to be classified. And that's where we get that difference where they're not going to perjure themselves, but they may in fact be responsible under this act because I think there is gross negligence.
When you look at the fact that they knew, there was a report that just came out that said that Signal was not secure. And, in fact, texting through Signal was far less secure than speaking through Signal. They knew that. And then you add the fact that the intent behind why they were on Signal. Essentially, they wanted to make sure that nobody knew and could track what these conversations were because they disappeared. That combination to me is gross negligence.
NAVARRO: Okay. But this is an exercise in theory because they frankly could have blatantly broken the law, but it would have to be remanded by the Republican Congress to the Department of Justice run by Pam Bondi to then do the investigation, grand jury indictment and all of that thing. And neither of those two things, neither -- Congress is not going to remand it to DOJ. And even if they did, by some miracle of God, DOJ is not going to proceed against these folks. So, what else would you like to talk about?
VEEN: The Espionage Act isn't really meant for this circumstances, even I believe the amendments to it aren't really contemplating this. This was not a wide dissemination of information. First of all, it was one person added that shouldn't have been there. But I if you want to say it's grossly negligent, well, maybe you need a thousand people that it got added to that to be grossly negligent.
CARLSON: Would there be anything with regard to intent?
[22:25:00]
I'm going to ask the lawyers with, because Signal disappears or you can set it to disappear.
BERMAN: Exactly.
CARLSON: So, they can't go back while they're testifying and look at their texts that are actually maybe still on their phone to be able to say, oh, yes, now I remember what happened.
MILLS: Of course. That's why they were using Signal to begin with.
CARLSON: Of course.
MILLS: That's why everyone uses Signal. Absolutely.
CARLSON: But does that deflect intent? Does that make it then happen?
VEEN: Well, I don't know.
MILLS: Yes.
VEEN: I heard there was a four-week delay on the -- one week delay of it.
NAVARRO: No. Then Waltz changed it to -- it was initially one week, then Waltz changed it to four weeks.
VEEN: And so does that speak to an intent? I mean, really, I think, and I think I heard you say this before I got on, we really have to figure out how this doesn't happen again. They need to investigate how it happened and make sure it doesn't happen.
MILLS: There has to be some kind of consequence, and to Ana's point, where you have the FBI who would investigate, they're not going to do it, right? Nobody's going to step up. We have to look at the president of the United States. The vice president was on that chain. The only other person that can insert some kind of responsibility or some kind of penalty is the president, he has to step up.
I tell my children all the time, mistakes will happen. No expectation of perfection, but you have to be held accountable. And if you don't do that, it will happen again.
BERMAN: Shermichael, can you conceive of any presidential administration since the creation of the FBI, in the 19 teens, where the FBI would not investigate just to figure out what happened here?
SINGLETON: Yes, I think they should investigate and see where it goes. You have to figure out how you avoid these types of mishaps going forward. I definitely understand wanting to communicate via your phone. It's easy, it's quick. I get it. But in these types of instances, maybe just go to the SCIF room. Yes, it's going to take some time to get to one. Let's just take that easy.
NAVARRO: Shermichael, let's communicate about where we're going to dinner on our hones but not about where we're dropping bombs.
SINGLETON: Well, with technology -- I would imagine with technology, you would be able to encrypt phones. I mean, they have certain devices that are highly encrypted to communicate with. Use those devices and move on.
NAVARRO: You know what --
BERMAN: Very quickly, the fact that these do get erased, whether it be one week or four weeks, that could be another problem, right? The federal, various federal records acts, and retention requirements and there is now a lawsuit.
VEEN: And that's what the lawsuit is about. The lawsuit's really about, you know, you're conducting your business in a way that people are never going to be able to look and see what you were doing. And we, as the fourth estate, or we as the people, have an absolute right to get information that's relevant -- MILLS: And any oversight committee should be able to say, show me those records. If something went wrong during that mission, we need to see what went into it. And they'll say, well, listen, they disappeared.
NAVARRO: I am encouraged that Roger Wicker, the Republican, and Jack Reed, the Democrat, are talking about a joint investigation. And I'll tell you what else I heard in the hearing today in front of the House that I thought, say, what did she just say? I mean, maybe Tulsi Gabbard didn't recall anything about this text thread, but she was very happy to defend her reposting Russia today, state media in Russia and said that this is the, you know, director of National Intelligence saying that she can act in her personal capacity to repost Russian state media.
That, I think, didn't get enough attention.
MILLS: I think the lawsuit has legs. The lawsuit has legs that these government officials are disposing of governmental records that they're not supposed to dispose of.
VEEN: I got to tell you, I couldn't have been happier seeing the news of that lawsuit because it comes right on the heel of the threats and on law firms. And I'm just talking about law firms. You're talking about the M100, the biggest law firms in the world, on the globe are bowing to pressure of you might lose some business from us if you don't do what we tell you to do. And you see the little nonprofit, you know, like David and Goliath saying, I don't care. We have our rights. We're going to file our suits and we're going to keep doing it until the council --
MILLS: And you can't operate the government in secret.
VEEN: He can't stop us either, by the way.
MILLS: You can't talk about being transparent and use Signal.
CARLSON: Can you get Signal from the hard drive? Can't you still get -- can't you subpoena the hard drive to still get the Signal?
BERMAN: It just sort of depends.
CARLSON: Okay.
BERMAN: It sort of depends what you can do or can't do. Sometimes they disappear forever.
Counselors, thank you very much. I feel well represented here. Everyone else, hang on.
Next, it's rare for Republicans to be critical of Donald Trump, but the wake of this breach, will some call balls and strikes on these blunders? We will debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PORTNOY: You can't poo-pooh it. You can't downplay it. You have to sit up there and be like, holy shit, this is a (BLEEP) up of epic proportions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: El Presidente sends a message to the President, in case you haven't been on the Internet in the past ten years or so. El Presidente is Dave Portnoy. Portnoy is the pizza devouring Super Bowl media day crashing gambling degen who runs "Barstool Sports". And while much of conservative media is pretzeling itself to explain the signal scandal, Portnoy, who is often supportive of Trump, is lending no such shelter to the President.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE PORTNOY, "BARSTOOL SPORTS" FOUNDER: Trump, you may love Michael Waltz. You love Pete Hegseth. You may love these guys. Somebody has to go down. To me, it's Michael Waltz. You can't pooh pooh (ph) it. You can't downplay it. You have to sit up there and be like, holy shit (ph). This is a (BEEP) up of epic proportions.
[22:35:00]
There will be accountability. I will get to the bottom of this. I don't care if you're right, left. This -- you -- this is a -- there's nothing being made up here. Jeffrey Goldberg is telling the truth. It's obvious these texts are real. It's obvious they're classified. It's obvious we gave away the strike information two hours before half. This is a mistake that can't happen twice. It cannot happen once.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: And Tim Pawlenty is back with us. You know, it's interesting. He used the S word, the F word, but the A word there might be the most important accountability. Is there any left in this society?
TIM PAWLENTY (R) FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR: Yeah. Well, there -- yes. And there should be. And again, this is something that isn't hard. This is sort of Accountability 101. The facts are what they are. I think the fact that was mishandled is obvious, and we should get back to what we said earlier, which is acknowledge your mistake.
The President should step in and say, if I'm not going to fire all these people because they're still relatively new and he likes them, okay. But at least have a public acknowledgment there's a problem, that you admonish these people and you told them to make sure it never happens again, at a minimum.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, and implements this under communications protocol moving forward.
PAWLENTY: Yeah. And then to your point, I think it goes away in two days after.
SINGLETON: But is this bigger than this? I mean--
GRETCHEN CARLSON, CO-FOUNDER, LIFT OUR VOICES: Yeah. No. Look. I never thought I was going to agree with Dave Portnoy about much of anything, much less retweet him today. But that was a fantastic rant. Okay? And this is what America needs. This is how we come back together as a nation. When you actually have people who tell the truth on both sides.
This is what has been missing from our political discourse since Trump was elected the first time. It's just gone way off the rails to the right and to the left. And 43 percent of the American public is sitting in the middle wanting to have some sort of compromise, wanting people to have accountability, wanting people to tell the truth on both sides.
And Dave Portnoy may have broken through today. I mean, this is somebody who helped elect Trump. He got young men to vote for Trump. He got a bunch of other people to vote for Trump. This, to me, signals to what you were saying earlier, Shermichael. This is bigger to me today than the other stories that Trump has tried to debunk --
ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that was you.
CARLSON: Because you have big supporters who are coming out against him.
NAVARRO: I don't -- I don't, you know, I don't quite follow Portnoy much, but I do know that he takes his dog, Ms. Peaches, everywhere he goes, so I can relate. I thought what was very interesting was today Marco Rubio, who was on that Signal thread, got asked about it. And he said something that nobody else has been able to say out loud. He said, not looking very happy to say it, somebody made a big mistake.
BERMAN: Not just a mistake.
NAVARRO: A big mistake. And there, you know, there have been others like Piers Morgan, also a big supporter of Donald Trump, no fan of mine. And I've got to say, I agree with what he said today. He said, "If you don't consider this to be classified imminent info about imminent war plans, it may be that you are too partisan to recognize the truth when it slaps you around your tribal chops."
But look, going again to what we had said before, I think the only way that there's really, any chance of an investigation and of the principals testifying on this is if there is a bipartisan hearing and investigation called by the Senate or the House. If this is not going to happen in the House, there's a chance that it happens in the Senate.
And if the American people want it to happen, they should pick up their phone. They should call their senator. They should call Roger Wicker, who is the Republican Chair of the Committee, 202-225-3121. That is the Senate switchboard. Call his office and say you are outraged and want an investigation.
SINGLETON: I mean, John, I think -- I think I could be wrong, but I think we're probably going to see the message begin to shift a little bit from the administration. I mean, they're -- they're watching all of these supporters of the President say, hey, just come out and acknowledge the error that occurred so that we can move on.
I've talked to a number of people who are very close to the President. There's not a single person who wants to talk about things that are ready to move on, John.
BERMAN: Is he playing dumb on this?
CARLSON: Yes. Oh, yes.
BERMAN: Because today it was sort of, I don't know if it's classified. Why would he do that?
CARLSON: Well, whenever anyone's going to come against him, he's pretending like he doesn't know what's really going on. I mean, that-- that was my first impression that I had the same exact reaction.
PAWLENTY: But there's also a lot of muscle memory here, which is fight everything, deflect everything, obfuscate everything, never acknowledge a mistake. And this is one example, one at least exception to that general rule, which has worked well for him. Just, it's obvious you could've handled it the way we've been talking about.
SINGLETON: I mean, John Thune agreed with Mike Johnson to increase the debt limit in the reconciliation bill. We're not even talking about that because we're talking about this. I can assure you, most Republicans would prefer to be talking about those kitchen table issues, which matter in a lot of these really tight upcoming special elections.
NAVARRO: I can tell you that if Joe Biden, I think, had said, had answered the way that Donald Trump answered, I mean, sounding completely incoherent regarding signal, he -- Republicans would have wanted him dragged out of the Oval Office straight into a convalescent --
(CROSSTALK)
PAWLENTY: By the way, though, it's interesting. The White House press secretary said from the podium, this is an approved app. So, you know, I'll predict to you as we're sitting here, one of their first defenses is going to be, here's what CISA said or the NSA said or DOD said.
[22:40:05]
BERMAN: Yeah.
PAWLENTY: It was an approved app by somebody. BERMAN: So stand by for that. Next, we got some stunning video of the Trump administration arresting a Tufts student involved in pro Palestinian protests. So, what are the charges and why more institutions are caving to Trump's demands?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Do you see what we're doing with the colleges? And they're all bending.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:06]
BERMAN: Tonight, another student is reportedly in ICE -- in an ICE detention facility.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN (voice-over): This is Rumeysa Ozturk. She is a Tufts graduate student. She is Turkish. She has a valid student visa, and those are plain clothes Homeland Security agents arresting her.
As of now, she is not charged with any crime, that's according to her lawyers. A spokesperson for DHS says she engaged in, quote, "activities in support of Hamas". What that means is murky. What we know she did is co-author a column dated one year ago today, taking Tufts to task for shying away from calling Israel's campaign in Gaza a genocide.
BERMAN (on-camera): With us now at our fifth seat at the table is CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller. John, explain to us what we saw there on the streets, why they were wearing mask, and what's happening in general.
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So, what we saw there is she's on her way to an Iftar dinner to break fast, and she's approached from different directions by six federal agents from Homeland Security. One of them pulls a badge out, on a lanyard, but as they approach her, they all pull their masks up.
They explain to her they're the police. They take her phone in her backpack. They walk her to her car and they drive away. Neighbors are heard yelling, who are you guys? Why are you covering your faces? We're the police. Well, you sure don't look like the police. So, so that's -- that's how the actual incident unfolds.
BERMAN: And what are they saying about -- if anything, or how are they answering or not answering about why they have her, where she is, what happens next?
MILLER: So, it's hard to make out that conversation. There is sound from this kind of ring doorbell, camera, but it's hard to get kind of an exact transcript. But they make it clear they're law enforcement, and that she's under arrest. They -- they put a cuff on one hand, get her backpack off and re cuff -- rear cuff her and walk her to the car.
And that she's in custody and they assure her, you know, she wants to know, can I call my -- and I couldn't hear whether it was lawyer or friend? They said, yeah. You know, you're going to be all right. Everything's going to be okay. You can make a call. But, you know, they wanted to complete that arrest and get it off the street.
CARLSON: What's going to happen here now is whether or not people in America who are here on visas, who are not technically U.S. citizens, whether or not they are allowed to have due process, and whether or not they are allowed to be protected under the first amendment.
And currently, the Supreme Court has ruled that they do have both of those protections. But that's what we're seeing happen with the Columbia student, with now the Tufts student. From what I read, she's all the way in Louisiana.
NAVARRO: But the Columbia student and the Tufts student are --
CARLSON: Different.
NAVARRO: -- are very different because, the -- the Tufts student is here on -- on a visa, an F1 visa, which is a student visa.
MILLER: Columbia student's on a green card.
NAVARRO: She -- the Columbia student has a legal permanent residence, a green card. A green card cannot be rescinded, like, revoked, by the Secretary of State, like a visa can. A green card needs to be taken away by a judge. It can be taken away, but after due process. So, they're two different things. To me, this is performative.
CARLSON: Yeah.
NAVARRO: Because if they want to rescind her visa and send her out, they don't need to arrest her in a way that she looks like she's getting mugged by a gang of men. They can just say, we have rescinded your visa. You need to leave. If she doesn't have a valid F1 visa, she can't be registered to study in Tufts without a student visa.
So, you know, this is like Kristi Noem today in El Salvador doing deportation tourism, where in El Salvador where they have sent people who seemingly have no ties or criminal records. We have seen no evidence of criminal records for any of the people. We haven't even seen their names be released by this administration. It is all performative. Sending them to -- on military planes that cost more than commercial charters.
MILLER: The student -- the student thing though is particular in that with the gang members, and you're correct, they haven't shown what were the standards, what was the tick list, what were the qualifications to be there. But with the students, no one has been particularly even accused of being part of a criminal organization or committing a crime.
So, the struggle here is going to be, A, if you say the sentence out loud, where did Sally go? Well, masked men came in the night and took her away because she was in a protest. That's a very not United States of America kind of conversation. It doesn't have the right feel.
But if you boil it down to, well all right, according to the Department of Homeland Security, Ozturk was involved in support for Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization. But there's something in between, which is, is support for Hamas.
[22:45:00]
That she demonstrated in favor of the Palestinian people. That she wrote that article that the university should divest from investments in Israel, is that, listen. When -- when I was with the NYPD intelligence bureau and the JTTF, the terrorist task force, when we arrested someone for material support of a designated terrorist organization, it meant they sent money, they sent weapons, they sent supplies. The support was material.
The difficulty here is people are being told that their visas are being canceled or they're being deported for activities that would likely be, for an American citizen, one hundred percent constitutionally protected first amendment activity. And that's the rub that's making --
(CROSSTALK)
PAWLENTY: But it is -- it is also -- there's a little more to it because we don't know for sure whether it's just the op-ed she wrote or the article she wrote, or there's more. They just have made a blanket allegation. We'll see what the facts are. But the facts, as we know it under the law are if you support, materially, a terrorist organization and you're here as a visitor, visa or not, you're out.
CARLSON: Yeah.
MILLER: But they would also charge you --
(CROSSTALK)
PAWLENTY: And the Columbia student, you know, there's material support arguably. Here, we don't know. And if -- if there was, you know, obstruction of -- of people on campus, anti-Semitic behavior, threats, we don't know. She should go. She should go.
BERMAN: What if it's the op-ed? What if it's the op-ed?
PAWLENTY: I haven't read the op-ed. But, you know, Hamas, if you are advocating for Hamas, a known and designated terror organization, you know, that's like coming into your house and saying, you know, somebody kidnapped one of your kids. Here's a brochure promoting the kidnappers. You know, first thing I do is punch them in the face, and the second thing I do is throw them the hell out of my house.
SINGLETON: John, at the -- at the height of this last year in May, an entity reached out to me to facilitate a focus group with a cross section of Jewish students. And we talked about their experiences on some of these college campuses across the country. And the onus of the President to showcase that he stands with the Jewish people as we have seen an increase in anti-Semitism is important.
Those students deserve to be able to go to college and learn and be educated. Their parents have the right to know that their children are safe. That is not what we saw last year. So, to your point, governor, if they are going to support Hamas, they should not be here. It's a privilege to study in The United States --
PAWLENTY: That's right.
SINGLETON: It's not a constitutional right.
BERMAN: We do, we obviously need to learn more about what exactly she is.
UNKNOWN: We don't have all the facts.
BERMAN: And we don't have all the facts.
NAVARRO: And we're not going to get them because they -- they feel -- they don't feel at all compelled to show evidence regarding any of this stuff.
BERMAN: Yeah. We'll see. All right. Stand by, everyone. John Miller, thank you very much. Next, the panel gives us their nightcaps. They'll tell us what retro theme they want at a restaurant inspired by a Scranton throwback.
But first, don't miss an all new "United Shades of Scandal" on Lance Armstrong and that's Sunday night, 9 P.M. eastern right here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:30]
BERMAN: All right. We are back, and it's time for the "NewsNight" nightcap. Chili's is opening a restaurant in Scranton and it's claiming the TV show "The Office" as its theme since one of its famous episodes took place there. So, you each have 30 seconds to tell us what retro restaurant theme would you pick? Gretchen, you're up first.
CARLSON: Mary Tyler Moore, okay? She's from Tim and my home state of Minnesota. At least the show was based there. There's still a statue honoring her there where the house was. Number two, she was a journalist. She was an inspiration to me watching the show because she was a trailblazer for women, and she was good at -- at television. And number three, we're going to make it after all, and we need that kind of theme song in America right now.
SINGLETON: Gretchen, which show was that?
CARLSON: Mary Tyler -- oh --
SINGLETON: I'm young. I don't know what show was that?
(CROSSTALK)
CARLSON: Oh, come on over to (inaudible) to Tim and me, okay? Come on -
(CROSSTALK))
CARLSON: --wisdom.
BERMAN: All right, governor.
PAWLENTY: John, I want to hearken back to the days of Republicans and Democrats drinking together and using as our role models, then- President Ronald Reagan and then-Speaker Tip O'Neill, who would argue by day, have drinks by night, and cut bipartisan deals in the weeks to follow. And I think we should have a restaurant where Republicans and Democrats come together at round table, discuss politics, drink, get to know each other, and then vote.
NAVARRO: Sounds like "Cheers", Tim.
PAWLENTY: It could be "Cheers".
CARLSON: I thought you were going to say "Cheers".
UNKNOWN: Political "Cheers". Political "Cheers".
BERMAN: Maybe we had him drink for free. I mean, politicians like free meals (ph).
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: It was a different --
CARLSON: And then go vote (ph).
NAVARRO: I don't know that we should be encouraging Pete Hegseth to drink, but --
UNKNOWN: Come on.
PAWLENTY: You're right, Ana.
UNKNOWN: Ouch.
PAWLENTY: Go ahead.
NAVARRO: All right. I would like a restaurant based on "The Golden Girls" which I love, the four strong women, maybe even a drag brunch that we could have, now that they can -- now that they can't be in many other places. I'd like to go to a drag brunch based on "The Golden Girls".
BERMAN: Who's your favorite Golden Girl?
NAVARRO: Oh, that's -- that's so hard, but I think I'm -- I think I'm a Blanche girl myself. Yes. There's something that I love about the sassy slut.
CARLSON: Oh my God.
BERMAN: You know, we were always big Bea Arthur fans in college. Bea Arthur was something of a hero.
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
NAVARRO: Who's your favorite girl?
BERMAN: Bea Arthur. I don't remember the names. I just remember Bea.
CARLSON: Estelle.
BERMAN: Estelle.
CARLSON: Estelle was her mother.
NAVARRO: Estelle was Bea Arthur.
CARLSON: No, no, it was her mother.
NAVARRO: Yeah. Dorothy.
CARLSON: And Shermichael, by the way, you didn't say to Ana. I've never heard of that show.
SINGLETON: I've heard of it.
CARLSON: Oh.
SINGLETON: I have heard of that show.
CARLSON: Oh.
NAVARRO: Bea Arthur was Dorothy.
BERMAN: He's also sitting next to Ana so --
(CROSSTALK)
BERMAN: All right, Shermichael. Go ahead.
NAVARRO: Tell me your strength without telling me your strength. You don't know Dorothy?
SINGLETON: The show that I would or the movie that I would have a restaurant built off of would be "Back to the Future".
[23:00:03]
So, memorabilia there. I love the show. I love the idea and the concept of thinking about the future, what's to come. As a young person, I'm super excited about the future. A lot of my friends are excited about the future. There are so many immense opportunities for a lot of us in this country, more so than any other time in the history of this country. That's exciting. Let's think about what's ahead of us, not what's behind us.
BERMAN: It is a movie that celebrates kissing your mother, I'm just going to say.
SINGLETON: I love my mother.
BERMAN: I'm just going to say, Shermichael, maybe not that much.
SINGLETON: Not that much though, John.
BERMAN: All right. Everyone, thank you all so much for playing. Really appreciate it. Thank you all for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
