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White House in Damage Control After Journalist Added to War Plans Chat; Justice Department Invoke State Secrets Privilege in Deportation Case. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired March 25, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Even diamond dust, you could basically mimic a volcano and reflect enough of Sun's energy to cool the earth by a degree or two, while humanity figures out how to decarbonize down here. This has never been tried. It's never even been tested.

One study by Harvard up in Sweden was shut down immediately. There was something they were doing off the California coast just to test misting machines to see if this would even work from a physics. That was shut down by angry, concerned lawmakers there.

And so there's real concern that if this is needed eventually, it will be preempted by local laws right now. But the two things really have nothing to do with each other, Kate. There is chemicals in the sky that is harming human health that's coming from petrochemical plants and fracking operations and all kinds of polluting industries.

The EPA seems to be backing away from that right now. But yesterday, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., gave some heat to this chemtrail geoengineering theory, which which really doesn't exist at all right now. But it is in the zeitgeist on the right.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: But thankfully for you, Bill, we can actually have some clarity on this, which, to be honest, is not hard to keep clear. And thank you so much. It's great to see you. Thank you, Bill, as always -- wild.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

How far will the fallout reach over what Politico deemed one of the dumbest security breaches of recent times? What will Mike Waltz say about adding a journalist to a group chat sharing classified detail about military strikes in Yemen? Maybe some answers to come soon when two of the nation's top intel chiefs testify before Congress.

Also new this morning, the latest move by the Trump administration in the legal fight over his deportation authority, invoking the state's secrets privilege, effectively telling a judge we don't have to provide you with the information you need.

And a traffic stop leads to the rescue of a six-year-old girl missing for over a month. I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman and Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS

CENTRAL.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this morning, a reporter has entered the chat. We are waiting to hear from President Trump on the future of national security adviser Mike Waltz. We're waiting to hear from Waltz himself for the first time since it was revealed a journalist was added to a Signal group text chain about strikes in Yemen before they happened.

It is a stunning intelligence breach. Discussions like this are not supposed to happen on a commercial messaging app and they're not supposed to include a journalist. It appears it was Waltz who added the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg to the chain.

This morning, Politico and others are reporting there are questions about whether Waltz can survive the day after what it calls one of the dumbest security breaches of recent times.

All of this setting up this potentially explosive day on Capitol Hill very shortly. Two other officials that were on this text chain, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, they are going to face lawmakers testifying on Capitol Hill in a previously scheduled hearing.

With us now is Shelby Talcott, White House correspondent for Semafor. Shelby, thanks so much for being with us. What happens next?

It's 8:02 a.m. Do you know where your national security adviser is?

SHELBY TALCOTT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, SEMAFOR: Yes, that's the ultimate question is what happens next. And I found it was notable yesterday, White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt issued a statement that explicitly defended Mike Waltz and said that the president remains behind him.

And I thought that was notable because that's actually how a whole cohort of of advisers inside the White House are thinking. They believe that Mike Waltz can weather this storm and they're kind of hoping that he can weather this storm. And there's a sense, actually, that there's a reluctance to get rid of Mike Waltz almost solely because Democrats want someone's head over this. And so the administration is reluctant.

But at the same time, I've talked to a number of people inside and around the White House who are wondering whether or not Mike Waltz is going to be able to survive this. And, you know, I'm told that Donald Trump is going to be looking very closely at the coverage over the next few days and at the fallout to see whether he can get past this.

BERMAN: Yes, notably, we haven't heard from President Trump exactly on Mike Waltz yet.

TALCOTT: Yes, that's right. He's been very quiet, uncharacteristically quiet when he was asked yesterday. He said it was the first time he was hearing about it. I'm told that he was briefed on the situation yesterday afternoon, but we haven't seen him post on True Social about it. We really haven't seen anything from the president. And I think that's important because, you know, the the folks I'm talking to inside and around the White House really by and large think that Mike Waltz is going to be OK in this.

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But I've also talked to people who have argued that even if Mike Waltz remains as national security advisor, there's questions over whether he can be trusted. Is he going to be kind of quietly sidelined if he does not get fired?

BERMAN: And what will be the form when we hear from him for the first time? And we could get a sense of the tenor in Washington overall very shortly. There will be this hearing on Capitol Hill where we'll hear from Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe, where they will face questions. And the tenor of those questions, I think, will be notable. What are you expecting?

TALCOTT: I think Democrats are going to ask a lot of questions. It's going to be a Democratic heavy questioning when it comes to these Signal chats. But I'm really curious to see how their responses jive with Pete Hegseth's response, which we heard him yesterday kind of go after the Atlantic reporter and sort of suggest that this was a deceitful reporting, which was interesting because the administration has not, you know, pushed back on the contents of this Signal chat or really how this was reported out.

BERMAN: Yes, they confirm the authenticity of the chat. And we all saw the exchanges back and forth that dealt with things like targeting and like the weapons being used.

Shelby Talcott, great to see you this morning. Thank you very much -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: The Republicans do just what they were talking about. Republicans are finding it hard to defend such a remarkable breach of national security. Democrats are calling for a full investigation and for officials to be held accountable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: This debacle requires a full investigation into how this happened, the damage it created and how we can avoid it in the future. If these detailed exchanges about coordinating military operations fell into the hands of America's enemies, it could get people killed.

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: This should absolutely be a congressional investigation. This is reckless, irresponsible and dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BOLDUAN: Seen as Lauren Fox tracking the fallout from Capitol Hill for us, she's joining us now. And Lauren, there is a role for Congress here, the the many committees with oversight on the various aspects of what a mess this is. What are you hearing there?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there's really three different groups of Republicans right now on Capitol Hill. And we just have to remind everyone, Democrats do not get to decide whether or not there's an investigation because they don't control the House, nor do they control the Senate. That means that it's going to be up to Republican leaders to decide how to move forward.

And right now you sort of have these three groups. You have Republicans who are dismissing this outright, saying that, yes, it was a mistake, but people make mistakes. You have some Republicans who say that this was a huge screw up.

And then you have other Republicans, many -- much fewer than the larger groups that are arguing that there needs to be accountability. And here's what we heard yesterday from some key Republicans, including Speaker Johnson.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), HOUSE SPEAKER: I think the administration has acknowledged it was a mistake and they'll tighten up and make sure it doesn't happen again. I don't know what else you can say about that.

SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): Well, it was a mistake. You know, we make mistakes. We all make mistakes. And I don't know how it happened.

SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS): It's a concern. And we're going to look into it. It appears that mistakes were made. No question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And Roger Wicker there at the end is an extremely important senator to keep an eye on here because he is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He would have jurisdiction to look into this, to launch a fuller investigation. It's unclear from those comments whether or not this would be a prolonged investigation or this will just be the senator trying to get some answers to key questions that he has.

But then there are other Republicans like Senator Lisa Murkowski, who's been outspoken at times against the Trump administration on issues that she finds concerning. She says there has to be accountability. You have Shelley Moore Capito, another Republican from West Virginia, saying that this is concerning.

John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, describing this as a huge screw up. And then John Kennedy, who I talked to yesterday from the state of Louisiana, who told me that moms and dads across America are not going to lose sleep over this and quote, this is not going to lead to the apocalypse. Obviously, we're going to get a lot more fallout today during that

worldwide threats hearing on Capitol Hill, where you can expect that some of those top national security officials are going to be in the hot seat answering questions from very angry Democrats and even some Republicans -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Lauren, thank you so much. Good to see you -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you.

All right. Joining me now to talk about all of this is CNN military analyst and retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton and Sabrina Singh, a former deputy Pentagon press secretary.

I'm going to start with you, Colonel. All right, every Republican we just heard Manu Raju talk to said this was a mistake. It was a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. So, Colonel, if you if you were still serving and you were responsible for an intelligent leaks like this, could this also be a crime or at least something to be court- martialed over?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, absolutely, Sara. Good morning.

[08:10:00]

There is a very clear provision within the UCMJ, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, as well as under the Espionage Act. So in those particular cases, if I were to do something like that, I would have not only been, you know, lost my job, I would have been court- martialed probably or at the very least disciplined in such a way that I probably would have had to leave the service or at least potentially be reduced in rank.

There's even the potential for prison time for this kind of thing. So a careless behavior like this does create a lot of problems. And it certainly does create problems for those who serve in the military if they engage in behavior that is as careless as this.

SIDNER: Yes, so you're sort of saying the way the military would see this is not just as a mistake, but as something that should never have been able to happen in the first place.

Sabrina, let me ask you this. In your estimation, when you look at all the things that happened, who was on the chat, how the reporter was added, should heads roll over this obvious intelligence breach?

SABRINA SINGH, FORMER DEPUTY PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: I think absolutely there has to be accountability. And you're not just talking about some government employees. You're talking about the entire national security apparatus from, you know, senior cabinet officials, including the secretary of state and Secretary Hegseth being on this chat talking about classified details on an unclassified text app.

And, you know, I know there's a lot of focus on Mike Waltz right now, but I think it's important to remember that it is Secretary of Defense Hegseth who allegedly shared details of an ongoing operation in the chat, including, you know, leadership names of who was going to be targeted, the timing and the locations.

If any adversary had intercepted these these text messages, I mean, we have fighters up in the air that were about to conduct those operations. Their lives are absolutely put at risk with messages like this being disclosed in an unclassified setting.

So absolutely. But not only should there be accountability, there should be hearings looking into what exactly happened here so this doesn't ever happen again.

SIDNER: We will see whether or not that happens with Republicans having control of both houses. I do want to ask you, Colonel Leighton, how is this supposed to work? How are plans like this supposed to be shared?

LEIGHTON: Yes, Sara, that always happens in a very secure space, and basically what you're looking at is a secure room known as a SCIF, a secure compartmented information facility. That is the area where these things are supposed to happen in face to face meetings in terms of communications. There are classified systems on the secret side of the Supernet is what it's called.

On the even higher classification side, there's a system known as JWICS in which these kinds of discussions take place and any type of contingency operation plan, any of those kinds of things would have to be conducted on what they call the high side, which is one of those two systems. And in this particular case, all of those discussions should have been held on those particular systems and not on a commercially available encrypted app like Signal.

SIDNER: Sabrina, to you now, Hegseth has said, you know, publicly, oh, there were no war plans leaked when literally the reporter who was on this particular chat shows that there were war plans leaked. And Hegseth is doubling down and not only doing so but attacking the reporter who didn't ask to be on the chain but was added to the chain. What do you make of the way that they're trying to -- Hegseth himself is trying to spin this?

SINGH: I mean, I think it's exactly that they're going to try and spin this. They're going to try and throw you know, they're going to try and throw insults at this reporter. The reality is, is, you know, the Signal thread was set up. The reporter was added. Obviously, that was a reckless way of not only just conducting a normal business, but to add a reporter and no one on the chat even checking who was on it.

But I think the larger question here as well is this is clearly not the first time. I mean, the fact that the reporter did get added to this thread, how many more threads are there like this out there? And so, you know, for Hegseth to go out there and deny and try and, you know, denigrate this reporter, the reality is, is that the NSC stood by these text messages and said they are authentic.

So I think right now what really needs to happen is there needs to be an investigation into this. Certainly, if it were any other government employee, they would immediately be put on leave. The Department of Defense would have opened up an investigation. And I think no doubt you would have heard more Republicans in Congress calling for that person to be removed from their position.

SIDNER: Colonel Cedric Leighton, Sabrina Singh, thank you both so much. Really appreciate it -- John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, the Trump administration is refusing to hand over information about two controversial deportation flights that would help determine if they violated an order from a federal judge.

A protest outside a Tesla dealership ends in an arrest after a man drove his car into a group of demonstrators.

[08:15:00]

And a six year old has been rescued after being kidnapped and held for a month. How a traffic stop led to her safe return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, this morning, defiance from the Justice Department over questions from a federal judge. Attorney General Pam Bondi is invoking the State Security Act, saying the court has all the facts it needs after a judge asked for more information about the timing of deportation flights and the identity of those on board to determine whether the administration deliberately flouted judicial orders.

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With us now, Elie Honig, CNN's senior legal analyst, former federal prosecutor. Elie, it's been at least like two and a half hours since I last spoke to you on television. The State Secrets Act, explain to me exactly what it is and what it means in this case.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, John, this is when the government says to a court or a judge, this information is so sensitive that we cannot turn it over to you to use in a court proceeding. Now, it's very rarely invoked over our history, only about a dozen or so times, give or take. And usually judges do defer to the government when they raise this privilege.

However, the district judge here, Judge Boasberg, has already expressed skepticism on the record. He basically says, how secret, how classified, how sensitive could this information be about those flights when you, the government, have A, already given me some information about the flights, and B, you created this video showing some of the people in the process of being moved. So, I think Judge Boasberg's going to rule on this privilege really quickly, and if he denies it, look for it to be appealed.

BERMAN: So, where does this whole case stand right now, Elie? Because you have that going on with Judge Boasberg exactly, and then the appeals court hearing yesterday. HONIG: Yes, so yesterday, there was a separate hearing in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. That's one level above the district judge, Judge Boasberg, one level below the U.S. Supreme Court. And the big issue is, can the hold that Judge Boasberg has put on further deportations, can that remain in place?

And interestingly, I think importantly, the challengers yesterday said to the Court of Appeals, if you lift that hold, we ask you, Court of Appeals, to put your own decision on pause, because we think if there's even a period of a few hours where the hold is not in place, we think they, the government, are going to start deporting more people under this Alien Enemies Act.

So, I think we're going to hear from the Court of Appeals within a matter of days, not weeks. They clearly understand the time sensitivity here, and whoever loses is certainly going to ask the Supreme Court to get involved next.

BERMAN: All right let's talk about the story that has exploded over the last 24 hours. Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic writing about this Signal Group text chain he was invited to, discussing war plans, attack plans on Yemen. There have been people suggesting that a law could have been broken here, Elie.

What law is in play, and what are the right questions to ask pertaining that law?

HONIG: So, there is a federal law that people often look at in situations like this, and it's a rare one because it actually does not require intentionality. Most of our criminal laws require some intentional violation of the law. This one actually applies to gross negligence.

What it says, it's section 793 -- if anyone wants to look it up -- but it says that it is a crime to remove sensitive information from its proper place of custody grossly, negligently. So, I think in terms of the question you asked, what else would we need to know?

First of all, is this information sensitive enough that it qualifies? It certainly seems the answer there is yes. It seems this information related to a planned military strike.

Second of all, was it removed from or kept outside of its proper place of custody? Signal chat -- I'm not a super expert on this -- but seems to me to be not the place where this information is supposed to be stored. And then the trickiest question is, was it grossly negligent of the players to do this?

And I want to be clear, the gross negligence part wouldn't necessarily be the inadvertently inviting Jeffrey Goldberg, the journalist, into this. I mean, that certainly would be one of the aspects of it, but I think the real question about negligence is just maintaining this Signal chat among top U.S. officials, would that itself be grossly negligent? So, there's a lot of facts we still need to know, but that's the law that people usually look at in situations like this.

BERMAN: Yes, to get those answers, someone would have to investigate. Who would be the body investigating here?

HONIG: Well, that could be the big catch-22 here. Ordinarily, the Justice Department would take a look at this. There's a National Security Division. I think there's a 0 percent chance Pam Bondi authorizes an investigation, a criminal investigation of this case.

You then look to Congress. You saw Lauren Fox reporting in the last segment about how that might go. I mean, the Republicans control both houses. They certainly have the authority to launch a robust investigation. They have subpoena power, but that's the Republican Party. They're the majority now.

There's really not a whole heck of a lot the Democrats can do as the minority party. For example, they can't issue subpoenas, for the most part, as the minority party.

So, I think that's the big question. Who's going to be in position to meaningfully dig down and investigate this? I certainly would not look at the Justice Department, given what we know already about leadership there.

BERMAN: Elie Honig, CNN senior legal analyst. I need my Elie Honig fix every few hours. Thank you. Thank you so much.

SIDNER: Don't we all. Thanks, guys. OK.

[08:25:00]

Ahead, from legal battles to leaked military plans, Donald Trump's first two months in office have been eventful, to say the least.

This morning, new polling shows what the people think about what he's done in these first few months and what the GOP has done.

And a spring heat wave is hitting the western part of the country. Several cities could see record high temperatures, even into the triple digits. Not joking here. Look at this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: This morning, we're going to take a look at recent polling for Donald Trump and the GOP. And the only person that's going to do that on this show is this guy, chief data analyst, Harry Enten. The most energy in the morning that you will ever see and he doesn't drink coffee.

All right, let's start with this. Historically, you know, you talk about Trump being sort of unpopular. What are the numbers showing us?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes, I think sometimes it's important to do a little bit of reality check and take a little different spin at the numbers. I'm going to do that right here because all we talk about is how unpopular Donald Trump is. But in reality, he's basically more popular than he was at any point in term number one.

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