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French President Macron Hosts Ukrainian President Zelenskyy; Defense Secretary Insists Yemen Chat Didn't Contain "War Plans"; Democrats Call For Hegseth, Waltz To Resign; Palestinians Take Part In Largest Anti-Hamas Demonstrations In Gaza Since Start Of War; Prince Harry Quits Own Charity Over Leadership Row. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired March 26, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): And this sharing, this data, sharing is necessary for our armed forces. So, these -- these problems have gone away. President Trump has unblocked the support. We are grateful to the American side. And this is a lot.

Next steps regarding a ceasefire. We have spoken about that today and we will hope and believe that America has enough strength to force Putin to an unconditional ceasefire.

EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): So, Russia was once walked to conquer a maximum amount of territory in Ukraine, and Ukraine wants to release it. We want a durable peace. And the territorial question will be completely solved. Thats part of the discussion, but it will be very difficult.

MAX FOSTER, CNN HOST: Okay, hearing there from President Macron, also, President Zelenskyy, ahead of this very big meeting of European leaders on Thursday, some updates there about France providing $2 billion in military support, wants to mobilize partners on Tuesday. Really looking ahead to this idea that Europe needs to have a solution to the gap now existing in its defenses, because America won't be as present effectively according to everything the Trump administration has said to defend Europe. So, what will that look like?

We're going to bring in Carl Bildt. He's a former prime minister of Sweden, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

You were watching that, Carl. Thank you so much for joining us.

What was new in there that stood out to you?

CARL BILDT, FORMER SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER: Not very much, to be quite honest.

There are preparations going on for the meeting that is going to happen in Paris tomorrow. Thats going to be a continuation of the discussions that are ongoing between European leaders in different constellations. The Paris meeting tomorrow is in a somewhat broader group than just the E.U., and that is important to bring the different commitments of further support to Ukraine to the table. That we haven't a clue what has been agreed or not agreed between the Russians and the Americans, and it doesn't seem to -- doesn't seem to me that they know that either.

And that means that, well, the only thing that is certain, really, is that Mr. Putin has not agreed to the ceasefire that President Trump has -- has demanded. And in the expectations of that, of course, continued support for Ukraine, as I think we can do. And that's what the European leaders are concentrating on.

FOSTER: But is it, do you think the meeting tomorrow will be dominated about how to get as much money, military support to Ukraine as possible, or the longer term idea that Europe actually needs a stronger defense force of its own.

BILDT: I think it's going to be all of that. Theres going to be obviously, the immediate needs for continued support to Ukraine. There's already quite a lot in the pipeline. But you heard a further commitment by President Macron on a further 2 billion in French military support. That is certainly welcome.

Then, we have the big European support packages that are there, and then we have the discussion about the possible presence in Ukraine after the ceasefire. And then we have the rather separate but discussions ongoing in different countries, how we should strengthen the support of Europe as a whole, in view of the uncertainty that is Russia and Mr. Putin in the future.

So, there's quite a lot on the table at the moment.

FOSTER: Obviously, there was some offense caused in Europe from this, signal debate that came out of the U.S. cabinet members and how Europe was described as freeloading. To some extent people are saying it's true. Europe has -- has freeloaded a bit on American support, on defense.

Do you think that will be a big topic of discussion tomorrow?

BILDT: I don't think they're necessarily going to be a discussion topic tomorrow. But, of course, there has been Europeans have noted again that particularly. Vice President Vance keeps insulting European allies. He's done it with the British and the French.

Previously, he said the other day that Denmark was not a good ally. He talked about the European screaming. When we talk of territorial integrity, in this case of Denmark, and I mean, they speak about European allies with disdain, and that has been duly noted.

FOSTER: Yeah. Carl Bildt, thank you. Diplomatic as ever.

Now, our calls from Democrats for the resignations of top Trump administration officials growing louder this hour with the White House holding its ground and pushing back this after those details were published in "The Atlantic". New details today from a group chat on U.S. war plans in Yemen that inadvertently included a journalist.

[15:05:00]

Those details are pretty specific. The weapons about to be used and the timing of the strikes with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth texting out, quote, this is when the first bombs will definitely drop. Those same top intelligence officials once again face tough questions on Capitol Hill about the remarkable breach.

This is what the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had to say today as Democrats made fresh calls for her or for the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to resign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: My answer yesterday was based on my recollection or the lack thereof, on the details that were posted there, I was not -- and the -- what was shared today reflects the fact that I was not directly involved with that part of the Signal chat.

REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): So, it's your testimony that less than two weeks ago, you were on a Signal chat that had all of this information about F-18s and MQ-9 Reapers and targets on strike. And you, in that two-week period, simply forgot that that was there? That's your testimony?

GABBARD: My testimony is I did not recall the exact details of what was included there.

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): This is classified information. This is classified information. It's a weapon system as well as sequence of strikes as well as details about the operations. And so, I think that just piggybacking off of what some other members have said, using the DOD's manual as well as the executive order in operation today with the Trump administration, this text message is clearly classified information.

Secretary Hegseth has disclosed military plans as well as classified information. He needs to resign immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Members of the administration, including Hegseth, continue to insist no classified information was shared. Here's what he told reporters in the last hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Nobody's texting war plans. I noticed this morning, out came something that doesn't look like war plans. And as a matter of fact, they even changed the title to attack plans because they know it's not war plans. There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information. You know who sees war plans? I see them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Joining us now, CNN senior White House reporter Kevin Liptak and our cybersecurity reporter as well, Sean Lyngaas.

Thank you both for joining us.

Kevin, I mean, it's all about whether or not this was classified information, right? I -- presumably "The Atlantic" felt it was able to go ahead with publishing the rest of the conversation because the president says it wasn't classified information. But so many people around the world saying it's debatable.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah. And what they're trying to do is make a semantics argument that because now "The Atlantic" is calling this attack plans and not war plans, that they're backing off their original assertion. And when you hear Pete Hegseth there trying to tick through all of the items that weren't included in that chat, what he's essentially doing is ignoring what was included in the chat, which was a very detailed timeline of when these particular American weapons would be launched against the Houthis in Yemen.

And so, they're walking a very fine line here. You have heard the White House, the Defense Department really entrenched in this argument that they didn't share any classified information. This continued to be a topic at the White House press briefing today.

Listen to how the Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt cast all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We have said all along no war plans were discussed, no classified material was sent. You have the secretary of defense saying that. You have the director of the CIA, the director of national intelligence, the FBI director, all testifying to that under oath. And they should be trusted with that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: So, when Karoline Leavitt was asked directly whether anyone would be fired for all of this, she sort of deflected. She said that according to the president, who she had just spoken with, he retained confidence in members of his national security team.

I do think it was interesting what we heard from Marco Rubio, who's the secretary of state. He was on this chat, although he did not participate in it extensively. He's traveling in Jamaica and said that someone did make a big mistake here. He said that when he was asked whether this was classified information, he said the Pentagon says that it's not, sort of declining to come up with an answer that he could attribute to himself. And he also said that there will be reforms and changes made.

So, I do think it's clear that there are some members of this administration who do think that this was a bigger error than perhaps the White House is letting on. You have also heard that from Republicans on Capitol Hill, including the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker, who is calling for an independent investigation into how all of this transpired. [15:10:11]

One last thing that Karoline Leavitt said at the briefing today was that now the National Security Council, the White House counsel's office, and Elon Musk, who is the billionaire who is a top adviser in this White House, are now all tasked with trying to figure out how a journalist got onto this chat, sort of essentially not looking at the chat itself where it says Mike Waltz added Jeffrey Goldberg to this chat himself.

So, kind of tying themselves in knots as they look for an explanation to how all of this unfolded.

FOSTER: Yeah, I want to ask Sean about that because, you know, we're hearing the Trump administration talk about this investigation into how a journalist got into this chat, but it's not really that complicated, is it? And it, obviously, a big part of the hearings today.

SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY REPORTER: Not as I see it, Max. It seems that -- that as Kevin said, Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, added Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat. Now, whether he knew that was Jeffrey Goldberg or not remains to be seen. He's saying he seems to not have known that. But I'm struggling to understand what the investigation would unearth when it seems very straightforward and you notice that, as in previous instances, the administration is sort of leaning on Elon Musk and his so-called technical experts. In this case, it's quite straightforward.

And this scandal has brought to light more, much more attention on the Signal messaging app. It's been in use for many years, and it is not a perfect form of messaging. It's got good encryption. But anyone you talk to in a national security space will tell you that sensitive, detailed information and what many say in this case was classified information should not have been shared in that medium.

FOSTER: Okay, Sean. Kevin, as ever, thank you.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee argues that Hegseth didn't share war plans.

Let's get some perspective from CNN military analyst, Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Cedric, you always break these things down and sometimes it's a bit embarrassing to the extent to which I ask you to break things down, but can you just define what a war plan is for us?

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Sure, Max.

It's -- basically, it's a very large, voluminous piece of paper, basically, and it has all kinds of sections to it. So, you would have in a war, in a real war plan, you would have basically what the task is. You would have the geographic area that the war plan was supposed to be executed in. And it's definitely a forward-looking document. So, it would have the purported types of weapons systems that would be

used, like so in so many F-18s would be used, so in so many F-16s, there's composition of army forces, et cetera. Those are the kinds of things that would be in a real war plan. So, ,what they're trying to do here is basically say, because that wasn't in the text messages on Signal, that we're not talking about a real war plan. So, technically, they're correct.

However, what they have in here are the actual components of, at the very least, an operations order, which is what you use to actually task military forces to conduct specific operations. And that's what we see here, is the elements of an operations order. And that's what was basically in the Signal chat group.

FOSTER: So that's -- I'm interested in what you're saying they're technically right here. But the technicality they're relying on is that a war plan would be a large document. This wasn't a large document. Therefore, it's not a war plan.

LEIGHTON: Right. Thats exactly, exactly the technicality they're relying on. But the problem that they have is the elements that are listed in the chat group, and that especially Secretary Hegseth posted.

All of those elements are under normal circumstances, classified elements. And especially given the fact that he was doing he was kind of a combination between an operations order and what we call a sitrep, which is short for situation report. And that's the kind of report that is sent as things are actually happening. All of those are classified elements and should be handled accordingly.

FOSTER: But we could just -- logic would dictate, wouldn't it, what we're talking about, whether or not it would, they could have undermined military planning, right? That's really the concern here.

LEIGHTON: Yeah.

FOSTER: But if someone on the Houthis side had seen this, it would have undermined their planning. Isn't that the fundamental question here?

LEIGHTON: It is the fundamental question. So, the reason that you classify things like this is because you don't want the adversary or even a potential adversary to know what you're going to do. You don't even want them to know what kinds of weapons you're going to use, when you're going to employ them, how you're going to employ them.

All of that stuff is supposed to be basically off the table for any adversary, and you want to make it really difficult for them to gain access to that kind of information.

[15:15:07]

So even though they're in some ways they're technically correct at the White House, the main part of the argument is actually a faulty argument, because what they're telling you is that you don't need to worry about it because "The Atlantic" used the wrong terminology in its reporting. That's not the point. The point is the information that you put out there on a system that is while it's encrypted, as Sean mentioned, it is not of the grade of encryption that is approved by the U.S. government for use in these kinds of transmissions.

So that's -- that's really the crux of the argument. They used the wrong method of communication. And they said way too much on a system that, you know, clearly could be accessed by someone who is invited to the -- to the group chat, in this case.

FOSTER: I am just going to ask you about the terminology, because we can't avoid it because it's part of the story here. So, is there a difference between a war plan and an attack plan?

LEIGHTON: Yes. So, yeah, technically -- well, here's -- here's the real issue. The term war plan is actually not something that we use in the U.S. military right now. We use it more colloquially as opposed to an official -- official term.

The actual term of an attack plan would be a more modern usage, but still somewhat colloquial. The war plan terminology was used in World War II. It is not used today. Attack plans are basically the type of terminology that's used as well as operations order, which is the one that directs you, that actually gives the order to the units involved to conduct the operations.

So that's kind of what -- what you're dealing with here. It's a semantic morass, I suppose.

FOSTER: If you were working in intelligence now underneath these figures, would it make you apprehensive about sharing intelligence with your -- your cabinet?

LEIGHTON: Yes, I -- and I think that really speaks to a larger question, you know, as to whether or not these people can be trusted with the portfolios that they've been entrusted with. I -- they are clearly not experienced as or at least as experienced as they should be in these areas. Each one of them has really not dealt with the intelligence world on a continual basis throughout their careers. They've had in some cases, they've had some exposure to it, but they're really not the right professional mix for those kinds of positions.

FOSTER: Okay. Thank you, Colonel Cedric Leighton, for breaking that down for us. We're going to talk about it again. Look forward to having you back.

Still to come, a Turkish grad student is taken into custody in the U.S. What her attorney says about this arrest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:21:01]

FOSTER: Hamas officials speaking out about the largest anti-Hamas protests in Gaza since the start of the war, and social media messages are calling for more demonstrations. The Hamas government media office tells CNN the protests by Palestinians do not reflect what it calls the national position. Officials say they are due to, quote, unprecedented pressure on Palestinians in the region. Protesters have been yelling anti-Hamas chants, with some holding messages that say enough of displacement and homelessness, enough of destruction, stop the bloodshed.

These protests come as Israels prime minister is threatening to take territory in Gaza if the remaining hostages aren't freed. Meanwhile, the violence in the region continues. Overnight, the Palestine Red Crescent says eight people, including five children, were killed by Israeli airstrikes. And Israel says two rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ISRAEL KATZ, ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER (through translator): Residents of Gaza, the IDF will soon operate forcefully in additional areas in Gaza, and you will be required to evacuate for your own protection from the combat zones. The plans are ready and approved. Hamas is endangering your lives and will cause you to lose your homes and more and more territory that will be added to the Israeli defense system.

Learn from the residents of Beit Lahia as they did. You too will demand the removal of Hamas from Gaza and the immediate release of all Israeli hostages. This is the only way to stop the war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Now, Hamdan Ballal, an Oscar winning Palestinian director, is now free from Israeli custody. Ballal has returned home to the village of Susya in the occupied West Bank, where he was attacked by Israeli settlers and detained by the Israeli military, according to eyewitnesses.

Ballal is a high profile victim, but the assault is one of many that Israeli settlers have been committing, have committed recently against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Here's our Nada Bashir.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jewish peace activists say these pictures show the moment they were attacked by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. CNN has geolocated the videos, which were captured in the area where Oscar winning director Hamdan Ballal was assaulted on Monday, according to colleagues and eyewitnesses.

Ballal's Palestinian co-director Basel Adra tells CNN Ballal had called him in distress on Monday, after which he went to visit Ballal's home. When he arrived, Adra says he saw Ballal and at least one other person being taken away by Israeli soldiers.

According to Adra, a group of Israeli settlers, some of whom were throwing stones, had gathered outside Ballal's home, as well as Israeli soldiers who he says were firing at anyone who tried to get close.

The Israeli military described the scene as a violent confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis, who are throwing rocks at each other. It said the fight broke out after several, quote, terrorists hurled rocks at Israeli citizens, damaging their vehicles.

Three Palestinians and an Israeli were taken in for questioning. Yuval Abraham, an Israeli co-director of the film who did not witness the incident, said Ballal sustained injuries to his head and abdomen.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Attorneys for Mahmoud Khalil, the detained Columbia University graduate student, are renewing their request for his temporary release. Right now, he's in U.S. federal custody, fighting deportation, accused of being a Hamas sympathizer. The U.S. Justice Department argues Khalil willfully engaged in immigration fraud. His lawyers deny those allegations and accused the federal government of holding him in retaliation for his political activism.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino is in New York.

And this fits into a much wider trend, which many people find concerning.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Max. In fact, we are literally just getting new reporting about yet another international student that appears to have been targeted by the Trump administration.

[15:25:10]

We have obtained video of an arrest by federal agents in Boston yesterday. This is showing the arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk. And I want to just show you the video.

You can see that there are agents that appear to approach her as she is walking down the street. They proceed to put on a facial coverings. Some of them are wearing sunglasses. One appears to flash a badge. They remove her backpack. She is trying to speak to them.

It's not quite very clear from the video, but you can hear that she is trying to speak to them. They say to her, we are the police. They proceed to handcuff her and then you're going to see as she is led away from this sidewalk and put into an SUV.

Now, here's what we know about the student. She is a Turkish national. She is a graduate student at Tufts University in Boston.

I've been speaking with her lawyer, who has told me that she is on a student visa, an F-1 visa, which is typically given to foreign nationals who come into the U.S. for academic studies. She also has told me that her client has been taken into custody, but she has no idea why, neither the government or ICE has notified her of any charges. She also has not been able to locate where the client is being detained at this moment.

So, as you said, we are continuing to watch what appears to be a trend here in the United States of international students being targeted. We don't know yet what about this students background could have potentially made her a target for immigration enforcement. Hopefully, we will learn those details soon.

In the meantime, we are also watching Mahmoud Khalil's case. He will be having -- there will be a hearing on that case at the end of this week, as the government is continuing to argue that his case should be heard in the state of Louisiana, where he is currently being held. We told you earlier this week about new immigration fraud charges against Khalil. His lawyers are denying those new charges and continuing to fight for his release -- Max.

FOSTER: Gloria Pazmino, thank you for that update.

Now, still to come, a major falling out of one of Prince Harry's charities. Why the British royal has stepped away from his own organization.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:31:05]

FOSTER: Returning now to the Trump administrations security scandal, and officials testified before lawmakers for a second straight day. This is what the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GABBARD: My answer yesterday was based on my recollection or the lack thereof, on the details that were posted there. I was not -- and the -- what was shared today reflects the fact that I was not directly involved with that part of the Signal chat.

HIMES: So it's your testimony that less than two weeks ago, you were on a Signal chat that had all of this information about F-18s and MQ-9 Reapers and targets on strike, and you, in that two-week period, simply forgot that that was there? That's your testimony?

GABBARD: My testimony is I did not recall the exact details of what was included there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: In the last hour, the U.S. defense secretary insisted that the group chat did not contain war plans.

Meanwhile, Democrats are making fresh calls for Hegseth to resign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): It is completely outrageous to me -- completely outrageous to me that the administration officials come before us today with impunity. No acceptance of responsibility. Excuse after excuse after excuse while we send our men and women downrange to do incredibly difficult, incredibly dangerous things on our behalf.

And yet nobody is willing to come to us and say this was wrong. This was a breach of security, and we won't do it again. It is outrageous and it is a leadership failure.

And that's why Secretary Hegseth, who undoubtedly transmitted classified, sensitive, operational information via this chain, must resign immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Alex Marquardt is live in Washington.

I think the general consensus is that if this was someone -- if this was a group of more junior people, maybe someone would have been fired or resigned. But because they were so senior, they're the ones that pretty much decide how these investigations go. And they've got the support of the president.

So, do you think anyone's going to be accountable for this?

ALEXANDER MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It doesn't look like it right now, Max. Of course, we've seen President Trump in the past all too ready to fire members of his senior national security team. He does appear to be sticking with his team, including Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, who is very much at the middle of this for now. It does, however, appear that there will be some kind of investigation.

Remember, that was far from certain. The FBI has not launched any kind of investigation, nor has the Department of Justice. But we are hearing some discomfort from some senior Republicans on Capitol Hill, including Roger Wicker, who's in charge of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which oversees the Pentagon, who does want a classified briefing, who does want some kind of explanation and does want the inspector general of the pentagon to -- to dig into this.

But, Max, now that the dust is starting to settle, we've had these two back to back hearings. What has become clear is that the Trump administration is really settling on two lanes of attack. First, they are quibbling with "The Atlantic's" description of what is in these messages as war plans, which today, in their second headline, became attack plans.

So, the Trump administration seems to think that they have a target right there. But when you look at these text messages, it is absolutely clear. And this goes to their second argument about what's in here being not classified.

These are incredibly specific details about what is going to unfold no matter what you call them. These are details about a forthcoming attack. These are details about strikes that are about to happen and what happened during those strikes. These are details about the operations. We have heard now from Secretary Hegseth and the national security

advisor, Mike Waltz, saying, well, there are no sources and methods in there. There are no units, there are no routes of the planes.

[15:35:00]

But the -- the information -- information can be classified for all kinds of reasons beyond the ones that they are mentioning.

And so, that is really the more substantial fight that is happening right now in Washington. Whether what was included was indeed classified. Because to your point, Max, if -- if a subordinate or more junior officers or officials had done this, almost certainly they would have had the book thrown at them.

There was an interesting moment in the House of Representatives hearing in the intelligence committee this morning, when the top Democrat essentially read a definition of classified to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and essentially this saying that a -- an operation that the U.S. was about to carry out striking another country would indeed be considered top secret.

Now, what we've heard from Gabbard, beyond being beyond being unable to recall what was in this chat from just two weeks ago, is she has essentially deferred to the Pentagon saying, well, these questions over classification need to be directed at Pete Hegseth -- need to be directed at the Pentagon. And we are hearing that increasingly from a number of officials, pointing to Hegseth as -- as essentially being responsible here.

And that is true. What he put in there was the most troubling and potentially the most dangerous, because beyond these arguments of classification and headlines, the really real worry here was had Mike Waltz invited someone besides a responsible journalist into this chat, there could have been serious ramifications for the American service members involved in these strikes -- Max.

FOSTER: Alex, I appreciate that. Thank you.

It could be one of the biggest trials in modern south American history. Brazil's Supreme Court has ruled that former President Jair Bolsonaro will stand trial on charges related to trying to overturn the 2022 election. Bolsonaro is allegedly part of a plot that included plans to assassinate the elected president, Lula da Silva, and his vice president. Thirty-four people in total have been charged. Bolsonaro denies any wrongdoing.

Now, with its current mayor in jail, Istanbul has elected a new interim mayor, Nuri Aslan, from the main Turkish opposition party, has been chosen by the city council as the interim mayor. That comes after the party's previous mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, was arrested last Wednesday. He's regarded as the main political rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. More than 1,400 people have been detained in the protests that followed.

Now still to come, pressure mounts on the U.S. secretary of defense. He insists he didn't leak any classified data in that text chat. We'll ask a member of Congress if they agree with that assessment when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:40:54]

FOSTER: Our top story today has been the growing, questioning and fallout from a reporter being added to a text message chain involving the highest levels of the U.S. government, and though it was intelligence officials who were fielding tough questions on Capitol Hill today, it's Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who is coming under the harshest criticism. Hegseth was the person who texted critical information about the timing of U.S. attacks on the Houthis and how they would be carried out.

But the defense secretary continues to insist that he didn't reveal any classified secrets. And the chat contained no war plans.

For some reaction to all of this, we welcome in U.S. Congressman Ami Bera. He's a Democrat who sits on the committee that questioned senior intelligence officials earlier today.

Thank you so much for joining us. I mean, what is the central question for you about all of this?

REP. AMI BERA (D-CA): You know, obviously, the central question, when you look at the information that was released, you know, what we did in the hearing today in front of Director Gabbard, Director Hegseth, was that was classified information by any definition. You know, we pulled up the definition from the DNI, from the Department of Defense. What was released by Secretary Hegseth was classified by any definition.

I know they're trying to do damage control right now, but, you know, any junior staffer, if they had done the same thing, they would have been released. And at this juncture, I think a lot of us are asking for Secretary Hegseth to step down.

FOSTER: Is it just your party that feels that?

BERA; No. I've heard Congressman Don Bacon, who's a veteran, come out and say, come on, you've got to own up.

Now, this may have played out differently. If they said, look, this was a lapse in judgment. This was a mistake. Let's figure out what happened. Let's get to the bottom of this.

How did a reporter get on an internal text chain with some, you know, principled members of the intelligence and defense community? That is a real issue. How did that happen?

I want to know that I asked Director Gabbard. You know, for full results of that investigation. And then, you know, how does a lapse of judgment have folks at the highest level of government using Signal? We know better than that. FOSTER: One of our security reporters earlier in the show said it's

very simple. He was just let in by the group.

BERA: Well, that's what it looks like. If it was that simple, you know? And our national security advisor, Mike Waltz, who I know very well, we've served together. Mike knows better than this. If he let a reporter in, how did he let that reporter?

And I heard his comments yesterday, he said he doesn't know this guy. He doesn't have his contact information. Well, how did he get into the group chat?

I don't think there was anything nefarious. I don't think this was a deep fake. I think the writer at "The Atlantic" has been pretty honest and open with this, but we got to get to the bottom of this.

FOSTER: But I mean, that's what -- if Waltz let him in, isn't that -- you know, if you're calling for people to take responsibility for this, is it the person who let the reporter in or the defense secretary because the president doesn't seem to have an issue with the fact that they were using Signal at the time?

BERA: I've got a -- I've got an issue with it. So, yes, let's do the investigation, figure out if Mike Waltz let him in or if something else happened.

But at this juncture with "The Atlantic" story that we saw this morning with the full text of what secretary of defense posted, that to me, looks like war plans. That, to me, looks like the type of weaponry you're using. That, to me, looks like classified information.

So, for the secretary of defense to continue denying this, his credibility continues to diminish. And, you know, this is the highest level of our national defense. Our allies have to trust our secretary of defense. They have to trust our intelligence community.

And again, trying to act like this didn't happen.

[15:45:00]

Nothing was out of the usual just erodes our credibility. It erodes our trust with the American public. It erodes our trust with our allies. And that's why I think you're seeing so many of us say, you've got to hold secretary of defense accountable.

FOSTER: We're speaking to Cedric Leighton earlier, who you all know. Obviously, one of our very respected military commentators, he talked about war plans and he said, technically, the administration are right because war plans are big documents, comes from the second world war. That terminology. And it wasn't a big document.

So maybe they're relying on that technicality and they can say it wasn't a war plan.

BERA: You know, so that's all technical details. They're also saying, well, this wasn't classified information only to the secretary of defense can classify an unclassified information like this. It was sensitive data. It certainly, potentially could have compromised our soldiers, our fighters in the field.

You know, had nefarious actors gotten this information, had this writer not had the scruples not to post this information ahead of time, we could have put our troops in danger. And that's what we're all concerned about. How did this happen? You know, again, what led to the secretary of defense posting this information?

And again, you know, I think the honorable thing to do would actually be to resign.

FOSTER: Congressman Ami Bera, as ever, I really appreciate your time and spending it with us today here on CNN International. Thank you.

BERA: Thank you.

FOSTER: We'll be back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Prince Harry has quit the charity that he founded following an explosive falling out with the leadership. It's very close to his heart. Sentebale was founded nearly two decades ago in honor of his late mother, Diana, princess of Wales. Tensions erupted after a legal dispute with the charity's chair, prompting the duke of Sussex, along with the co-founder and board of trustees, to step away from the organization that helps young people in Lesotho and Botswana.

For more on this, I want to bring in royal editor Chris Ship for ITV News.

Chris, obviously, you followed Prince harry and you've been out to see his work with this charity. I want to talk about that more in a second.

But, first of all, just the story and how it exploded. How did you react to that?

CHRIS SHIP, ROYAL EDITOR, ITV NEWS: I mean, I thought, Max, as I'm sure you did as well, this was quite extraordinary, the way in which this broke into the public domain at one end, you had not just Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho resigning.

[15:50:03]

Remember, they are the founders of this charity, as well as the board of trustees. And then you had the chair of the organization hitting back at Prince Harry, saying he was playing the victim card and that she was being picked upon for trying to sort out poor governance and some of the language used today, I thought, was quite extraordinary, that this was all being sort of aired in the public domain.

FOSTER: I've just been speaking to people involved in this, like, I'm sure you have, Chris, and they're making it very clear that some of the fundamental allegations that she's making are aren't true, that it was simply a charity that was sinking financially and they had to do something about it.

I mean, what's your view about that? Because this is a charity that you, you know, and you've seen its work.

SHIP: Max, I thought that my understanding is that this has been going on for some time, possibly as long as six months or more. A disagreement with the new chair of the charity, Dr. Sophie Chandauka.

And look, this charity means so much to Prince Harry. I mean, actually seeing those pictures there, we were on that trip with him. The charity recently moved into Botswana, I think. Max, you were there with us on that tour of Africa in 2019, the one that ended with Meghan saying that she definitely wasn't happy in the royal family.

But he's always kept this charity so close to his heart. It was part of Harry's gap year. He made lifelong friends there. It was all about continuing his mother's really important and innovative work in the area of HIV and AIDS, and for him to sort of walk away from it in the way that he's done shows how bad things must have gotten.

FOSTER: And we should talk about the kids here. You've seen how much they get from this charity. It's pretty extraordinary, isn't it? And it is Prince Harry that brought a lot of that money in. What happens to them? I mean, this charity hasn't got money at the moment, it's not going to have more money coming in without his support.

SHIP: You know, Max, the thing with the royals, when they attach themselves to a charity and not just Harry, of course, but we've seen this with Prince William. Princess Catherine, the king and queen as well, when they attach themselves to the charity, that's what gets a lot of money coming in. People donate because of who Harry is.

You can debate the rights and wrongs of that, but that's kind of how the system works. And having Harry there as the sort of champion -- the face of this charity meant a lot. And that's why a lot of the fundraising came in.

If he's not there, the worry is that a lot of this money won't be coming in. And yes, you're right, what happens to those young children who have been affected in the most devastating ways in Sub-Saharan Africa by AIDS and HIV? They've lost parents. There are orphans.

In fact, I think when we were with the charity, they were moving into a third country, into Malawi as well, one of the poorest countries in the entire world. So, the important work they do and the money that they were getting essentially, is because Prince Harry was the figurehead. And without him, that leaves a huge question mark over its future.

FOSTER: Chris, I really appreciate you joining us today. Thank you so much.

Now, South Korea is scrambling to stop a wave of deadly wildfires threatening lives and heritage. The damage has been called unprecedented, with dry air and strong winds fueling an inferno south of Seoul. At least 24 people have been killed, and an historic Buddhist temple was also destroyed.

CNN's Mike Valerio has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A piece of history burned to the ground. This was the scene at South Korea's Gounsa Temple, a place of worship for 1,300 years, destroyed by wildfires.

Flames surrounded the Buddhist temple complex as wildfires spread across the south of the country over the past week. What now remains are mounds of ash and rubble.

JEUNG MEUNG-SUK, BUDDHIST FOLLOWER (through translator): Our Buddhist followers are very proud of our temple because this is such an old temple. It is so regrettable and heartbreaking that it has been burned down.

VALERIO: Some of the artifacts, like the stone buddha, which has been designated a treasure by the state, were spared as they were moved to other temples ahead of the fires. The blazes first broke out last weekend. Several people have been injured and killed so far, including civil servants dispatched to fight the fires, according to the interior safety ministry.

And for those who have escaped unharmed, there are still losses to bear.

KIM BYUNG-WOOK, SANCHEONG RESIDENT (through translator): Things that remind me of my youth disappeared without a trace. Photos of my children when they were young that sometimes I look at to reminisce about the past are all gone. And for my children, there's no place to share memories with them. I lost my memory of youth.

VALERIO: South Korea's acting president, Han Duck-soo, called these wildfires South Korea's worst ever. He said that they are being fueled by gale force winds. And he added that all available resources nationwide are being deployed.

Authorities are continuing to work around the clock to contain the fires before more of South Korea's history is gone forever.

[15:55:05]

Mike Valerio, CNN, Seoul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Finally, today, NBA star Steph Curry has a new teammate, former First Lady Michelle Obama. Look at that for a tie up. The two are partnering to launch a new sports drink for Obama's drink brand, Plezi. The drink will be called Plezi hydration and come in three flavors. It will be available on Amazon and select grocery stores in California.

I'm Max Foster. "Quest means business" is up next with Jim. They'll be keeping a very close eye on the White House, because that's where President Trump is set to make what's being called a major announcement on new auto tariffs. And I'm sure he'll be answering some questions as well, which Jim will bring to you.