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Yemen War Plans Shared on Group Chat with Journalist by Mistake; 23andMe Files for Bankruptcy Leading to Privacy Concerns. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired March 25, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN ANCHOR: According to the Sleep Disorder Center at the Cleveland Clinic, getting your feet nice and toasty opens up the blood vessels. It helps cool the rest of your body, preparing it for sleep.

[06:00:12]

Along with socks, experts suggest keeping your bedroom cool at around 65 degrees to help lower your core temperature when it is time for bed.

In the name of science, I will try this tonight. I will check back tomorrow, but in the meantime, thanks for being with is today. I'm Rahel Solomon, in New York. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: It is Tuesday, March 25. And here's what's happening right now on CNN THIS MORNING.

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JEFFREY GOLDBERG, EDITOR, "THE ATLANTIC": He was texting war plans. He was texting attack plans.

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CORNISH: An extraordinary breach in national security. A journalist is added to a group chat about secret plans for airstrikes. Will someone be fired over this?

Plus.

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TOM HOMAN, TRUMP'S BORDER CZAR: We're going to continue to arrest public safety threats and national security threats.

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CORNISH: Is the White House focusing on the right things when it comes to keeping the country safe? Today, President Trump's top intel officials will be pressed on their priorities.

Then later.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: These are terrorists.

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CORNISH: Task Force Tesla. The FBI now looking to crack down on what it says is domestic terrorism.

And --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is people's sensitive private information.

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CORNISH: If you took a DNA test with 23andMe, your genetic data may be up for sale. How you can protect your private information right now.

It is 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here's a live look at Baltimore. Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the Key Bridge collapse, after it was struck by a cargo ship.

There's going to be a new report card out today that shows how the nation's infrastructure ranks. We're going to bring that to you later this hour.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for waking up with me.

We are learning about a shocking national security breach today involving some of the highest-ranking officials in the Trump administration.

So, the story breaking on "The Atlantic" under the headline, "The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans."

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(EXPLOSION)

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CORNISH: Now, those plans involved intimate details on the U.S. strikes on Yemen that happened earlier this month. At least, that's according to editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who saw them firsthand in a group chat.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent the plans to Signal. That's an encrypted messaging chat. And that happened in the days leading up to the strikes.

Hegseth thought he was speaking on a private group chat with high- ranking Trump administration officials that included the vice president, J.D. Vance; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, among others. Now, Goldberg says he later knew the chat was actually real when

strikes in Yemen and other operational details started matching up with what he read in the group thread.

Now, that was two hours before the mission officially got underway.

The strikes were celebrated in the chat with emojis like this fist bump, American flag, and fire combo by national security advisor Mike Waltz.

The news of the breach is now putting the defense secretary on defense.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why were those details shared on Signal? And how did you learn that a journalist was privy to the targets, the types of weapons used?

PETE HEGSETH, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I've heard -- I've heard it was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans. And that's all I have to say about that.

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I want to note that a White House national Security Council spokesperson has confirmed that the message chain appears to be real.

Later this morning, you can expect more questions on Capitol Hill, because Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe, two Trump intelligence officials who were on the group thread, will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a previously scheduled hearing.

Joining me now to talk about all of this, Mychael Schnell, congressional reporter for "The Hill"; Chuck Rocha, Democratic strategist; and Jamil Jaffer, former associate counsel to President George W. Bush and founder of the National Security Institute at George Mason.

OK, so we used to call this the group chat. We will continue to unless we find out someone's under the table.

But, Mychael, I want to start with you, because lawmakers were actually coming back from the weekend. There were all kinds of hearings like we brought up, including one on global threats. What has been going on in your group chats in the last ten hours?

MYCHAEL SCHNELL, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, "THE HILL": I've gotten probably three buckets of responses. A is Democrats who are just completely up in arms, very frustrated, very concerned and alarmed by what happened. A journalist being in a group chat, A, with those top administration officials.

But, B, this sensitive material being shared on an unsecure platform.

The second bucket of responses that I've heard is from some moderate Republicans. The national security focused military veterans who say that this was a problem, and it was a concern.

I spoke to Don Bacon yesterday. He served. He -- he dealt with intelligence when he was in the Air Force. He called this embarrassing and wrong.

And then the third bucket of responses I heard was Republicans saying they hadn't yet read the report. And this was hours after Jeffrey Goldberg had published this -- this -- this essay on "The Atlantic" detailing what he had experienced.

CORNISH: They're giving you the "I don't know her." Yes, basically.

SCHNELL: It was after hours of news coverage. They had said, I haven't -- I haven't read it yet. I haven't parsed through the details. I can't comment.

A bit of a deflection, I would say, for not having to comment on this big news story. But that's --

CORNISH: I want to follow up --

SCHNELL: Yes.

CORNISH: -- on one of the things you said, because we actually heard from Don Bacon, as well. He's a Republican from Nebraska, and he was asked about the implications of this.

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REP. DON BACON (R-NE): So, I just think it's just a -- it's just a security violation. And there's no doubt that Russia and China saw this stuff, you know, within hours of the actual attacks on -- on Yemen or the Houthis. So -- so that's wrong.

This is a gross error. And it's intentional. You intentionally -- they intentionally put highly classified information on an unclassified device. I would have lost my security clearance in the Air Force for this. And for a lot less.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Jamil Jaffer, I want to turn to you, obviously, because of your experience.

There's a number of things he brings up there. One, it's a violation. Two, the idea of foreign entities being -- probably also seeing it. And third, that he would have lost his clearance, had he done something similar.

Which one of those would you like to take on? JAMIL JAFFER, FORMER ASSOCIATE COUNSEL TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:

Well, I read the report. It is astounding. It's shocking to see this kind of conversation happening on a commercial messaging app. This isn't how you'd normally do it.

Now, look, the president has the right to determine how classified information is transmitted or not. He could have given them top cover to say, look, you guys are authorized to use Signal. I'm not saying he did, right? But it's possible.

President Trump, we know, once took a picture of a highly classified overhead image from a satellite, tweeted it out, a picture of an Iranian missile, right? Put it on Twitter, or X, within -- within a few hours of him getting it.

So, the president could have made a decision. Look, my senior cabinet officials are allowed to use Signal as a messaging app to have a conversation. No evidence that that happened. Nobody said that. That hasn't been their defense. But possible that that could happen.

CORNISH: You're opening the door for that. But can you answer the question about potential violations? Is this a fireable offense under other circumstances?

JAFFER: Well, certainly, people can get fired for this. Absolutely. And I think, certainly, if any average government official had done this, you absolutely would have been fired. You could have been pursued for -- for improperly handling classified information, as well. Huge potential questions about all those issues.

CORNISH: One of the things that's coming up in terms of the politics is that Waltz, Hegseth, Vance, Trump, a lot of these folks, including Rubio, of course, have a long history of attacking their political opponents about the handling of classified materials. That's become such a story in Washington over the years, particularly in the area of Hillary Clinton.

Here's an example of some of their past comments.

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HEGSETH: How damaging is it to your ability to recruit or build allies with others when they are worried that our leaders may be exposing them because of their gross negligence or their recklessness in handling information?

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Hillary Clinton put some of the highest, most sensitive intelligence information on her private server, because maybe she thinks she's above the law, or maybe she just wanted the convenience of being able to read this stuff on her Blackberry.

HEGSETH: Any security professional -- military, government or otherwise -- would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct and criminally prosecuted for -- for being so reckless with this kind of information. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I want to add one more to this, since Hillary Clinton is not here to defend herself. She did weigh in on the story on X with -- given the, you know, the rest of the context here, an emoji and the phrase, "You've got to be kidding me."

Chuck, do you want to jump in here about that dialog?

CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Sure. I'd also like to say that this is where we are now with our national security, to where, when I'm on an airplane from the West Coast yesterday, and the first thing I hear is Pete Hegseth and the Signal chat, war is not the first thing I thought of.

And it should have been the first thing I thought of. But because of all the drama we've been through with Pete Hegseth, his Signal chat, baby mama drama, girlfriends, all these things alleged, not alleged, but it should be the first thing I think about when it comes to national security.

And I think this gets to the political point you're making that the folks on TV were making, which is you can't have it both ways. If somebody needs to get fired, somebody should get fired. If somebody should be on Signal or not on Signal, whether it was authorized or not, that should be determined.

When I think about national security, I want my nation to be secure.

CORNISH: One of the things -- you know, actually, Jamil, can I let you comment on that? Because I am curious about how you do talk about this, given that past, right? How -- what are you going to be listening for in how Republicans defend this?

[06:10:03]

JAFFER: Look, I think it's an uphill battle, right? You have a situation where Hillary Clinton was -- set up a private server, had these conversations going on, these emails going back and forth.

Clearly, might (ph) classified information. Republicans rightly came after her on that. Whether it was political or not, it was -- it was a fair criticism. You can't put classified material on an unclassified server.

At the same time, you cannot get on Signal chat, an unauthorized messaging application, unless you've been authorized to do it, right?

CORNISH: Yes.

JAFFER: And send around, you know -- whether you call them war plans or not, they were talking about sensitive operational details of an ongoing military operation. That's a real problem.

CORNISH: Yes. JAFFER: And here's the crazy thing. It was all these cabinet officials. Nobody objected to it. The vice president, the DNI. Nobody said no.

CORNISH: That was business as usual.

JAFFER: Business as usual.

CORNISH: And, you know, Chuck, to your point earlier, you made that quip about baby mamas. Political point for you, but not totally accurate in this context.

But I think you were talking about the idea that Democrats had raised serious questions about Hegseth's ability to run an agency of this size when he had not done anything prior.

Are you going to be listening to the Tammy Duckworths, the -- the lawmakers who raised questions about his leadership ability in the next coming days?

SCHNELL: Yes. We could very likely, probably see this "I told you so" campaign from some Democratic lawmakers, because there were -- obviously, Pete Hegseth was the most contentious nominee that we saw.

CORNISH: Yes.

SCHNELL: It was that nail-biting vote that went into the late hours of the night that required a tie breaker. So, Pete Hegseth has sort of been in the center of so much controversy throughout the beginning of the Trump administration because of his controversial nomination and then his uphill battle to be confirmed.

So, I wouldn't be surprised if we heard some of those -- those -- those comments from some Democrats who were really on the front lines of raising concerns.

CORNISH: I want you guys to stick around, because we're going to talk about this more. We have a couple of experts. This has been a great table setting for us, for what we're going to hear next.

On CNN THIS MORNING, delivering his resignation. The postmaster general is stepping down as the Trump administration looks to revamp the postal service.

Plus, if you took a DNA test with 23andMe, keep an eye on this. Why their bankruptcy could lead to your genetic data being sold and what you can do to stop it.

And nobody likes a bad picture. President Trump complaining about his newest portrait, one that was commissioned for him by Republicans.

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JIMMY FALLON, HOST, NBC'S "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON": Trump is really upset over his portrait at the Colorado state capitol. Yes. Well, a lot of people are speaking out about it. For example,

this courtroom sketch of Trump showed up and said, "It could be worse. I look ridiculous."

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CORNISH: If you're heading out the door, it's 15 minutes past the hour. I want to give you your morning roundup. Some of the stories you need to get your day going.

To start, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has resigned, and this comes as the U.S. Postal Service faces calls for privatization and intense scrutiny from the Trump administration.

Under his watch, a first-class stamp rose from $0.55 to $0.73. And that was in just five years.

Meanwhile, the online trading platform Robinhood, now under investigation in Massachusetts after launching a program that basically allows you to bet on March Madness basketball games.

These are called prediction markets, and they've raised legal questions about trading and investing versus straight-up online gambling.

And a sad ending to the season for USC basketball star JuJu Watkins during the second round of March Madness. On Monday, she collided with another player, went down hard, had to be carried off the court. The team announcing overnight that she will need surgery.

The team ended up winning the game, and they will advance to the Sweet 16.

And you've got to see this. I'm going to say it. Utter chaos causing a steer standoff as cow -- a cow hoofed it down the road.

A freeway in Houston shut down Monday after six cows got loose, blocking traffic. They escaped a rodeo trailer, actually.

It took four hours to get them all wrangled and back inside.

Still to come on CNN THIS MORNING, how are we doing when it comes to keeping up our bridges and infrastructure in the U.S.? There's going to be a new report out that details a lot of that.

Plus, with 23andMe filing for bankruptcy, is your DNA data safe?

Good morning, Phoenix. Temperatures there are -- you guessed it -- soaring. Could reach 100 degrees. This is one of more than 75 record high temperatures that could fall by the end of the week.

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CORNISH: So, if you've ever used a genetic test from 23andMe, you might want to consider deleting your profile. At least that's what some consumer advocates are telling people to do after the company filed for bankruptcy this week.

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THORIN KLOSOWSKI, ELECTRIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION: It's an unfortunate circumstance. When we sign an agreement with a company, we don't really think through what might happen when a company gets sold or goes bankrupt.

ROB BONTA, CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: There's health insurance companies that are interested in this data. There's life insurance companies that are interested in this data.

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CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss, CNN business writer Clare Duffy.

And Clare, I wanted you on, because you're also the host of the podcast, appropriately called "Terms of Service."

So, let's start with that. Lots of people signed up to -- for 23andMe. They read the terms of service. What is it that they might have missed that's coming into play now?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Yes. It is a really good question, because you sign up for these services thinking maybe you're going to learn something interesting or fun about your ancestry.

But our DNA really is so core to who we are. It can tell us a lot about, for example, our future health risks. And people have to think about what that could mean if it could end up in the hands of a life insurance company, for example. How that -- how might that affect the future services that are offered to you?

I was also surprised to learn just how much law enforcement is increasingly using this data to help with investigations, solving crimes. Pharmaceutical companies can use this information to develop new treatments.

You know, you have to sort of decide when you sign up for some of these services, how much you're willing for your data to be accessed by other people. And that is especially true now that 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy and is pursuing a sale. And essentially, this data is up for grabs to the highest bidder.

CORNISH: OK. Let's talk about that more. First, the attorney general of California has basically warned customers straight up, get thee to delete, right? Like, get out there and get rid of this stuff.

[06:25:09] But help me understand that black market you mentioned. Insurance companies. You mentioned law enforcement. But is there a scenario where someone could swoop in in this bankruptcy and make a legal purchase that could create real problems?

DUFFY: Yes. Look, it's really interesting, because 23andMe's privacy policy, which currently, for example, says that you have to opt in if you want your data to be used for research.

That privacy policy says the privacy policy will continue if the company is sold. But the privacy policy also says that the privacy policy can be changed at any time.

So, it really is an open question, what kind of company could purchase this information and how they could use it.

Now, the existing CEO co-founder, she actually resigned yesterday when the company announced it was filing for bankruptcy. She wants to make a bid for the company.

So, again, you know, it may be that this company doesn't fall into problematic hands. But for consumers, I think there really is a question about how much are they willing to gamble their DNA.

And a lot of people are, I think, going ahead and deleting their -- they're deleting their account, deleting their data from this company.

CORNISH: Can you talk about the emotional part of this? So many people sign up and play around for all of these companies, right? And we just sort of assume they'll be around for reasons. Like there's no reason to think this business model, so to speak, was going to work.

Why -- why are people so kind of attached to these kinds of apps?

DUFFY: Yes, again, I think it really is because, you know, again, it's our DNA. It really is who we are. And so many people have made meaningful connections through these websites, found family members that they didn't know existed, learned new things about who they are and where they come from. And so, I do think this is an emotional time.

But 23andMe really always has struggled to find a sustainable business model. This company went public in 2021 and has never turned a profit. I think, in part, because they're collecting this potentially really valuable genetic data.

But in order to get people to use the service, you have to have some safeguards around how you're using that. And that doesn't really translate to a successful business model.

CORNISH: No. And this is, I think, what I'm going to be listening to going forward, is like how the industry responds, whether this raises greater questions. What are you going to be listening for?

DUFFY: Yes, I think -- I think I want people to understand that their data is not protected in the same way it is in the healthcare system. You know, if you go to the doctor, there are laws that require them to protect your data in a certain way.

Outside of the healthcare system, it is much more open. There's fewer regulations. And I think that's the piece that I really hope people take away from this.

CORNISH: That's CNN business writer Clare Duffy. She's going to be digging into this in her podcast, "Terms of Service." I want you guys to head out, download, follow, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Next, on CNN THIS MORNING, America's top intelligence officials about to attend a Senate hearing on worldwide threats. Are they focused on the right ones?

Plus, the Social Security Administration rushing to make changes as the man picked to run the agency faces questions today.

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