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Hegseth Continues to Claim No Classified Information was Shared Despite Texts Showing Location, Targets & Timing of Upcoming Strike; Intel Officials Testify After Stunning National Security Blunder; U.S. Defense Official: Details Shared by Hegseth Were Classified. Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired March 26, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST: Welcome to "Inside Politics". I'm Manu Raju in for Dana Bash. And were following breaking news. The nation's top intelligence officials are on Capitol Hill right now answering a barrage of questions about critical new developments in the colossal security scandal engulfing the White House.

The previously scheduled hearing began just moments after "The Atlantic" published screengrabs from now infamous Trump Administration group chat discussing an upcoming military strike in Yemen. The text revealed the timing of the attack, target locations and weapons, among other highly sensitive details. A senior Pentagon official tells CNN this was highly classified information at the time it was shared, even the president and top members of his cabinet continue to claim it was not.

And moments ago, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put out this message on social media quote, so let me get this straight "The Atlantic" releases so called war plans, and those plans include no names, no targets, no locations, no units, no routes, no sources, no methods and no classified information. Those are some really shitty war plans. I want to go back to this hearing live and take questioning from Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan.

REP. CHRISSY HOULAHAN (D-PA): Absolutely classified. And we all know it. I know it. These people know it. You all know it. And the fact that we're having to have these conversations now means that I can't ask the questions that I need to ask about things like bioterrorism and bio security, and so I'd like to put you in check as well, sir, because you can't assume who I am any more than I can assume who you are, sir.

I would like to move my questions, however, over to Director Gabbard, because you are the DNI. You do have an obligation and a responsibility. I'm going to speak to you specifically about the fact that you have spoken much of your 40 days talking about the importance of making sure that we don't reveal classified information, making sure that we don't leak information. You're a former battalion commander in the army.

I don't think that you would have necessarily appreciated the kind of leaking in of information that I believe absolutely did happen in this signal channel and is worthy of a further investigation. In fact, this committee established something called 50USC3235A, and this committee, on a bipartisan, a partisan basis, requires you the DNI, to swiftly notify Congress and the Intelligence Committee, if you're aware of any sort of significant unauthorized disclosure or compromise of classified information, which I would argue this has all of the markings of being that.

And so, if you as the DNI see such a thing anywhere within your organization's purview, you have the obligation to begin an investigation, to report back to us on that would this seem to qualify to you as something worthy of that investigation?

TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Thank you for your question, Congresswoman. In this situation, Secretary Hegseth has the classification and declassification -

HOULAHAN: You are the DNI.

GABBARD: -- authority over DoD information.

HOULAHAN: This chat did not have the auspice of being a DoD chat. There's no such thing as labelling as DoD. This was a chat amongst a great variety of people, and you, according to our law that we passed here, bipartisanly have an obligation when you think there has been a tangible, significant leak of information to instigate an investigation. Do you not think it's important to do such a thing.

GABBARD: The National Security Council is investigating this inadvertent leak, and again, I point to Secretary Hegseth as having the classification.

HOULAHAN: I would argue that Secretary Hegseth, if he had the dignity that he needs to have, should be walking his resignation in because I believe that his probably is heading toward being relieved of his duty based on what I think are significant and illegal leaks most likely.

I would like it if you would please commit to this organization that you will follow the law. And I would like it if you would also investigate what is likely to be more than just this chat. Because if there's one, there's more than one. If there's smoke, there's fire, would you please obligate yourself and your organization to that investigation.

GABBARD: Congresswoman, yes, I will follow the law.

HOULAHAN: Thank you. I appreciate that. And Director Patel, I learned just recently that you only heard about this yesterday, which blows my mind, since I heard about it two days ago, and I'm just a low on the Dias Junior Chipmunk here. Did you really only hear about this yesterday?

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: The exact timeline I'm not aware of, but, yeah, I think it was yesterday or -

HOULAHAN: And now that another day has passed, you - PATEL: -- actually was the night before the hearing.

HOULAHAN: Now that another day has passed, you believe that it's now time, potentially, for the FBI to open an investigation into this.

PATEL: I'm not going to comment on that.

HOULAHAN: Because you're the Director of the FBI. You don't believe it's appropriate to comment on that?

PATEL: Because there's a process in place. There's an ongoing litigation, and the National Security Council is reviewing this matter, and I'm not going to discuss any open or closing -

HOULAHAN: That ongoing investigation literally, the lawsuit happened today or yesterday afternoon, and the idea that you don't have an opinion on this at this point is frustrating to me.

PATEL: No, it's not. I'm not going to prejudge any matters. The men and women of the FBI will -

HOULAHAN: -- reclaiming my time -

PATEL: Not you.

HOULAHAN: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to have -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gentleman's recognized. You have four seconds remaining.

HOULAHAN: No, I have more than that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two seconds remaining.

HOULAHAN: Patel would not -

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- gentlemen's time has expired. Mr. Steube?

REP. GREG STUEBE (R-FL): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Gabbard, were there any sources described in the signal chat?

GABBARD: No Congressman.

STUEBE: Were there any methods described in the signal chat?

GABBARD: No.

STUEBE: Were there any locations?

GABBARD: No.

[12:05:00]

STUEBE: Therefore, due to the fact that there were no sources, no methods no locations described in the signal chat, it does not make the discussion classified. Is that correct? GABBARD: That is up to the Secretary of Defense determination.

STUEBE: The Democrats are obviously making the assertions that what was in the signal chat was classified, and claiming that Secretary Hegseth put this war plan out to the world, which he clearly did not. Were there any names in the signal chat?

GABBARD: No.

STUEBE: Any targets?

GABBARD: No.

STUEBE: Any locations?

GABBARD: No.

STUEBE: Was there a unit, name or location of that unit?

GABBARD: There was not.

STUEBE: Were there any routes described in the single chat?

GABBARD: No.

STUEBE: Wouldn't an operational plan contain that type of information.

GABBARD: Every operational plan I've ever seen has contained that information.

STUEBE: Thank you. Shifting to the real threats to America, the southern border. Due the previous administration's open border policies, they allowed over 10 million illegals into our country, and during that time, there was 1511 terrorist related encounters at land border ports of entry according to CBP.

as someone who fought in the war on terror, I find this deeply offensive that the previous administration would sacrifice its security and safety of the American people in the manner in which they allowed terrorists, criminals and rapists into our country.

In your testimony, you state, and I quote based on the latest reporting available for year-long period ending October 2024, cartels were largely responsible for the deaths of more than 54,000 U.S. citizens from synthetic opioids. A lot of those citizens are from my home state of Florida.

Cartels, Narco-terrorists and other violent transnational criminal organizations have violated the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the United States and have also fueled human trafficking and the opioid epidemic that many of my fellow Floridians have witnessed for far too long.

I applaud President Trump and his swift decision to designate the Narco-terrorists and Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. And I want to thank each of you for making this a priority to fight against Mexican cartels, traffickers, Narco- terrorists that have been responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of Americans.

For every Narco-terrorist and cartel member, violating our sovereignty, poisoning the American people with fentanyl and other illicit opioids. Know this, your days are numbered, and know that the full force of the U.S. government will soon address your atrocities once and for all.

Director Patel, it's no secret that there is a growing presence of Mexican cartels operating fentanyl synthesis labs just over our border. Just last year, the CBP estimates that more than 12 -- 21,000 pounds of fentanyl was seized at our borders. That is enough to kill more than twice the population of the world of our country.

What actions are you taking to strengthen the FBI's fight against illicit fentanyl within our borders?

PATEL: Thank you, Congressman. It's good to see you. We have made it a priority at the FBI, because fentanyl and legal narcotics kill an American citizen every seven minutes. That is a national security crisis, not just at the southern border, but at the northern border, and the Mexican cartels, along with their illicit partners.

RAJU: All right, here we're back in the room here "Inside Politics" doesn't break down with a great panel everything that we have heard so far this morning. We'll go back to the hearing as it develops. And I want to talk a little bit about what we heard from Pete Hegseth just moments ago, pushing back over everything that was revealed this morning from this group chat from "The Atlantic" putting out this -- putting out the screen grabs from this group chat.

He said that no targets, no locations, no units, no routes, no sources, no methods and no classified information were included there. And just to remind viewers about what exactly was released by "The Atlantic" this morning, look at what they say here, the time weather is favorable. This is from Pete Hegseth's own post talking about a launch, F18 launch trigger based F18 first strike window starts at 13:45, more F18 launch in 14:10.

That was at - all this occurred at 11:44 a.m., 31 minutes before the first U.S. war planes were launched two hours before the beginning period in which a primary target, the Houthi target terrorists, was expected to be killed by these American aircraft. So, Alex, how do they square that when they say that no war plans, and there's really nothing to see here.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: They're really trying to pick a fight over definitions of war plans and classified. Now they might be able to quibble with the war plans thing, but without question, Manu, what we're looking at here in both Hegseth's text and what we see later on from Waltz are the preview and the aftermath of strikes, of attacks, of operations that is without question.

They're also trying to redefine what is classified and what you're going to hear a lot of, and what we started hearing from Pete Hegseth and others, is the fact that there are no sources, methods and locations in here. There are countless things that are classified that go beyond that, if we take that very narrow definition that they're putting out.

But let's also just highlight the fact that they do talk about a location. They talk about this building where the top missile guy, as Mike Waltz put it was hit going into his girlfriend's building. When you read these text messages, you are just struck by the extraordinary amount of detail about this operation that is about to happen.

[12:10:00]

We are a go for mission launch. I mean, he's announcing the beginning of this mission. These jets are going to be in the sky at 12:15 and then the first bombs are going to drop at 02:15 in the afternoon, and then we get this after-action report from Mike Waltz. It's going to be very, very difficult for them to argue that this was not classified.

And what you're hearing from Director Gabbard there is, she is really putting the onus on Secretary Hegseth, who does have what's called original classification authority, he can, to some extent, wave a wand and say, actually just wasn't classified. He has not done that yet. But when pressed on whether this was classified, she has repeatedly said, basically, you got to go ask Pete Hegseth.

RAJU: Yeah. And it's interesting we're starting to get some reaction coming in from Capitol Hill, from Republicans. This morning, the Senate Majority there, John Thune, just told our colleague, Ted Barrett, the important thing here is these guys, they made a mistake. They know it. They should own it and fix it so that never happens again.

There's something they need to own up to and fix to ensure it doesn't happen again. They have not owned up to it really in these as you can see by this defiance and by this testimony today, and we just heard from the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker, just talked to reporters on Capitol Hill about how they want to pursue this.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. Right. I think another fascinating person to watch through all this is Roger Wicker, Republican from Mississippi. No one can deny his conservative credentials. But of course, the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and he said that, first of all, he and Jack Reed the top Democrat on the Committee, is going to be sending a letter to the -- are going to be sending a letter to the Trump Administration, asking for an inspector general investigation. And I found this really fascinating from Wicker --

RAJU: Here Seung Min sorry to interrupt. We're going to listen to Congressman Mike Quigley's Q&A.

REP. MIKE QUIGLEY (D-IL): -- Houthis, sea lanes. The information about the weapons systems that gets to the Houthi military commanders, doesn't it make you think they're at least going to say, duck? LT. GEN. JEFFREY KRUSE, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: Thank you for the opportunity to weigh on -- weigh in on the issue. Yes, if we were collecting this on our adversaries and were able to get this information, as was asked of General Hawk earlier, we would consider that classified, but it's classified under the collection piece. The data that we're talking about here is the operational data, not the intelligence data -

QUIGLEY: -- just because we have limited time -

KRUSE: -- secretaries.

QUIGLEY: The Houthis military leaders, going to duck when he hears this, or he's going to take some action. He's going to try to shoot our planes down, right?

KRUSE: If he has actionable intelligence, he will certainly use -

QUIGLEY: I'm talking about this intelligence. You don't think he can figure out Houthis is mentioned a couple times sea lanes. They show the weapons system. At least it's a credible warning to him.

KRUSE: I would offer the Houthis defensive position has been constant since the 15th of March.

QUIGLEY: General I'll just take a whack at it. You're the Houthis military leader. You get this information passed on to you, it doesn't make you, at least take warning.

GEN. TIMOTHY HAUGH, DIRECTOR NSA: I would Congressman. I think, from the Houthis perspective, they do have air defense equipment, and they would be able to detect aircraft being -- when they're entered into the Red Sea, and certainly when we have our intelligence aircraft operating over top their country, they'd be able to detect that activity.

QUIGLEY: But being forewarned is extraordinarily important. I'll take another stab at it. If just language like this in a different context, OK, but just within your department, sir, your people are passing this information. Do you advise them maybe they don't use signal on this? Are there other forms obviously, they're going to be more secure?

TIMOTHY: What I would offer is the data that we would be passing would be the full target packages and the full set of operational information.

QUIGLEY: OK, but even it was just this, do you really want to give possibilities that they could be breached, hacked and they would get this information? Wouldn't you even with just this, sir respectfully, wouldn't you want to use a more secure means of communicating.

KRUSE: I think what I would offer two things, and hopefully they're helpful to you. One of them would be in addition to that full package that we would talk about when the secretary extracted individual details from that and provided those on signal, whether individually or in aggregate, that is his decision of what is classified or what is not from an operational aspect.

And that's probably the most important relevant piece to there. And I would echo what we've said before, it's the secretary's authority for the --

QUIGLEY: Just give me -- there's more secure ways of communicating any of this, right?

KRUSE: There are. In our adversaries have -

QUIGLEY: General there are right?

[12:15:00]

There's much more secure means that you use, even if you don't think that this is or you don't want to stick your -

TIMOTHY: The full packages were transmitted within classified, within traditional classified -

QUIGLEY: But this could have been transmitted in a classified way as well. Thank you,

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gentlemen's time is expired, a gentleman from Arkansas, the Distinguished Chair of the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Hill, is recognized.

REP. FRENCH HILL (R-AK): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me say Director Gabbard and Director Ratcliffe, it's so great to have you back in the Longworth House Office Building. The food's the same, but you're welcome any time. Director Ratcliffe, you know we've served for 10 years together. I'm certainly aware of your extraordinary service at the DNI and here in Congress, and I just have a couple of follow up questions on this topic of the Signal Chat. Were there any war plans distributed in that Signal Chat?

JOHN RATCLIFFE, DIRECTOR OF CIA: No Congressman.

HILL: And were sources and methods that would compromise our intelligence system or your agents in the field around the world. Are they -- were they discussed on the Signal Chat?

RATCLIFFE: No.

HILL: I appreciate that. I just think that's an important thing to have on the record. Director Patel, I Co-Chair the Americans Wrongly Detained American Hostage Task Force here in the House. And I just fact, in fact, left Tigran Gamber and a Former FBI official who I helped get out of prison in Nigeria last year. I just left him a few minutes ago.

You've been -- you know this issue very, very well, and President Trump's made such a commitment to bring Americans home. There's some 30 Americans still wrongfully detained or held hostage abroad. Is the FBI committing to work through its officials in our embassies around the world to bring those Americans home. PATEL: Thank you, Congressman. And as you know from my prior service in the prior administration, President Trump, brought home over 50 hostages and detainees worldwide, and that effort is being redoubled now until every single American is home. And the FBI, from my perspective, has been given a directive that any wrongfully detained or captured person overseas is a priority to bring back.

HILL: We're so grateful to the president for making this a priority. We don't want our citizens that hold a blue passport to suddenly be a target in all their interactions around the world. That's wrong, and I'm glad President Trump's made a priority. I look forward to working with you on that. Since November of 2023 I've been pursuing aggressively in this committee, the U.S. government's policies -

RAJU: We're going to continue to monitor this hearing and go back to it as news wants. What's been interesting throughout this morning is the contention by these officials to say that this is not classified information when it appears very clearly this is least very, very sensitive information.

We've heard from some members on the Hill, including Roger Wicker, said this appears to be what he would consider classified information. How could they make that argument Phil? I mean, that this is nothing to see here. This is not classified information.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: I mean, how could they -- we're currently trying to debate the difference between attack plans and war plans as if it's some dramatic semantic change and shift based on the story that we've seen. So that's how they can make these arguments.

They're not necessarily tied to a rational line of thinking on some level. I do think the important point of this, from a how things technically work standpoint, is what we've heard throughout the course of the hearing, what we've heard from both Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard over the course of the last two days.

Pete Hegseth does have the authority to declassify in his role. Now, he has not said that he did declassify, but that would be kind of the technical way that this would not be classified if they want to go that route. I think that's the big open question.

I think the reality, though, is, and Alex is, well, way steeper than this than I am, is we're trying to debate this, and we're missing what's actually important here on some level, which is, gets it what John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, said you read the quote from our colleague, Ted Barrett earlier.

The important thing here is these guys made a mistake, and they know it. They should just own it, fix it, and so it never happens again. And then what we saw from Jason Crow, the Colorado Democrat, holding up two anti-aircraft weapons systems that the officials on the panel acknowledge the Houthis had in the very, very real concern that by using this system, by using signal, by talking about these plans on signal, perhaps American pilots were putting themselves at risk with those systems that they're already trying to work out. Those are the issues here.

RAJU: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: Not, not -- you know, this kind of chewing over what's classified, what isn't, what matters, what doesn't, that's what matters.

RAJU: And let's just remind viewers that there was that moment with Congressman Jason Crow about the impact of the signal change and what could have happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Just confirmed with CENTCOM, we are a go for mission launch. Does that indicate to you that there is about to be a military operation.

GABBARD: Yes.

CROW: Director Gabbard, have the Houthis indicated an ability to shoot down American aircraft?

GABBARD: Yes.

CROW: They have, in fact, done so, haven't they?

GABBARD: Yes.

CROW: Including MQ 9 Reapers, haven't they?

GABBARD: That's correct.

CROW: And that was one of the systems used in the attack recently. That's the subject of this discussion. Is it not?

GABBARD: Correct.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:20:00]

RAJU: The officials keep saying, well, it didn't happen, so it's fine.

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: No harm, no foul. I mean, look, in the big picture, the administration is only prolonging the pain and prolonging this story by quibbling with semantics, in the way that they are doing by trying to nitpick, trying to make this something other than what it was, which you know, as Senator Thune and other Republicans have said.

It seemed very, very straightforward when this story first broke, that a mistake was made and that's sort of the beginning and end of it. But because they can't admit that, because they want to quibble with these semantics, quibble with the definition of classified quibble with the definition of a war plan, I think they are only digging a bigger hole for themselves politically, because anyone who looks at this can tell what happened, and it's and it's very obvious, but instead, they want to insist that it's something other than what it obviously seems to be.

RAJU: No question about defiance has been the theme of the last two days. We'll see where it ultimately leads to. OK, we're actually going to sneak in a very quick break, and we'll come back to Capitol Hill in just a few moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

RAJU: All right back to our breaking news. We've been listening to the nation's top Intelligence Chiefs testifying before the House Intelligence Committee. Just hours after "The Atlantic" reporter who released the text messages showing the Defense Secretary sending details, including times about the U.S. attack on the Houthis. CNN's Natasha Bertrand, is at the Pentagon. Natasha, what are you hearing from the Pentagon, particularly about whether or not this information was classified?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Manu, my colleague, Zach Cohen, and I were told explicitly this morning that these details that were shared by Secretary of Defense Hegseth in this chat about weapons systems, about the type of aircraft that were going to be striking the Houthis as well as the exact timings of when those strikes would be launched were in fact, highly classified.

Because that is the kind of play by play, of course, that a commander would be giving to the commander-in-chief as this operation was underway to make sure not only that the operation is going as planned, but of course, that service members are safe, because you don't want to disclose that kind of information until after the operation is actually over, otherwise you risk putting service members conducting this operation in harm's way.

One defense official put it bluntly to me. They said, quote, these are operational plans that are highly classified in order to protect the service members. It is safe to say that anybody in uniform would be court martialled for this. And he went on to say that my most junior analysts know not to do this.

And so, Secretary Hegseth he has put out multiple statements on X. He has retweeted a number of statements from his chief spokesperson, as well as the DoD rapid response account, as well as issuing his own statement on his personal X account, saying that, look, no methods were disclosed, no exact targets, no locations.

But of course, we know from these text messages published by "The Atlantic" that there were methods that were disclosed the type of aircraft, F18 and other weapons systems platforms, as well as MQ9 Reaper Drones. Those are things that Hegseth disclosed in this chat would be involved in this operation.

And as we know, the Houthis have actively targeted U.S. weapons systems and platforms like that before, including shooting down multiple MQ9 Reaper Drones in the past. And in fact, when I was on the Eisenhower Aircraft Carrier last year, which was in the Red Sea, helping to shoot down all of these missile and drone attacks from the Houthis, pilots were telling me that they encountered incoming fire from the Houthis pretty regularly.

So, the Houthis are actively trying to shoot down these assets any chance they get. And defense officials here are just baffled at the notion that Secretary Hegseth would be saying that this was not classified, especially because he had disclosed it prior to those strikes actually taking place, Manu.

RAJU: Yeah, a lot of skepticism from both sides that we're hearing. Natasha Bertrand outside the Pentagon thank you so much for that. And we're back in the room. Alex, the we're hearing the officials say that Hegseth has the authority to essentially declassify this.

MARQUARDT: Yes.

RAJU: But Hegseth has not said whether he actually used that authority. What do you -- what's your take away from that?

MARQUARDT: He's traveling right now, and he was asked specifically by a reporter when they were in Hawaii whether he had declassified this. He could have said yes, I did, and therefore it's not classified anymore. And he has not done that. Instead, he continues to argue about whether what was released was indeed classified and whether these were indeed war plans.

At the beginning of the hearing that we saw today, Congressman Jim Himes, the top Democrat on House Intelligence. He held up one of the examples of what should be considered classified. These are, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's own guidelines, and this is about advance warning for a strike, which is exactly what Hegseth put in the chat.

And one of the things that should be deemed top secret according to these guidelines, is quote information providing indication or advanced warning that the U.S. or its allies are preparing an attack. Pete Hegseth, without question, two hours prior to this attack, announced how it was going to unfold with specific weapons systems, talking about how the mission is go for launch.

And I think we got to come back to the point that Phil was just making the bigger picture here. Had it not been Jeffrey Goldberg in that chat, had Mike Waltz inadvertently put a Russian contact in the chat? They could so easily have fed that information to the Houthis, who would have had significant advance warning about what was coming, prepared and then possibly tried to shoot down and attack American service members.

[12:30:00]