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Trump Appears to Doze Off Multiple Times During Cabinet Meeting; Sources Say Watchdog Finds Hegseth Risked Endangering Troops by Sharing Sensitive War Plans on Signal; Health Care Plan Stalls as Obamacare Subsidies Set to Expire. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 03, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: -- trying to get the message out there to try to dispute that narrative. Obviously, they talk a lot about the New York Times article that touched on this, and they took a pretty kind of remarkable step earlier this week of releasing those Oval Office logs that really aren't traditionally released to kind of catalog what he precisely did in a given 12-hour day. So this is something that the White House is clearly cognizant of and sensitive about.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': And I will just put up on the screen, the New York Times story that you're talking about, which by all accounts really made him --

MIN KIM: Exactly.

BASH: -- and people around him angry. Shorter days, signs of fatigue, Trump faces realities of aging in office. Kristen, do you think it could be that he's up all night long on social media?

(LAUGH)

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That certainly seemed to be the case the other night.

BASH: Yeah. Or talking to Howard Lutnick at 1:45 in the morning or whatever they were.

HOLMES: Well, you know, that's not just Howard Lutnick. We've heard from world leaders before who have said that Trump has called them in the middle of the night to say something. Johnson, we know that Speaker Johnson, that he's talked to him at 2:45 in the morning. I will say that there are, oftentimes when I'm leaving the White House at seven o'clock and the guard is still outside the Oval, meaning that President Trump is still there. He hasn't gone to the residence yet, but all meetings are off for the day.

I do think, though, going back to an earlier point about everyone being hyper aware of this, it's not just President Trump's attacks on Joe Biden. It's the way that President Trump has presented himself for the last decade -- BASH: Right.

HOLMES: -- which is, I am not aging. I care about this. I am very healthy, getting doctors around him to say he's the healthiest man that's ever lived. Host^ He could live to be 200, that kind of thing.

BASH: Yeah.

HOLMES: Those things are very, very important for him and that's why he started the meeting saying that.

BASH: But it is about his attacks. I mean, he literally coined the phrase or the term the nickname --

HOLMES: Sleepy Joe

BASH: Sleepy Joe. If you call somebody Sleepy Joe and you either fall asleep or struggle not to fall asleep during your own cabinet meeting, you're going to get called out on it.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Perhaps you should say Thank you, Joe, because the reality is, if President Trump was following a younger president in office right now as he did the first time, it would be an entirely different story. He benefits tremendously from the comparisons to Joe Biden. One thing that's clear, he is aging in office and he did say that. He said, every now and then it will happen. Or every once in a while, it will happen to everyone.

But I think the reality is he doesn't have to have a cabinet meeting that's so long. So what I'm interested in --

(LAUGH)

ZELENY: Will the White House start adjusting his schedule? Like we saw, making accommodations to a Joe Biden, so far we really haven't seen that. They just are allowing him to sleep in public. But that could change.

(LAUGH)

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah, and it's not, of course, just the dozing off there. You can see things with his ankles being swollen, the way that he's walking. These are legitimate questions about a president's health because we -- it's not just because it's like tabloid gossip. I mean, some of it is, but it's -- we want to know that the president can be on top of it whenever a crisis might come or whatever might be happening.

BASH: We have to go to break because, up next, we are going to talk about some CNN Exclusive details, Breaking News, and that is about a Pentagon report into Signal Gate. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:37:22] BASH: And the Breaking News now is that CNN has obtained exclusive details on the Pentagon's watchdog review of the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth and other top national security officials' use of the app Signal to discuss attack plans leaked in March. I want to get straight to Zach Cohen who has the story. Zach, what are we learning?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, Dana, this report is still classified. It has not been publicly released yet. But, sources telling me and our colleague, Jake Tapper, that the Inspector General for the Pentagon did conclude that Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, risked compromising sensitive military information which could have been endangered American troops and risked mission objectives when he used Signal to share that information about an ongoing military operation targeting the Houthi rebels in Yemen. That was back in March.

You may remember that these messages were revealed after Atlantic reporter, Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to this Signal group chat. And some of these messages are so specific, one of them even saying from Hegseth, "This is the exact time the bombs will drop." So the Inspector General has been investigating Hegseth's use of Signal for several months now, since April. And we're now finding that he came to the same conclusion that many of the critics, current and former U.S. officials, did at the time that Hegseth should not have been using Signal to communicate this sensitive information to other Trump officials, and that he could -- the potential consequences of that could have been dire.

The IG also concluded too that there was no documentation as far as they could find that Hegseth made a choice to declassify this information before sending it to the Signal group chat. Now that's important because we know that the information itself was from a document that was marked classified at the time. And the Inspector General was looking at, among other things, whether or not Hegseth did appropriately declassify it before disseminating it. And one other interesting note too, Dana, is that Hegseth apparently did not sit for an interview with the Inspector General, resisted doing so, instead provided his responses to their questions in writing.

So, this is the most fulsome picture that we're getting of this report that's coming from an independent watchdog, one that has been really meticulous in reviewing the facts, acquiring documentation related to Hegseth's use of Signal and is now offering its assessment that really aligns with what we've been talking about for months now.

BASH: Wow. I mean, this is a big deal. Zach, thank you so much and to Jake as well for breaking this news. I really appreciate it.

[12:40:00]

And I just want to underscore that last thing that Zach said, Kristen Holmes, which is that this is not a bipartisan congressional report, which would also be important, but this is a report from an independent watchdog, the Inspector General that is supposed to be in every major agency. This one is in his agency, an important one, the Pentagon. And this is what they have concluded, that the Defense Secretary risked compromising sensitive military information, which could have endangered American troops and mission objectives when he used Signal in March of this year.

HOLMES: Yeah. And that's actually what we'd heard just -- not just from critics, but from people who are out there on the front lines and their families, that the biggest concern about this was that they were putting their lives in danger by communicating. And the idea that the Secretary of Defense wouldn't understand that communicating in this way could actually harm our troops on the ground.

Now, I will say, we continue to have this narrative, and we've had it six times maybe since Hegseth was sworn in of, he was nearly fired, but he kept his job. And I think this is going to, again, lead to this whole narrative as to whether or not Hegseth stays as the head, the Secretary of Defense. But we always have to remind our viewers how much the Trump administration, how much the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, how much President Trump and his top advisers all put in to getting Hegseth confirmed --

BASH: A lot of capital.

HOLMES: -- which is why, a lot of political capital, a lot of personal capital. And so they really, they're going to come together at some point and make a decision, but that's always going to be on the back of all of their minds.

BASH: And I want to -- we just had up on the screen, but I want to just put it back up if we can, as you come in, Jeff, the actual chat, or at least part of the chat that this Inspector General report is referring to and you see the part that is highlighted, where he's specifically talking about the -- well, the specifics on the strike that was pending.

ZELENY: Right. I mean, this is when the first bombs will drop. It doesn't get any clearer than that. I mean, that requires no explanation. No amount of spin is able to sort of explain that. But, interesting, the Inspector General's report -- the Inspector General of the Pentagon was fired. He was one of the many inspector generals who were fired. So this was -- it was conducted by the Inspector General's office, I believe. I do not believe that there's been a new one appointed. We'll have to check on that, but -- so that's extraordinary in and of itself.

But to your point, Kristen, expended so much capital. It was a tie vote that J.D. Vance had to break to confirm the defense secretary.

BASH: Yep.

ZELENY: So many people close to the White House, who want the White House to do well, are saying that they believe that Pete Hegseth will stay on until there is a few cabinet members who leave. So he will not be the only one to leave. There may be a reshuffling, which happens, as we've reported, and we've seen in every administration, some cabinet members are replaced as the administration moves along. We'll see if that happens here. But, he has a lot of pressure coming on him from his comments yesterday about Venezuela on top of this. BASH: Yeah. I was going to say, this is not happening in a vacuum.

ZELENY: Right.

BASH: I'm also glad you pointed out the Inspector General's office because we were talking as we were getting this news.

(CROSSTALK)

ZELENY: I mean, they're actually a quite large office.

BASH: Yeah, exactly. About the actual Inspector general at the Pentagon and other places and other agencies, they have been let go, but the office does still exist. The fact that this is not happening in a vacuum, that it is happening as the -- Mr. Hegseth is very much under pressure and being questioned by his fellow Republicans.

MIN KIM: Exactly.

BASH: Not about this, and more.

(CROSSTALK)

MIN KIM: But on those, right.

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: But on the strikes against these boats coming out of Venezuela.

MIN KIM: Right. And Kristen's point in saying that the administration expended so much capital is a reminder that Pete Hegseth came into his job with not a lot of goodwill among Republicans in Congress, because that confirmation vote was so narrow. And now, on the separate issue on the strikes and what happened, you're hearing really intense scrutiny from bipartisan leaders of these key congressional committees.

I wanted to read this quote from Senator Roger Wicker, who's the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. And on the Venezuela issue, he says these are serious charges and that's the reason we're going to have special oversight. I mean, and you know Roger Wicker, I mean, he's not like a Mitt Romney, Thom Tillis type, like he is conservative. He doesn't like to kind of buck the party if he doesn't have to. So, the fact that he's saying this really -- he's sounding this really stern warning about what the committees will do shows that Pete Hegseth is under serious scrutiny by Republicans in Congress.

DOVERE: Yeah. And the thing that also strikes me from Zach's reporting is the point that he made that Hegseth didn't sit for an interview, that he only submitted questions in writing. Here on the these boat strikes, it's going to be a big question.

BASH: Right.

DOVERE: What happened? Exactly when?

[12:45:00]

And already we see that his own version of this has shifted a couple of times, and it's clarified maybe, or changed depends on who you ask about it. But if this congressional process goes through, he will have to answer a lot of questions. And he probably, I would assume, will not be given the benefit of just submitting things in writing where he gets to think about it a lot in advance. But we'll have to have his story straight, and it seems like that was at least somewhat of a concern for him in this other issue.

BASH: Yeah, that's really a really good point. All right, everybody, standby because up next, we're going to have more on this Breaking News. I'm going to talk to a top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee about what we're learning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:50:00]

BASH: And we're following the Breaking News that sources tell CNN, the Pentagon watchdog found Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth risked endangering troops by sharing sensitive war plans on a Signal chat that happened back in March. Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. Thank you so much for being here.

REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER, (D-NJ) HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Thanks for having me.

BASH: Now, I know that you've already called on Secretary Hegseth to resign over his involvement in this exact group chat situation. My understanding is you haven't actually seen the still classified report, but I'm sure you've seen our reporting on it, thanks to Zach Cohen and Jake Tapper. What is your sense of how this is going to play with other colleagues who have not yet called on him to resign, particularly on the Republican side of the aisle?

GOTTHEIMER: Well, first off, to your point, Dana, the -- what's come out so far confirms what many of our concerns were when this first came out, before the Inspector General report. Right? Which I have not seen yet, but obviously, seen your good reporting on that. The risk of putting servicemen and women in danger when you -- anytime you talk about classified information in unclassified settings, right, using a Signal chat. And this information that was out there could really put men and women who are protecting our country at risk, which is why you have to be incredibly careful in how you handle classified information.

And the fact that he, the Secretary of Defense, appears to have been so flagrant in his disregard for the way to handle that information is deeply concerning and not something that should be taken lightly by any Democrat or Republican. This is not a partisan thing.

BASH: And part of the reporting is that he, the Defense Secretary, did not sit down for an in-person interview with anybody in the Inspector General's office inside the Pentagon. He answered questions, written questions. Do you think that an in-person interview, a.k.a. a hearing is going to potentially happen on this? Not to mention other things which we'll get to in a minute that people have questions about?

GOTTHEIMER: Well, exactly. I would hope, right? This is just one point in several data points that are concerning out of the Secretary of Defense's office and the secretary in particular, right? I mean, you talk about the, obviously in Venezuela and the boats, and why we have not had a more transparent sharing of information of the targets and their information that they use to identify the targets. You'd like to see that. And on the -- as someone who's on the Intelligence Committee, I'd like to see a lot more intelligence from the community than what drove this decision making and the targets.

So, these are things that I believe, Secretary Hegseth should come to the Hill immediately and testify about. By the way, some -- and some of it may have to be in a classified setting, that's fine if that's how he wants to share the information. But the bottom line is he has questions that he needs to answer.

BASH: I just want to go back for one second before we move on to --

GOTTHEIMER: Sure.

BASH: -- this reporting about what happened during the Signal chat and what he put on the Signal chat. This is, again, an independent investigation done inside the Pentagon, that he risked compromising sensitive military information, which could have endangered American troops and mission objectives. You sit on the Intelligence Committee, as we've been discussing, if anybody on the committee was found to have done this, what would happen?

GOTTHEIMER: Well, you know what would happen, right? They would no longer be on the committee. And it could go further. You could be prosecuted for that, right? These things, you cannot leak or discuss classified information. What we learn in the Intelligence Committee, on the Intelligence Committee, the same way the secretary has to respect that information. Why? Because it puts people's lives in danger. Especially the men and women who protect us every day as it did in this instance.

And he knows better. You wouldn't -- you don't use a Signal chat to -- you don't text about classified information. And you take that -- and everybody should take that seriously, Democrats and Republicans on the committee and beyond. So I really hope that the Republicans in this case, of course, take the appropriate steps and bring the secretary before either the Intelligence Committee or any committee frankly, to get to the bottom of what happened in this instance and same with the Signal chat, but also, of course, what's going on in Venezuela.

BASH: I do want to ask you about an important domestic issue, and that is healthcare. I know that you are one of several bipartisan members of Congress who are trying to find a middle ground on the issue that Democrats shut the government down over, which is extending those healthcare premiums, which are going to run out in just a couple of weeks. Any update, any status report you can give us? GOTTHEIMER: Sure. Well, the good news on that front is that about 30 plus of us, Democrats and Republicans, have been working together for weeks now and working with some of our Senate colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to try to find and put forth a framework of a good way forward here.

[12:55:00]

We're obviously running out of time and people's premiums are set to go up significantly come January. You're talking about, in Jersey, where I live, a family of four, a $20,000 increase on their premiums, that's their healthcare insurance premiums. That's crazy. You're over 150 percent for many families in New Jersey, their premiums will go up as millions around the country will lose their healthcare because of it. So we've been trying to find a way forward. I think you're going to see a product from us, I hope, imminently coming together in a step forward. Now, of course, we encourage and I'm ready to head to the White House today if they'll have us and sit down and work together to try to find a bipartisan solution here.

BASH: All right, well, Congressman, if and when you get that bipartisan solution, certainly if you get that White House meeting, come back to us.

GOTTHEIMER: I'll be back. Thanks so much, Dana.

BASH: Thanks for being on. Appreciate it and thank you for joining "Inside Politics" today. "CNN News Central" starts after a quick break.

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