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Group Chat Strike Plans Released; Intel Officials Testify As Group Chat Fallout Grows; New, U.S. Defense Official Says, Details from Group Chat Were Classified. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired March 26, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, breaking news, group chat, strike plans released and what they show in the escalating fallout as the nation's top intelligence chiefs are today back up on Capitol Hill.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. Pamela Brown is off today. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in The Situation Room.

And we begin with the breaking news. The Atlantic Magazine's editor- in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, is releasing the messages from the Yemen strike plans group chat. And the screenshots show discussions of weapons and specific timing of U.S. military strikes. This one shows defense Secretary Pete Hegseth laying out the timeline of the strikes and that F-18s would be used.

All this comes as the top intelligence officials are right now back up on Capitol Hill. In just moments, they will testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee. Yesterday, they testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Both the director of National Intelligence, Tulsa Gabbard, and the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, will again be grilled on their participation in that messaging thread that was shared with Goldberg and claims like this one from yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Senator, I can attest to the fact there were no classified or intelligence equities that were included in that chat group at any time. And I defer --

SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): So, the attack sequencing and timing and weapons and targets, you don't consider to -- should have been classified or --

GABBARD: I defer to the secretary of defense, the National Security Council on that question.

KING: Well, you're the head of -- you're the head of the intelligence community. You're supposed to know about classifications.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We're covering all these breaking news developments from all angles right here in The Situation Room.

Joining us now is CNN's Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter, CNN's Chief National Security Correspondent Alex Marquardt, and our Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez.

Brian, let me go to you first. So, what are the biggest takeaways from these texts that have just been released and why did The Atlantic Magazine decide to release them now?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Wolf, I spoke with Jeffrey Goldberg earlier today. He said the public should be able to see these text messages and reach their own conclusions. It is clear the public has been misled by some Trump aides who have tried to downplay this story so aggressively. That is partly why The Atlantic is now publishing these.

Trump officials are playing semantic games and trying to claim these are not war plans or attack plans, but take a look at what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote in this signal chain informing Trump aides of the impending military action.

Hegseth wrote at 12:15 P.M., F-18s will launch with the first strike package. At 1:45, the first strike window opens, quote, the target terrorist is at his known location. Hegseth goes on in this timeline at 2:10, more F-18s will launch. At 2:15, strike drones will be on target. So, Hegseth is giving the exact timeline and accidentally sharing it with a reporter.

Of course, it could have been anybody in this chat. It didn't have to be a reporter. They could have added anybody, and that's part of the point of this scandal. The text messages also give details about the after-action report about the U.S. military's ability to see what happened on the ground after the strikes, quote, we had positive idea of him walking into his girlfriend's building, and now it has collapsed. We see in this text message chain Vice President J.D. Vance responding and saying, excellent.

Now, there is one detail that Goldberg and The Atlantic are still withholding. That's the name of a CIA employee, because the CIA asked Goldberg to keep it a secret. So, clearly, some part of the U.S. government believes these are very sensitive texts, even though Hegseth claims these are not war plans and Trump claims these are not classified details. Certainly, the details in this document are, by any basic layman's definition, classified.

BLITZER: And this issue is now --

STELTER: And, ultimately, Wolf, dozens of people were reported killed in Yemen.

BLITZER: Brian, this issue is now being discussed at the House Intelligence Committee hearing with all the top intelligence officials. I want to listen in concerns REP. RICK CRAWFORD (R-AR): -- about the state of our national security. The war between Russia and Ukraine has just surpassed three years and now includes North Korean troops on the battlefield.

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Iran remains the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, supporting terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East like Hezbollah and Hamas, fueling the latter's war with Israel in Gaza.

The threat of the Chinese Communist Party, or CCC -- CCP, has metastasized worldwide, expanding a robust military and espionage capability well beyond the Pacific, including here within the Western hemisphere. The CCP's aggressiveness into operations below the level of armed conflict continues to grow. For example, they have sponsored cyber attacks against the United States' critical infrastructure and even recruited a New York State governor's office -- or employee into being an undisclosed agent of the CCP.

And after four years of a catastrophic open-border policy and limited, and in many cases, no vetting, we have seen an explosion of illegal migrants crossing our border since 2021. In fiscal year 2024, 516 were identified to be known or suspected terrorists, 106 of whom tried to sneak into our country between ports of entry. And these are just the ones we caught of the nearly-three million encounters recorded by Customs and Border Protection.

We've also seen an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network bringing more than 400 migrants into the United States, and this occurs through networks associated with cartels and gangs, from Sinaloa to CJNG, who present an unacceptable risk to the security of the American people.

In the midst of such threats, many have understandably lost trust in the intelligence community. One reason I'm particularly concerned about is a pattern of lapses I've seen in analytic integrity and objectivity in some of the assessments provided by the I.C. in the last few years. From President Trump Russia collusion fiasco, to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, to anomalous health incidents, there have been numerous instances of the I.C. suppressing certain reporting, using substandard reporting to support a pre-decided thesis and failure or refusal to consider plausible alternative analyses. That, combined with many other examples of weaponized government, results in a situation where the United States is facing very real threats, while many of our citizens lack trust in those they empower to inform on or -- or counter these threats.

Look, I've been honored to serve our country for many years now, first as an explosive ordnance disposal technician in the Army, now as a representative for the First Dri- -- District of Arkansas and chairman of this committee. In my time here, I've traveled the world and met with countless I.C. employees, from everyday Americans doing challenging and often dangerous work of intelligence, to agencies' dir- -- directors like yourselves. The vast majority of those people are honest, hard-working, patriotic Americans that silently and without accolades do different -- difficult jobs, often in austere places, sacrificing time with their families, and in some cases, putting themselves in danger, all in order to serve the United States.

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These silent warriors deserve our gratitude and our respect. They do not deserve to have their reputations besmirched by poor leadership.

Unfortunately, in recent years, we've seen instances of politicized, self-serving, dishonest leaders sustaining the reputation of our institutions and patriots by abusing the powers and sacred trust given to them by the American people.

We have some real work to do. You, in your roles as leaders of prestigious organizations, and us, as members of this committee charged with conducting honest and rigorous oversight, must ensure that our institutions work for the American people. Those that don't uphold the stringent standards of integrity that the American people expect and deserve must be held accountable.

In the instances where trust is breached, those involved must be held accountable. This help of -- this will help rebuild the trust between the American people and those that serve them in the Intelligence Community.

Today, we need you to be candid about the threats facing the United States. I have deep concerns that many threats have been downplayed or not taken seriously enough for some time, particularly in the homeland and the Western Hemisphere. I look forward to hearing your assessment.

Thank you again to our witnesses for being here today. And with that, I want to yield to the distinguished Ranking Member, Mr. Himes, for his opening statement.

HIMES: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning and welcome to our witnesses. As the Chairman said, this hearing is an important opportunity for our committee and the American people to hear directly from the senior leadership of the Intelligence Community about the threats that our nation faces.

I read the unclassified report and I found a lot of -- a lot of continuity in the IC's assessment about critical threats to our national security compared to last year's assessment. The IC continues to see threats from our principal adversaries, China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

I must say though that after these last two months, I'm worried that the call may be coming from inside the house. This report calls Russia, and I quote, "an enduring potential threat to U.S. power, presence, and global interests."

But as far as I can tell, we're now on team Kremlin. We vote with them and against our allies in the United Nations. We humiliate President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. The President's chief Russia negotiator Steve Witkoff is repeating Russian talking points and participating on a mad cap Signal chat about an attack on Yemen while inside Russia.

USAID is gone, and with it all American soft power. If I had time, I would ask the generals at this table about what it means to our national security to give up our soft power. We're no longer helping struggling nations in Africa. China or, worse, terrorists are filling the vacuum. I wonder how many of those African countries will be named in next year's threat assessment.

Thanks to DOGE, the men we paid to guard the most vicious ISIS terrorists in the world in Syria walked off the job. Do you think we'll see their names in this document next year? Elon Musk fired the people who maintain our nuclear weapons. Does that feel like a threat to you?

Apparently, all of this mayhem is cheered by the President of the United States and by 20-somethings with laptops and nicknames like Big Balls. But I've been doing this for a long time and I know that Moscow and Beijing and Tehran and Pyongyang cannot believe their luck.

Now we come to learn that people in the most dangerous and sensitive jobs on the planet put extremely specific pre-decisional discussions about a military attack on Signal which could be intercepted by the Russians and the Chinese.

Everyone here knows that the Russians or the Chinese could have gotten all of that information and they could have passed it on to the Houthis who easily could have re-positioned weapons and altered their plans to knock down planes or sink ships. I think that it's by the awesome grace of God that we are not mourning dead pilots right now.

The two general officers sitting at the table and the people who work for all of you know that if they had set up and participated in the Signal chat, they would be gone, and they know that there's only one response to a mistake of this magnitude -- you apologize, you own it, and you stop everything until you can figure out -- went wrong -- how -- what went wrong and how it might not ever happen again.

But that's not what happened. The Secretary of Defense responded with a brutal attack on the reporter who did not ask to be on the Signal chain. Yesterday, our former colleague Mike Waltz did the same in the White House, and then went on Fox to call Jeff Goldberg a loser. What do you think the people who work for you are seeing and learning from that?

Now, except for that last part, almost all of the mayhem slowly eroding our safety, our standing, and our security in the world has largely happened outside the IC. If you had a part in that, and I suspect you did, I thank you.

I'll say it now and I'll say it again every time we see each other over the next couple of years -- you must protect the thousands of patriots who go to work every day under you to keep us safe. You need to go to work every day thinking about their morale, their wellbeing, and their protection.

I've done intelligence oversight for more than a decade. It's my job to ask you the tough questions and maybe even make you uncomfortable. But John, I don't ever walk through your lobby and look at those 140 stars on the wall without choking up over the fact that men and women far better than I will give their lives to keep us safe.

There's about a dozen people in this room who know all their stories, and you know and I know that many of the men and women who have stars on that wall died because of bad decisions or poor judgment by their leaders.

We've all worked together before, and recent events notwithstanding, we need you to succeed. Your people and our safety requires you to succeed. I really hope you do. But let me say now that if some over- caffeinated 20-year-old succeeds in firing your linguists or your mathematicians or your paramilitary officers, if you shut down some unit because Steve Bannon or Seb Gorka doesn't like it, America will be less safe and people will get hurt. And I and this committee and history will be very unkind.

BLITZER: All right. We're going to continue to monitor this important hearing, just as we did yesterday in the Senate Intelligence Committee. This is the House Intelligence Committee.

But I want to get a little reaction right now all the late breaking developments. Joining us, Republican Congressman Rich McCormick, he sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

What do you make, Congressman, first of all, what Congressman Jim Himes just said about the Trump administration and its inability to keep these very sensitive, classified details about an upcoming U.S. military strike against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen?

REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R-GA): Well, as a former military member for over 20 years, somebody who's top secret clearance, somebody who understands people like Mike Waltz, who have served in the military, understand exactly what's at stake, understands exactly how to keep this thing classified, it was a mistake. Nobody's denying that. I listened to Mike Waltz very specifically in his interviews last night -- he had several -- and listened to his verbiage. Of course, it's embarrassing. Of course, we did something wrong. I don't think it'll ever happen again. I sure hope not.

It does jeopardize people's lives. Luckily it didn't, in this case, result in something bad. The admission that there was something done wrong, the fact that we're going to do something better in the future, I think, is the important thing. I don't think we should be talking about anything else. You could talk about other people doing other things that doesn't matter. As a military guy, as somebody who wants to see something accomplished in the safest way possible, that's something that shouldn't be done, and I think we won't do it again.

BLITZER: A U.S. defense official is telling CNN, Congressman, that this information was classified at the time it was written since the operation had not yet started, and it provided details about what was about to happen with the U.S. military in Yemen going after those Iranian-backed Houthi forces. How much worse does it make the administration look now that these details have just been made public by The Atlantic Magazine?

MCCORMICK: And so when we say something's classified, it's something usually that the military intelligence or whoever's in charge of that information is the ones who designate if it's classified or not. Now, whether it's classified or not, we know that it was sensitive information. We know it shouldn't have been shared. It was a mistake. But whether it was illegal -- it certainly wasn't done intentionally. But whether it was illegal because it was classified information, that's something that's going to be determined by people who are in the legalese of that.

But, once again, nobody says that it wasn't done wrong. Nobody says that it couldn't have jeopardized the mission. But whether it was illegal or not is something entirely different.

BLITZER: The national security adviser over at the White House, Mike Waltz, a man, you know, said he takes full responsibility for creating the group chat and is now downplaying these latest messages released by The Atlantic Magazine saying, and I'm quoting him now, no locations, no sources and methods, no war plans. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is also denying that he texted war plans. If these messages aren't war plans though, what are they? I assume you read all the text messages.

MCCORMICK: I have not read all the text messages. I don't think they've been released, all the content --

BLITZER: They have been. All of them have been released by The Atlantic Magazine this morning.

MCCORMICK: Okay. I have not read this morning. I've been in meetings all morning, but I have not read it. So, it'll be interesting to see what details come from that.

BLITZER: The details showed the type of weapons that were about to be used in the strike. The details showed the timing of when the strikes were to begin. And the details showed specific targets, including Houthis leaders, one of whom they were told that was about to walk into a building where he had a girlfriend, and that building was destroyed. Presumably, the girlfriend was killed in the process.

What do you make of those kind of specific details discussed on a private Signal chat focus over there?

MCCORMICK: Well, it'd be interesting to see what they come up with in the future. Obviously, this is something that people have been doing in defensive. I don't think it's good. I think it needs to be done in a SCIF where you have literally walls and you don't have your cell phones because of this sort of problem.

I think they'll do a top down review of how they do business and make sure that this is not done again. I think it's something you can learn from. You admit your mistakes. That's the first step towards correcting them.

BLITZER: The newly released texts show very, very sensitive information. I'm a former Pentagon correspondent, former White House correspondent. And if other officials at the Pentagon or the White House or other U.S. intelligence agencies in the CIA, the DIA or whatever, were releasing this kind of information in advance of an upcoming U.S. military airstrike, they would be kicked out immediately if not sent to jail for a long time. Do you agree?

MCCORMICK: Oh, hey, when I was in the military, we still can't talk about things that we never even did, just things we planned. That's from 20 years ago. But, quite frankly, we've seen a lot of people not get in trouble, including former secretaries of state and, you know, who I'm talking about, for doing things that they shouldn't have done.

Accountability is something we start with and it shouldn't be just the lower enlisted levels that get in trouble for doing these sort of things. There should be accountability. I'm sure they're going to do a review. The mistakes were already admitted. They're going to correct the problem and I'm sure there will be accountability in some way, shape, or form.

BLITZER: Well, you think the FBI should investigate?

MCCORMICK: I think they are investigating.

BLITZER: Well, we haven't gotten word yet. There's no indication that they've launched a formal full scale investigation into this intelligence failure.

MCCORMICK: Well, whether it's the FBI or the president of the United States, this is going to be reviewed, no doubt about it. We're going to learn from it and hopefully do better.

BLITZER: And potentially crimes were committed in the process of releasing this kind of information in some sort of commercial Signal chat capability.

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MCCORMICK: Yes, potentially. But that's one thing that has to be reviewed, doesn't it?

BLITZER: Presumably, it will be reviewed. I assume it will be reviewed. Normally, if this kind of intelligence before an upcoming U.S. military airstrike were made public and this particular case was made public, there would be a full scale intelligence review and a full scale potential criminal review as well to see what happened, to learn the lessons of what happened, and make sure it never happens again, a full scale review. Should Congress begin a full scale review as well?

MCCORMICK: Well, that's what the hearing's about. Think about this, Wolf. This is already one of the most public stories we've had during this administration. It is not even about the story that we actually took out some bad guys, that we actually did a mission. I haven't been able to read any details on that because the entire press cycle has been on this.

There's going to be accountability because we know the public's aware of it. We are having hearings on it already just days after this event. So, this is going to be reviewed in great detail by a great number of people and a great deal of agencies. So, you don't have to worry about that.

BLITZER: Because we covered all those developments. Clearly, you weren't watching us, but all those other developments we've been covering them in full detail. And I'm just wondering if you expect, for example, the Defense Secretary Hegseth or the National Security Adviser Waltz to resign for their carelessness in participating in this kind of chat?

MCCORMICK: No, I don't think they will resign, and I don't think it was one of those things. Once again, it was done unintentionally. People make mistakes all the time. When I was in the military, we talked about a zero defect mentality. If you punish people for mistakes, people will never take a chance. And in the military, that can be deadly as well.

BLITZER: But in this particular case, these were not just average U.S. military personnel. This was the leader of the Defense Department. You would think that the Pentagon leader would have full knowledge of what should be said in this kind of chat on Signal and would know, you know, guys, we shouldn't be talking about this on our personal phones, on our -- even our government phones in this kind of environment, because, potentially, the Russians or the Chinese or the Iranians or others could be paying attention and listening to what's going on and undermining U.S. national security and potentially endangering the lives of the men and women who risk their lives to make sure the U.S. is secure.

MCCORMICK: You're absolutely right, Wolf. And that's why I said there was a mistake made and it will be reviewed. But one thing we're forgetting, once again, the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, had an unsecured server that she put a ton of emails on. And this isn't just one isolated incident. It's over a course of months, thousands of emails, and then when subpoenaed, what happened? They destroyed all the evidence. They smashed servers and nobody wants to talk about that. That was a mistake too. We should always address mistakes. We should always be accountable and that's what's going to happen.

BLITZER: But you don't think at this point, there's enough evidence right now already out to convince the secretary of defense or the national security adviser it's time to go?

MCCORMICK: No, I think it needs to be reviewed much more in detail. I think this is going to be an ongoing discussion. Obviously, it's highlighted right now as the story of the day. But there is a lot of information to uncover before we make any huge chunks to conclusions.

BLITZER: Yes, this is a really, really dramatic development, potentially very, very significant for the U.S. intelligence community and the U.S. military.

Congressman Rich McCormick, thanks so much for joining us.

MCCORMICK: Absolutely.

BLITZER: And still ahead, we're monitoring another very contentious day up on Capitol Hill, the nation's top intelligence officials fielding more questions about that now infamous strike plan group chat. We're seeing for ourselves the actual texts of the documents that were released. We're going to get military reaction to those details. That's next.

Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

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BLITZER: All right. Let's get back to the breaking news, and there's major breaking news, The Atlantic Magazine releasing the unredacted contents of that war plans group chat shared with the editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.

Joining us now is a staff writer for The Atlantic, Shane Harris. He covers a national security and intelligence, and he is the co-author of this latest article in The Atlantic Magazine, shares the byline with Goldberg.

I want to begin, Shane, with the White House response to the release of these texts, and I'll put the exact words from the White House up on the screen. The Atlantic has conceded. These were not war plans. This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin, end quote. What's your response to the White House making that accusation?

SHANE HARRIS, STAFF WRITER COVERING NATIONAL SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE, THE ATLANTIC: I think it's pretty absurd. I mean, first of all, we haven't conceded anything. I gather the press secretary is taking issue with the phrase attack plans in the headline. I think anybody with common sense can read these texts that Pete Hegseth sent and understand what they are. They are describing active military operations in great detail. And I think those would be presumptively classified, based on my long experience reporting on national security and a lot of experts that we've talked to. So, I really do think the texts speak for themselves and that's one reason why we thought it was important to publish them today.

BLITZER: It was really important and it was great reporting on your part and on Goldberg's part to break all this information for the American public to see precisely what these top U.S. military and intelligence officials were saying in this so-called private chat, which could have been hacked, as we all know.

Have Trump officials, Shane, been lying to the American public when they claim they never discussed war plans or classified information?

HARRIS: Well, I certainly think they were misleading them. I mean, you know, this is classified information presumptively based on the Defense Department's own guidance. You can actually -- they've been -- people have been putting this out today online, I've noticed. Things like times that a target is or a plane is going to attack a target, locations of targets, identifying information, the kinds of weapons that would be used. All of this is presumptively classified.

So, officials have been coming out and saying it was unclassified.

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Well, if that's what they really believed at the time, who told them that?