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The Source with Kaitlan Collins
Waltz Takes Responsibility For Leak But Questions How Reporter Got "Sucked Into" Group Chat; Gabbard & Ratcliffe Defend Signal Chat Before Congress; Trump On Consumer Confidence Dipping: We're On The "Right Track." Aired 9-10p ET
Aired March 25, 2025 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, the D.A. who's handling this case, is having to add to it, as more surfers come forward, and to say, Hey, that happened to me. And a lot of them, as I say, are still trying to fight for their money, to prove that this really did happen.
And Daniel Castillo (ph), who is the guy who was in that surveillance video, allegedly breaking in to Logan's car?
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Yes.
WATT: He doesn't have a lawyer and has not entered a plea. All of this is still to come to trial.
Anderson.
COOPER: Nick Watt, thanks very much.
The news continues. "THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS" starts now.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: Straight from THE SOURCE tonight.
President Trump and his top national security officials say nothing was classified, and no mistakes were made, when military attack plans were discussed on an unsecure app, with a reporter, in the chat, watching it all play out, in real-time.
I asked the President, directly today, who told him nothing was classified, and if the FBI should now be investigating. You will see our revealing exchange inside the West Wing.
And surprise. Vice President Vance packing his bags for Greenland, joining the second lady there, but not for spring break. The President is serious about buying the place.
I'm Kaitlan Collins. And this is THE SOURCE.
At the White House tonight, a major security breach is being described more as a minor mishap, as officials are working to contain the fallout, with everyone, from the President on down, defending, deflecting or, in some cases, denying what happened when a journalist was mistakenly added to an unsecure group chat, about military plans, between the senior-most national security aides regarding a forthcoming strike in Yemen.
If you thought the response would be the acknowledgement of a mistake, one that carries major national security implications? Think again.
When I asked President Trump directly about the controversy that's been swarming over his administration, this is how he responded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Mr. President, are you going to change any of the practices that your national security officials used, after a reporter was inadvertently added to a group chat about attacks on Yemen?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well I think it's a question I've been asked now, and I've given a few answers, and they've all been the same. We have an amazing group. Our national security now is stronger than it's ever been. We have had a very, very successful, numerous attacks on that area.
There was no classified information, as I understand it. They used a -- a app, if you want to call it an app that a lot of people use, lot of people in government use, a lot of people in the media use.
COLLINS: Mr. President, who told you that information was not classified?
TRUMP: Another question?
COLLINS: Which of your national security advisers--
TRUMP: Please. Scott (ph).
COLLINS: --advisers told you that?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: A president, who is rarely at a loss for words, clearly not interested in answering that question.
The President did want to weigh in personally on all of this. That event was added to his schedule. It was initially not on his public schedule that reporters see.
When we walked in the room, we immediately noticed that Mike Waltz was at the end of the table. And Trump referenced his National Security Adviser repeatedly, as he insisted that that conversation about military plans was not classified. Contradicting what we heard, last night here, from Jeffrey Goldberg.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFFREY GOLDBERG, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE ATLANTIC: 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. I didn't publish this, and I continue not to publish it, because it felt like it was too confidential, too technical. And I worry, honestly, that sharing that kind of information in public could endanger American military personnel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: The who, the what, the where, the why, the when, all about an imminent U.S. military attack. If that's not classified, then what is? Lawmakers struggled with that very question, on Capitol Hill today, including one senator I'm going to speak with in a moment.
But how does The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg prove that without releasing the messages that he saw, as some of the same people who are attacking his credibility argue, those messages should not see the light of day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE WALTZ, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: No, of course, I don't want it all out there, because these were conversations back and forth that you should be able to have confidentially. But what you also saw was a healthy policy debate, and how we were going to achieve this for the President. What would be the results? What should be the timeline?
Look, a staffer wasn't responsible. And look, I take full responsibility. I built the -- I built the group. My job is to make sure everything's coordinated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Now that was the National Security Adviser, taking full responsibility for adding Jeffrey Goldberg to this text chains.
[21:05:00]
But just moments before that, Waltz seemed to imply that maybe something more nefarious had happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALTZ: You know, Laura, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. But of all the people out there, somehow, this guy, who has lied about the President, who has lied to Gold Star families, lied to their attorneys, and gone to Russia hoax, gone to just all kinds of links, to lie and smear the President of the United States, and he's the one that somehow gets on somebody's contact and then gets sucked into this group.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Now, earlier, when we were inside the Cabinet Room, I asked President Trump, who was leading the investigation into what exactly happened here. And he suggested to me that it would be Waltz himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Who's going to lead -- who's going to lead that investigation?
TRUMP: Yes, I want to--
COLLINS: Is that the FBI? Or who would lead that?
TRUMP: Anything like that, I would -- I would ask them. It's not really an FBI thing. It's really something having to do with security. Security like, will somebody be able to break it? Are people able to break into conversations? And if that's true, we're going to have to find some other form of device, and I think that's something that we may have to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: When it comes to his administration, the President has not been quick to call for investigations, nor the people who were on that group chat. The President, of course, was not on it.
One thing that they seemed to agree on is that this was not a mistake, and that is where we saw what happened on Capitol Hill today come in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN RATCLIFFE, CIA DIRECTOR: My communications, to be clear, in a Signal message group, were entirely permissible and lawful, and did not include classified information.
The Secretary of Defense is the original classification authority for determining whether something's classified or not. And as I've understood from media reports, the Secretary of Defense has said, the information was not classified.
TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: There was no classified material that was shared.
I defer to the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, on that question.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: You're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited, so-called journalist.
So this is the guy that peddles in garbage.
Nobody was texting war plans.
WALTZ: I think there's a lot of -- the lesson is there's a lot of journalists, in this city, who have made big names for themselves, making up lies about this president. Whether it's the Russia hoax or making up lies about Gold Star families. And this one in particular, I've never met, don't know, never communicated with. And we are in -- we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Which Waltz said tonight, he takes full responsibility for.
My deeply-sourced White House insiders are here.
Semafor's Shelby Talcott.
PBS NewsHour's Laura Barron-Lopez.
And Axios' Alex Thompson.
Laura, just let me start with you on, and what Trump was saying about how this investigation got started, what this is going to look like, and Mike -- the Mike Waltz of it all. What did you make of what you heard from him tonight?
LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR: Well, it sounded a lot like when the President said that Elon Musk is going to police his own conflicts of interest.
Basically, that the person who is responsible, who's saying that they're responsible, is actually going to be in charge of determining whether or not what they did was OK, or whether or not they made -- you know that they -- just investigating themselves, which is kind of remarkable. You would think that someone else would be tasked with investigating what happened here.
You've seen the administration's answers change over and over, over the course of this. Which is, from the beginning, first they took -- they confirmed that it happened, that this Signal chat existed, and that Jeffrey Goldberg was inadvertently added.
And then they've turned into basically attack the messenger, attack the person who reported that it happened.
And then you saw DNI Gabbard, over the course of the hearing today, essentially give a variety of different answers. At first, saying nothing or -- nothing on there was classified, and then changing it to, Well, actually, nothing under my purview was classified.
So there's all kinds of answers across the board.
COLLINS: Well, and I'm glad you brought up Elon Musk, because Mike Waltz actually invoked him tonight. When he was taking responsibility, he said that it wasn't a staffer. He was the one who accidentally added Jeffrey Goldberg to this message, Shelby.
Listen to what else he had to say tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALTZ: I just talked to Elon, on the way here. We've got the best technical minds looking at how this happened. But I can tell you, I can tell you, for 100 percent, I don't know this guy.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: You don't know what staffer is responsible for this right now?
WALTZ: Well, look, a staffer wasn't responsible. And look, I take full responsibility. (END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: He's obviously doing cleanup for all of this. It's notable, they're sending him out tonight, and he's doing this.
But the President did say today that Mike Waltz still has his backing.
SHELBY TALCOTT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, SEMAFOR: Yes, I've heard from a number of White House officials that they truly believe that Mike Waltz can get through this, and they're sort of hoping that Mike Waltz will get through this.
But the President is looking very closely, over the next few days, at the coverage, and how everything plays out. So, he's certainly not happy that this situation has happened.
[21:10:00]
But I think the thinking internally, from what I've heard, is part of the reason that they don't want to get rid of everyone -- anyone, because of this, is because there's such an outrage from -- a rightful outrage, from Democrats, and from Trump administration critics, to get rid of somebody.
And so because of that, there's a thinking of, We've done so -- we've done so well so far, in keeping things contained, in this Trump 2.0 administration, we want to keep that going and not get rid of anyone.
COLLINS: What are you hearing from people tonight, Alex?
ALEX THOMPSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, AXIOS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: So, the fallout isn't just political, which you just articulated. There's also international fallout from this too, because there was some speculation in Europe that all of this rhetoric was really just posturing, right, that it was bluffing.
And now you have the private messages, and you realize that the Secretary of Defense called Europe, Pathetic, in all-caps. You also have JD Vance very much articulating that he thinks that Europe is a bunch of freeloaders, and is going to be a consistent hawk on this issue. Europe now knows that this isn't just rhetoric, and they need to prepare otherwise.
COLLINS: Yes.
TALCOTT: And the President himself said that today too. He said he agreed with the Vice President that Europe were freeloaded -- freeloading.
COLLINS: But I -- but I think the part of that that was missing was that Vance was disagreeing, in that group text, with the carrying out these strikes. He says, I don't think that the President realizes, this is inconsistent with his message on Europe, right now, and he was actually suggesting delaying this.
But overall, how the administration has been handling this, in terms of saying, this was not classified information. That is the line that they are now putting out there. The question is, is Jeffrey Goldberg going to release those messages that he withheld, because he was worried that they could do damage potentially?
BARRON-LOPEZ: It's true. I mean, he's very concerned about what that means for people, for arms -- you know, for people, who are in the military.
But also, he said earlier today, I think he was talking to The Bulwark, where he said that it's something that he may have to discuss with the people that are advising him, that are advising The Atlantic, on what they can and can't release, because, yes, there are questions.
What if -- the administration may claim that nothing was classified. What if Jeffrey Goldberg releases some of this information, and then he has to be held responsible under the Espionage Act, because some people who, military experts and national security experts, have said that very well, the information in that Signal chat, that was being discussed in that Signal chat, could be violations of the Espionage Act. Because of the fact that it was in that Signal chat, and because of the fact that there was an unsecure person with no security clearance inside of that Signal chat.
COLLINS: Have you heard if the White House is bracing for the rest of these messages to potentially come out, and what that means for the denials, which are, from the President, from the National Security Adviser, from the CIA Director, from the Director of National Intelligence. These are pretty extensive denials about classified information.
TALCOTT: Well, they're essentially, kind of almost baiting Jeffrey to release these messages, by saying, They're not classified. There was nothing. There were no war plans in them. In some sense that, in my opinion, is them saying, OK, we're fine with the messages being released.
But at the same time, you've heard those same officials, Mike Waltz, tonight, on Fox News, say, Well, no, actually, we don't want them to be released, because this was intended to be a private conversation.
So there's clearly conversations going on internally, inside the White House, over how much they want to get out.
And I talked to White House officials. What they would really want in an ideal situation is for this to just go away. And that's clearly what they're trying to make happen.
THOMPSON: When you saw Ratcliffe sort of hedge in his answer, that you showed earlier, where he basically said, Well, the Pentagon chief gets to decide what is classified, and what is not. And--
COLLINS: Can I play that moment?
THOMPSON: Yes.
COLLINS: Because I have that actually. And I agree with you that I thought that was completely fascinating, how he and Gabbard kept deferring to Defense Secretary Hegseth himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RATCLIFFE: The Secretary of Defense is the original classification authority for determining whether something's classified or not.
GABBARD: I defer questions to the Secretary of Defense.
I defer to the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, on that question.
Same answer, and defer to the Department of Defense on that question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: The Secretary of Defense is in Hawaii right now, and was the first to come out yesterday and say, War plans were not discussed here.
THOMPSON: Well, and it's going to be very interesting when he comes back and him -- I imagine, he's also going to have to testify about what is going on here.
And if Jeffrey Goldberg does release those texts, there -- you know, somebody is going to have to answer for something.
But it is interesting to see all these people come and say, Well, nothing I put in there was classified.
COLLINS: Yes. And also, they're focusing on attacking Jeffrey Goldberg, and not really the situation in and of itself that happened here.
THOMPSON: Yes, because they're -- I mean, they are embarrassed. And to Laura's point, they've been -- their answers have kept changing, depending on the person you're talking to. There was another clip in the Fox interview, where he said, It was a mistake.
And I think, the Trump team had taken, whether or not you agree with or not, had taken a lot of comp -- you know, taken a lot of pride in the fact they were really well-organized, or at least a lot better organized, this time, as opposed to eight years ago. And this has shattered a little bit of that aura that they had about themselves.
COLLINS: Yes. All right, thanks everyone. We'll see if those messages are released.
My next source is actually seeking those messages. He's a senator, who questioned those two Trump officials today on this group chat.
[21:15:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RATCLIFFE: Your question was have I--
SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): You're the head of the Intelligence Community, and you're supposed to know about classifications.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Senators today pushed for answers, from two of the senior officials who were on that unsecure Signal group chat, about military plans in Yemen.
The CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, and the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, both swore, under oath, as they tried to downplay the story.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RATCLIFFE: And I was not discussing classified information in this -- in this setting.
GABBARD: There was no classified material that was shared.
RATCLIFFE: There was no classified information.
[21:20:00]
GABBARD: There was no classified information.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Now, those are two people, who are the most responsible, in the federal government, for keeping the nation's secrets. And, at times, were fuzzy on the details.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GABBARD: I don't remember mention of specific targets.
I don't recall specific weapons systems being named.
I don't recall specific timing.
SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): Any mention of any military unit whatsoever? Mr. Ratcliffe?
RATCLIFFE: Not that I recall.
KELLY: Ms. Gabbard?
GABBARD: Not that I recall.
RATCLIFFE: In that setting, I don't recall.
As you -- as you--
SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): You don't recall seeing that?
RATCLIFFE: --read that, I don't. OSSOFF: It included the private opinions of the Secretary of Defense on the timing of strikes in Yemen, correct?
RATCLIFFE: I don't recall.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: When pressed further for specifics, Director Gabbard returned to this talking point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KING: According to open source reporting, at 11:44 on the morning of March 15th, Secretary Hegseth put into this group text a detailed operation plan, including targets, the weapons we were going to be using, attack sequences and timing. And yet you have testified that nothing in that tech -- in that chain was classified. Wouldn't that be classified? What if that had been made public, that morning, before the attack took place?
GABBARD: Senator, I can attest to the fact there were no classified or intelligence equities that were included in that chat group.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: My source tonight, you just heard from there. Senator -- an Independent senator from Maine, Senator Angus King.
And thank you so much for being here.
KING: Sure.
COLLINS: You seemed quite skeptical of the argument about this discussion not being classified, what they were talking about. If imminent military strikes aren't classified, Senator, what is?
KING: Well, that was exactly the question I asked. I mean, you heard the question. According to Jeffrey Goldberg, and he quite responsibly, didn't report the details, but he said that Hegseth's text talked about the timing, the weapons, the targets, the sequencing. And, as you say, if that isn't classified, I don't know what is.
And I don't know -- I don't understand the witnesses today saying that it wasn't classified. And of course, I followed up by saying, Well, if it wasn't classified, then give us the whole text chain, because if it isn't classified, let's see it here at the committee. And of course, there were no takers on that offer.
And Kaitlan, people talking about this being a mistake, that seems to be the word of the day to defense. Well, it was a mistake.
Well, you and I have probably texted to the wrong person by mistake, or perhaps joined a group that we -- it wasn't the right one that we thought. But you're not the Director of National Intelligence, and I'm not the Secretary of Defense. These are the top national security officials in the country, and they were on a text chain that the Pentagon themselves, ironically, had said, Don't use for this kind of purpose, and they were discussing national security affairs. And it just, it doesn't pass the straight- face test, that somehow none of this was classified.
We're going to find that out, and we'll find out, I believe, reasonably shortly, what was in that text chain, because the administration can't now say, Well, we can't tell you because it's state secrets, or it's classified. Because, their Director of National Intelligence said about 10 times that it isn't classified. It was -- it was a very frustrating hearing.
COLLINS: Well, and the President himself said that today. I mean, how do you plan to get your hands on the rest of those messages then?
KING: Well, that's the job of our committee. With the Select Committee on Intelligence, our job is to investigate matters like this. We had a lot of discussion of it today. There was a closed session, later on in the morning. And certainly, I hope that Chairman Cotton is going to follow up on this.
Because this was really a serious breach. This wasn't just a casual mistake. This wasn't a bunch of teenagers deciding what they were going to do on the weekend. This was the highest-level discussion about a military attack on another country, and it should have been, they should have been more careful about it. They were using an app that is encrypted, but not secure.
And hear this -- it came out today, that one of the people on the chat, during the time it was all going on, was in Moscow. You don't think the Russians are after our phones, if you're in Moscow? What phone were they using?
And one of the senators asked Tulsi Gabbard what phone she was using. Was it a personal phone, a government phone? She wouldn't answer the question.
Come on. I mean, let's -- let's just have a little -- we hear a lot about transparency. We're getting zero transparency on this matter.
COLLINS: Do you think her not answering that question, kind of answers, which one it was?
KING: Well, it did for me. If it had been a government official phone, a secure phone, I would assume she would have said so. And I think it's a real problem.
[21:25:00]
And again, these aren't supposed to be amateurs. These are the highest-level national security people that we have. And to not even check Jeffrey Goldberg's initials were on the list?
And for the National Security Adviser, or some staff member, to not go down the list of see who's on this chat? Oh, there's a couple of initials we don't recognize, we better -- we better check this out. I mean, it was -- it was -- you know, it would be funny if it weren't so damn serious, because it was so inept and incompetent. And, again--
COLLINS: Yes.
KING: --the reason it's serious is these were national security matters. Had Jeffrey Goldberg been less responsible and broken the story that day, it could have compromised American lives.
COLLINS: Yes, and I should note that Mike Waltz said just a few moments ago that it wasn't a staffer who added Jeffrey Goldberg to that text, that somehow it was him. He said he took full responsibility.
But Senator, I do want you to listen between how Republicans on Capitol Hill have been talking about this, and how they're describing it, compared to how the CIA Director described it today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS): Mistakes were made, no question.
SEN. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-AL): Well, it's mistake, you know. We make mistakes.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): It was a mistake, and they'll tighten up and make sure it doesn't happen again.
SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): It's a mistake that's been corrected right now.
OSSOFF: This was a huge mistake, correct?
RATCLIFFE: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Senator, how is the administration's refusal to even acknowledge or call it a mistake, which the President also later would not call it that, how is that sitting with your colleagues up on the Hill, especially the Republican ones?
KING: Well, privately, I think that my Republican colleagues are pretty -- pretty upset. There's -- I guess, the term would be eye- rolling.
To characterize it as a mistake is, that's just too -- that's too easy. You don't make mistakes on this level. Of course, you do make mistakes. But these are the, I keep saying this, these are the top national security officials in the entire country.
They were having a group chat on an app, on a publicly-available app, that can be compromised. We know that. And in fact, as I mentioned, the Pentagon, ironically, after the leak, but before the story broke, issued a memo throughout the Pentagon, saying, Don't use Signal for this kind of discussion. And it was just -- it was just -- it was a serious problem.
Now, what the administration is going to do? I wish they had come into the hearing today, and acknowledged that this was a serious breach. It was something that's going to be looked into. They're going to review it. They're going to see that it never happens again.
But instead, there's all this circling of the wagons and well, just saying, It's a mistake. It will blow over. Don't worry about it.
We got to worry about it because what does this tell us about the competence of this group, in general, making the most important and consequential decisions that a country can possibly make?
COLLINS: Senator Angus King, let us know if the Chairman of your committee pushes for those messages. Thank you for your time tonight.
KING: Indeed. Great to be with you, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Also here tonight is the journalist and historian, Garrett Graff.
And Garrett, it's great to have you here.
Because you heard the President today, talking about Signal, which I was told he had to be briefed on what Signal was. Trump only really recently started texting, in just a few years, regular text messaging. He says, a lot of people in government use Signal. Is that accurate, from what you know?
GARRETT GRAFF, JOURNALIST & HISTORIAN, AUTHOR, "WATERGATE: A NEW HISTORY": It is. But it raises a separate set of questions, some of which the Senator King just touched on there.
One being, this is not a app that is designed or supposed to be allowed on government devices. So are these conversations taking place on personal devices? That obviously was a question that went to DNI Gabbard today. She refused to answer.
Both answers, whether it's a government device or a personal device, are separately troubling, because you have to put this in the larger context of what is happening from our foreign adversaries, in the United States cybersecurity world right now.
There is a massive Chinese intrusion that goes by the name Salt Typhoon, that has been pillaging U.S. cellular networks, and in last fall, actually, we know, targeted the personal phone of Vice President JD Vance.
[21:30:00]
So Signal is encrypted when the messages are going in between the Signal applications. But they are not encrypted on the home device, if that device has already been penetrated by a foreign adversary.
So, if these are personal devices, not secured in the way that a government device would be, you could expect that a foreign adversary, like Russia or China, is actually actively reading that same text thread as Jeffrey Goldberg was.
COLLINS: Yes, and of course, we saw this be an issue during the campaign, with attempts to infiltrate people's phones then, on both sides.
Given this, and given also the fact that these were messages on Signal, you can set for them to delete, the messages, one hour, one day, a week, the messages were set to delete here. It's raised a lot of questions of just the sanctity of that and preserving that, and whether or not it violated the Federal Records Act as well.
But there was an exchange today that I also want to get your take on, between Senator Mark Warner, and Director Gabbard, about something that she said recently about classified information.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Tweeted just 11 days ago, and I'm quoting you, Any unauthorized release of classified information is a violation of the law and will be treated as such.
So if this information is classified, what are you going to do?
GABBARD: Senator, two points here. First of all, there's a difference between inadvertent release versus--
WARNER: Careless and sloppy.
GABBARD: --malicious leaks of classified information. The second point is, there was no classified information that was--
WARNER: Then the Intelligence Committee should get that--
GABBARD: --on this Signal group chat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: How big of a difference is there when it comes to, if you're someone who's purposely leaking something, or whether or not inadvertently a reporter was added, another figure who does not have that security clearance, was added to this conversation?
GRAFF: Yes, so the criminal test in the federal statute is gross negligence, if you inadvertently give information entrusted to you, as classified intelligence, to someone not worthy of that trust.
I would argue that probably adding Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, or Vladimir Putin, to your group chat would be slightly more grossly negligent than adding the Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic to your classified group chat, but only by a matter of degrees.
I mean, this is a -- by any sort of stretch of the imagination, this would launch a criminal investigation for any other figure in the U.S. government.
And to your point on the disappearing messages. One of the things that is clear in the Federal Records Act is that this -- the idea that Mike Waltz actually reset the default disappearing messages, so that they would disappear in four weeks, in one week? That is as clear a moment of intent as you could possibly want, as an investigator, to violate the Federal Records Act.
And so, this is clearly something also where none of these people objected, in the moment, to conducting these conversations on Signal.
COLLINS: Yes.
GRAFF: There was no Hey, like, should we be doing this? Like, Hey, like, is someone preserving this?
So, it shows that this, these types of conversations are taking place on a very regular basis, probably at all levels of the Trump administration, and that these principals are used to, trying to violate the Federal Records Act in this very way.
COLLINS: Well, that is a great question going forward of, of how they use this practice, and whether or not it's banned.
Mike Waltz seemed to say today he won't be using it, going forward. We'll see what happens with the rest of the officials.
Garrett Graff, thank you, as always.
GRAFF: Always a pleasure, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Meanwhile, the President today was standing by, very much, his National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, after this major breach.
But what does the previous National Security Adviser, who once sat in that chair, have to say about this? He's my source, next.
[21:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Tonight, the National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, says he's responsible for adding The Atlantic's Editor-in-Chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, into that group chat, where he and other officials talked openly about military strike plans.
It contradicts what we heard from President Trump, earlier this morning, when he told NBC News, quote, "It was one of Michael's people on the phone. A staffer had his number on there."
The President did praise and defend Waltz today, amid questions about whether or not his job is on the line.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He's a very good man. That man is a very good man right there that you criticized so strongly.
(CROSSTALK) TRUMP: He's a very good man.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Trump seeming to argue Waltz's position is safer now.
Though the comment that you heard there is similar to what the President said previously about one of Waltz's predecessors, whom he later ousted.
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TRUMP: I think John Bolton's a good man.
I like Bolton. I think he's, you know, a tough cookie.
John is a terrific guy.
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COLLINS: My source tonight is the person he is referring to there. Trump's first -- former National Security Adviser, Ambassador John Bolton.
Ambassador, it's great to have you here tonight. I'm sure you enjoyed that trip down memory lane.
JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Yes, it calls back a lot of fond memories. And I think it shows that Trump is for somebody up until the point he's not for them. And the dividing line is, is this benefiting Donald Trump personally or not?
[21:40:00]
I think in some of the clips you played of Trump earlier, he's really more distant from all this than people think. I think he senses danger. He doesn't understand fully what's happening here. So he's not going to let the side down prematurely. But I think he's in doubt about what's going on, and he's preserving -- preserving his distance from it for -- for to preserve his options later on.
COLLINS: Well, it's also interesting what officials are saying, and obviously how they're arguing this to the President himself.
Because when I asked Trump earlier, who's looking into this, he said he had tasked Mike Waltz with immediately studying it. And then Waltz added this, saying technical and legal experts are looking at it. This is -- this is what happened.
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TRUMP: I think Michael, I've asked you to--
WALTZ: Sir.
TRUMP: --immediately study that and find out. If people are able to break into a system.
WALTZ: Right.
TRUMP: Now, in this case, it wasn't that the -- this attack was going on, and nobody found out anything. And again, the person that was on, as I understand it, he left very early, because he didn't find it very exciting.
But I think it's something you should look into.
WALTZ: Yes, sir, we are. We have our technical experts looking at it. We have our legal teams looking at it. And, of course, we're going to keep everything as secure as possible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: I wonder what you make of that, given Waltz himself says he was the one who added Jeffrey Goldberg to this group text tonight.
BOLTON: Well, I'm sure they want to try and find out what happened, to avoid making the same error again. But this comes back to the most fundamental point. I mean, there are a lot of permutations to this.
Did they violate the federal record-keeping statutes? Did they do this? Did they do the other thing? Were there war plans actually released? I mean, war plans is a term of jargon, at the Pentagon. They have specific numbers for specific countries. I'm not going to get into it in more detail. But things can be less than war plans and still reveal a lot.
Here's the original sin. Using Signal at all. The government has spent billions of dollars, over decades, building what I think is the world's most secure telecommunication system.
Once you're on that system, you don't have to worry about whether it's classified information, or whether you've read it in the paper, this morning, whether it's top secret code word information, because you're completely protected. You're completely protected sitting in the Situation Room, which is where group chats really ought to take place.
The question that nobody has answered here satisfactorily is, why would you -- if you're talking about anything that could be sensitive, why do you go away from the government's own secure network, where it doesn't matter what the level of classification is, because presumably, it's secure.
Once you take that step, you're dumping into the -- jumping into the deep blue sea, and everything that follows from the decision to use Signal, and the decision of every member of that group to participate in it, on a continuing basis, that's where you're in trouble, right there.
COLLINS: Why do you think they are using Signal? I mean, what does that say to you about this, or whether or not they're using it in other instances as well?
BOLTON: Well, that is a critical question that somebody better try and have an answer for.
I think the reason is, a lot of people, including a lot of reporters, use Signal because they think, Well, it's encrypted, it's got to be OK.
Number one, if you think Signal, just because it's encrypted, is really safe? Think again. I mean, really, think again. Who owns Signal? Who has access to it? What foreign governments might have backdoors to it already? That's point one.
Point two, as one of your earlier guests said, the Signal is encrypted between cell phones. If an adversary is into your cell phone already, they can read it after it's de-encrypted.
So, I come back to my basic point, why take the risk? What's wrong with this incredibly expensive government equipment, sitting on your desk, sitting on your nightstand at home, sitting in the car that you're riding in with your security detail?
Almost everybody on that group, except Steve Witkoff, and God knows why he was on the group, have access to classified communication systems, 24 hours a day. Why walk away from that? What is -- what possible reason is there to take the chance?
COLLINS: Ambassador John Bolton, it's a great question. We'll leave it there. Thank you so much.
BOLTON: Thank you.
COLLINS: Also, inside that Cabinet room today, these numbers came up. The consumer confidence, as it just hit its lowest level in several years. President Trump had his view of the economy, obviously a critical issue. What he said, right after this.
[21:45:00]
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COLLINS: Tonight, we're seeing how the country's mood on President Trump's economic agenda has plummeted. As new data from The Conference Board finds that consumer confidence has nose-dived to its lowest level since January 2021.
I was inside the White House Cabinet Room, as the President responded to these numbers that were released today and defended his economic plans.
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TRUMP: For the first time in like 50 years, right track, wrong track, we're on the right track. And I think people see that.
They were screaming at me about eggs. I said, I've been here for a week, and I'm being yelled at about eggs.
Gasoline is way down. Eggs are way down. Groceries are down very substantially, but down. Almost everything's down.
You're going to see billions of dollars, even trillions of dollars, coming into our country very soon in the form of tariffs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: My source tonight is the Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Dispatch. Jonah Goldberg is here.
[21:50:00]
And Jonah, as you look at this report, it also shows that Americans' outlooks on their jobs and their finances is at the lowest point that it's been in 12 years. I wonder just what you make of what this says about how -- where this is, where it was when Trump won the election in November, and where we are now a little over two months in.
JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE DISPATCH: Yes. So, look, I talked to a bunch of economists about this. And there's a debate about how predictive the consumer confidence stuff has been in the past, and therefore how predictive we should think about it now.
What's clear, though, or at least the consensus seems to be clear, is that, as a matter of policy, people feel like there's chaos out there, right? The tariffs stuff, the applying the tariffs, taking back the tariffs, one foot in, one foot out, do the hokey-pokey, right? This constant sort of changing of the narrative, and an inability to explain things, is freaking people out.
And I think that one of the things that's probably the most concerning -- let's put it this way, as a political matter, a lot of people voted for Trump, the median voter voted for Trump, because they were nostalgic for the Trump economy, from the first term, prior to COVID, and they thought they were going to get it again, and that's what Trump promised.
And things may get better, but that's not what he's delivering right now. That's not what it feels like. And the producer sentiment out there is, everyone's freaking out from the uncertainty of it, and I think that has an effect on what people think is coming down the pike.
COLLINS: Well, and obviously, so much of the GDP comes from consumers spending a lot of money, and feeling confident--
GOLDBERG: Right.
COLLINS: --and good about spending. So the question is also, what happens when they stop to feel that, and they start to pull back on that, and what that looks like, and whether or not it actually does affect what the President does here.
Because so far, these numbers have not stopped him. He says on American -- on April 2nd, that these American tariffs, the reciprocal tariffs, are still going into place. GOLDBERG: Right, although the market, the stock market, kind of had a little boom, yesterday, because he hinted that he might give -- cut some people a break, which again, adds to the spirit of uncertainty.
I think the really most disturbing thing, going forward, in this -- in these numbers, is the expectations for inflation are going up. And whether or not that's actually predictive, could definitely influence the Fed, and they could stop cutting rates, which then has a cascading effect.
COLLINS: Yes, we heard from the Fed chair, Jay Powell, on that last week, which was interesting.
Also joining us is the Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan, Justin Wolfers.
And it's great to have you here, Justin.
Because you heard Jonah talking about the conversations he's been having, what he's been hearing. What stands out to you, as you're looking at this report, and what you'll be looking for, going forward.
JUSTIN WOLFERS, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN: So what we see is what economists call, the soft data, looking pretty bad. The soft data is what people say.
And people say they're very unhappy about the state of the economy. They say they feel pessimistic. We see indicators of uncertainty absolutely through the roof. And if you look to Washington, D.C., it's not hard to see why. So it's everything about what people say looks grim.
Fortunately, what really matters is what people do, and that shoe hasn't dropped yet. We've seen over the past few years, quite often, people will say one thing, but do another. If you remember, in 2022, everyone was talking about a recession that simply never came. So that's the hope.
The concern, of course, is every CEO that I talk to says there's so much madness right now. If I were thinking about investing, I would wait a few months to see where all this madness shakes out.
And if people hold back for a couple of months, that would be the spark that would start a recession.
COLLINS: And when you look at this, and you hear the President, as he was talking about, saying people were screaming at him about egg prices as soon as he got inside the White House. Obviously, that's continued to be a concern for different reasons.
But when it comes to the economy itself, when does it become his economy, officially? Is it now that we're nine weeks into his presidency? What does -- how do you judge that?
WOLFERS: Well, this sharp shift in sentiment, both among consumers and businesses, happened pretty much after Election Day, and has only steepened as he started to implement his agenda.
The stock market, as Jonah was just saying, every time the President says what he wants to do, if he looks like he's going to do it, stocks go down. Every time he backs off, stocks go up. And so that's definitely part of the President's economy.
But we're, fortunately, in a very good situation, which is the economy, coming into this year, was actually in very strong place.
COLLINS: Yes, we'll see, of course, how these consumers view it going forward.
Justin Wolfers. Jonah Goldberg. Great to have you both here, to talk about such an important issue to everyone in the United States.
Up next. Greenland is about to get some visitors that the country does not seem very happy with. What we're hearing about this visit, and what they're saying.
[21:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: There's been a big change tonight in plans for the second lady, Usha Vance's trip to Greenland on Friday. Her husband, the Vice President, will now be tagging along.
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JD VANCE (R), U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Unfortunately, leaders in both America and in Denmark, I think, ignored Greenland for far too long. That's been bad for Greenland. It's also been bad for the security of the entire world. We think we can take things in a different direction, so I'm going to go check it out.
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COLLINS: Now, even before that carefully-worded announcement from the Vice President tonight, the trip was controversial. The Prime Minister had called it, quote, "Aggressive," given what we've heard from President Trump about taking over Greenland.
The Prime Minister also questioned why the President was sending his National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, on that trip as well, saying at one point, quote, "What is the national security adviser doing in Greenland? The only purpose is to demonstrate power over us."
Now that the Vice President is joining, that itinerary for that trip has changed. Initially, the second lady was going and scheduled to watch the island's national dog sled race, to celebrate culture and unity, we were told. And instead, the Vances are now also going to be visiting a U.S. Space Force Base, getting a briefing on security measures there, and also meeting with U.S. service members.
Despite the local backlash over the trip, President Trump has insisted it is about, quote, "Friendliness." [22:00:00]
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TRUMP: This is friendliness, not provocation. We're dealing with a lot of people from Greenland that would like to see something happen with respect to they're being properly protected and properly taken care of. They're calling us. We're not calling them.
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COLLINS: We'll see how people in Greenland respond to that. We'll be following that trip closely.
Thanks for joining us.
"CNN NEWSNIGHT" is up next.
