A bombshell report that top national security officials for President Donald Trump discussed war plans in a private group chat that accidentally included the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic has elicited fierce criticism from Democrats and media commentators who have framed it as a scandal for which heads should roll—but it’s largely been dismissed by a number of Republicans.
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00:00Can you share how your information about war plans against the Houthis in Yemen was shared
00:10with a journalist in the Atlantic, and were those details classified?
00:15So you're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who's made
00:23a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again to include the, I don't know, the hoaxes
00:29of Russia, Russia, Russia, or the fine people on both sides hoax, or suckers and losers
00:36hoax.
00:37So this is the guy that peddles in garbage.
00:39This is what he does.
00:41I would love to comment on the Houthi campaign because of the skill and courage of our troops.
00:46I've monitored it very closely from the beginning, and you see, we've been managing four years
00:52of deferred maintenance under the Trump administration.
00:55Our troops, our sailors were getting shot at as targets.
00:58Our ships couldn't sail through, and when they did shoot back, it was purely defensively
01:03or at shacks in Yemen.
01:05President Trump said, no more.
01:08We will reestablish deterrence.
01:10We will open freedom of navigation, and we will ultimately decimate the Houthis, which
01:16is exactly what we're doing as we speak from the beginning, overwhelmingly.
01:19Why were those details shared on Signal, and how did you learn that a journalist was privy
01:25to the targets, the types of weapons used?
01:28I've heard I was characterized, nobody was texting war plans, and that's all I have to
01:34say about that.
01:36I appreciate it.
01:37That's it.
01:38That's it.
01:39That's it.
01:40Mr. President, your reaction to the story in The Atlantic that said that some of your
01:41top cabinet officials and aides had been discussing very sensitive material through Signal, and
01:46included an Atlantic reporter for that.
01:47What is your response to that?
01:48I don't know anything about it.
01:52I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic.
01:54To me, it's a magazine that's going out of business.
01:56I think it's not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it.
01:59You're saying that they had what?
02:01They were using Signal to ordinate on sensitive materials and-
02:06Having to do with what?
02:07Having to do with what?
02:09What were they talking about?
02:10With the Houthis.
02:11The Houthis?
02:12You mean the attack on the Houthis?
02:13Yes.
02:14Well, it couldn't have been very effective, because the attack was very effective, I can
02:18tell you that.
02:19I don't know anything about it.
02:20You're telling me about it for the first time.
02:23Any-
02:24This is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about
02:29in a very, very long time.
02:33What we have here are senior U.S. leaders, including the Vice President and Secretary
02:37of Defense, having classified discussions of military action over an unsecure app.
02:46It's bad enough that a private citizen was added to this chain, but it's far worse that
02:53sensitive military information was exchanged on an unauthorized application, especially
03:01when that sensitive military information was so, so important.
03:07If these detailed exchanges about coordinating military operations fell into the hands of
03:12America's enemies, it could get people killed.
03:17It could severely harm our military.
03:20It would put America's national security in danger.
03:26This debacle requires a full investigation.