Sen. Joh Cornyn (R-TX) responds to the controversy concerning Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's use of Signal.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Senator, over the recess, there was a controversy involving the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, and his use of signal.
00:06You guys were very critical of Hillary Clinton and her use of classified information.
00:11Do you have similar concerns about Pete Hegseth, talking about military plans over signal?
00:17Well, I support the Inspector General investigation that Chairman Wicker and Ranking Member Reed
00:27have had at the Department of Defense to look into all of these commercial apps like Signal.
00:33There's a number that advertise their security end-to-end encryption,
00:39and indeed we learned during some of the hearings in the Intelligence Committee
00:44that some of these had already been preloaded onto government equipment,
00:49government computers and cell phones and the like.
00:53I think we need to get a good handle on this because we know our adversaries are relentless
00:58in terms of trying to steal any information they can about our national security,
01:05and we need to make sure that all of that information is protected as much as possible.
01:12Right now it's a little confusing to know what is and what is not authorized.
01:16I understand why the Department of Defense or some of the intelligence community
01:21don't really know what the rules are.
01:23We need to firm that up and make that absolutely clear
01:27so that our confidential secure information should remain secure.
01:34Do you think it was responsible for him, though, to talk to his wife about this over signal?
01:37Well, I hope we're not trying to prevent people from talking to their spouses.
01:45What about military plans?
01:46Well, I don't think we know exactly what the facts are.
01:51So far we've been told that none of this was classified information,
01:55and I'll have to await the results of the Inspector General investigation.
02:00Do you still have confidence in him at this point?
02:02Yes.