Bulwark Takes - Gabbard and Ratcliffe’s Text Fiasco Hearing Was An Absurd Denial Fest

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Sam Stein and Tim Miller recap the Senate Intel Committee Hearing with Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, and Kash Patel attempting to defend their use of the Signal app that included EIC of The Atlantic Jeffery Goldberg. Watch Tim's interview with Jeffery Goldberg Read Morning Shots, "The Scandal Will Also Be in How They Brush It Aside"

Hey guys, me Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bulwark. I'm joined by Tim Miller. We're here to discuss a pretty explosive hearing that just occurred with a number of different Trump officials, some of whom were on the Signal chat. That would be Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe. In addition, Kash Patel was at the hearing. This was about worldwide threats, but clearly the focus turned quickly to the explosive bombshell Atlantic story about this signal group chat where they were discussing the strike in Yemen that we were obsessing over yesterday. All right, Tim, I know you were hustling. You had a great interview with Jeffrey Goldberg that went out during this hearing. Jeffrey Goldberg was the editor and the author of the piece in the Atlantic.

But you did catch some of the hearing, and I'm kind of curious for your main thoughts on how it went down. Yeah, I cut the second kind of half of the hearing after I interviewed Goldberg. It's interesting. In the context of the Goldberg interview, what I spent most of the time with him on is this lot of discretion into you know not wanting to release classified information not wanting to release anything that would you know put anything out there that would endanger american american troops or american interests but the white house keeps calling him a liar and the people testifying today keep kind of denying that there was any secretive or sensitive information on this text chain and so to me i just in the context having just talked just talked to Jeffrey, there's going to be

just an overwhelming amount of pressure on them, I think, to release this information and from the Democrats on the Senate and the Intel Committee. And maybe there wouldn't have been had the administration just owned up to the fact that this was a mistake. But instead, what you saw from the press secretary this morning which i asked jeffrey about but then at this hearing was like this just absurd repetition of the of the party line that there was no classified information in here that you know that like planning the strikes the details of the strikes so it's inappropriate and you saw the absurdity play out in a couple of ways like one was i think both jack reed and i believe mark kelly uh jack

reed center from rhode island mark kelly from arizona were like okay if there's nothing classified in here shouldn't goldberg just release all of it would you have any problems with him releasing everything because then we'd be able to see for ourselves and they like refused to answer that question so yes or no would you approve that for public release i don't feel I can answer that question here. According to the article, quote, the message contained information that might be interpreted as related to actual and current intelligence operations, and the author did not disclose that information. So the question would be, if he disclosed everything he heard, in your view, that wouldn't be classified information. I know the context of what that is, and I

think the author said might be interpreted as related to intelligence information. It was not classified information. So it goes back to my point. If he released all this information he did not release, he could do so without any

liability at the federal level. I think you're asking for a legal answer, I'm not able to give you my own answer. Then Jack Reed was like, well, could you guarantee that if he releases that he wouldn't be prosecuted by the administration? And like, Patel wouldn't even answer that. Mr. Patel, can you opine? You're a lawyer and you're the director of the FBI. Would he face any legal liability if he released the information? Because of the questions you and the vice chairman have put to me, I'm not going to prejudge the situation. And that legal call is ultimately for the Department of Justice. They're trying to have it both ways. Like there's nothing to see here is their obvious lie, party line.

But then anytime that's pressed, they really dissemble to the point of like absurdity in several cases. And the most absurd was John Ratcliffe, who's the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. So it's kind of your job to know about intelligence around the world. Acted like he didn't remember what was on the chain. He kept being like, I can't recall. I can't recall what J.D. Vance, I can't recall what the vice president's position was on this bombing campaign.

I don't recall. Vance, quote, I think we are making a mistake. I am not sure the president is aware of how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now. There was a strong argument for delaying this a month. You don't recall? I don't. As you don't recall seeing that? Read that. I don't. I mean, it's just it was just a preposterous in fairness they said a one-week disappearance on the messages so you know you can't go back and check um i thought the to your point uh and we can play this clip um this is mark kelly uh where he's pressing them on this idea that how how could it possibly be that the discussion of very important war plans that are about to take place in two

hours, how could it be when you're listing the specific targets and the individuals who you are targeting, how could it be that that's not classified? And this is what the exchange is. The deliberation as to whether or not we should launch a strike on another country, would you consider that classified information, Ms. Gabbard? The information was not classified. I'm not talking about this. I'm just talking about deliberation from principals as to whether or not we should launch a strike on another country.

Would you consider that classified information? I'm not talking about what happened this week. There are other factors that would go into determining that classification. Mr. Ratcliffe, the deliberation between principals in our national security apparatus about whether or not to strike another country, would you consider that to be classified information? Pre-decisional strike deliberation should be conducted through classified channels. Thank you.

All right. So to me, that was just got it. I mean, it might not have been the most like, you know, explosive moment of the hearing. But to me, that just got at the bind that this administration is in, which is, oh, nothing, nothing happening here. And yet this was like the most beautifully executed and orchestrated bombing of the Houthis that you could possibly imagine. And also it's deeply sensitive. We don't want to talk about it. You can't have it both ways. And also it doesn't really make sense, right? Like, I don't even understand why they're doing it. Like what, who are they fooling? I mean, I guess this is kind of like the big lie type thing,

where it's just like, oh, if we just say the most absurd thing, we can make it a badge of honor among our biggest supporters on the internet that they have to shame themselves and embarrass themselves also by defending this. And so that creates – Well, the reason they have to do this is because if they don't – if they admit that they were discussing classified information over Signal, that's a serious offense. If they admit that they were – But the whole – I mean it's only a serious offense if Pam Bondi is going to investigate them, which obviously she's not. I mean the vice president is on it.

Everybody is implicated. Like what? We're going to jail the entire cabinet? I mean like – Yes, President Kash Patel. Yeah. everybody's implicated like what we're going to jail the entire cabinet i mean yes president kash patel yeah no it's but this is the this is the fucked up nature of the story is that clearly and bill crystal is writing about this morning let's just assume this happened in any other administration it's impossible to really imagine but let's just assume you know we would

have congressional inquiries we'd have a congressional hearings we would have the doj investigating we have the fbi investigating. We have the FBI investigating. We have an Intel assessment about the damage that was done. None of that's going to happen here. None of it. The only reason we had this hearing this morning is because pre-planned. And there was only, I think, maybe a half an instance where a Republican asked about this.

Every, everything else was about something else. It also just showed, just really quick on this, about the sensitivity. You know, and it shows like kind of the two track thing that you're having in this administration. Like you have the people actually making the decisions who are totally irresponsible and clowns sending texts with like muscle emojis about serious bombing campaigns. And then meanwhile, like you still have what is left of the remaining responsible people that work in the administration. And so it's pretty notable that simultaneously that the Secretary of Defense was sending these specific war plans about a bombing campaign over Signal to a wide variety of people. The Pentagon, people that work for him, sent out an email to everybody that worked there warning about the Signal app itself. And then it had a vulnerability

and particularly had a security vulnerability with regards to Russia. And so essentially they're saying like, you guys got to be careful if you're in the Pentagon staff of using signal. Right. Meanwhile, the secretary of defense is sending our bombing plans over signal. And then John Radcliffe is out there being like,

well, you know, signal is allowed. It was on our government computers is down there. And sure. I think there is some, there is some cases where you, we don't actually know if it was on the government computers in some cases because this was my other favorite part of the hearing. Oh, okay.

It was when Tulsi is asked, I believe it was by Jack Reed again, whether she was on her private phone. Whether she was on her personal phone or whether she was on a government phone. Were you using your private phone or public phone for the signal discussions? I won't speak to this because it's under review by the National Security Council. Once that review is complete, I'm sure we'll share the results with the committee. What is under review? It's a very simple question. Are you your private phone or officially issued phone? What could be under review? It's a very simple question. Are you a private phone or an officially issued phone? What could be under review?

National Security Council is reviewing all aspects of how this came to be, how the journalist was inadvertently added to the group chat, and what occurred within that chat across the board. Because this doesn't matter. If you have a government phone, only certain apps can be downloaded. There are additional security elements. And she wouldn't answer, which leads me to believe that she was on her cell phone. Tulsi was just, the Director of National Intelligence

was in a foreign country, and she is just on her cell phone up on regular 5G or Wi-Fi, just texting with the secretary of defense about the bombing campaign i mean we don't know about the wife we don't know what kind of wi-fi they had over there could have been starlink we have no idea um speaking which where was howard luckman i missed this but you tell me that how there was also no steve whitcoff he was apparently in moscow when he was added to this list, it's really bad. And this did come up in the hearing.

Did you know that the president's Middle East advisor was in Moscow on this thread while you were as director of the CIA participating in this in this thread? Were you aware of that? Are you aware of that today? I'm not aware of that today. This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for them is entirely unacceptable. It's an embarrassment. I will say, compared to Ratcliffe, Gabbard seemed totally unprepared for this.

And scared, I thought. I thought she seemed very nervous. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it was from the jump. Because the first question that she was asked was, will you talk about this situation? And she says, she just refuses to answer if she was on the on the signal chat. And she's just, you know, this is when Mark Warner is pressing raise the ranking member, he gets the first democratic question. He's like, Can you just talk? I'm not

going to talk about the signal chat. And then literally, Warner then turns to Ratcliffe. And he's like, Can you talk about the signal chat? And he's like, I was on the signal chat, yeah. You were not TG on this group chat? I'm not going to get into the specifics of the delivery. So you refuse to acknowledge whether you were on this group chat? Senator, I'm not going to get into the specifics. Why are you going to get into the specifics? Is it because it's all classified? Because this is currently under review by the National Security Council.

Because it's all classified? If it's not classified, share the text now. As the White House previously stated. Is it classified or non-classified information on this text? I can confirm. Director Radcliffe, were you on the group chat? Senator, I was on a signal messaging group. And so it's like they're just sitting there.

It's just like, did you not coordinate? And then afterwards, later, like not even like five, 10 minutes later, you know, she's been like going on about, she's not going to talk about what's on the signal chat. And then I guess she, she must've like gotten the gist from Radcliffe that it's okay to maybe talk in the abstract about it. Cause then the next questioner comes in, she's like, I will say this about the signal chat.

There was no classified information shared on the signal chat. It's like, you just said you were not going to talk about what's on the signal chat. Like, you get it, you know, just stick to one script. But it seemed like she was kind of winging it at portions of this. Yeah. I mean, her whole body, going back to the cell phone thing, because she got pressed on a couple times. Were you on your personal cell phone or government phone? She wouldn't answer.

She seemed very nervous, though. Honestly, she just seemed like somebody that's very much in over her head and she was like we are going you know there's going to be a review there's currently a security review of everything that's happening and so i can't tell you and senator reed's like okay but but what is the review what does the review have to do with you just telling us if you're on your cell phone or not like like why does why does why do you have to wait for that like you either were you weren't and and she kind of realized it seemed to me at least body language expert tim miller that she sort of realized that she's in a ridiculous corner here and she just like she didn't she

didn't know what to do now they did again i have no hopes for this moving anywhere uh in terms of accountability i just don't. But they did – if you were to look at it, they did both agree that there should be an audit of what happened here. I'm sure they'll make it a private audit if they do it at all. But that did come out of here. I think there was one Republican, Todd Young of Indiana, who did say, I want to get some answers to what transpired here in a more dispassionate setting than what the hearing had. So there is like some maybe chances that we get some accountability here. You talked to Goldberg. He seemed really on the fence, probably leaning towards not releasing more. But we'll see if he feels differently seeing what happened and everyone coming up and like he's a liar.

Yeah, and I just think that in a vacuum, he obviously doesn't want to. He didn't in the article, right? And so – but they really are putting – My question for you is what do you think happens next here? Like where does this go from here? I just – again, everybody can watch the interview with Goldberg for themselves. So I'm not telling you anything that he didn't say. And as you said, he seemed to be leaning towards not releasing more information. I just don't know

how that's sustainable. Like, I just don't know how that's sustainable when you have a hearing like this, where they're lying about what is on the on the chat. And you have Democratic senators that are going to want to pressure him to say they like for intel for national security reasons rightfully you know not even for political reasons though there are political reasons but for national security reasons like we should get to see this like right senators got to be like we can't this can't just be a situation where only the republicans get to know what was on what exactly was discussed on this chat. And so, and then, so then that adds to the list of people that have seen the actual details to do one of those

democratic senators leak it. And it's not just this chat, right? Like, I mean, if I were a lawmaker, I would want to know how often they're on signal, what else they've discussed on signal, who gave the authorization to use signal, you know, What kind of security vulnerabilities existed through this? I mean, there's a lot of questions here that a serious Congress would want to look into. For sure. And then the covert element of this, I don't think it wasn't brought up in the part of the hearing I watched, so maybe someone else said it, but I talked with Goldberg about this.

Ratcliffe, the CIA director who's testifying, the chain begins with Walt asking everybody who is your main point person to add to the chain. Ratcliffe names a covert CIA agent. Yeah, he was pressed on this at the hearing. He was, okay. And according to reports, two of our witnesses here today were members of a group chat that discussed highly sensitive and likely classified information that supposedly even included weapons packages, targets, and timing, and included the name of an active CIA agent. So I communicated the name of a CIA officer not operating undercover, completely appropriate, who does openly and routinely coordinate with the White House as a member of my staff.

So the intimation there that there was something something that was classified by nature. But I, and I'm not technical, I don't know the technicalities of this, but it strikes me that even if this person was not undercover, that you would probably still want to protect his or her identity. So, you know, it might be a distinction without a difference here. Yeah, I will say the two top Democrats have called for Pete Hegseth and Mike Waltz to resign. Waltz obviously for originating the entire fuck up and Hegseth for sharing the clearly sensitive war plans. It is interesting.

I just will note it felt like there was some subtle Hegseth blame shifting among Ratcliffe. Oh, not subtle at all. Very overt. I picked it up too. Talk about that. Well, so yesterday it seemed like Waltz would be the guy that everyone threw under the bus, right? Because he had originated this and he had invited Goldberg onto the chat. And he probably should get a heaping of blame for that. I would be pissed, obviously.

But you could see today that it was just sort of like, you know, people were kind of focused on Pete Hexeth and for obvious reasons, which is discussing this among these people. And then I think having that kind of braggadocious response yesterday when he landed in Hawaii being like, oh, Jeffrey Goldberg is such a, you know, a conspiracist and nothing in this article is true. It's like, again, this gets back to your original point, which is like, there's another way to do this, which is admit culpability, downplay the severity of it, but say we shouldn't have done it. It was fucked up. Let's look and review how it happened and like create a process.

But I think their response is actually going to create some unnecessary headaches for them. And Hegseth is the guy who's going to take it. One more thing. I just want to bounce around with you on the Hegseth thing i mean neither of us have ever been on a text chain where people are discussing you know bombing terrorist groups okay well i haven't um so there's a there is a try hard like kind of i know i don't deserve to be here elements to the Hegseth parts of the text for me a little bit where it's like it's hard to imagine Jim Mattis as Secretary of Defense in a text chain feeling like he wants to get the approval so badly of all these other people. You know, like Pete is trying really hard to talk about why they're doing this and what the point is.

And then he shares all the details. And then it's, I agree with you so much vp these guys are pathetic all caps and like there is and there's a real and and you just you do wonder like just as a process standpoint like the fact that he felt the need to send the detailed strike plans and all this it almost was like a kid who's like i want the grown-ups to to trust what you're saying you're what you're getting is does he have imposter syndrome yeah like here's this guy who's a tv host and ran a for a non-profit advocacy group he's not been involved in these types of discussions and deliberations he probably feels like you know he's got to prove himself yeah i

would too honestly right no one's appointing me fucking secretary of defense. Yeah, but my point is that potentially that imposter syndrome led to like the fact that this chain, which would be ridiculous in any context, like the potentially really dangerous part is what Pete is sharing. Well, there's the imposter syndrome and then there's just sort of lack of seasoning. And I think if you've been in government and you've gone through these types of discussions before, you probably know that there are certain procedures that you have to follow and there are certain ones that you should avoid. And Hegseth is kind of learning on the fly. And this is what happens. All right, man. Well, thanks for doing this.

Thanks for the Goldberg interview. It was great.