Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/25/25

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Trump officials shared war plans in group chat on app

As Democrats, we actually believe in merit. Merit that should be based on what you know, not who you know. And understand, this whole Trump administration is filled with lackeys and incompetent cronies. I'm not talking about any particular individual, though I would note that the Secretary of Defense who was on that chain has got to be the most unqualified person ever to lead the Pentagon in American history. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries responding to the bombshell report that top officials in the Trump administration texted war plans to a journalist in a group chat.

We'll bring you more reaction from Capitol Hill, where Republicans mostly downplayed the seriousness of sharing classified information with a reporter. And the journalist at the center of the story, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, will be our guest this morning. Also ahead, a federal appeals judge condemns in the harshest terms the Trump administration for its use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants without due process. We're going to go through that hearing as the DOJ continues to stonewall another court on the basic facts of the flights.

Plus, we will have an update on the diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Russian officials about a ceasefire proposal in the Black Sea. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, March 25th. With us we have the co-host of our fourth hour, Jonathan LaMere. He's a contributing writer at the Atlantic covering the White House and national politics. The host of Way Too Early, Ali Vitale, is with us. Columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius joins us this morning.

MSNBC political analyst and associate editor of the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson is here. And New York Times opinion columnist David French. A lot to get to this morning. And we will begin with the stunning sharing of sensitive military operations by top Trump administration officials through a group chat on the Signal app. The editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, reported yesterday that National Security Adviser Mike Waltz inadvertently added him earlier this month to a group chat about military strikes on Yemeni Houthis.

According to Goldberg, the group included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and others, many others. In the article, Goldberg described his initial skepticism, wondering if the unsolicited outreach was part of a disinformation campaign. Goldberg wrote that Hegseth on Saturday, March 15th, texted the group the war plan two hours before the strikes, which included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing. Goldberg left the group after he concluded it was almost certainly real.

And Willie, there's so many questions here. First of all, what are they doing on the Signal app, which is encrypted and safe, but certainly not for top secret classified government information about war plans. And secondly, all those people on the chat did not notice that Jeffrey Goldberg was on it and all this information about a strike that happened was imminent. I think about all the different ways that people's lives were in danger. I mean, I do that on a fantasy football chat. What's this number I don't recognize? You sidebar to the other guy, let's get him out of here.

But this is a commercial open source app signal. Yes, it's encrypted, but that doesn't mean much. Also, if you're using phones, which we need to understand which phones they were using, the Chinese we know easily tapping into all of these phones. There are so many questions here. Privacy, text experts say signals encrypted messaging is more secure than conventional texting, but of course can be hacked and certainly is not cleared for classified information. Several Defense Department officials told the New York Times they were shocked Hegseth had put American war plans into a commercial chat group. They said having this type of conversation in a signal group itself could be a violation

of the Espionage Act, a law that covers the handling of sensitive information. When asked yesterday about the peace in the Atlantic from Jeffrey Goldberg, President Trump claimed he didn't know anything about the leaked strike plans. I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of the Atlantic. To me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it's not much of a magazine, but I know nothing about it. You're saying that they had what? They were using signal to or date on sensitive materials and having

to do with what I need to do with what what were they talking about these who did you mean the attack on the. Well it could have been very effective because the attack was very effective I can tell you that I don't know anything about it you're telling me about it for the first time president clearly flailing there. A source tells NBC News the president met with National Security Advisor Mike Walz later

in the day yesterday. The White House press secretary then issued a statement that reads, in part, President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Walz. This comes amid speculation about Walz's future with the administration. White House officials tell Politico President Trump will make that decision over the next few days as he watches the coverage of the embarrassing episode. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hedgeseth is denying he and other Trump administration

officials use the group chat to discuss war plans. You're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again details shared on signal and how did you learn that a journalist was privy to the targets the types of weapons use. I've heard I've heard I was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans.

And that's all I have to say about that. Except the National Security Council validated it said this was an authentic text chain. The denial comes despite what I said that the NSC says it was authentic. So Jonathan Lemire, so much to talk about here. Obviously, Secretary Hagg's a parroting Donald Trump. Playbook is Attack the Source, Question Lemire, so much to talk about here. Obviously, Secretary Hagzic parroting Donald Trump. Playbook is Attack the Source, Question the Press, a failing magazine, a so-called journalist. Put all that to the side.

I mean, it's there in black and white. There are a whole bunch of people on this text chain. What are the consequences here? Donald Trump obviously prizes loyalty over everything. Pete Hagzic, Mike Waltz, the rest of them are loyal to a fault. Anything going to change here? Anything going to happen? Let's start by clearly saying what this is. This is one of the most stunning national

security stories we've had in decades. This is an extraordinary breach of security here. In fact, in the one of the last texts in the exchange that Jeffrey saw is Pete Hegseth saying operational security seems intact. Obviously not the case. There is there is so much here. First of all again to your point earlier signal is not meant for this is a commercially available. Anyone can go to the app store and download signal. These sort of conversations should be in highly encrypted

government phones government communication devices and some of this stuff should only be done in a skiff one of those secure rooms where you're not allowed to bring phones. So there's all sorts of security breaches here. It does seem like Mike Walz, National Security Advisor, is the one who inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, who we might add is a well-respected journalist, and that it was Pete Hegseth, despite his denial, he says there are no war plans, but yet in these messages are timed place sequences

of attacks saying this will happen, and then this will happen, and then this will happen, which appears to be the very definition of a war plan. So a stunning breach here. In terms of what happens next, I heard the same as to what was reported there, that Trump is watching the media coverage. He met with Walls last night, though a supportive statement from

the press secretary came out after that meeting. So at least for now, it appears that Walls's position is safe. I think Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, but the other who comes in under a lot of scrutiny here since he was the one sharing this information in the chat. Others who were there include the Secretary of State, DNI head, other Treasury Secretary, all represented. They were nominally involved. They didn't contribute much to the text messages that we should note.

These were war plans. These were bombs being dropped in Yemen, and they were saluted by emojis in this group chat here. American flags, hearts, prayer hands, whatever it might be. Just simply a stunning lack of operational security. And let's recall, of course, that Donald Trump's first presidency was launched on the heels of a campaign about Hillary Clinton's alleged mishandling of classified and sensitive information. Nothing compared to this.

We'll get to the Republican reaction to this, widely dismissing it as a mistake. David French, in your new piece this morning, you write, if Pete Hegseth had any honor, he would resign. This group was labeled Hootie PC, small group, PC meaning principals committee, meaning all the big shots were on it. Among them, Vice President Vance, Secretary Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The list goes on and on and on.

Can you just take a step back for us as someone who has served, who was a JAG as well? How serious a breach is this? You know, I have never even heard of anything quite like this. When I was a JAG officer, I investigated leaks or spillages of classified information, I saw careers of officers destroyed instantly for behavior that was a fraction as irresponsible as this. It really is a key moment, I think. It is a key moment that says to the Trump administration, where the Trump administration looks to America and tells us, do they have any standards at all other than loyalty to Donald

Trump? Because if there are any standards at all, there has to be accountability here and serious accountability. I don't know how Pete Hexth can lead with credibility or if he does lead, what does this say to the Pentagon? It says to the Pentagon, it says to the military, that loyalty to Trump is the most important thing. Yeah. And David Ignatius, I actually want to start there. The shock of this and the level of disregard to national security is quite obvious here. The use of this app for this purpose, the number of people who

are on this group chat at the highest levels of the country's defense, national security, or power. But I also want to ask you about what's going on right now, and that's the administration's response, which is to either shrug their shoulders or to blame the media falsely. What does that say? So Mika, I think the response so far reinforces this sense that we have that the administration regards rules about classified information as for junior people, little people, not for us senior people who are going to take the convenience of this app and use it. It's a pain in the neck to go into a skift.

It's a pain to follow these rules that restrict classified information. And they behave as if those rules aren't for them. I found Pete Hegson's ad hominem, a personal insult to the journalist who, in this story, as Jeff describes it, behaved with great responsibility. One of the most disturbing things of this whole story, to try to attack him as he was trying to bring a serious breach of the rules to light. One of the administration's phrases drawn from Silicon Valley is move fast and break things. You have a sense with this group that they were moving fast, they

wanted to get their Yemen Houthi policy done, and that in the process they just ignored all the rules that normally bound this kind of decision making, these were not small classified matters. These were pretty much the biggest secrets the government has about who and where and when. So, as you said at the outset, Mika, this is a bombshell. People should take it seriously. It may seem strange for journalists to be so concerned about classified information,

but I think the larger point is how do these folks operate? Do they obey rules at all? In this case, it suggests they didn't. So, Dave, just real quickly, for the regular American citizen who is busy and catching this on the fly, why does this matter so much? So the reason this matters is that these rules are in place to save lives, to protect information that could get people killed. As Jeff has described, he doesn't give many details, but people, places, times, attack

sequences, what goes in when, who's going to be vulnerable at this period. There seem to have been additional details about specific human targets, people who were to be targeted in attacks. Again, this is, there isn't stuff that's much more sensitive than this or that could cause more blowback. And again, to reinforce, the problem with Signal is that it's used on your regular phone, your commercial phone. That phone could be hacked anytime, and if it is, the encrypted messaging in it is completely vulnerable to people who are going after you.

Wow. So, Ali Vettali, I can imagine there is a lot of reaction on Capitol Hill. Yeah, a lot of reaction, in large part because of what David is describing, the concern about national security. You hear Democrats saying this and yet several Republicans were quick to downplay the leaked group chat, calling it a mistake while others stopped short of demanding any action be taken against the officials involved. I think it's inside baseball. I mean, they used an encrypted app, it's my understanding, and somebody, a reporter or some third party was invited to join. I'm sure they'll reassess

their protocol and their practices, but I can promise you this, when moms and dads lie down to sleep at night in camp, they're sitting on their list. They're sitting on their list. Somebody made a mistake, it happens. First off, we absolutely need to go after the Houthis and we've been way behind in getting it done. So I'm very glad that the administration is doing that. Very important.

I haven't seen the specific information yet, but I'll take a look at it. But you know, Marco Rubio, headed up the intelligence committee, he's a sharp guy. So I'm not sure what happened here, but I'll sure take a look and see. It's finding out about it, but obviously, we've got to run into ground and figure out what went on there. So now we're griping about who's on a text message and who's not. I mean, come on. What if there was Democratic lawmakers or Democratic administration officials passing

around classified information on secure channels? So I haven't been watching the news all day because I'm working, but I'm told the administration acknowledged an error and they're trying to determine how another telephone number got included in that, and they'll figure it out, and they'll improve the process. I'll tell you what, Eugene, we do know how Republicans would be talking about how classified information is stored, privacy concerns, presidential records acts.

We know because they hinged almost the entire 2016 election closing argument on Hillary Clinton and her server And yet the irony seems utterly lost but her emails. Yes He is completely lost and there was nothing in the whole Hillary Clinton email episode that even Begins to start to approach this security bridge. This is the most amazing thing I've ever heard in a long, long time in Washington. I just want to point out there were two blocks of material that Jeff Goldberg said he left out of the piece

he wrote in Atlantic, and one was about the war plans when Pete Hexeth apparently described in detail what was gonna happen when, where, you know. There was another chunk that apparently was John Ratcliffe, the director of the CIA, talking about some intelligence. We don't know what that intelligence information was, but was it sources and methods? Was it stuff that could indeed get someone killed, aside from the bombing, but someone who's giving us information, who knows?

We have no idea what it is, and Jeff did the responsible thing by leaving it out, but that just gives an idea that this was really serious. They were talking about really, really secret stuff, as David said, on phones, apparently, that are not safe at all, that are...you have to assume Xi Jinping is listening when you're talking about this, if he wants to. So David French, I'm just looking through as we talk about how many of the people involved in this talked about Hillary Clinton's private server in 2016, Marco Rubio saying that it's

unacceptable, that it was a disqualifier. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, when he was a member of Congress, talking about the Biden administration said, talk about a double standard. Biden's sitting national security adviser Jake Sullivan sent top secret emails to Hillary Clinton's private account and the DOJ didn't do a damn thing. Tulsi Gabbard, every vice president Vance, almost everybody on that chain of course, ripped Hillary Clinton for having the private server. And so to watch those reactions yesterday, Senator Kennedy of Louisiana bending over backwards to say nobody cares about this, it's an innocent mistake,

obviously would not be showing the same grace to a Democrat. Yeah, what's the old saying? They have double standards, the only standards that they have. If they didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all. I mean, this is the way this administration works.

As I just said, this is a moment where Pete Hegseth has to understand, and these people have to understand, they're leading agencies. They're leading key aspects of the government. They're setting certain examples to the rest of the government as to what are the expectations of this administration. And if we're looking at a situation where there is zero accountability at all, where if there is a traditional rally sort of around the MAGA flag so long as they remain loyal to Trump, think about what the message this sends to the military. It just sends up and down the chain of command that political loyalty is now the principal thing,

that the traditional standards of how you operate in government and how you operate as a military leader no longer apply. That is incredibly dangerous, not just for the health of our body politic, but it's incredibly dangerous for a military to make a political loyalty the highest loyalty. Political loyalty is the highest priority for Donald Trump. This just sort of reinforces that in a sort of spectacularly dangerous way. And we should note in some ways how lucky the people involved in this signal chat are that they added Jeffrey Goldberg and not someone else who had more nefarious intentions.

How this operation seemed to go off without a hitch according to all you know reporting at the time and now what we learned yesterday. There could have been sources methods compromised lives could have been endangered because of leaks like this and then secondarily Mika it's also really revealing in terms of just the power structure and President Trump's White House administration where JD Vance flat out disagrees in these texts with the decision to go in after the Houthis second guessing President Trump's call which is I think something that's not going to be well received in the Oval Office as they continue to sift through the fallout here and it's actually Stephen Miller,

the Deputy Chief of Staff who comes in and says the President was clear on this, this is what he wants and everyone falls into line sort of really in some ways who the real power centers are in this up administration be talking to Jeffrey Goldberg in our next hour which will be fascinating still ahead of morning Joe there is a lot more going on the growing legal falling fallout over Trump administration's decision to deport hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador. Plus, what we're learning about talks between Russian and U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia

yesterday as the Trump administration pushes for a broad ceasefire in Ukraine. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in just 90 seconds. The Trump administration is invoking what's called state secrets privilege and refusing to provide any more information to the judge overseeing the Alien Enemies Act deportations case. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg had given the government until today to provide more information on the deportation flights that could have violated his court order

last week. Instead the Department of Justice has filed documents that read in part further intrusions on the executive branch would present dangerous and wholly unwarranted separation of powers, harms with respect to diplomatic and national security concerns that the court lacks competence to address. Also yesterday, an appeals court panel heard arguments in the government's effort to lift Judge Boasberg's order, halting the deportation flights. The hearing lasted about two hours. Lawyers for the Justice Department argued

each individual migrant should have submitted a case against the flights. But the ACLU says deportations were so swift, there was no chance to file separate claims. The appeals panel was made up of three judges. Two were appointed by Republicans and one by a Democrat. One judge vigorously questioned the DOJ on the timeline of events, openly criticizing the government's treatment of the migrants.

Listen. There were plain loads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people. Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemy Act and has happened here, where the proclamation required the promulgation of regulations. And they had hearing boards before people were removed. And yet here, there's nothing in there about hearing boards.

There's no regulations. And nothing was adopted by the agency officials that were administering this. People weren't given notice. They weren't told where they were going. District Court here hasn't called into question the constitutionality of the Alien Enemies Act. It's been upheld as you said, as a part of the war power.

But, so that's not the question here. The question is whether the implementation of this proclamation without any process to determine whether people qualify under it. I mean, if the government says we don't have to give process for that, then y'all could have put me up on Saturday and thrown me on a plane, thinking I'm a member of Trendy Ragwa and giving me no chance to protest it and say, somehow it's a violation

of presidential war powers for me to say, excuse me, no, I'm not. I'd like a hearing. So, Jean Robinson, I'm curious, what do you make of what we just heard from that judge, if this could happen to these migrants, that it could happen to anybody? And also the terms that she was using there. Yeah, no, they're pretty strong. I mean, even the Nazis were treated better. That's pretty strong. But she's right. I mean, you look at what happened, you look at what she describes, and you just have to tell yourself, this can't be America.

This isn't what happens in America. We don't sweep people up and load them on the planes with no due process and send them away to a brutal third world prison in El Salvador where they may never see the light of day again. I mean, we don't do that to people in this country. And yet it was done and it's being stubbornly defended without facts but with a lot of bluster by this administration and once again it's the judicial branch that is that is that is stepping in but David Ignatius what do you think the outcome of this is going to be I mean mean, are the government lawyers even listening? Is the administration even listening to what the judges are saying, or is it just blowing

it off? The government keeps trying to fend off Judge Boasberg's questions, resisting or giving incomplete answers, then declaring that the whole category of information is a state secret and you can't penetrate further. I think the basic point here about this case and others is that we're heading toward some kind of Supreme Court test of whether the executive branch, whether the president has absolute powers to order events or whether the president is subject to the normal judicial review, the kinds of constraints that we've thought past presidents had.

Until we have that Supreme Court test, it's going to be hard for me, Gene, to feel that we're at the moment of constitutional crisis. But we're sure getting there, day by day, challenge by challenge, this latest assertion of state secrets seems just hard to imagine on a flight where the people were photographed. Their identities are known. So we're on the pathway toward understanding just what the powers of this president will be and whether the courts are prepared to step in and, in my mind, defend our system. If it's in the crisis, it'll do until the crisis comes along.

And a crisis is coming along, I think. It sure seems that way. David French, this is a challenge to our fundamental system of checks and balances to the appellate process because what you have is an administration that's saying these judges have no authority to challenge an order from the executive, from the president of the United States. So how do you see this shaking out ultimately? Yeah, I mean, there's no question that two things are going on here. One you have this focus on immigration to the exclusion of due process, this sort of purge of immigrants to the exclusion of

due process, where Stephen Miller is talking about the only process that illegal immigrants are entitled to is deportation. But it's due process that decides whether or not they're illegal immigrants in the first place. But you're exactly right. What we're heading for is a very high-level confrontation between the Supreme Court, potentially, and a MAGA legal theory that essentially is saying that the president should be at the apex of all American government. You've had people in that MAGA movement, like Russ Vought, who have said that they need to take on about 200 years of entrenched precedent here.

This is what we're dealing with. On the front end, you have the issue itself. How much focus are they going to put on immigration? But hovering over all of that is also this bigger constitutional issue of who's in charge of the government. The Constitution has given the judiciary charge over interpreting the law and the MAGA movement and Trump himself seem to be preparing the ground to try to supplant that role for the executive. All right, coming up, we've got a lot more to cover.

Getting an inside look as the 118th Congress, as our next guest described last year's lower chamber as a madhouse, we'll dig into that chaos that engulfed both parties and how it can give us insight into what the next four years might look like. That's straight ahead on Morning Joe. We're going to be five past the hour time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. The British government has ordered an investigation into the country's energy system after a fire shut down Europe's busiest air hub for almost a day. Heathrow Airport ground to a halt on Friday after an electrical substation was knocked

offline. It impacted more than 200,000 passengers. While no foul play is suspected, there are growing concerns about the overall response to the incident. A series of high-profile strikes in Gaza is highlighting Israel's intent to cripple the ability of Hamas to govern the territory. In one case, Israel killed the militant group's de facto prime minister just five days after

an earlier attack had killed his predecessor. Israel ended a two-month ceasefire last week aimed at pressuring Hamas to turn over the two dozen hostages believed to be alive in the Gaza Strip. And U.S. and Russian officials wrapped up negotiations in Saudi Arabia yesterday with talks focused on a ceasefire proposal between Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea. Reuters cites a White House source as saying progress was made yesterday and that a positive announcement is expected soon. The talks and re-audit are part of an effort that the White House hopes will lead to broader

peace negotiations. And on that point, the Wall Street Journal editorial board has a new piece entitled, Steve Witkoff Takes the Kremlin's Side. It reads in part this, quote, Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration's special negotiator on Ukraine, says he's not taking sides as he tries to mediate an end to the war Vladimir Putin started in 2022. He could have fooled us after a podcast interview this weekend in which Mr. Witkoff parroted one specious Russian talking point after another.

Mr. Witkoff suggested Russia doesn't even want to control Ukraine, with the exception, that is, of the large areas Mr. Putin already occupies. Does Mr. Witkoff know anything about Russian or Mr. Putin's history? We can understand the need to tone down

hostile rhetoric amid negotiations. But the administration's propensity to fall for Russian propaganda is something else. David Ignatius, from everything that we know, where do these peace talks stand, and how is Ukraine faring in this? So Mika, where they stand is just past the starting line, the very beginning. Ukraine agreed to a broad ceasefire on all fronts.

Russia wouldn't and wanted a ceasefire limited to energy infrastructure. There's been discussion in this latest round in Saudi Arabia about whether that means energy infrastructure or energy and infrastructure. The desire is to broaden this initial 30-day ceasefire to include the Black Sea so that maritime operations would also be included, and then eventually to make it a ceasefire on all fronts, which is what Ukraine initially agreed to. I think there's a deeper question, and your lead into this discussion illustrated it. Is President Trump and his chief envoy, Steve Wittkopf, in effect embracing Russian positions

in these talks? Wittkopf, in an interview with Tucker Carlson on Friday, was extraordinarily sympathetic to Putin, gave an account of how Putin had gone to church and prayed for Donald Trump after he was wounded in the terrible assassination attempt. Did everything he could to make Putin sound like a sympathetic figure, and also seemed to be endorsing the Kremlin's arguments that it should be

able at least to keep the provinces of Ukraine that it now occupies and that NATO has no place in Ukraine's future. Those are fundamental Russian demands that Witkoff, the envoy, seem to be saying are already understood and accepted by the US. So as I say, we're in the early stages. Having a ceasefire in Ukraine would be a wonderful thing in this terrible war, but broadening it so it's really meaningful. That hasn't happened yet.

David French, Witkoff said in that interview that Putin, quote, is not a bad guy. He took a lot of criticism for that. Vice President JD Vance came out, defended Witkoff and said people sniping at Witkoff are just jealous that he's having success where they've failed over the last couple of generations. So what is success, I guess, is the question. And why does it seem at every turn the burden is placed on Ukraine to prove itself, to make concessions as part of a deal? Yeah, I was just going to ask that. Where is the success here? I think the reason why you constantly see the burden being

placed on Ukraine is that you genuinely have in the White House is a man who understands and is sympathetic with the Vladimir Putin position that you get to dominate countries that are close to you, smaller, weaker countries that are close to you. I think that Trump himself sees Ukrainian independence as a problem. Why would we say something like that? Isn't that exactly how Donald Trump is treating our neighbors?

If he's looking at Canada, if he's looking at Mexico, he's treating them as if these are vassal states, these are subordinate to us, or Greenland with Denmark. I think his genuine view of the world is this world view that says there are spheres of influence, and Ukraine is in Putin's sphere of influence, doesn't treat it as a fully independent country. And so I think that's part of the root here, in addition to that MAGA has long had beefs with Ukraine, going back even before first impeachment. So what we're looking at is a sea change in thinking about strategy in the Trump administration, one from alliances to spheres of influence.

And that is an incredibly negative change over the long term for American national security. So David Ignatius, your latest opinion piece for The Washington Post is entitled, Trump's destabilizing liberation day, referring to next Wednesday, April 2nd, when the Trump administration plans to impose an unspecified number of new tariffs. In your piece, you write in in part quote, as Trump turns on allies and partners, these countries are beginning to examine the fundamentals of their relationship with the US. If they can't depend on Washington for mature economic leadership, what else is at risk? Inevitably, many are beginning to question whether in the age of Trump, the U.S. nuclear

umbrella is reliable. That's a clear question at this point. I mean, every stressor right now on U.S. national security, whether it be the Russia relationship that we were just talking about, the signal group chat releasing war plans, which leads one to question how many other group chats are out there about classified information that American service members' lives depend on are being thrown out there on Signal and by mistake including other people and no one noticing, the deportations, stressing our legal system, pushing the envelope, and now these tariffs.

What do you think, ultimately, the impact is going to be in terms of what's in Trump's best interest and also America's best interest? And do they coincide? Well, that's the heart of the question, isn't it? I think that countries overseas are increasingly asking whether the United States is operating in their interest. Can they rely on the United States? Can they rely on the United States to exercise caution with highly classified information

to take today's example, but every day there's a different one. And my concern is that I increasingly hear from European and Asian leaders a question about whether they can rely on the most fundamental element of U.S. power, which is what we call our nuclear umbrella. One reason the world isn't just full of countries with nuclear weapons, much more dangerous, is that many countries have chosen

to rely on us for protection. And as they look at an erratic and unpredictable White House under President Trump, they ask, can we depend on this United States for our security? More and more countries, Alissa, Poland, Germany, South Korea, go down a long list, Australia, are beginning to debate whether they need their own nuclear deterrent because the U.S. isn't a reliable provider of security.

In that world, life will be much more dangerous. And I don't hear anybody in the administration even beginning to consider that as an issue. Wow. The Washington Post, David Ignatius, an opinion columnist for The New York Times, David French. Thank you both very much for coming on today. We appreciate it. And still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll get back to the stunning new details about how the Trump administration mistakenly added a journalist to a chat about classified war

plans. We'll speak with the reporter in the middle of it all, editor in chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, on what he saw firsthand. Morning Joe will be right back. The country right now faces hugely challenging and fundamentally important issues. And what we've done in our politics is create a situation where we're electing idiots. And... And so I don't look at it through the lens of like, you know, is this what I should do or what I shouldn't do? I look at it through the lens of like, you know, is this what I should do

or what I shouldn't do? I look at it through the lens of how do we elect serious people? Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming that was back in 2023 expressing her disappointment about some of the country's elected officials these days. Cheney left Washington right before the start of the 118th Congress, not by choice. This has been, by the way, one of the least productive legislative sessions in American history. Joining us now, Congressional correspondent for the New York Times, Annie Carney, and White

House correspondent for the New York Times, Luke Broadwater. They are co-authors of a new book highlighting that historically unproductive Congress. It's titled Madhouse, How Donald Trump, MA Maga mean girls a former used car salesman a Florida netpo baby and a man with rats in his walls broke Congress now that's the time that's how you do it right. That's how you do it. Guys good morning congratulations on the book I hardly know where to begin there's so much good stuff we'll get to in a moment about Democrats pressuring

Democrats and leadership Joe Biden to get out of the race last summer and what those moments were like. Very dramatic. But let's talk first, Annie, about this Congress and some of the characters you highlight. Is Liz Cheney right in her assessment? This is a uniquely, what's the word? I won't use her word.

But it's a different kind of Congress. It was a uniquely unproductive Congress where they weren't actually doing anything more than the bare minimum of keeping the lights on, like avoiding defaulting on our debt. And therefore, these personal feuds became sort of the primary job. People started to think that the infighting and the backstabbing and the taking each other down was the job and kind of got lost in that. So we spent the past two years going kind of circling back on every big moment that happened in this Congress, from Kevin McCarthy's 15 rounds to get the speakership to the debt

ceiling fight to whether or not to send money to Ukraine to more petty things like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene like hating each other more than they hate any Democrat. And every time there was a moment, we'd circle back and kind of talk to everyone who had been involved in that moment. And what we realized is like the world moves on, but there are so many more insane stories that happened. And our book is sort of filled with recreating those scenes from inside to tell just how

broken this Congress really was. I mean, Congress has always been a hated institution, but this MAGA, this is the kind of the first MAGA house and they're really the first ones that really broke it and made it just non-functional. Luke, how much of this is about signaling loyalty to Donald Trump? There's so much performance in this Congress and as we just pointed out not a lot of legislating. But almost everything they do appears to be some kind of a gesture to show just how Maga they are how loyal they are to Donald Trump.

Yeah, that's absolutely right, you know lawmaker after lawmaker we sat with really embraced Maga and made it their own. And then sometimes it was a more extreme version of the MAGA movement than even Donald Trump embraces himself. You know, one lawmaker we feature in the book is Nancy Mace. And Nancy Mace, throughout the course

of the interview process, goes from a Trump skeptic who's sort of with the moderate wing of the party to openly saying that she has no future unless she gets on board with the Trump agenda. You can't get ahead in the Republican Party and be anti-Trump, she says out loud. And sort of revealing the inner thinking that many Republicans don't often say, they sort of keep that part quiet usually. This group of people also, like we tracked them for the years that Donald Trump was out of power in Mar-a-Lago. Like, these House Republicans were his sword and shield for those years and helped resuscitate him.

So if you want to understand, like, why are we here, like, it's thanks a lot brought to you by, like, these people who kept it all alive and going and, like, and brought him back to life, really. So what are some—look, what are some of the storylines you dig into to sort of show this, this projecting, this performative behavior, not necessarily productive in terms of legislation? How crazy does the madhouse get? Pretty crazy. I mean, we are able to take you inside room after room and show you how these internal

negotiations actually take place. And you will see if you read the book time and time again there are threats of physical violence between lawmakers. There are you know insane profane shouting matches that go on. It really is a Congress where chaos was sort of a core function of how things got done and we know of course that the speaker gets thrown out They take three weeks to elect a new speaker that power fight really Draws fault lines within the Republican Party and results in the Mike Johnson Speakership where he owes the speakership to Donald Trump and now we're seeing how that's playing out in the current moment

So Annie to your point about how these characters are still so relevant today, tell everyone about the man with the rats in his walls and why he still matters so much. The man with rats in his walls was Russ Vogt. He when we interviewed him wasn't sure if they were pigeons or rats, but he later came to the conclusion that they were probably rats. He is now the OMB director. He is the architect of Project 2025. He is responsible for these cuts that are kind of the main thing that Democrats are

targeting as something to oppose. And he was, last Congress, kind of an outside influencer. There's a few of them, like Russ Voht and Steve Bannon are characters in our book who had profound influence, and they were power centers who aren't elected officials, but near the Capitol. And they are guides for this group of hard-right lawmakers who really had outsized power when there's such a small majority. These 20 lawmakers took a lot of marching orders from Russ Voatt, from Steve Bannon,

who gave them a platform, who gave them policy ideas, and kind of cheered for this thing falling apart. But now Russ Voatt is more powerful than ever. So, Luke, let's talk about the Democrats. I mentioned some of these dramatic scenes of democratic leadership. Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, you have Schumer, Nancy Pelosi. You have Schumer speaking behind the scenes to former president Barack Obama about a five

alarm crisis that they viewed the Biden candidacy to be, especially after that debate. When did Chuck Schumer go to Joe Biden and say, sir, I think you need to step aside? Right. Well, it's not until July, the same day that Donald Trump is shot. So they if you if you go through the book, we document how Democrats had some concerns about Joe Biden's presidency much, much earlier, months earlier, where, you know, one lawmaker from Virginia told us that all it took was one Joe Biden fall and his candidacy was over.

And so they were worried about this for months, but they really did nothing because of sort of internal fighting and I think kind of a fear of going against the president. And so they watched slowly as sort of the presidency slipped away. And finally, Chuck Schumer was the only person that really went to Biden personally, one on one, and in a very dramatic scene that's basically an entire chapter of the book, he confronts Biden about having to step out of the race. And he thinks at the time that he has basically saved the Democratic Party. But as we now know, it was much too late.

No. The new book is entitled Mad House. How Donald Trump, Magamene Girls, a former used car salesman, a Florida nepo baby, and a man with rats in his walls broke Congress. It's on sale now. Co-authors and New York Times correspondents, Annie Carney and Luke Broadwater, thank you both. Congratulations on the book.

Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on the show. All right.