What A Day - This Group Chat Should Have Been An Email feat. Sen. Mark Warner
Episode Date: March 26, 2025Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe were on Capitol Hill Tuesday for what was supposed to be a routine annual hearing in front of the Senate Intelligence Co...mmittee. Except it ended up being anything but routine, coming one day after The Atlantic published a damning report about how top Trump officials shared imminent battle plans in a private group chat on Signal. President Donald Trump and other top White House officials spent the day insisting no classified information was shared in that group chat. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, explains why their claims are hard to believe.And later in the show, Wall Street Journal National Security reporter Alex Ward talks about why Signal-gate is such a big deal.And in headlines: Russia and Ukraine agree to a partial ceasefire, the Department of Homeland Security said it has stopped processing some Green Card applications, and some Florida lawmakers have a solution to fill jobs vacated by deported migrants: child labor!Show Notes:Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8Support victims of the fire – votesaveamerica.com/reliefWhat A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday
Transcript
Discussion (0)
It's Wednesday, March 26th.
I'm Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that you can email and the email
won't bounce back, which is not true for Elon Musk and the Department of Government
Efficiency.
On today's show, Russia and Ukraine agree to a partial ceasefire.
And some Florida lawmakers have a solution for all those jobs vacated by migrants.
Child labor!
But let's start with the group chat that's taken over my group chat and, um, the news
cycle.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe were on Capitol
Hill Tuesday for what was supposed to be a routine hearing in front of the Senate Intelligence
Committee.
Except it ended up being not very routine, because both of them were reportedly part
of that now infamous group chat on Signal we told you about yesterday.
You know, the one where the Vice President and the country's top military and national
security officials were reportedly sharing classified information about imminent strikes
on Houthi rebels in Yemen on an unsecure platform. All while the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic looked on because, um, the national
security advisor had allegedly added him to the chat. Who amongst us, right? Senators,
naturally, had some questions. Arizona Democrat Mark Kelly asked both Gabbard and Ratcliffe
whether they knew about a Defense Department policy that basically says, hey,
don't talk about sensitive information on unsecured devices like cell phones, not even some of the unclassified stuff.
Are both of you aware of that DOD policy?
I haven't read that policy. Not familiar with the DOD policy, but I would say that the Secretary of Defense is the original
classification authority for DOD in deciding what would be classified information.
Awkward.
Gabbard wouldn't even admit to being part of the group chat when pressed by the committee's
top Democrat, Virginia's Mark Warner.
You are not TG on this group chat when pressed by the committee's top Democrat, Virginia's Mark Warner. You are 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 are 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.
Gabbard told Warner that, quote, there was no classified material that was shared in that signal chat.
Goldberg, the Atlantic editor, says those claims are hard to believe given the information that was shared.
We'll just sidestep the fact that somehow Gabbard knows what was and wasn't shared in the chat,
but also won't confirm whether she was actually in the chat.
Which one would think would be easy to do if the conversation was not classified?
For more on the fallout from Signalgate and Tuesday's hearing with Gabbard and Ratcliffe, I spoke with Senator Warner.
Senator Warner, thank you so much for being here today.
Thank you so much for having me.
What are your takeaways from Tuesday's hearing?
Thank you so much for having me. What are your takeaways from Tuesday's hearing?
It was mind boggling.
The director of national intelligence, the director of CIA, at first wouldn't even acknowledge
they were on the chain.
The fact that they somehow acted like there was not any classified information.
We've not seen all of the contents where there was supposedly information about the actual
targeting information of the strike that was going to be taken against the Houthis.
But just the fact that there was this disagreement
between the vice president
and other senior administration figures over a planned attack.
I can tell you as former chair
of the Intelligence Committee, now vice chair,
that is exactly the kind of information the Russians,
the Chinese, the Iranians would want.
We've seen this administration expose CIA agents in the past.
We've seen Elon Musk and the Doge boys almost disclose classified information on a daily basis.
And this is a very disturbing pattern and we've got to get to the bottom of it.
You alluded to this, how you were asking these officials very basic questions that they just wouldn't answer.
You asked Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, repeatedly,
if she was the TG in the group chat,
to which she kept saying she didn't want to get
into the specifics.
Like, that's not even a specific.
Were you there or are you not there?
Right, or like we asked her in a closed setting as well,
was it your phone or a government phone?
The fact that she was trying to obfuscate,
you know, I think says a lot.
It's not only harmful to our intelligence community, but one of our friends and allies The fact that she was trying to obfuscate, you know, I think says a lot.
It's not only harmful to our intelligence community, but one of our friends and allies
are ever going to work with us.
I mean, I believe we ought to help for American priorities, but America first doesn't mean
America alone.
And that's where we're headed with this crowd.
I mean, what do you make of these officials unwillingness to quickly own up to even being
there, let alone that
they were using it to discuss war plans, but they're also still trying to say, it's fine,
it's fine, nothing was confidential.
Well then why are you so cagey about whether or not you were there?
I didn't think I could still get surprised by this crowd, but this story surprises me
that this outrageous and now what appears to be smells like a coverup,
feels like a coverup.
You know, and the thing is we're gonna get this information.
The journalist has the full document
and I'm sure that will get released.
I've not seen it yet, but just the core
of not even any kind of acknowledgement of a royal screwup
but the arrogance and the sense
that they can never acknowledge a mistake
that is again prime for the Trump administration.
This was not the first screw up we've seen on treatment of classified information, but
this has such serious consequences.
And again, to add just the fact of the hypocrisy, Gabbard about 11 or 12 days ago put out this
vehement tweet saying, if anybody leaks, we're going to pursue them to the
end of the law. Well, does that apply to her? We'll see.
I have to know, what was your reaction when you heard about the story or saw this story? Because
we saw basically a group chat for war plans. Right. It was mind boggling. I don't want to pretend
that these kinds of conversations don't take place.
Before any military action, there are these kinds of conversations.
But the fact that they were so damn careless that they didn't even check who all the names
were that were on the chat is just jaw dropping.
And then the fact that as opposed to saying, okay, we're going to hold somebody responsible,
I frankly think if it comes out that Hegstheft put forward
these kinds of plans in this non-secure way, I think he should be fired. I think he should
quit. I think the same about Waltz in terms of who was responsible for the security of
this chat. And it's just every day is a new adventure in the days of the Trump administration.
Every time. Senator Warner, thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you, Jane.
Really appreciate it.
That was my conversation with Virginia Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate
Intelligence Committee.
The denials didn't stop at the hearing.
As the day went on, the Trump administration doubled down on its, this is fine message
it wants people to believe.
As they tell it, there is absolutely nothing to see here, folks.
Everyone is doing a great job.
Trust us.
That's pretty much what President Donald Trump said Tuesday while taking questions
from reporters at the White House.
Certainly we'll look at this.
But the main thing was nothing happened. The attack was totally successful. I, for one, am definitely convinced.
We live, we learn, we definitely don't think about butter emails.
We share almost certainly classified information on chat apps
and then throw in a flag emoji.
And then we blame the journalist.
That's what Mike Waltz, the guy who Goldberg says
accidentally added him to the chat, did on Fox News Tuesday night.
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.
Wow.
Seems like that evil Trump hating journalist is a guy you shouldn't have invited to your
group chat, bro.
I wanted to learn a little bit more about why exactly all of this is such a big deal and
what this scandal says about the inner workings of the Trump administration. So for that I
had to speak with Alex Ward. He covers national security for the Wall Street
Journal. Alex, welcome to Whatta Day. Yeah, thanks for having me. So to start, can you
just quantify how big a deal this signal thing is? I mean it's it's funny because
you're seeing some Republicans
basically being like, who hasn't texted somewhere
they didn't mean to text?
But like, this seems like a huge deal to me.
So why isn't, mistakes happen, a reasonable defense for this?
So let me just level set.
This is very bad, but it's also not like super duper bad
in the ward scale of badness.
So it's very bad in the sense that classified information
was shared allegedly, reportedly on the Signal channel.
And this obviously signal you can get off of the app store,
on your phone, this is something that we know
foreign adversaries are either trying to breach
or have breached or have at least ways of breaching.
And so that causes problems.
And then generally, you just don't want to talk about classified information on unclassified
systems, which Signal is.
So it's a security breach even before we get to the fact that a reporter was put on the
Signal chat.
It's not uber or super duper bad because like the operation they were talking about,
the military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen did happen seemingly without any complication as we
understand it right now, were a relative success. And there was no, let's say, spoofing or any
problems with it. And we also know that the initial intention of the signal conversation based on the texts
that we have from the Atlantic,
and that have been confirmed by the White House,
what we know from that is that Mike Walz,
the National Security Advisor,
just used it as a way to try to coordinate
who was the right person from each agency to talk to.
And oh, by the way, people go look at the classified
information on your classified system.
It was only until Vice President J.D. Vance was like,
wait a minute, I'm not sure we want to do these strikes,
then it turned into a policy discussion that's usually reserved to the situation room.
Right. I mean, something that struck me was that they were using Signal and not using, say, email,
because email would be able to be kind of under the jurisdiction of how information is shared by the government.
I mean, I seem to remember people got very upset
about email security practices back during the 2016 election.
Yes, if you are a butter emails person,
this is like precisely the kind of thing
that you find a bit ironic and sort of horrifying.
And yeah, like, they shouldn't be doing that.
It is totally against the thing
the Republicans have been saying
they haven't wanted to see.
And certainly seems to be breaking rules
about maintaining records.
Typically this kind of information would be shared
like in a secured room in person.
What do we know about the devices they were using
to share these details?
Were they just on their personal cell phones?
It seems like it, because as I understand it,
there isn't a way to get, or you're not supposed
to have signal on your government phones,
on your classified phones.
And the government has created systems
to have these kinds of conversations.
I mean, I've been talking to former officials
from Democratic and Republican administrations
who are furious by this in
part because they were like, I was at home with three screaming kids and then I got a
call that I had to get onto this classified conversation.
So I had to go back to the Pentagon or wherever to like get either the right computer to bring
home or to sit in a windowless room for hours until we finished the conversation.
And we should note it feel the timeline matches up in one particular case where Steve Witkoff the Middle East advisor an envoy
was put on the
Huthi strikes channel
Chat while he was in Moscow, right?
He was there to talk to Vladimir Putin about the Ukraine Russia deal that the administration trying to put together. So that's not great
Because if there's one thing, you know what the Russians they're very good at trying to break into phones and into signals. Not saying that they did,
but the possibility is there. And there likely would be much less of a possibility if this
conversation had happened where it was supposed to in a situation room or in a skiff or on the,
what they call the high side, which is the classified email and other communications networks
that the government has. If you're not the Secretary of Defense or the National Security Advisor, what would
be the consequences normally for sending this kind of information so casually on an app
like Signal?
Like, I know this sounds perhaps a little histrionic, but what were we talking about
like punishment, charges, prison time?
I mean, yeah, I mean, there's always been a kind of two tiered system when it comes
to, you know, records maintenance mean, there's always been a kind of two tiered system when it comes to,
you know, records maintenance justice, let's say, uh, if you're a principal and you do
this kind of stuff, you get a slap on the wrist or a media cycle like the one we're in.
Uh, if you are a lower level person, you could be prosecuted.
You could go to jail.
Uh, we've seen this.
So yeah.
Um, you're, if you're not Mike Waltz, if you're not Pete Hegseth, you're SOL.
In this case, these guys are going to get a slap on the wrist, if even that, and move on.
We'll get to more of my conversation with Alex Ward of the Wall Street Journal in a moment.
But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts,
watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. Let's get back to my conversation with Alex Ward, National Security Reporter for the Wall
Street Journal. What are you hearing? You mentioned a little bit earlier about talking
to Republicans and Democrats from past administrations. What are you hearing? You mentioned a little bit earlier about talking to Republicans and Democrats
from past administrations.
What are you hearing from Republicans?
Is this giving any of them pause, if not publicly, then privately about whether
Trump's national security team is really up to the task of protecting the country
if they're just doing all this shit on signal?
I mean, they're mad.
I mean, some have been pretty public that they're mad, but the question is, was
there going to be, you know,
Republicans are in charge of Congress, were there going to be hearings? Were they going to actually investigate this?
Um, it doesn't look likely.
So there's questions about, I mean, I, one has to assume that they're
not going to do this again, right?
Or at least hope that they're not going to do this again.
But what I'm more worried about is, well, usually
administrations don't do this again,
uh, if they feel repercussions, if there's oversight, but they might not be getting it.
In which case there's at least the door open that they might, even though it feels like
early Mike Walt is definitely not going to create another single group to talk
about a military operation.
I want to get into the conversation that they were actually having and what it
says about the Trump administration overall.
Because what we see in these conversations is, you know, it's between some of the highest ranking officials in the administration, including the vice president,
and the vice president saying essentially like, I'm not a big fan of this operation. Like, I'll support it, but I'm not a big fan of that.
So what did we learn about the interactions between these administration officials and those relationships?
Well, a couple of things.
I mean, one, it's interesting that Vance,
who obviously is a massive supporter of the president
in public, seems to have a pretty big foreign policy
disagreement with Trump about the wisdom
in striking the Houthis.
His argument was that this helps the Europeans more
because more trade for the Europeans goes in through
the Red Sea and the Suez Canal than it does to the US.
And so there was odd conversation about, well, we, the United States will do this military
operation, but we'll get the Europeans to pay for it.
Okay, fine.
That seems odd.
But that's the conversation they had.
Interestingly enough, like, that's the kind of conversation
they are welcome to have as much as they'd like in the situation room, in the Oval Office, or on the
classified systems that are available to them. I mean, principals literally have facilities put
into their homes so they can have these kinds of conversations in a classified setting. So it was
astounding to me that at no point, seemingly,
did anyone go, hey, can we take this off signal?
Like that was kind of wild to me.
So you touched on this a little bit,
but the Trump administration and its allies
and the media and Congress are trying very hard
to portray this as no big deal.
When we know that if a Democrat had done this,
everyone would have exploded
and somehow it would be DEI's fault.
Given that Republicans control both the House and Senate, will they be able to
make this blow over?
It seems like you think that the answer is yes.
Yeah.
I mean, this can blow over, right?
I mean, one, we're in the Trump news cycle, which means as we've been talking,
probably one new scandal happened.
And we're also in the place where like if Republicans want, you know, or don't
want to do something, they don't have to.
Right.
If you can imagine if the Democrats were in control of the house or of the Senate,
they would be hearings on this.
I have not heard any indication that there will be hearings on this.
Now, one thing that could change is, I mean, you're hearing the Trump team
basically bait Goldberg into releasing the classified information he says was that
was on the text chain and that he's withheld for security purposes.
Now if you were to do that, one could imagine he could be prosecuted for doing so, although
media law tends to be favorable towards reporters.
And you also have the Trump team saying no classified information was shared.
So what case would they have?
But you could also imagine that Goldberg decides to share that intelligence with members of
the House, Democratic members of the House
and Senate Intelligence Committees,
and kind of let them do what they want with it.
I don't know what power they would really have
to expose that information.
They could put out a report maybe,
but at the end of the day,
if Republicans do want this to blow over,
they probably can just let it slide.
Alex, thank you so much for joining me.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
That was my conversation with Alex Ward,
national security reporter for the Wall Street Journal.
We'll link to his stories in our show notes.
Here's what else we're following today.
Headlines.
Collection fraud, you've heard the term.
We'll end it, hopefully.
At least we'll go a long way toward ending it.
There are other steps that we will be taking in the coming weeks, and we think we'll be
able to end up getting fair elections.
Perhaps some people think I shouldn't be complaining because we wanted a landslide, but we've got
to straighten out our election. Okay, he didn't win in a landslide, but we got to straighten out our election.
Okay, he didn't win in a landslide, to be clear.
But President Trump signed more executive orders on Tuesday because what else is new?
The preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections order targets the virtually nonexistent election fraud Trump is always complaining about.
The EO says in part that the U.S.
quote, fails to enforce basic and
necessary election protections.
The White House says, quote, the
Election Assistance Commission will
require documentary government
issued proof of U.S.
citizenship on its voter
registration forms.
White House Staff Secretary Will
Sharpe said during a meeting at the
White House, he believes it's,
quote, the farthest reaching
executive action taken in the
history of the republic to secure our elections.
This is going to cut down on illegal immigrants on the voter rolls, ensure that the Department of
Homeland Security and the data that they have available is being fully weaponized to ensure
that illegal immigrants aren't voting.
This will include a citizenship question on the federal voting form for the first time.
Just a reminder, voter fraud in the U.S.
is super rare
and is not widespread enough
to alter the results of a major election.
In addition, the order warns federal funding
could be pulled from states
that don't comply with the new requirements.
It's likely to be challenged.
Among other directives, Trump also signed an order
that instructs the Treasury Department
to issue more electronic checks in place of paper ones.
The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday it has stopped processing some green card
applications to further vet migrants seeking permanent residency in the U.S.
President Trump signed an executive order in January directing immigration authorities
to vet migrants to the quote, maximum degree.
Just last month, DHS froze some immigration applications
from Ukrainian and Latin American migrants
who came to the US under the Biden administration.
Officials cited concerns about fraud and national security.
DHS announced earlier this month
that officials plan to screen migrants' social media accounts
as part of the vetting process for legal status.
Authorities have long screened
some applicants' social media accounts.
But under new proposed rules, applicants and migrants who are already legally here in the
U.S. may soon be required to give their social media handles to immigration authorities.
Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a partial ceasefire that would pause fighting in the
Black Sea and ban strikes on energy infrastructure in both countries.
The White House announced the news Tuesday after a meeting with officials from both countries in Saudi Arabia.
The Trump administration has been negotiating with Russian and Ukrainian officials over the past few weeks to end the war.
Despite the talks, Russia launched missiles on Ukraine during Tuesday's meetings, wounding more than 88 people.
The White House didn't say when the ceasefire is set to take effect.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv Tuesday that the ceasefire
took effect immediately, but Russia said it will only comply with the ceasefire if a number
of conditions are met, including the lifting of U.S. sanctions on some Russian exports.
Zelensky said hours later that the ceasefire deal was not dependent on any of Russia's
conditions, saying, quote, Moscow always lies.
While this deal wouldn't stop Russia's full-scale invasion, it could provide some
much-needed relief to Ukraine after three long years of war with the Kremlin.
The White House said Tuesday that the U.S. and Ukraine will, quote, continue working
toward achieving a durable and lasting peace.
Lawmakers in Florida are pushing for looser restrictions on minors in the workforce. Glad we have our priorities straight.
A state Senate committee advanced a bill Tuesday that would let some teens as young as 14 work overnight shifts.
It would also get rid of time limits and required meal breaks for 16 and 17 year olds.
Why now?
Well, the crackdown on illegal immigration and its subsequent effect on the workforce.
Florida Republican Jay Collins sponsored the bill.
He said at the Tuesday meeting it's fundamentally a quote, parental rights issue.
But not everybody is in favor of the bill.
Republican Joe Grutter said we need to let kids be kids.
Grutter said quote, I just think it sends a bad message.
He joined Democrats in voting against the proposal.
It passed 5-4 in the Senate committee.
And that's the news.
That's all for today.
If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, celebrate signals zooming
up the App Store charts for I'm sure absolutely no reason, and tell your friends to listen.
And if you're into reading and not just about how you can use encryption apps like Signal
for just normal texting, but ideally not for like, national security secrets kind of texting,
like me, Waterday is also a nightly newsletter.
Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com slash subscribe.
I'm Jane Coaston and all I'm saying is,
try not to do anything on your phone that will result in you getting yelled at by members of Congress.
What a Day is a production of Crooked Media.
It's recorded in a mix by Desmond Taylor.
Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Four.
Our producer is Michelle Alloy.
We had production help today from Johanna
Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Clare. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison,
and our executive producer is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Giliard and Kshaka.
Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.