Former national security officials reacted with shock and horror to revelations in The Atlantic that top members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet sent detailed operational plans and other likely highly classified information about US military strikes on Yemen to a group thread on a messaging app to which a reporter had accidentally been added. Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton joins CNN’s Kasie Hunt to discuss his take. #CNN #News
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00:00All right, welcome back.
00:01More now on the fallout from our top story, the Trump administration confirming a stunning
00:05leak of secret military battle plans in a Signal group chat.
00:10I want to bring in now the former National Security Advisor in President Trump's first
00:14term, John Bolton.
00:16Ambassador Bolton, thanks very much for being on the show.
00:20Glad to be with you.
00:21So let's just start with this.
00:24What was your reaction to learning about these secret plans being communicated in the Signal
00:29group chat?
00:30Well, I was shocked and I really I was without words.
00:38And I say that not not because I'm more virtuous than anybody who was in that that group.
00:45I just couldn't imagine it was happening.
00:47I couldn't imagine anybody would use Signal.
00:52You know, some of the guests have commented that Signal is highly encrypted.
00:56I'll just say this, if you think Signal is equivalent to U.S. government secure telecommunications,
01:03think again.
01:05So all the consequences you've been discussing are obviously going to be enormously important.
01:13But I just can't, to this moment, get over the idea that during the days that group was
01:19going on, not one of the participants said we shouldn't be doing this on Signal.
01:24Sir, do you know of anything like this happening in Trump's first term?
01:31I'm certainly not aware of it.
01:33I mean, I didn't even use the government's unclassified or classified email systems that
01:39much.
01:41Most of the things that were covered in what was recorded in the Atlantic article should
01:47have been discussed in the Situation Room in a Principals Committee meeting or a full
01:53NSC chaired by the president.
01:55It looks to me like this was a typical Donald Trump decision, let's bomb the hooties, that
02:01then everybody raced to implement without talking about the implications, including,
02:06for example, Vice President Vance apparently on this chain saying, I don't agree with this.
02:13Why are they discussing it after the decision is made?
02:16That alone shows what's wrong with what's going on here.
02:20Ultimately, if people can't attend the Situation Room, you're on a secure government line.
02:25You're not on WhatsApp or Signal.
02:27And some of these issues, honestly, it's old fashioned, I know, but they should only be
02:32discussed face to face where people can have it out if they have a disagreement, not on
02:37an email chain.
02:38Sir, do you think somebody should be fired over this?
02:42Listen, Donald Trump's not going to fire anybody unless he thinks this redounds to
02:48his personal detriment.
02:51And we'll see what happens.
02:54Do you think that this is worse than what Hillary Clinton did with her private email
03:00in 2016?
03:01I know you were very critical then.
03:03Yeah, I was very critical then.
03:07And, you know, we call this process learning, that when somebody does something like what
03:12she did, whether she deserved to be prosecuted or anything else, that goes into the memory
03:18in the body politic.
03:20How can you then turn around and conduct?
03:22Let's forget the classification issue.
03:25How can you conduct official government business over a non-official channel?
03:29Maybe there's some in extremis situation when you're you're on Samoa or something and there
03:35aren't any official channels, but it's that's they were they were in Washington, probably
03:40in their offices.
03:42And you just as I say, I words fail me here.
03:44I cannot even imagine this happening, sir.
03:48Do you think that Trump administration officials broke the law when they had this signal chat?
03:56You know, I don't know enough about it, but I'll tell you this, just like Donald Trump
04:00isn't going to fire anybody, whether they deserve to be fired or not, unless he feels
04:05the heat personally.
04:07I have zero faith that this Justice Department will prosecute anybody.
04:11Zero.
04:12Mr. Ambassador, I want to play for you what President Trump so far has said about this.
04:18He was asked about it by reporters who were covering a different event with him at the
04:21White House.
04:22Let's watch.
04:23I don't know anything about it.
04:25You're telling me about it for the first time.
04:29So he says there that he's being told about it for the first time.
04:31Now, when that happened, the story had been out and, you know, in the in the banners on
04:35various news networks for a couple of hours.
04:39Do you buy what the president said there?
04:42No, because he he sits in his dining room, released a bid in his first term and watched
04:49Fox mostly.
04:50Occasionally he'd tune in to CNN, but maybe even MSNBC, but mostly Fox.
04:55If Fox had it on the news in the past several hours, then he knows about it for sure.
05:00Or somebody like Dan Scavino would have run in and told him.
05:04But notwithstanding that, now you've got him on tape saying he's hearing about it for the
05:08first time.
05:09Now we'll see if he feels any heat.
05:10If he doesn't feel the heat, these people are golden.
05:13They're in for as long as they can stay.
05:15Sir, do you think are you convinced that the Chinese or the Russians or any of our adversaries
05:23had access to this information as it was being communicated?
05:27Do you think it was fundamentally insecure and possibly widely disseminated?
05:34You know, I don't I don't really know enough about what they were up to to be able to comment
05:39on that.
05:40I would just say this.
05:41We have government secure communications facilities for a reason.
05:46They may not be perfect either, but there isn't anything else that's as good.
05:50How else?
05:51How more?
05:52How clear can I be on that point?
05:55That's why you don't use non-official channels for official business and especially not for
06:00business that's sensitive or classified.
06:04It just it's it's a very simple point.
06:08And you would think that somebody on this chain would have figured it out unless it
06:12bespeaks of a wider pattern of behavior that goes well beyond the events dealing with the
06:18strikes on Yemen.
06:20What's your assessment of how Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, handled
06:24this situation?
06:25He watched this unfold.
06:27He when he realized it was legitimate, he took himself off.
06:31He did write that this happened, but he did redact significant classified information
06:36that he was then privy to.
06:37It was not published in The Atlantic.
06:39Overall, did he do the right thing?
06:42Well, from a very brief reading of the article, I didn't see anything to criticize.
06:47I think his initial reaction that it might be a scam, that somebody trying to entrap
06:53a journalist or it might be a spoof or who knows what, it was legitimate for him to stay
06:58on.
07:00Whether he should have cut it off earlier or not, I think that's a question that reasonable
07:04people can disagree on.
07:06I didn't see anything in the article that looked to me to be worse than a general description
07:13of what was in there.
07:14So I don't think he released any classified information.
07:17But again, I just say, why are we having this conversation?
07:20How could you?
07:21I don't know who put this chain together, but I wouldn't I wouldn't have such a chain.
07:27I can't I just can't even imagine having a chain.
07:29He seems to suggest it was Mike Waltz, the guy in your role.
07:32Somebody who had technical capabilities to put it together.
07:35All right.
07:36Ambassador John Bolton, really very much appreciate you scrambling to come talk to us about this
07:41breaking story.
07:42Thanks very much for your time today.