Top lawmakers and politicians respond to the leaked group chat of Trump Administration officials discussing war plans.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Secretary of Defense Pete Hexeth should resign.
00:04He recklessly texted operational details of military strikes, including time, place, location,
00:11and sequencing of those strikes to a journalist.
00:15Had that information gotten to the Houthis, American pilots could have been shot down,
00:20Navy sailors could have been targeted.
00:22His reckless actions endangered the lives of American troops, endangered our national
00:27security, and makes it so that our allies don't want to share sensitive classified
00:33information with us anymore.
00:35So, look, they've acknowledged that there was an error, and they're correcting it.
00:42And I would have asked the same thing of the Biden administration.
00:44I don't think anyone should have lost their job over that, because an errant number found
00:49its way onto a dialogue between leaders.
00:53It's a mistake, but we've got to correct it going forward, and they will.
00:58It is careless.
00:59It is reckless.
01:01There should be an investigation, and folks need to be held accountable for this level
01:06of incompetence.
01:07The Secretary of Defense should not be sharing targeting information for a strike off of
01:17an aircraft carrier and other assets.
01:19I don't even have the details of exactly what was shared, but we need to find out.
01:24This is so reckless and irresponsible, it really raises questions about keystone cops
01:37in charge of national security.
01:39Do you want to see a congressional investigation?
01:42You know what?
01:43What's to investigate?
01:45They put somebody, a journalist, on a secure text chain.
01:49We know what happened.
01:51What I want is accountability.
01:55Instead of accepting responsibility outrageously, Secretary Hegseth attacked the journalist
02:02and called him deceitful.
02:05He took the deny-till-you-die approach.
02:09Secretary Hegseth's refusal to accept responsibility yesterday was eerily similar to the way he
02:16conducted himself during the confirmation process.
02:19I fear how he will react to future moments of crisis.
02:25And again, when Pete Hegseth came before the Senate as a nominee, Democrats warned something
02:31like this could happen.
02:34These people, Secretary Hegseth and so many others, are clearly not up for the job.
02:41We warned that confirming them was dangerous, that they would behave recklessly, and unfortunately,
02:47unfortunately, we were right.
02:49When you heard what I heard, I don't really have anything to add to that.
02:56I just think there's going to have to be more investigation into the facts and circumstances.
03:02I think it may be a surprise to some people that the intelligence community uses a commercial
03:09encrypted app to communicate outside of classified systems.
03:14And then there's the issue of government records.
03:20Typically, there's a preservation requirement and some other requirements, including freedom
03:25of information, foundation inquiries into public records.
03:31So I think we're just going to have to get to the bottom of this.
03:37This is the same crowd that regularly posts, oftentimes through Elon Musk activities, classified
03:43information.
03:44This is the same crowd that has no respect for the privacy rights of Americans.
03:53And we didn't even get an apology.
03:56We didn't even get an acknowledgment that, oh yes, if the Hooties had gotten this information,
04:02they could have repositioned their defenses and American lives could have been and probably
04:09would have been lost.
04:11It's irresponsible.
04:14Well, I think that's happening already.
04:16I mean, I think the hearing is still going on, Senate Intelligence Committee today.
04:19I mean, they're up here, at least two of the relevant players in that conversation
04:24were in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee for a very long period of time in an open
04:27setting.
04:28And my, well, my guess is you'll probably, I suspect the Armed Services Committee may
04:32want to have some folks testify and have some of those questions answered as well.
04:38I think everybody has acknowledged, including the White House, that, yeah, mistake was made.
04:42And what we want to do is make sure that something like that doesn't happen again.
04:46Accountability.
04:48All of us knew this, serving in uniform.
04:51You're responsible for everything your organization does and fails to do.
04:54At a minimum, we're calling on our Republican colleagues to share in that joint call for
04:59accountability, that there needs to be a fulsome and transparent investigation into what happened
05:05with the leakage of the information that we know about and potentially much more sensitive
05:10national security information.
05:12And this is a watershed moment, we believe, in our country, where we need to speak up,
05:17not as Democrats or Republicans, but as patriots, and say it is absolutely unacceptable that
05:22sensitive security information, operational information, that would put American lives,
05:29lives of our constituents in harm's way.
05:33And I'm here today with my colleagues because we're dealing with a gang that can't shoot
05:38straight.
05:39This is an incredibly serious, unforced error that they made.
05:45And their error put American service members' lives in danger, and that is not something
05:54that we're going to tolerate.
05:57We learned very early, every one of us in our careers, that loose lips sink ships.
06:03And this is a textbook perfect example of that.
06:06The idea that you would go on an unsecured platform to talk about a military invasion,
06:16it's just absolutely mind-boggling.
06:19Nobody in their adult, good, sober judgment would do that.
06:26There was no classified information, as I understand it.
06:30They used a app, if you want to call it an app, that a lot of people use, a lot of people
06:37in government use, a lot of people in the media use.
06:43It's really, really disturbing that the White House still does not seem to understand the
06:47seriousness of this problem.
06:49Even today, they're saying somehow that this information was not classified.
06:53They are just lying.
06:55All of us here, who serve in uniform, we know that that would have been classified.
06:59You cannot talk about the time, date, place, targets, sequence of strikes, and not have
07:04that be classified because, again, you're putting American troops' lives at risk.
07:09There's a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves, making
07:15up lies about this president, whether it's the Russia hoax or making up lies about Gold
07:21Star families.
07:22And this one in particular, I've never met, don't know, never communicated with.
07:27And we are looking into him, reviewing how the heck he got into this room.
07:35The main thing is that we get assurances that it doesn't ever happen again.
07:39I think it's best to just confess the mistake and say that we learned a lesson and this
07:45won't happen again.
07:46Is it responsible, do you think?
07:48In hindsight, probably not.
07:49But should there be a house investigation, do you think?
07:52Yeah, I think there should be a look at procedures and see if it's done properly in the future.
07:57You guys have the oversight responsibility, should you exercise it?
08:01I mean, look, I paid attention to some of the Senate intel hearing today.
08:05I don't really think so, based on what came out of that.