Former Trump Staffer on Signal War Plans - CNN Political Briefing - Podcast on CNN Audio

CNN

28-03-2025

David Chalian
00:00:01
Hey, everyone. I'm David Chalian, CNN's Washington bureau chief and political director. And welcome to the CNN Political Briefing.
Senator Mark Warner
00:00:13
You are not on this group chat.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard
00:00:13
I'm not going to get into the specifics.
Senator Mark Warner
00:00:14
You refused to acknowledge whether you were on this group chat.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard
00:00:18
Senator, I'm not going to get into this.
Senator Mark Warner
00:00:20
Why are you why are you going to get into specifics? Is this. Is it because it's all classified? Because this is currently under review by the national security? Because it's all classified. If it's not classified, share the text now.
David Chalian
00:00:31
That's Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, questioning Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard about a now infamous text threat. This week, regularly scheduled hearings about global threats turned into grilling over a group chat on the messaging app signal. That chat included top Trump administration officials and a journalist. The editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeff Goldberg, was accidentally added to a group where cabinet members texted about U.S. military strike plans in Yemen. Goldberg in The Atlantic revealed tech showing exchanges about specific operational details for the strikes. But President Trump and his allies have continued to deny that any classified information was shared. Here's what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said after those texts were published.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
00:01:23
There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information.
David Chalian
00:01:34
Olivia Troye is a former national security official. During the first Trump administration, she served as homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Mike Pence. She also worked in the Pentagon as a George W Bush appointee. And she joins me now to share her insights on this incident. Olivia, thanks so much for joining me.
Olivia Troye
00:01:56
Thanks for having me David.
David Chalian
00:01:57
Your name popped into my head of somebody I wanted to talk to when this story emerged out of the Atlantic and Jeffrey Goldberg being inadvertently. Added to this group text and then pretty sensitive information being shared by the Secretary of Defense. I want to talk to you because obviously you've had a ton of experience as a national security official dealing with information that is highly sensitive, that is classified. And I know there's a lot of semantics around classified or not classified and war planning or attack planning. We can get all that. But I want to first just get a sense from you about how abnormal what occurred is.
Olivia Troye
00:02:39
Yes. First of all, I mean, I I'm still in shock over the what's happened this week. Quite honestly, I must have read that article. I mean, at least three times, I, I also felt, as I was reading the article, you know, Jeffrey Goldberg in the article says he couldn't figure out, like, is this real? Is this like a scam? Is this a I like what is happening here? And I also felt that way because I was like, it's one of those things where I was like, my being punked. Like, is this a fictional story happening here? Because I just couldn't believe what I was reading. And it's, you know, I have coordinated so many principles, committee meetings that are referred to cabinet level meetings, deputy meetings, even policy meetings. I've attended them. I've been on the distros, I've been a part of it. And to think about the fact that these types of meetings are basically being held on signals, that's what this showed us, right? That the National Security Advisor convened this cabinet level meeting basically on a group chat, almost like almost like a group gossip session is so mind blowing to me. And yes, we can disagree or agree on whether it's classified or not, but I've got to tell you the level of detail on there. I have not seen that level of detail on anything unclassified in terms of operations that I've been a part of.
David Chalian
00:04:02
I know, you know, part of the administration's response, as it is often, is to sort of blame the reporter who exposed the story, Jeffrey Goldberg, in this case, blame the press for covering something hyperbolic. Lee. I guess what I want to get a sense from you is, is this just a fascination or. I know they pointed that the military exercise was successful, but is there potential danger in what occurred here?
Olivia Troye
00:04:35
Oh, absolutely. I mean, yes, the mission was successful, but thank goodness it was successful this time. Thank goodness that no one disrupted the operation. Thank goodness that we don't lose lives, that our planes weren't shot down. That there wasn't an escalation to preempt this measure, because that's what really could have happened if it got into the wrong hands. And look, I'm not convinced that it didn't get into the wrong hands. I'm not convinced that our foreign adversaries don't have access to these signal chats. And the worst part of it, to me was then finding out, you know, that I've got friends of the Department of Defense who were equally in shock because the workforce was warned about using signal and the possibility of vulnerabilities on the application. And so they were warned to be careful when using the signal app on their phones. Right. And here we are with the leadership of our country, having a whole conversation about sensitive locations, targets, even down to the timing of it. And so I think they can blame Jeffrey Goldberg all they want for saying, you know, he was part of this conversation. He which by, you know, complete accident and in many ways not wanting to be and at some point he's like, wait, this is real. And he gets gravely concerned about it. And I, you know, I give him credit because he is the one that actually use tremendous judgment in what he first decided to report or not to report. And the fact that, you know, thank goodness he wasn't out there real time posting it on social media. Some might have. Right? I mean, they would have reacted that way. And in which case, I just can't imagine the anxiety to of people who are working in these communities now thinking, okay, so for the next operation, I can't even trust the leadership of our country at the highest levels of my agency or community to protect me in this situation, to have my back well, and going into this scenario and risking my own life for the sake of what we're doing here.
David Chalian
00:06:33
So let's get into some of that, what you described as very specific information. I want to focus in on what Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, added into this chat. You said he talked about specific times. I mean, he said it would be, you know, at 2:15 in the afternoon, guaranteed the first strike will happen. Then he talked about specific weapons that were going to be utilized in your experience. And again, I know I don't I just want to illuminate for our listeners. Would that kind of information be classified?
Olivia Troye
00:07:09
Yes. Especially because he connects it all. That's the key. Sometimes it's considered and classified, if you're just talking about one small bit of it and you're not connecting the dots to everything else. But I don't see how you can actually sit there with a straight face and say, this isn't classified. When every operation I'd ever seen, especially, by the way, the audience that usually receives this type of detail is a very small audience, and they're either on classified distros or they're sitting in the situation room, or they're sitting in a military command center. I mean, I've been at the Joint Special Operations Command centers overseas, where I have watched by the minute an operation go down. But I can guarantee you that the only people that we're aware of to the minute detail are the people in a very small distribution. And it's controlled and it's certainly not being shared in any unclassified channel. But it was also the fact that, like, he connects the dots on it. He's saying, okay, the planes will depart here and they're going to this target, and then they're going to do this. And then he confirms, actually, one of the things that I noticed was he mentions a terrorist in the location and he's he's entering the building that's targeted. I mean, how much more specific can you get? And Mike Walsh says a building has collapsed. And he, you know, Pete Hedges said it's like having this conversation. There is clearly confusion in the text. But also this is why you shouldn't be having these conversations is just a the fact that you're tying it all together is also and I'll say this because I'm seeing them say that they're not talking about sources and methods.
David Chalian
00:08:42
Yeah. I was just about to say, while you're saying this, I just want to Hegseth just specifically talked to reporters on the tarmac earlier this week. He's traveling abroad, or he may have been in Hawaii right before he was heading abroad. And he said, no sources, no methods, no targets, no routes. He said nothing classified, that is how he defines it he put nothing inappropriate in that chat.
Olivia Troye
00:09:08
That to me is completely ridiculous, and it sounds like maybe he needs to sit down and have his own refresher on classifying things. What different levels of classification mean, and what it means when you tie things together and how. Yes, basically he was describing sources and methods and how they were going to do things here. Right. And he's also basically giving away the knowledge that we had going into this operation, which is also part of why all of this is considered sensitive. And so I think I think the dangerous part of it is that anyone if it got into the wrong hands, they would have known in detail what the plan was ahead of time. And we just got very lucky this time that that didn't happen. But the concern for me is, well, how many other operations or other policy planning or other sensitive discussions are happening in these signal groups. I mean, it's labeled Hootie group at the top. And I kept thinking like, okay, so are they going to be is there an Israel group? Is there a Gaza group? Is there a Venezuela group? I mean, what how many policy discussions? I'm just kind of imagining the distribution for this. Having handled a lot of this coordination, even for Pence on the Covid task force, was like, I, I can't in a million years picture a situation where I would be developing distribution lists on my cell phone in an unclassified application, and discussing remotely even a smidge of what was discussed in this conversation. And quite frankly, I think if Mike Pence would have found out that I was doing this, I would've been fired. I've been walked in building immediately for that kind of breach, and I'm I probably would have lost my security clearance and everything else that comes with it. So I to me, this is just completely reckless and complete lack of judgment by many. Who should have known better? Especially people like Mike Walz. He's got a lot of experience in this. He was supposed to be the rational, professional, experienced person who really understands kind of how national security operates. And he had a similar role to me and Vice President Dick Cheney's office back in the day. I mean, so this is someone who worked in the Pentagon. He served in the military. So did you get Pete Hegseth, right? I mean, they should know better.
David Chalian
00:11:31
We're going to take a quick break. We're going to a lot more in just a moment. Stay with us.
David Chalian
00:11:59
Welcome back. We're here with former national security official Olivia Troye. Olivia I want to get to sort of the whole accountability piece, which you hinted at at the end of our conversation in the last block about what would happen to you had you done something like this and you would have been marched out of the white House and maybe lost your security clearance? We'll get to that and how the Hill is and should respond, and other accountability measures that may or may not be employed by this administration in a moment. But beyond the operational details that I've put in, I wondered what you thought of seeing in in this tech chat, Vice President Vance sort of disagreeing or presenting a counter argument with the president's, apparently, according to Stephen Miller in the chat, already greenlighted operation and calling into question and suggesting maybe it was a mistake. The American people don't usually get insight into that kind of internal deliberation in near real time. What do you make of that?
Olivia Troye
00:13:02
Well, to be honest, the first thing I thought was, oof! When the president reads that, he is going to be livid because now he has a complete insight into what's happening behind the scenes by his own vice president. So if I were J.D. Vance, having seen my previous boss navigate this dynamic, I would probably be feeling a little nervous and sheepish about the fact that now the cards have been shown that he was basically countering what was being discussed and what good for him. He was providing a different viewpoint and saying, hey, maybe we need to take a pause. Maybe we need to think about this. And actually, I think that was a positive sign to me because I said, okay, well, there's someone actually thinking of the pros and cons of this kind of trying to think through that. But I also thought it was very interesting and evident, and it's been my experience in the past of working with some of this, that people in the same circles and personalities that Stephen Miller completely immediately chimed in. It wasn't the chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Right. It was Stephen Miller who turned in, and he's like, no. The president was very clear, and he basically says, like, this is moving forward. And so, you know, for lack of a better word, David, he trumps the vice president and says, now get back in line. This is what we're doing.
David Chalian
00:14:18
And I also just want to get your take on what the exchange that Vance and Hegseth were having about Europe, because so much of the foreign policy posture of this administration, Trump 2.0 to date has been to really reimagine sort of who's an ally and who's an adversary. And obviously, the U.S. relationship with Europe is going through transformation. And and it was interesting to me to see I, if not revelatory, I think we kind of knew where Vance and Access were on this. But I'm just curious where you thought that conversation about Europe playing out in this group chat leaves us in terms of U.S. foreign policy?
Olivia Troye
00:14:58
Yeah. So the first thing I thought of was, wow, our allies or European allies are reading this now and they're like, okay, well, this is truly how they really think about us. And, you know, I think there's mentioned to them and that are freeloading, which is inaccurate, right? That's not true. And I think it's very evident that this is an administration who is going to aggressively counter our alliances. And in many ways, we've seen side with potentially foreign adversaries like Russia. And so I think in that real time conversation, they're having these discussions. And it was fascinating just to see them blatantly being like, oh, the freeloaders. And yeah, it's absolutely pathetic. I think that was some of the terminology used in the chat. And I think that is evident to the rest of the world about what's really happening here in our foreign policy and the kind of discussions that are shaping the international dynamics. And to me as well. I was just sitting there thinking, I can't imagine being one of our European allies and watching this and being like, hey, one, this is what they really think. And to get to know that this is how they're conducting foreign policy and military operations and discussing sensitive things, because I'm not sure that I want my country to be sharing the information if it's going to be out there for everyone to read.
David Chalian
00:16:20
So let's talk about how the administration has responded so far. We mentioned when Hegseth was saying that you obviously said was a bit of absurd kind of rhetorical response. What do you make of how President Trump has responded? Seems to be wanting to distance himself from this, suggests he doesn't have knowledge, maybe even, you know, putting Mike Wallace on the hot seat and sort of suggesting he is to blame here. And then yesterday suggesting when a reporter asked about Hegseth and what he wrote, he was like, why would you even bring Hegseth into this? What is Hegseth have to do with this? He seemed to really want to wall off any kind of blame for his defense secretary. So what do you make about how the president and the administration overall has responded to this.
Olivia Troye
00:17:03
I think first of all, I think it's it's very typical for Trump and sort of this operation. Obviously the first thing they'll do is try to discredit the source, right? So they're trying to discredit the reporter, even though the reporter exercised the best judgment out of the entire group, I would say, because that was our first go to move is just like, oh, the press hates us. And this is another hyperbolic situation. You know, Trump likes to use the words witch hunt. So he's already kind of tossing that out. And so that was to be expected. But the reality is I think Donald Trump is pissed. I think he's pretty mad because honestly, this is embarrassing. It's embarrassing for the entire cabinet, the white House, I think behind the scenes, like he's he's probably very, very annoyed that this is.
David Chalian
00:17:49
What gives you what gives you that sense?
Olivia Troye
00:17:51
I mean, I've seen it in the past where he's sort of like, we had this leak. How did this get out there? I mean, he's been very angry in the past when these situations and also I think it's, you know, when it makes his entire cabinet look ridiculous. And right now, that's how they're looking. It ultimately looks bad on him. And so I think that's why you saw him kind of he's trying to figure out like, okay, who is a person that gets the blame here. Who's the scapegoat in that situation. And personally, I thought it was going to be my fault because he's the one that right. Obviously he's the one that puts the chat together and then adds the reporter.
David Chalian
00:18:27
And he also is the administration official in most tension with MAGA world at the moment. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of skepticism from from some of the most ardent Trump supporters that he's a bit more sort of national security establishment, kind of a Republican.
Olivia Troye
00:18:42
Yes. And then the other thing I think for them is I think Trump is trying to figure out, I mean, this is not a good news story, right? I mean, this is making them look completely ridiculous. He knows it's bad. He's got Republicans that are actually. You know, in one rare moment right now, which is very, very and not not heard it very common right now. He's got Republicans criticizing him and what happened here. And he's got people, influencers on social media and everything that are coming out. And also calling this out and being like, this is not okay. And he knows the gravity of the situation, I think. And so I think from his perspective, he wants this nightmare to go away. This is like taking all the attention. And then also I think, you know, I thought it was very evident where he talked about signal and he seemed confused about what signal was. So it's clear that I didn't. Trump is sort of at a like I'm like, what actually kind of happened here and he doesn't know signal application like what it is. I think there's just a lot of loose ends here that are probably making him feel very unsettled and angry about it. But ultimately, I think he's like, you're making me look bad. It's really not about actually you're you should be protecting these sources and methods and you should be protecting the operation. I think it's more so the fact that it brought embarrassment to the white House and the entire cabinet.
David Chalian
00:20:00
My last question for you is We've seen Senator Roger Wicker, the Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, call for an investigation. We have seen some Republicans express some concern that this was a screw up, though we've not seen sort of the floodgates open and sort of demand a what should happen from here, should there be an investigation and should somebody lose their job over this?
Olivia Troye
00:20:26
I mean, in any other scenario, if you are a military member or a intelligence officer or anything, somebody would lose their jobs and there would be accountability from all the way from the top down to the lower level. On how this happened. And so there should be an investigation. There should be an investigation to like, how did this happen? What were the actual facts that led to this situation? Why is this happening? Why are they using signal? First of all, I would be asking that question. This is not how we conduct traditionally major senior level policy and intelligence. And then also I think there has to be accountability. Like somebody needs to take responsibility for their actions, if only also for what you're saying to the communities that these people lead, because it really is about leadership comes from the top. And so when you have intelligence officers, military service members, all of this community is watching this happen. And they, by the way, hold sensitive operations in high regard. They're held to a certain standard. And I think the leadership needs to show that they're going to hold themselves accountable and to that standard high standard as well to protect this information. So I do think that this needs to happen. And I think, you know, I don't think that this is a Partizan thing. This isn't about politics, isn't about Republicans and Democrats. It's actually about protecting the American people and national security. It's about protecting everything that our country stands for when it comes to these types of sensitive operations and things. And so I think it should be bipartisan. I commend the Republicans that are saying, yes, we need to get to the bottom of this so that it doesn't happen again. We can at least work on that together.
David Chalian
00:22:10
Olivia Troye, thanks so much for your time.
Olivia Troye
00:22:12
Thank you.
David Chalian
00:22:13
That's it for this week's edition of the CNN Political Briefing. Remember, you can reach out to us with your questions about Trump's new administration or contact information is in the show notes. CNN Political Briefing is a production of CNN audio. This episode was produced by Emily Williams and Grace Walker with support from Dan Bloom. Our senior producer is Felicia Patinkin. Dan Dzula is our technical director, and Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. Support from Alex Perry, Robert Mathers, John Dionora, Leni Steinhardt, James Andrest, Nicole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. We'll be back with a new episode next Friday. Thanks so much for listening.