Republican Sen. James Risch, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he had spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio “at length” about how a reporter was inadvertently added to a Signal group chat in which the nation’s top intelligence officials, Rubio reportedly included, shared classified plans for military action.
“He is really aware of these kinds of things. We have leakage that happens from time to time,” Risch, of Idaho, said of Rubio, a former member of the committee, during his opening statement at a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing this morning. “I can assure you that his knowledge is such and his commitment is such that he had no knowledge of there being the tap on that, that there was when he was communicating.”
The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, of New Hampshire, expressed concern over the information leak and that no State Department personnel were aware of The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s accidental inclusion in the Signal group chat, or of the information that was leaked to him as a result.
Risch called the incident a “serious leak,” and said, “I don’t think there’s anybody that wouldn’t be concerned. … We’ll move on as best we can.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said the addition of Goldberg to the White House officials’ Signal chat was “incredibly sloppy” but added that “it was a mistake, and I am, I can say for certain, they’re going to put protocols in place so that doesn’t happen again.”
Rep. Maria Salazar, R-Fla., said “people make mistakes” and to give Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “a pass.”
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., called his former colleague Mike Waltz a “patriot.”
These members were all going in and out of the weekly House Republican conference meeting.
The Republican strategy so far in the hearing appears to be to ignore, minimize and downplay the Signal chat.
No Republican senator has asked about it so far. Instead, Republican senators have focused their questions on migrants, cartels and China.
Gabbard did not mention the call in her opening statement. When Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the committee, asked her about the call, she downplayed its importance, saying, “There was no classified material shared.” Ratcliffe gave a similar answer.
When Warner asked Gabbard if she planned to hand over the Signal exchange to the committee, she gave an unclear answer. When Warner asked FBI Director Kash Patel if he had launched an investigation into the call, he said he had only been briefed on it late last night.
Ratcliffe defended the use of Signal to discuss military plans, saying it was loaded onto his computer shortly after he was confirmed as CIA director.
Ratcliffe acknowledged that he was in the Signal group chat that was reported by The Atlantic, but said that he had been previously briefed about “the use of Signal as a permissible work use.” He said he was informed that any decisions made needed to be recorded in “formal channels.”
“It is permissible to use to communicate and coordinate for work purposes, provided, senator, that any decisions that are made are also recorded through formal channels. So those were procedures that were implemented,” Ratcliffe said.
Ratcliffe said that his communications on Signal did not include classified information.
Gabbard dodged a question from Warner about whether she was the user, reported as “TG,” in the Signal chat with Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg in which senior Trump administration shared military plans.
“Senator, I don’t want to get into this,” Gabbard said, who repeated the same response after Warner kept pressing her.
Gabbard said that she didn’t want to talk about the magazine’s report because it’s still under review.
She later claimed in response to follow-up questions by Warner that, in the Signal chat, there was “no classified material that was shared.”
An anti-Israel protester interrupted the Senate hearing on worldwide threats, yelling, “Stop funding Israel” and the “greatest threat to global security” is Israel.
Cotton began addressing the protest when another protester began shouting.
The hearing resumed moments after, when the protesters left.
Capitol Police remove a pro-Palestinian protester from the hearing today.Saul Loeb / AFP – Getty Images
In her opening statement, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard didn’t address the Signal chat at the center of the story yesterday in which The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he was invited to the discussion with her and other senior Trump administration officials.
Gabbard delivered her opening statement on behalf of the other witnesses, including FBI Director Kash Patel and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
She listed the number of threats facing the U.S., including those from “several nonstate actors, cartels, gangs and other transnational criminal organizations” in their “illicit activity, from narcotics trafficking to money laundering, to smuggling of illegal immigrants and human trafficking.”
From left, FBI Director Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe prepare to testify today.Saul Loeb / AFP – Getty Images
Gabbard said that Islamist extremists like ISIS and Al Qaeda continue to pursue and inspire attacks against the U.S. domestically and abroad. She said that China is the U.S.’s most “capable strategic competitor,” and also said Russia has developed cyber capabilities that pose a threat to U.S. infrastructure.
“Among Russia’s most concerning developments is a new satellite intended to carry a nuclear weapon as an anti-satellite weapon, violating long-standing international activity and putting the U.S. and global economy at risk,” Gabbard said.
Gabbard also said that the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and that the country’s supreme leader hasn’t authorized the nuclear program.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., began his opening remarks at the Senate hearing on worldwide threats by slamming the White House officials whom The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported as having been involved in a Signal group chat discussing military plans that inadvertently included him.
Warner called the group chat mishap an example of “sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly towards classified information.”
“Putting aside for a moment that classified information should never be discussed over an unclassified system, it’s also just mind-boggling to me that all these senior folks were on this line, and nobody bothered even to check,” Warner said, referring to Goldberg having been included in the discussion. “Security hygiene 101: Who are all the names?”
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., did not address the Signal group chat that inadvertently included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, on plans for strikes against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.
Cotton, however, did applaud Trump’s “decisive action” against the Houthis this month — which was discussed in the Signal chat — and said he commends White House national security adviser Mike Waltz, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others on the administration’s national security team — some of whom the magazine reported were represented in the chat.
Cotton also said in his opening statement that U.S. intelligence agencies are not fully capable of handling the threats facing the nation.
From left, Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., during the hearing today.Andrew Harnik / Getty Images
“We have to ask, are our intelligence agencies well-postured against these threats? I’m afraid the answer is no, at least not yet,” he said. “As the world became more dangerous in recent years, our intelligence agencies got more politicized, more bureaucratic, and more focused on promulgating opinions rather than gathering facts.”
He continued, “As a result of these misplaced priorities, we’ve been caught off guard and left in the dark too often. I know that all of you agree that the core mission of the intelligence community is to steal our adversaries’ secrets and convey them to policymakers to protect the United States. At the same time, it’s not the role of intelligence agencies to make policy, to justify presidential action or to operate like other federal agencies. After years of drip, the intelligence community must recommit to its core mission of collecting clandestine intelligence from adversaries, whose main objective is to destroy our nation and our way of life.”
Asked about the White House’s claim that no military plans were shared on the Signal chat with Jeffrey Goldberg, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said, “That’s baloney.”
“That’s baloney,” he said to reporters this morning as he left the weekly House Republican conference meeting. “Just be honest and own up to it.”
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., wrote in an op-ed this morning that U.S. intelligence community leaders owe Americans answers about the Trump administration’s actions, including federal worker layoffs and cuts to U.S. aid, since the inauguration.
“How does ending foreign assistance make us safer?” Warner said in the op-ed published by Fox News. “How does firing our most experienced FBI agents make us safer?”
He also asked how America is made more secure by firing people who oversee the nation’s nuclear stockpile, monitor cyberattacks and prevent disease from spreading to the U.S., as the administration has done, although some who held those critical positions were rehired.
“Can anyone tell me how firing probationary officers — without cause, and apparently without regard for merit, accomplishment, expense already incurred by the taxpayer in vetting and training, or the difficulty posed in filling the intelligence gaps left behind — makes us safer, or is an efficient use of taxpayer dollars?” he wrote.
“The instability of the last two months also undermines a critical component of our intelligence gathering capabilities: the trust of allies,” Warner said.
He suggested that he wants answers to these questions during the worldwide threats hearing this morning before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Trump stood by his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, after The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was accidentally added to a private, high-level chat on the messaging app Signal in which military plans were being discussed.
“Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” Trump said today in a phone interview with NBC News.
House and Senate Democrats sent letters to top Trump officials demanding answers after The Atlantic reported that its editor-in-chief was inadvertently added to a Signal group chat in which top officials discussed military plans.
Top Democrats on prominent House committees sent a letter to four White House officials whom The Atlantic identified as potentially being in the Signal chat, asking for answers about the information shared.
“We are especially concerned that the reported deliberations may have constituted a security breach, because they relied upon an electronic messaging application that is not approved as a secure method for communicating classified information and because they inadvertently included at least one non-governmental party,” read the letter, which was addressed to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz.
Separately, a group of 14 Senate Democrats sent a letter to Trump, calling the situation “an astonishingly cavalier approach to national security.”
“It does not take much imagination to consider the likely ramifications if this information had been made public prior to the strike — or worse, if it had been shared with or visible to an adversary rather than a reporter who seems to have a better grasp of how to handle classified information than your National Security Advisor,” the senators wrote.
The lawmakers asked that Trump and the officials share other instances in which officials may have discussed sensitive information using Signal and what steps the White House is taking to ensure this does not happen again.
“In how many instances has the National Security Council held discussions on national security matters involving Principals Committee members or any other relevant executive branch officials using the Signal messaging service or any other messaging service application that has not been approved for the transmission of classified information?” read the letter from the top Democrats on the Armed Services, Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees.
As the Department of Government Efficiency upends federal agencies, a report released today by the job listing website Indeed shows the number of workers looking for new jobs has spiked.
Job applications from workers at agencies targeted by DOGE are up 75% compared with 2022, according to the report’s data. And while job applications among all workers increased after the Trump transition, the spike in applications from DOGE-targeted workers is especially pronounced.
Reporting from Washington
The Senate Finance Committee will hold a confirmation hearing today on Frank Bisignano’s nomination to be commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
The hearing is scheduled to start at 10:10 a.m. ET and last about two and a half hours.
Bisignano will likely face questions on the future of the SSA as talk of privatizing the agency have ramped up. The hearing also comes on the heels of threats from the acting commissioner to shut down the agency after a federal judge barred the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive personal data.
The top Democrat on the Finance Committee, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent a letter to Bisignano yesterday asking whether he supports privatizing Social Security, and whether he would be willing to undo recent changes made, such as the closure of dozens of Social Security offices, mass agency layoffs and new administrative requirements for beneficiaries.
“These new developments leave us deeply concerned that DOGE and the Trump Administration are setting up the SSA for failure — a failure that could cut off Social Security benefits for millions of Americans — and that will then be used to justify a ‘private sector fix.’ Republicans have flirted with the idea of privatizing Social Security for over two decades,” the senators wrote in the letter.
“The latest changes at the Social Security Administration leave us worried that Elon Musk — with his clear disdain for the program that provides financial security to millions of Americans — has taken up the mantle as the latest privatization crusader,” they added.
The hearing will likely get heated, as Democrats are expected to press Bisignano on whether he agrees with the approach DOGE and the acting commissioner have taken so far, as well as his thoughts on threats to customer service and timely benefits, and Elon Musk and Trump’s claims about fraud in Social Security.
Warren told NBC News yesterday that she plans to press Bisignano on a wide range of topics.
“The Social Security administrator nominee needs to come clean with the American people. Is he in favor of the cuts that Elon Musk and his DOGE boys are trying to execute at the Social Security Administration? Or does he plan, once he has the power, to put a stop to it? Is he in favor of the privatization of Social Security that many Republicans are still advancing? Or does he plan to make a stand and put a stop to it? That’s what I want to hear from him,” Warren said.
Bisignano is the chief executive officer of payments technology at Fiserv, which some Democrats have raised concerns since the company could benefit from any privatization of Social Security.
Trump is scheduled to sign more executive orders today at 2 p.m. ET, the White House said.
No details were provided on the focus of the orders.
Reporting from Washington
The Senate Intelligence Committee will meet today at 10 a.m. ET for its “Worldwide Threats” hearing, an annual intelligence community oversight hearing with testimony from the heads of the intel agencies.
The open hearing, expected to run almost three hours, will be followed by a classified, closed session. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is the only official who will give an opening statement, but all officials participating will take questions from senators.
The hearing comes less than 24 hours after The Atlantic reported that Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a Signal group chat with Trump administration officials about U.S. military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. The group chat reportedly included two of the officials scheduled to testify today: Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Senators said they expect questions regarding The Atlantic’s reporting.
“I would expect it would, and I would expect our Democrat colleagues would raise it. And I suspect some of my Republican colleagues may raise it just as an issue to be very concerned about,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said yesterday.
