Inside the fallout of a stunning national-security leak

Summary

Apple News Today: Inside the Fallout of a Stunning National-Security Leak
Release Date: March 28, 2025
Host: Shemitah Basu
Guest: Dasha Burns, White House Bureau Chief at POLITICO

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Introduction

In the March 28, 2025 episode of Apple News Today, host Shemitah Basu delves into the repercussions of a significant national-security leak involving a Signal Group chat that detailed military strategies against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The episode also covers other pressing issues, including immigration crackdowns, political nominations, executive orders on voter registration, and major departmental cuts within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

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1. Signal Group Chat Leak and Administration Fallout

Overview: The episode opens with the revelation that senior administration officials were inadvertently included in a Signal Group chat with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg. This chat contained explicit discussions and detailed plans for military strikes in Yemen that resulted in the deaths of dozens, including children. The leak has triggered congressional scrutiny, mixed messages from the administration, and bipartisan calls for an inspector general investigation.

Key Points & Discussions:

• Administrative Response:

  • Mike Waltz's Accountability:

    • Shemitah Basu (00:05): "Mike Waltz, the national security advisor, has taken responsibility for the mess up."
    • Dasha Burns (01:30): Expresses skepticism about Waltz's acceptance of responsibility, highlighting his attempts to deflect blame.
    • Dasha Burns (02:31): "Behind the scenes, there is a lot of tension and frustration. The President is really upset about this. He feels like it was embarrassing, it was an unforced error."

  • Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Deflection:

    • Unknown Speaker (03:56): Criticizes journalists by comparing to Hillary Clinton's email scandal, stating, "Any security professional... would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct."

• President Trump's Stance:

  • Dasha Burns (02:31): "The typical Trump playbook is do not apologize, deny and go on Fox News. Right. And that's very much what Mike Waltz tried to do."

• Bipartisan Concerns:

  • Shemitah Basu (04:14): Highlights that figures like Tulsi Gabbard and Marco Rubio demand harsh consequences for security breaches.
  • Dasha Burns (05:38): Notes the bipartisan request to the Department of Defense Inspector General to investigate, indicating fractures even within traditionally loyal Republican ranks.

• Consequences and Political Implications:

  • Dasha Burns (04:28): Discusses the potential for Mike Waltz to be held accountable amidst internal finger-pointing.
  • Dasha Burns (05:28): Indicates that the administration fears setting a bad precedent but acknowledges increasing pressure for real consequences.

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2. Immigration Crackdown and Student Detentions

Overview: The administration has intensified its immigration crackdown, targeting foreign-born individuals, including students. Recent incidents involve the detention of a Turkish student from Tufts University and a student from the University of Alabama, accused of supporting Hamas. These actions are part of a broader strategy to create the appearance of strong immigration enforcement amid logistical challenges.

Key Points & Discussions:

• Detentions and Accusations:

  • Shemitah Basu (05:59): Describes the detention of students, including a video of a Tufts student being pulled off the street by masked officers.
  • Shemitah Basu (06:47): "Homeland Security is saying she's being accused of supporting Hamas, which her lawyer denies."

• Revocation of Student Visas:

  • Shemitah Basu (06:47): Reports that Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the revocation of over 300 student visas.

• Administration's Strategy:

  • Dasha Burns (07:55): Analyzes the administration's goals:

    1. Retribution Against Liberal Institutions: Targeting universities aligns with Trump's political strategy to undermine liberal establishments.
    2. Optics of Immigration Crackdown: With actual deportations not meeting targets, the administration uses high-profile detentions to project strength.

  • Dasha Burns (08:09): Emphasizes the bypassing of due process, noting, "This is part of the strategy of this administration, is to flood the zone and do all of this so rapidly that the guardrails that would normally be in place just can't keep up."

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3. Executive Order on Voter Registration

Overview: President Trump signed an executive order mandating proof of citizenship for voter registration in federal elections. This move aims to address alleged election integrity issues, though it faces significant legal challenges and questions about its practical impact.

Key Points & Discussions:

• Details of the Executive Order:

  • Shemitah Basu (08:09): "President Trump signed an executive order that seeks to mandate proof of citizenship for voter registration in federal elections."

• Legality and Impact:

  • Dasha Burns (08:52): "There will be plenty of challenges to this, but it's unclear how much of this will actually make it into any sort of law."
  • Shemitah Basu (09:18): Questions the executive order's impact on state-level voter registration processes.
  • Dasha Burns (09:35): Suggests the order serves more as a political signal, potentially influencing state and congressional actions without having direct policy implications.

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4. Additional News Highlights

A. Nomination Pulled for UN Ambassador

• Shemitah Basu (10:12): Reports that President Trump withdrew Congresswoman Elise Stefanik's nomination for Ambassador to the United Nations, citing concerns over running for her House seat due to Republicans' narrow majority.

B. Special House Elections in Florida

• Shemitah Basu (10:12): Highlights upcoming special elections to replace former Congressman Matt Gaetz and another district where Governor Ron DeSantis anticipates underperformance by Trump-backed candidates.

C. Department of Health and Human Services Job Cuts

• Shemitah Basu (10:12): Announces that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has ordered cuts of 10,000 staffers at HHS, significantly affecting the FDA and CDC. Democrats condemn the move, fearing it will undermine public health and safety.

D. Archaeological Discovery in New Mexico

• Shemitah Basu (10:12): Shares a breakthrough discovery of the oldest footprints in North America at White Sands National Park, dated to approximately 23,000 years ago, offering new insights into early human life on the continent.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with Shemitah Basu summarizing the day's major stories and teasing an upcoming interview with journalists Zoe Schiffer and Leah Figar from Wired regarding their reporting on Elon Musk and Doge's digital influence on the federal government.

Shemitah Basu (13:03): "That episode is queued up to play for you next. Enjoy the weekend and I'll be back with the news on Monday."

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Notable Quotes

1. Dasha Burns on Mike Waltz's Accountability:

   • "Doesn't know how the number got into his phone or how the number got into the group chat." (01:44)

2. Dasha Burns on Trump’s Defense Strategy:

   • "The typical Trump playbook is do not apologize, deny and go on Fox News." (02:31)

3. Unknown Speaker on Security Breaches:

   • "Any security professional... would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct and criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information." (03:56)

4. Dasha Burns on Immigration Strategy:

   • "This is part of the strategy of this administration, is to flood the zone and do all of this so rapidly that the guardrails that would normally be in place just can't keep up." (08:09)

5. Dasha Burns on Executive Order Impact:

   • "It is often a message and a signal and then others at the state level in Congress take that and run with it in their own way so it doesn't have to have the policy teeth necessarily to have a big." (09:35)

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the podcast episode, detailing the major topics discussed, the dynamics within the administration, bipartisan reactions, and additional pertinent news stories. Notable quotes are included to highlight key viewpoints and moments within the conversation, providing depth and context for listeners who did not engage with the full episode.

Transcript

[Shemitah Basu]

Good morning. It's Friday, March 28th. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News today. On today's show, senior administration officials have been ordered to preserve the Signal Group chat involving military strikes on Yemen. Trump pulls his nominee for United nations ambassador, and major cuts are coming to the Department of Health and Human Services. Foreign. Let's start with the signal chat. It's been another busy week in Washington as the administration deals with the fallout from mistakenly inviting Atlantic journalist and editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg into a Signal Group chat in which they explicitly debated and laid out detailed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen, an attack which killed dozens of people, including children. The story prompted questions in congressional hearings, denials and mixed messaging from the administration, and a bipartisan request for an inspector general to investigate the matter. On Thursday, a judge ordered administration officials to preserve the messages on that chat. This all comes as the administration continues its immigration crackdown and the president suggests fundamentally changing the rules around voting. To help us take stock of a flurry of news stories this week, we called up POLITICO's White House Bureau chief, Dasha Burns. The. Hey, Dasha, thanks for joining us.

[Dasha Burns]

Thanks for having me.

[Shemitah Basu]

Let's begin with the fallout from this signal chat. It does seem like the administration has been scrambling in their response. Mike Waltz, the national security advisor, has taken responsibility for the mess up.

[Dasha Burns]

Responsibility? Ish, I would say.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Shemitah Basu]

I mean, he did say I built the chat and he also said that we will look into the matter further. Right.

[Dasha Burns]

Doesn't know how the number got into his phone or how the number got into the group chat. Yeah, right, right.

[Shemitah Basu]

Meanwhile, we're hearing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others try to deflect blame onto the journalist here, Goldberg attacking his character, attacking his credentials. And then you have President Trump saying the whole thing is being overblown. But I mean, you and I and everyone can read the messages that were exchanged with our own eyes. We can clearly see that there was extremely sensitive material involved behind the scenes. Are you hearing more concern from people close to the administration than they're letting on?

[Dasha Burns]

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, look, the typical Trump playbook is do not apologize, deny and go on Fox News. Right. And that's very much what Mike Waltz tried to do. And it's not working as well this time around because this time there are these receipts that the entire world, including senators and members of the House and voters themselves, can take a look and can read and can decide for themselves. So behind the scenes, there is a lot of tension and Frustration. The frustration with Waltz has been the reticence to accept that he made the mistake of adding the journalist. He has said on Fox News that he's not sure how it happened. He never knew Goldberg, he never talked to him. And what I've been hearing from sources in the White House is that that answer actually just opens them up to further investigation. The President is really upset about this. He feels like it was embarrassing, it was an unforced error. And the question now is, is someone going to take the blame for this and actually get canned? And right now the top contender is Mike Waltz. But there's a lot of finger pointing behind the scenes going on right now.

[Shemitah Basu]

You know, when Hegseth was an on air analyst at Fox, he was very vocal in criticizing Hillary Clinton for using a private email server while she was Secretary of State.

[Unknown Speaker]

Any security professional, milit, government or otherwise would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct and criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information. The fact that she wouldn't be held accountable for this, I think blows the mind of anyone who's held our nation's secrets dear.

[Shemitah Basu]

And many other people in the Signal chat group, including Tulsi Gabbard and Marco Rubio and others, have been on the record saying that anyone who breaches security protocol should face harsh consequences. So will we see consequences?

[Dasha Burns]

It's a great question. I mean, the point that you're making is something that I've heard from Republicans behind the scenes saying this is why this is so bad. We made such a huge deal out of the Hillary Clinton email scandal. It's likely why she lost the election, at least in part. And here we are trying to defend something that is pretty difficult to defend at this point. I think they're trying to take the cue from President Trump who's out there saying this is no big deal, nothing to see here. But again, we see, right. We, we could see with our, with our own eyes. And it's harming their credibility politically. And this is gonna be the big test because the thing that I'm hearing is this was supposed to be the administration 47 versus 45, where there isn't the palace intrigue, there isn't the drama, and there aren't people being fired left, right and center. And so they worry that it would set a bad precedent. But there is a lot of talk from some of the serious people in the room, of which there are people like Susie Wiles, that it might get to the point where real conseque need.

[Shemitah Basu]

To be seen you know, Congressional Republicans have also been so far extremely loyal to Trump in these first few months of his administration. Where are they at on this?

[Dasha Burns]

Well, we just saw this bipartisan request to the DoD IG to investigate the signal chat. That is a really big deal. Seeing senators and members of the House that are very much in MAGA world start to defect a little bit. Those are major fractures when you look at the context.

[Shemitah Basu]

Let's shift gears a little bit and move on to another big, big story from this week. More students have been detained by ice, a young woman from Turkey who attends Tufts University and a young man at the University of Alabama. There is a video of the student from Tufts literally being pulled off the street. Yeah, it's kind of a shocking video to see, actually. There are masked officers, people who appear to be officers, who approach her and then lead her away. Homeland Security is saying she's being accused of supporting Hamas, which her lawyer denies. Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday said more than 300 student visas have been revoked by the department and they're looking for more. What is the administration's strategy here in targeting foreign born people here legally and what's the intended effect?

[Dasha Burns]

So there are a number of goals for this administration that sort of combine into one here, number one, retribution against liberal institutions. Universities have been criticized by Republicans for quite a long time. And then on the campaign trail and during the protests over the Israel Hamas conflict, that is something that Trump really latched onto and exploited in this political way that he's actually quite good at in riling up his base. And now this is a way that he can come down hard on those institutions. And that's something that people in his world and in his base are very much in favor of. And number two, targeting people who weren't born in the United States. The numbers of deportations are not as high as they want them to be. This mass deportation operation hasn't really ramped up yet. And so this is a way that they can have the optics of cracking down on immigration without having the big infrastructure that they would need to build, which they are working on, but it's just not going as quickly as they would like.

[Shemitah Basu]

Yeah, and there's certainly, there's that aspect of it cracking down on foreign born people, students, people attending these universities. There's also the lack of due process partners, which I think most people would point to as the most concerning aspect of all these.

[Dasha Burns]

Yeah. And in this country we have laws even for people who came here illegally, and those laws aren't being followed right now, which was why you have so many of these challenges in the courts. The problem is that doesn't move very quickly. And this is part of the strategy of this administration, is to flood the zone and do all of this so rapidly that the guardrails that would normally be in place just can't keep up.

[Shemitah Basu]

Well, one last thing, Dasha, before I let you go, I do want to take a moment to talk about this story that hasn't gotten quite as much attention this week, which is President Trump signed an executive order that seeks to mandate proof of citizenship for voter registration in federal elections. What should we know about this effort and its legality?

[Dasha Burns]

Look, there will be plenty of challenges to this, but it's unclear how much of this will actually make it into any sort of law. I mean, I think you're gonna need some help Congress there too, if he really wants to execute this. But this goes back to those campaign trail promises to his base that he is going to prevent elections from being stolen, even though we have no proof of elections being stolen.

[Shemitah Basu]

You know, one thing I was trying to parse when looking at this executive order, most people register to vote with their state and it seems like this order impacts federal forms to register to vote. I'm trying to understand how much impact would this executive order actually have if it's allowed to stand.

[Dasha Burns]

So, so this is a trend among the executive orders from this administration. Not all of them have actual teeth, but that doesn't mean they're not effective in some way. It is often a message and a signal and then others at the state level in Congress take that and run with it in their own way so it doesn't have to have the policy teeth necessarily to have a big.

[Shemitah Basu]

Dasha, thank you so much for joining us.

[Dasha Burns]

Thanks for having me.

[Shemitah Basu]

Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. President Trump on Thursday pulled the nomination of Congresswoman Elise Stefanik for Ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik was expected to have a relatively easy path to confirmation. But because Republicans have such a razor thin majority in the House, Trump said on social media that he didn't want to take a chance chance on anyone else running for her seat. Meanwhile, two special House elections in Florida are set for Tuesday. One to replace former Congressman Matt Gaetz and another where Governor Ron DeSantis said he expects the Trump backed candidate to, quote, underperform. That's in a district that Trump won in November by 30 points. Mass job cuts are coming to the Department of Health and Human Services. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Announced 10,000 staffers will be laid off. Combined with previous buy and other departures, about 1 in 4 jobs at federal health agencies will be eliminated. The cuts will hit the FDA and the CDC hardest. They're each expected to lose about 20% of their staff. Kennedy said this is a realignment under new priorities, that he'll be doing more with less and acknowledged it would be, quote, a painful period for hhs. Democrats came out strongly against the move, saying the cuts would decimate agencies protecting people's health and safety. And finally, archaeologists say a set of footprints confirmed to be the oldest ever found in North America are even older than previously thought. Found in White Sands national park in New Mexico, the prints are roughly 23,000 years old. 10,000 years before it was believed humans stepped foot on the continent. Scientists say the footprints and other evidence give us a glimpse of our ancestors not only hunting and surviving, but also playing running a mix of age groups. Together, these researchers hope more discoveries will lead to the telling of a larger story of what life was like for these early humans in North America. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the news app right now, stick around for our weekly interview show. In conversation, I talked to Zoe Schiffer and Leah Figar from Wired about their reporting on what they describe as Elon Musk and Doges digital coup of the federal government.

[Unknown Speaker]

But they had the keys to the kingdom and he had these lieutenants ready to go in these kind of nondescript government agencies and then fanned out from there. They went into these first, they figured out the systems, they put their people in place and we're talking, you know, as we reported, a cohort of very young, not experienced technology and engineers. And we've just never seen anything like this before.

[Shemitah Basu]

That episode is queued up to play for you next. Enjoy the weekend and I'll be back with the news on Monday.