'Holy crap on steroids!': Top Trump officials exposed in shocking, sloppy military security blunder

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Holy Crap on Steroids!": Top Trump Officials Exposed in Shocking, Sloppy Military Security Blunder

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Rachel Maddow Show
• Host: Rachel Maddow, MSNBC
• Episode: 'Holy crap on steroids!': Top Trump officials exposed in shocking, sloppy military security blunder
• Release Date: March 25, 2025

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1. Introduction

In this episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, host Rachel Maddow and guest Chris Hayes delve into a series of critical issues surrounding the Trump administration, highlighting significant security lapses, widespread protests defending essential public services, and alarming executive actions. The episode intertwines historical reflections with contemporary political turmoil, providing listeners with an in-depth analysis of the current state of American democracy.

2. Commemorating Patrick Henry and Governor Youngkin's Security Lapse

The show opens with a reflection on the 250th anniversary of Patrick Henry's famed speech, "Give me liberty or give me death," delivered in Richmond, Virginia. Governor Glenn Youngkin's participation in the reenactment becomes a focal point, particularly when a seemingly innocuous event turns into a significant security oversight.

Notable Quote:

"Holy crap on steroids. This is another example of carelessness, sloppiness, and a crowd that's not ready for prime time."
— Senator Mark Warner [33:13]

3. Nationwide Protests: Defending the U.S. Postal Service and Public Lands

Chris Hayes extensively covers the surge in protests across the United States aimed at defending the U.S. Postal Service against President Trump's attempts to dismantle it. These demonstrations spanned numerous states, including Pennsylvania, Minnesota, California, and others, underscoring the public's commitment to preserving essential services.

Additionally, Hayes highlights protests defending public lands and national parks, with communities rallying against policy changes that threaten environmental conservation. Signs like “Rehire our rangers in San Luis Obispo” and slogans such as “Only you can resist fascist liars” exemplify the fervent activism present nationwide.

Notable Quote:

"The American people this weekend showed in very large numbers that they are not going to be dissuaded from peaceful, legal, nonviolent protests for or against anything they want."
— Chris Hayes [14:00]

4. Explosion of Town Hall Events and Political Engagement

The episode underscores a dramatic increase in town hall meetings, particularly in Republican districts where Democratic leaders are striving to engage with constituents. Despite many Republican Congress members declining to attend, the turnout at these events has been unprecedented, signaling a significant shift in political engagement and public demand for accountability.

Notable Quote:

"Americans are showing up all over in big and increasing numbers. We are starting to turn."
— Chris Hayes [22:00]

5. Shocking Security Breach: Trump Officials Expose War Plans

A major segment of the episode reveals a catastrophic security failure within the Trump administration. High-ranking officials, including the National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and others, mistakenly included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg in a Signal group chat containing classified military plans for operations in Yemen. This inadvertent inclusion led to the accidental dissemination of sensitive information.

Notable Quote:

"If this had been an intelligence officer who had done this, they'd be fired immediately."
— Senator Mark Warner [33:13]

6. Consequences and Reactions

The blunder has prompted swift condemnation from various political figures. Senator Mark Warner describes the incident as “gross negligence on steroids” and underscores the potential national security risks posed by such lapses. The episode also highlights the administration's minimal response, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissing the gravity of the mistake.

Notable Quote:

"We are not made safe by these actions."
— Senator Mark Warner [35:35]

7. Alien Enemies Act Proclamation and Unauthorized Deportations

Another alarming topic discussed is President Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, a law from the 1700s, to deport individuals deemed part of a Venezuelan criminal gang without due process. This action resulted in the forced removal of hundreds of people to a prison in El Salvador, bypassing legal protocols and raising significant human rights concerns.

Notable Quote:

"It is an insane story from the very beginning, but it's now approaching surreal."
— Chris Hayes [38:44]

The ACLU's Deputy Director, Lee Gelernt, expresses deep concern over the administration's misuse of ancient laws to justify modern deportation practices, emphasizing the lack of transparency and potential abuse of executive power.

Notable Quote:

"This is completely against the way the act is supposed to work."
— Lee Gelernt, ACLU [45:41]

8. Legal and Political Implications

The episode details ongoing legal battles, including the Trump administration's attempt to invoke the state secrets privilege to avoid court scrutiny over the deportations. The administration's response to judicial inquiries remains evasive, further complicating the legal landscape and highlighting the administration's pattern of circumventing accountability.

Notable Quote:

"This is gross negligence on steroids and if they don't step up."
— Senator Mark Warner [36:19]

9. Conclusion and Call to Action

Rachel Maddow concludes the episode by emphasizing the urgent need for democratic institutions to respond robustly to these challenges. She urges Democratic officials to seize upcoming Senate hearings as opportunities to address security lapses and executive overreach, aiming to restore public trust and safeguard national security.

Notable Quote:

"Now is the time, so we're gonna do it."
— Chris Hayes [26:03]

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Final Thoughts:

This episode of The Rachel Maddow Show meticulously unpacks a series of interconnected issues undermining American democracy and national security. From unprecedented public protests and political activism to severe administrative blunders and authoritarian actions, the show paints a comprehensive picture of the tumultuous political landscape in 2025. Not only does it highlight the resilience and determination of the American populace, but it also calls for immediate and decisive action from political leaders to address and rectify these critical challenges.

Transcript

[Rachel Maddow]

Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. New episodes of all your favorite MSNBC shows Now, ad free + ad free listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, Ultra Bagman and Deja News and all MSNBC original podcasts are available ad free and with bonus content including why is this Happening? Felshey Band Book Club and more. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.

[Chris Hayes]

Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. So 250 years ago yesterday, a man stood up in this church in Richmond, Virginia. It's called St. John's Church. It's still there today. It's on East Broad street in Richmond. 250 years ago yesterday, a man named Patrick Henry stood up in that church in Richmond, Virginia, and he gave a speech that is still remembered now, not just, not just decades or generations later, but literally centuries later. This was give me liberty or give me death. Now, it's not at all clear to historians if Patrick Henry actually said those exact words in that speech that day might have been kind of stolen from Shakespeare and later attributed to him, I don't know. But regardless, it was a good speech. It was important, credited in part with Virginia choosing to join what would become the revolutionary war against the tyrannical King George, which is how we got our independence as a nation. It's how ultimately we got our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. It is how we got our democracy. Aw. And on the occasion of that 250 year anniversary of Patrick Henry's give me liberty or give me death speech, which again, that 250 year anniversary was yesterday, the current governor of Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin, went to that church in Richmond, Virginia yesterday, where they reenacted the whole dramatic speech, including the give me liberty or give me death thing, which may or may not have actually been said in that speech 250 years ago. But still, it's a really nice, important thing to commemorate 250 years. It's a big anniversary. It's a nice thing for Glenn Youngkin to have done right then. He left. He walked out of the church and this is what happened. Let me just show you just one more minute of this here. This is from a different angle and I think this one is helpful because in this angle you can see him greeting and shaking hands with the men in wigs who have just done the reenactment, smiling and pretending like nothing's going on around him. And then there's kind of this big reveal when he gets down to the SUV that's waiting for him Watch. Power. Shame on you. Shame on you. Power. Shame on you. Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia hearing from his constituents in Richmond, Virginia yesterday. His his peaceful and nonviolent, but very loud and very angry constituents. You know, because of where we are in the calendar, we are now starting to have lots of commemorations of things related to the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country, Right? Our revolt against a tyrannical leader who ruled by fiat, the founding of our democracy and our divided system of government with its checks and balances to prevent the emergence of another king. Lots of anniversaries, lots of historical commemorative events coming up on this theme. Just a note, if you are a politician who is going to try to associate yourself with that history, do be aware that your relationship to our current struggles along these lines in this country to hold on to our democracy, that will undoubtedly be front of mind for many of your constituents. One of the things that is in our original constitution from the 1700s is the U.S. post Office. @ the end of last week, we covered a bunch of protests all over the country related to the post office. People fighting to save the post Office. Trump has said he wants to effectively abolish it. His top campaign donor, Elon Musk, has said it should be privatized. And, and when we covered this at the end of last week, I thought this was a lot in terms of public response against Trump on the post office. People standing up to defend the post Office. That was the end of last week. Turns out that was nothing compared to what happened this weekend in our production system. Here on this show, we can do something on screen that's called a two box that shows two pieces of tape simultaneously at once. I sometimes drive everybody nuts by asking for a four box which shows four pieces of tape at once. In order to cover the Postal Service protests, we've had to create something we've never done before. It's a 20 bucks to even start to show you how many demonstrations and protests there were this weekend just of people defending the US Post Office. This isn't even all of them, but this is as many as we can squeeze onto a screen. I mean, we saw protests in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the first postmaster general was Ben Franklin, and in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania as well, in St. Paul, Minnesota and San Jose, California and Los Angeles, California and Providence, Rhode Island Seattle, Washington Buffalo, New York Charlotte, North Carolina Baton Rouge, Louisiana Green Bay, Wisconsin Cleveland, Ohio Melbourne, Florida Newark, Delaware Denver, Colorado Washington, D.C. san Antonio, Texas Omaha, Nebraska Roanoke, Virginia Las Vegas, Grand Rapids, Michigan Decatur, Georgia, Fort Wayne, Indiana. In Indianapolis, we had to put them up twice because there were two in Indianapolis. In Boise, Idaho, there was a protest to defend the post office on Sunday alongside all these other ones. But in Boise, that followed this additional big protest in Boise on Saturday at the State capitol in Rupee Red, Idaho. At this protest at the State Capitol in Idaho, people showed up to defend public lands and the national parks, including some people who showed up in Idaho to that event on horseback. There were other protests this weekend to defend public lands and the national parks. At Mount Rainier this weekend in Washington State and at the Great Smoky Mountains national park in Tennessee and in Florissant, Colorado, and in Calabasas, California. See the signs there? Rehire our rangers in San Luis Obispo. They were protesting for public lands and to preserve the California coast where Trump is now demanding oil drilling off the California coast. This sign will stick with me from San Luis Obispo this weekend. It's got Smokey Bear, and it says, only you can resist fascist liars. As President Trump and his Attorney general and Republicans of all stripes have spent the past couple of weeks trying to intimidate Americans out of specifically protesting against the car company owned by the president's top campaign donor. The American people this weekend showed in very large numbers that they are not going to be dissuaded from peaceful, legal, nonviolent protests for or against anything they want, because we don't need to clear that with the government, because we are Americans and it is our right to peacefully protest if we want to. Look at this. This is Cherry Hill, N.J. look at the size of the protest here. This is just a passerby filming this from his own car as he drove past. And he's driving, like, at speed, right? But the protest is so big, it goes on for so long. It ends up being kind of a long video in order to try to capture the numbers of who are out just at this one Tesla dealership in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The organizers that protest in Cherry Hill say they think there were six or seven hundred people out at this one protest at this one Tesla dealership just this weekend. Look, it's still going. There were Tesla dealership protests this weekend in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and in Arlington, Virginia, and in Bartlett, Tennessee, and in Franklin, Tennessee, and in Boston, Massachusetts, and in New York. New York City has a Tesla dealership. There's a very large protest at the Tesla dealership in New York City this weekend in Chesterfield, Missouri, there was a protest at the Tesla dealership in Chicago, Illinois, in Rockville, Maryland, in Pasadena, California, there was a big one in Pasadena, California this weekend. There has been most weekends in recent weeks in pasadena. In Washington, D.C. they're now recurring protests at their Tesla dealership. Regularly has a DJ. And at the Washington, D.C. tesla dealership, people are dancing because they are billing this as the Tesla Takedown Dance party weekly in Washington. At the Tesla protest this weekend in Austin, Texas, this sign stuck with me. Porsche fast, Ferrari faster. Tesla. You can read it. I never thought that fastest was an imperfect homophone for fascist, but I guess it is. And now I can't stop thinking about it. This weekend in Kalamazoo, Michigan, people turned out for a hands off our Social Security protest in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. And in Virginia Beach, Virginia, people turned out to protest against Trump and Musk and the cuts to the federal government. Same thing in Westwood, California, where Congresswoman Maxine Waters turned out in support as she has for many of the protests that have happened in her district. In terms of town halls with members of Congress or without them, when people turned out anyway, even though their member of Congress wouldn't come. There's been almost too many of them happening right now to sum them all up. And they're starting to get more attention in the media. And so you may have seen some of the coverage of these elsewhere. I will just tell you as a person who has been watching this stuff pretty closely for pretty much eight weeks now, my impression of what's going on with the town halls in particular is that, number one, we're seeing the number of these types of events just explode, including in places you would not necessarily expect to see them. These are definitely not like a blue state liberal area phenomenon. They are that, but they are also everywhere else in the country. You are also, number two, seeing the numbers of people turning out for these things just go through the roof. You're seeing that when Democrats are going to Republican districts to hold town halls where the Republicans won't do it. You're seeing it where Democrats are holding their own town halls and you are seeing it where they can't get a member of Congress to come to the town hall at all. But Americans just show up. Americans are showing up all over in big and increasing numbers. We are starting to turn. We are starting to see these numbers both of events and of bodies and the number of people turning out at individual events I think tip over into something that's qualitatively different than what we had previously seen. I'll show you just a little bit of what I mean just from this weekend. Mishawaka Indiana, Right. Not a place we've ever covered here on this show before. But look, hundreds of people turned out to protest against their Republican Congressman, Rudy Yakim. I think that's how you say his name. He's refusing to meet with them. And so here in Indiana are his constituents. Ogden, Utah, hundreds of people protesting against their Republican congressman Blake Moore, demanding that Republican Congressman Blake Moore stand up to Trump. Look at this event. Columbus, Ohio. Jen Psaki had Sherrod Brown on her show tonight talking about organizing at Columbus. Look at this. In Columbus, a huge event demanding that Republican Ohio Senators Bernie Marino and John Husted meet with their constituents that they find it within themselves to stand up for Trump. Stand up to Trump. Another huge event in Lexington, Kentucky. Kentucky. Look at this. Demanding that Republican Congressman Andy Barr stand up to Trump or at least show up and talk to his constituents about why he won't. In Lewiston, Idaho and in Moscow, Idaho, two big empty chair town halls to which Republican Congressman Russ Fulcher would not show up to face his Idaho constituents. Nearly 1,000 people turned out in Billings, Montana, demanding to meet with their Republican senators and Congressman Troy Downing. In Cape Fear, North Carolina, they had a more than full house. At a huge event for Senator Thom Tillis, 150 people turned away at the door. Senator Thom Tillis did not show up to meet his constituents. They put a comedian on stage wearing a giant foam core cutout of Tillis face and the face of Republican David Browser, their Republican congressman in Cape Fear, who also did not show up. Hey, you guys, this is what your constituents are doing without you when you don't show up for constituent events. In Waterloo, Iowa, a packed house full of Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson's constituents. The congresswoman herself not even answering questions from some local media about why she won't show up or talk with people in her district. Same thing with Republican Congresswoman Mary Miller, a no show in rural Jacksonville, Illinois, where her constituents, according to local news reports of this event, they really, really want to talk with her about Medicaid cuts, which they think will be absolutely devastating in her district. But she's a no show. Congressman Neil Dunn is a Florida Republican. He represents a district in Tallahassee. Veterans in his Florida district are demanding that he at least look them in the eye when he doesn't stand up to what Trump is doing and what he's allowing to happen. Watch this local coverage.

[Jasmine Ramirez]

American Legion hall at one point, standing.

[Chris Hayes]

Room only Today, I think 500 people said loud and clear, we don't want drastic cuts to Federal programs. We don't want a unilateral king like president. Frankly.

[Jasmine Ramirez]

An invitation extended to Congressman Neil Dunn left unclaimed. Neighbors left disappointed as they say they wanted the representative to hear their long list of concerns, which include the Department of Government Efficiency's plans to cut 83,000 jobs from the Department of Veteran Affairs.

[Chris Hayes]

I am extremely disappointed in the way things are going and I don't look for any easy time ahead for the country.

[Jasmine Ramirez]

13,000 veterans in Leon county, hundreds of them doing different things to get Dunn's attention, including a silent protest bright and early outside City hall, where the Congressman himself hosted a US Military Service Academy Day.

[Mark Warner]

We're introducing the high school students and actually some middle school students to a program that my office sponsors that prepares.

[Chris Hayes]

Them to be better candidates for the military academies. All of us here that we're serving are using the VA in one way or another. So the dichotomy of him wanting to sign people up at the same time as throwing the rest of us away.

[Rachel Maddow]

Is repugnant to me.

[Jasmine Ramirez]

Representative Dunn and his team declined to comment on either of Saturday's movements.

[Mark Warner]

We're brothers and sisters and we honor one another.

[Chris Hayes]

Sorry.

[Jasmine Ramirez]

A sensitive subject for many local veterans who fear the idea of reduced benefits. Support and honor not only for themselves, but for future veterans as well.

[Mark Warner]

Thank you for serving, you know, if you decide to join at this point, but it is certainly within the realm of possibilities if someone say, I, I.

[Chris Hayes]

Can'T see joining if this is what's.

[Mark Warner]

Going to be behind me.

[Jasmine Ramirez]

Despite the VA secretary's promise that benefits will not be affected by job cuts, neighbors tell me they still disagree and feel threatened by recent actions from the White House.

[Mark Warner]

What are we going to do?

[Jasmine Ramirez]

And they're determined to use the power of community to make their voices heard.

[Chris Hayes]

To step forward and save our democracy. Save our democracy. We can do it. That's from the ABC affiliate WTXL in Tallahassee, Florida. This is from San Diego, California.

[Lee Gelernt]

Town hall was standing room only and it was called an empty chair town hall because attendees say Representative Issa refuses to engage with his constituents. Here you can see every seat filled in a venue that seats more than 300 people.

[Chris Hayes]

To see all these people, you know, I just felt, I was overwhelmed. I just feel so good about coming here.

[Lee Gelernt]

Tonight we met 93 year old Betty Reeves. This town hall was organized to give people like her a chance to share their concerns about Representative Issa and the Trump administration. The town hall was put on by a group called Indivisible. It says its mission is to combat the Trump administration's policies. This week, they plan to hold more events, including a large rally protesting the administration's latest actions that will be held at the Civic center in downtown San Diego on April 5. Community members say they plan to continue advocating for their rights.

[Chris Hayes]

Everybody out there, pay attention to the way the country's going. You just have to pay attention. Listen.

[Lee Gelernt]

JASMINE RAMIREZ, CBS8.

[Chris Hayes]

And that's from San Diego. I just want to show you just one more. I just showed you one from California, the previous one from Florida. This one is from the border, from the northern border. Last one. Just watch this.

[Jasmine Ramirez]

This was incredibly unique in the fact that on this side of the Detroit river, there were protesters, and then on the other side there were Canadian protesters, all fighting for the same cause. From the US To Canada. Protesters gave their take on tariffs.

[Chris Hayes]

We're protesting what's happening to the United States and how we're treating our neighbor.

[Jasmine Ramirez]

Organizers say the demonstration is in response to President Donald Trump's tariffs against Canada.

[Chris Hayes]

What's happening with our allies, Canada? There's a lot of people very upset.

[Jasmine Ramirez]

Earlier this week, President Trump defending the tariffs.

[Chris Hayes]

We're going to be getting back some of the wealth that very, very foolish presidents gave away.

[Jasmine Ramirez]

Protesters also called out Trump for his recent remarks about making Canada part of the US Demonstrators taking pride in the turnout.

[Chris Hayes]

By seeing this many people coming out on a cold day in Detroit, maybe it'll have some impact.

[Mark Warner]

There's an awful lot of people here.

[Chris Hayes]

And we have our friends across the river looking at us. I'm telling you, it's everywhere. The Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez rallies in the last few days turned out just massive numbers of people. 34,000 people in Denver on Friday. More than 23,000 people came out the next day, Saturday in Tucson. Numbers like that are turning everyone's heads in politics, and they should. But do not sleep on the fact that there are so many Americans showing up in so many places on literally every single day of the week in every single freaking state in the country, every single one of them, trying to figure out how they can most effectively oppose this president and what he's doing to the US Government. And, you know, we've got a lot to cover tonight in the wake of those massive, the massive number of protests defending the US Postal Service. Trump's postmaster General, Louis Dejoy tonight has resigned, effective immediately. Axios is reporting tonight that Trump's acting director of Social Security told people at a meeting today that these ruinous cuts and radical policy changes that they're forcing through to Social Security right away. He told people at a meeting today, according to Axios, that these cuts and changes are happening explicitly at the demand of the White House. These are the changes that the former Social Security director, Martin O'Malley, told us here on Friday night, he believes bring the Social Security system 90% of the way to breaking entirely the director, the acting director of Social Security Administration, saying that those changes are happening and they're happening at this pace specifically because the White House is demanding it. Also today, Washington has just been rocked by this insane story of Trump's national security adviser, his secretary of defense, his intelligence director, his CIA director, his Secretary of State, his treasury secretary, and apparently the guy in charge of everything at the actual White House, whose name is Stephen Miller, all participating, apparently, in a group text over signal in which they circulated detailed war plans and apparently classified information about a military attack in Yemen. They did it in a group text. And the reason we know is because they accidentally included the editor in chief of the Atlantic magazine in the group text while they were planning that military operation. We're going to talk about that with Senator Mark Warner, top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee tonight. And there's a lot more to get to. I will just say, though, just in closing word to the wise, if there are any Democratic elected officials within the sound of my voice, any Democratic senators in particular who are watching this kind of stuff that we have been covering, right, who are watching this huge upsurge in energy and the American people getting up and getting out and showing up in person and doing everything they can as regular people to try to find a way to save this country and to fight what Trump is doing, if there are any Democrats who are watching that, who want to try to latch onto some of that, want to tap into some of that, want to do what they can with that public upsurge. May I just note that tomorrow in the United States Senate is the confirmation hearing for Trump's nominee to permanently lead the Social Security Agency. That might be an occasion on which people would be looking to hear from you and see if you can do something to make a difference. Tomorrow also will be the Senate Intelligence Committee's worldwide threats hearing. Good time for that. That hearing, among other things, will take testimony from at least a couple of the people who were on the group text with all the apparently classified information about the forthcoming military operations that included a journalist because they had no idea he was there. I mean, this may not be time for Give me Liberty or Give Me Death, but It is time for Give Me Something. And tomorrow Washington is going to afford a couple of very big opportunities for Democrats to show what they have to offer to a country that is looking for Democrats to have something to offer. Be right back.

[Rachel Maddow]

MSNBC presents Main justice each week on their podcast, veteran lawyers Andrew Weissman and Mary McCord break down the latest developments inside the Trump administration's Department of Justice.

[Chris Hayes]

The administration doesn't necessarily want to be questioned on any of its policy. I think what we are seeing is Project 2020 in action. This is it coming to fruition.

[Rachel Maddow]

Main justice subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for ad, free listening and bonus content. MSNBC presents a new original podcast hosted by Jen Psaki. Each week she and her guests explore how the Democratic Party is facing this political moment and where it's headed next.

[Chris Hayes]

There's probably both messaging and policy issues, but but as you look to kind of where the Democratic Party is, do you think it's more a messaging issue, more a policy issue?

[Rachel Maddow]

The Blueprint with Jen Psaki. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for ad, free listening and bonus content. The first 100 days bills are passed, executive orders are signed and presidencies are defined. And for Donald Trump's first 100 days, Rachel Maddow is on Amazon MSNBC five nights a week.

[Chris Hayes]

Now is the time, so we're gonna do it.

[Rachel Maddow]

Providing her unique insight and analysis during this critical time.

[Chris Hayes]

How do we strategically align ourselves to this moment of information, this moment of transition in our country?

[Rachel Maddow]

The Rachel Maddows show, weeknights at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC.

[Chris Hayes]

So here's three proper names, proper nouns. Actually, Michael Waltz is the National Security Advisor for Donald Trump. That's 1. Signal. That's 2. Signal is a free, very popular encrypted messaging app that lots of journalists and public officials use for private communication. And the third proper name, proper noun. Here is Jeffrey Goldberg. He's the editor in chief of the Atlantic magazine. And here is the astounding collision of those three proper National Security Advisor Michael Waltz Signal, the encrypted messaging app and Jeffrey Goldberg, well known journalist, quote, the Trump administration accidentally texted me its war plans by Atlantic Magazine Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who says, quote, On Tuesday, March 11th, I received a connection request on signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. I accepted the connection request hoping this was the actual National Security Advisor and that he wanted to chat about Ukraine or Iran or some other important matter. Two days later, Thursday at 4:28pm I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the Houthi PC Small Group. A message to the group from Michael Waltz read as follows. Team establishing a principals misspelled principals group for coordination on Houthis, particularly for over the next 72 hours. Now you could see why Jeffrey Goldberg would be skeptical that this is real, right? That he really has been added to a private chat group for high level coordination of something having to do with with the Houthis and the war in Yemen. But the list of the people in the chat appeared to include not just Trump National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, but also Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Still amazing. Still amazing. Trump's Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Trump's Middle east envoy and real estate friend Steve Witkoff, who incidentally says he recently took a painting of Donald Trump to the White House as a gift from the Kremlin. Did you guys X ray that? Also the Vice President of the United States, J.D. vance. All these people appear to be on this group chat. If journalist Jeffrey Goldberg remains skeptical that these were actually those people on the chat, the Trump officials in the chat apparently didn't realize that their discussion now included a very well known Washington journalist. Like, it actually appears that not only were they all talking about this topic on Signal, but none of them checked to see who else was in the group while they were chatting. Nobody said like, oh, who's in this group? Jeffrey Goldberg says Pete Hegseth at one point told the group, quote, we are currently clean on opsec. They were not clean on opsec. They were not clean on operational security. Not even close. We know he sent that text because a journalist was in the group chat that he was texting. Currently clean on opsec. Must have felt cool to say it though, right? What skeptical Jeffrey Goldberg saw in that chat ended up becoming sensitive enough that he doesn't fully describe it in his story today. But he does report that on the morning of Saturday, March 15, at, quote, 11:44am, the account labeled Pete Hegseth posted in Signal a team update. Goldberg says, I will not quote from this update or from certain other subsequent texts. What I will say in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US Would be deploying and attack sequencing. According to the lengthy hegseth text, the first detonations in Yemen would be felt two hours hence at 1:45pm Eastern time, when, sure enough, the first explosions from the US Military strikes were reported in the capital of Yemen. And then the group chat celebrated the military effort with great work and good job and fire emojis. Jeffrey Goldberg says he watched the attack play out from his car in a grocery store parking lot. Once he had seen enough to know that this actually had been a real group chat with those actual people, he got out, he left the chat. They had apparently been texting him and each other classified information on a commercially available non classified text based communication system. A spokesperson for the National Security Council later confirmed what Jeff Goldberg already understood. Quote, this appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain. The administration confirmed for NBC News that it is reviewing how this happened. The whole story is. I mean, how is this real life? I just. How are these people in charge of what they're in charge of? I will tell you that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters today, quote, nobody was texting war plans. I will also tell you the President said that he hadn't heard about any of this until a reporter asked, said he had no idea news to him, didn't know a thing about it. Well, we will all have plenty of opportunity to hear more about it. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jack Reed, called the carelessness by Trump's Cabinet, quote, stunning and dangerous. He said, quote, I will be seeking answers from the administration immediately. Democratic Senator Chris Coons from the Foreign Relations Committee said this story, quote, calls for a prompt and thorough investigation, saying this is a shocking breach of the standards for sharing classified information that could have put American service members at risk because God keeps a date book. Two of the Trump Cabinet members who were in that group chat, Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe, were already scheduled to appear on Capitol Hill tomorrow morning as witnesses for the Senate Intelligence Committee's open hearing on worldwide threats. Joining us now is Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia. He's the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Sir, it's always an honor to have you with us. Thanks for making time to be here tonight.

[Mark Warner]

Thank you.

[Chris Hayes]

Rachel, let me start by getting your reaction to this story. Let me also ask if you learned about it in the Atlantic the way that we all did, or if there was some governmental response that we don't know about here.

[Mark Warner]

Well, Rachel, I didn't think this administration could still shock me, but today's Story, which I read about in the Atlantic, was beyond belief. It was like holy crap on steroids. This is another example of carelessness, sloppiness, and a crowd that's not ready for prime time. I mean, the remarkable thing you think about, you're on a group chat and you don't know who everybody is. I mean, if this had been an intelligence officer who had done this, they'd be fired immediately. And the truth is, you know, Signal is not a classified channel. I got questions tomorrow. Have they collected all the phones to make sure malware is not on some of these phones? Now, do they realize that Russia and China have targeted Signal to try to break in? Do they realize that? And, you know, frankly, I think Hegseth needs to go or Waltz needs to go. The idea that you are conveying on this encrypted but not classified, means the actual military plans. And I believe Jeff Goldberg, you know, if, my God, if this had been the Democrats, there would be investigations, there would be hearings. And we're going to have this tomorrow. We're going to have it out in the open hearing. This crowd is not ready for prime time. And I would point out Tulsi Gabbard, who all of the Democrats suppose as Director of the National Intelligence, who's been a spokesman on many right wing media since he got this job, is said about the same time, if there is any leaker, they've got to be held fully accountable. Well, we're going to ask tomorrow, beyond Hegseth, beyond Waltz, what other in this group should be held fully accountable for frankly breaching security protocols 101? And I just point out quickly, you know, this comes on top of them releasing a couple hundred of CIA names of people who were, you know, a couple a year or so in, we spent a couple hundred thousand dollars on these agents, getting them cleared, getting them through training. All of their identities were revealed. Those guys can't go out and work around the world anymore. We've had other classifications revealed. And we've obviously got the Doge boys out there printing totally wrong information about supposed savings. At what point? And I'm glad to see you're highlighting all the Americans around the country rising up. But I hope those who care about our national security will also start rising up. We are not made safe by these actions.

[Chris Hayes]

Let me ask if this is a big enough shock that you expect that some of your Republican colleagues may join you in calling for John Ratcliffe to resign, calling on Pete Hegseth to resign. I mean, I feel like I've covered a lot of embarrassing, inadvertent releases of sensitive information of various types where things through recklessness or negligence have been released. This seems to have been a deliberate decision to create a completely insecure communications medium that is compounded by the stupidity of having included a journalist and not known they were doing it. But I just feel like this is so much worse than anything we've ever seen for people operating at this kind of a level. Will Republicans care about it?

[Mark Warner]

Well, listen, this is gross negligence on steroids and if they don't step up. And I got a lot of respect for the folks I work with on the intelligence, but I've been disappointed. I was disappointed when more of them didn't stand up against Tulsi Gabbard when she refused, refused to call Edward Snowden a traitor. But at some point something's got to give. And people who care about our national security, people who don't want, you know, the American first to be America alone. Because if we don't have friends and allies, if countries around the world won't share their intelligence with us because a bunch of sloppy folks are putting it out on a non classified signal channel, if you're not willing to stand up and call that out, what level of abuse, what level of sloppiness will it take to rise up and actually stand up for the country?

[Chris Hayes]

Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner, senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. I know you've got a very big day tomorrow with this very, very high pressure hearing. Thank you for taking time to join us tonight. I appreciate it, sir. Thank you. We've got more news ahead. Stay with us. Appreciate it.

[Rachel Maddow]

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[Chris Hayes]

The administration doesn't necessarily want to be questioned on an evens policy. I think what we are seeing is Project 2025 in action. This is it coming to fruition.

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[Chris Hayes]

I do think, I think it's worth being very clear eyed, very realistic about what's going on here.

[Rachel Maddow]

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[Chris Hayes]

So here's the proclamation that was sent out from the White House last weekend. Invocation of the Alien Enemies act by the President of the United States of America. This is the proclamation in which Donald Trump invoked a law from the 1700s that says, when we're at war, the president can immediately deport and jail anyone his administration picks, in this case, picks as belonging to a Venezuelan criminal gang, which is something that has nothing to do with wartime. But regardless, they put this out, and there's Donald Trump's signature on the proclamation. Within hours of that proclamation, the Trump administration put hundreds of people on planes bound for a prison in El Salvador, and they had no legal process at all. People were just grabbed, chained, and sent to a foreign prison. Federal judge blocked any further flights like this and spent the week repeatedly grilling Trump administration lawyers about it. He said on Friday, quote, why was this proclamation essentially signed in the dark on Friday night or early Saturday morning, and then these people rushed onto planes? I mean, it seems to me the only reason to do that, that is if you know it's a problem and you want to get them out of the country before suit is filed. Donald Trump, a couple hours after the judge, said that, was asked about that when he was departing for yet another weekend of golf, this time at his New Jersey golf club. So he's asked about, you know, why did you sign this in that, in that weird time frame that why'd you sign it in the dark in that way? Watch what Trump said in response. This was super weird. I don't know when it was signed because I didn't sign it. Other people handled it, but Marco Rubio has done a great job and he wanted him out, and we go along with that. I don't know when it was signed because I didn't sign it. You sure, big guy? Because you're trying to blame Marco Rubio here. But that is not Marco Rubio's signature. Do you not remember signing it? Did you not sign it? Somebody else put your name there. When the White House was asked about Trump saying he totally did not sign that proclamation with his signature on it, the White House came up with a novel explanation. They said, and I quote, president Trump was obviously referring to the original Alien Enemies act that was signed back in 1798. Oh, yes, obviously the President of the United States Obviously just thought he was being asked whether he signed a document more than 200 years ago, and his answer was no, no, no. Other people handled that. Isn't Marco Rubio wonderful? He was talking about 1798. This proclamation, at question, is ostensibly the legal underpinning for this whole deportation operation, the sending flightfuls of people to a prison in a foreign country. Trump's denial that he ever signed it, it is now obviously part of the ongoing legal fight. The ACLU telling the judge in this case in its latest filing today, quote, there is now confusion as to when the proclamation was issued and whether the president signed it at all. Today, the Trump administration took this fight to an appeals court in Washington. They want to resume more flights like this, like the one to El Salvador. It's not clear how the appeals court will rule or when. But meanwhile, the Trump administration just tonight has filed notice that it is invoking the state secrets privilege, meaning they are claiming that for national security reasons, they don't need to provide the court any information about these deportation flights, even as we still don't know who they deported and even as attorneys and family members of the people they put on those flights say they can't get in touch with anybody who has been put in this prison in El Salvador. It is an insane story from the very beginning, but it's now approaching surreal. The ACLU lawyer who argued this in court today is going to join us live here next. Stay with us. If the government says we don't have to give process for that, then you all could have hooked me up on Saturday and throw me on a plane thinking I'm a member of Trenduragua and giving me no chance to protest it and say somehow it's a violation of presidential war powers for me to say, excuse me, no, I'm not. I'd like a hearing. He wouldn't say that. Federal appeals court judged today incredulous that the Trump administration could argue they have the right to pick up anyone they want and deport them to a jail in a foreign country with no process at all, no explanation, not even a paper trail. But that is what they're arguing. Joining us now is Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrant Rights Project. He was in court today arguing against the administration in this case. Lee. Mr. Gallant, it's nice to see you. Thanks for being here.

[Andrew Weissman]

Thank you.

[Chris Hayes]

We've just had news that the Trump administration is invoking the state secrets privilege in this case. Can you tell us what that means?

[Andrew Weissman]

Yeah. So this is just another incredible day In a series of incredible days in this case, the judge said, turn these planes around. This was last Saturday night, I guess you know now, eight days ago, when they were in the air because they were headed to El Salvador. And he said, I don't think that this invocation of this 1798 act is legal. They did not turn the planes around. It was clear that the planes were in the air. This is all public information. They could have turned the planes around. They could have brought people back once they landed. And now the government, rather than answer the judge's understandable questions about what they did, has invoked the State Secrets act, meaning state secrets privilege, meaning that they're not going to answer the judge's questions. It's really unbelievable in this situation for the government to say, no, we're not going to answer your questions and we're going to go as far as to call these state secrets facts, even though everyone knows when the planes were in the air.

[Chris Hayes]

Lee, what do you make of the fact that the President is now denying having ever signed the Alien Enemies Act Proclamation?

[Andrew Weissman]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know what to make of it truthfully. And that's why we filed something in court, as you mentioned, saying that among other facts that we need are what's going on with this? Did the President sign it? When did he sign it? One thing we do know is that apparently it was signed on Friday, March 14. They started moving people before they actually published the proclamation on the afternoon, Saturday afternoon, the 15th, which. Which is completely against the way the act is supposed to work. It says a public proclamation. They started using its authority before they even let the public know it had been passed. Now, if the President didn't even sign it, that's yet a whole other layer of confusing facts that we need to find out.

[Chris Hayes]

It's the combination of the maximum lawlessness and maximum consequences for the been sent there. Yeah. Lee Galernt, Deputy Director of the ACLU Immigrant Rights Project. Ongoing story. Come back soon. Thank you, sir.

[Andrew Weissman]

Thanks, Rachel.

[Chris Hayes]

All right, we'll be right back. All right, that's going to do it for me for now. I will see you again tomorrow and every night this week at 9pm Eastern. In the meantime, you can find me online at bluesky. I don't know if you have Blue sky yet, but I like it. I think you should try it. If you haven't tried it it yet, I'm on bluesky at matto. Msnbc. Com.

[Rachel Maddow]

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