← The Rachel Maddow Show
The Rachel Maddow Show
'Two perfect months?!': Trump's rationalization of insecure group chat scandal backfires
00:43:00
Donald Trump says the scandal over his top officials discussing secret military plans in an unsecured group chat is just a "glitch" in an otherwise perfect first two months in office. Rachel Maddow looks back to help Trump jog his memory and realize that "perfect" is probably not the best word for what has happened so far in Trump's second term.
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- [00:01]
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- [00:31]
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- [00:46]
Rachel Maddow
Really happy to have you here. So she is a special government employee. Just two and a half weeks after Trump was sworn in for this term as president, he put out a press release announcing proudly that she would be a quote, special government employee and senior advisor of the newly created White House Faith Office. In that role, I guess she would now like you to send her $1,000.
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Televangelist
You can receive these seven supernatural blessings for you and your house. According to Exodus 23, God will assign an angel to you. He'll be an enemy to your enemies. He'll give you prosperity. He'll take sickness away from you. He will give you long life. He'll bring increase in inheritance and he'll give a special year of blessing. You're not doing this to get something, but you're doing it in honor to God. Realizing what you can receive. Ministry takes money. And if you have the ability to stand with us, I'm gonna ask you to put your faith in during this very holy time. Because I give just to give and I pray there are others. But also know we want to get you some special gifts.
- [02:00]
Rachel Maddow
We want to give you some very special gifts. This is the head of the White House Faith Office. She is a special government employee of the government of the United States of America. And she does have some very special gifts for you. But you're going to have to do your part too. Luckily, you can do your part. Meaning you can send her money in a lot of different ways. You can send her money online, you can send her money by phone toll free number, you can send her money by text, you can send her money by scanning her QR code or you can just stuff some money into the P.O. box. Lots of ways to give toll free.
- [02:34]
Paula White
Write text to give or go to Paulowhite TV with your best Passover Easter resurrection offering of $125 or more. Paula wants to send you a special olive wood communion set from the Holy Land.
- [02:47]
Rachel Maddow
That's what you get if you send $125 to the head of the White House Office of Faith Programs. Again, she is a special government employee of the United States. She is asking for your money. But I got to tell you, I watched the whole pitch. They are not really going for the $125 gift. That is not the target. They want you to know that the big stuff, the really miraculous stuff kicks in when you give her $1,000 for.
- [03:16]
Paula White
Your special Passover offering of $1,000 or more. As the Holy Spirit leads, you will also receive the beautiful 10 inch Waterford Crystal Cross. Don't miss your mom seven supernatural blessings and provision into your life.
- [03:31]
Rachel Maddow
Don't miss. This is what comes with the thousand dollars. You see, that's the sort of not fine print, but the kind of dim print. There above the banner on the bottom is the Holy Spirit moving you to give a very special offering. By very special, they mean four digits at least. And what they mean by this is, you know, are you feeling the itch to send this US Government employee, the head of the White house faith office, $1,000 or congratulations? Because that is how you get all this stuff, including the special year of blessing and a long life and taking your sickness away for the low, low price of $1,000 payable by text or online or on the phone toll free or scan the QR code or send your check to a P.O. box in Orlando. She's got a government job and hard sell. Big money. Pay me for miracles. Televangelism is as old as television. In this case, YouTube. Evangelism is almost as old as YouTube. But when it's from the White House, when it is a person hired as a special government employee of the US Government, someone running an office in the White House while selling miracles on the side, well, that's a whole new day for governance. You know, when it, when it comes to trying to achieve a long life and take sickness away, I will say it's nice to know that at least someone in the White House is working on those things, even if they are charging for them. You may be able to buy those things by sending $1,000 to the head of the White House Faith Office. But know when you're doing so that the US Government itself will no longer be working toward those aims in the material world. What I mean by that is today the Trump administration announced that it is cutting all funding immediately, with no warning for the vaccination efforts that we have supported in poor countries for decades. Quote, the United States is planning to terminate more than a billion dollars in funding for life saving vaccinations for millions of people each year in some of the world's poorest countries. The Vaccine alliance says it was not given any warning about the termination of the funding. The program is estimated to have saved the lives of 19 million since it was set up 25 years ago. The loss of US support may mean 75 million children do not receive routine vaccinations in the next five years, with more than 1.2 million children dying as a result. This is vaccination for polio and mpox and measles. And the United States government is cutting that off without warning because America first, right? Because it is definitely in America's interest to make sure that preventable infectious diseases like measles and polio are rampant and unconstrained all over the world. Like it or not, we have taken a global leadership role in vaccinating against these plagues for decades. And so us unilaterally pulling out with no warning immediately leaves no capacity for these things that anybody else can match. And so, like I said, polio, tuberculosis, measles, mpox, all of these things shall be expected to blossom immediately as a direct result of what Donald Trump is doing. I mean, obviously, we'll be fine here in America, right? None of these things ever cross borders, right? So who cares here in America, how are we doing with our own out of control measles outbreak? Well, we're working on that, too. Headline, Trump administration abruptly cuts billions of dollars from state health services. Trump administration, quote, has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states. State health departments started receiving notices on Monday night that the funds were being terminated, again without warning, quote, effective immediately. The notices said no additional activities can be conducted and no additional costs may be incurred as it relates to these funds. State health officials predicted that thousands of health department employees and contract workers could lose their jobs nationwide. Some predicted the loss of as much as 90% of staff from some infectious disease teams. For some, the effect was immediate. In Lubbock, Texas, public health officials have received orders to stop work, supported by three grants that helped fund the response to the widening measles outbreak there, according to the city's director of public health. Stop work immediately. Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock, Texas, President Donald Trump is cutting you off effective immediately. What was the phrase? No additional activities can be conducted. No additional costs may be incurred. So, Lubbock, Texas, your work on the measles outbreak that needs to stop right now, effective immediately because of Donald Trump. Remind me where Lubbock, Texas is in relation to this measles outbreak. Oh, yeah, see the really big circle there? Right there on the edge of the giant measles outbreak in Texas. Lubbock is right there at about 2 o'clock on that big circle of cases around Gaines County. Donald Trump just cut off their funds to try to stop the measles outbreak which has now spread from Texas into New Mexico, into Oklahoma. And it appears possibly it has also spread into Kansas. If it's not spreading from Kansas, excuse me, if it's not spreading into Kansas from Texas, it looks like Kansas might have its own. But even as President Donald Trump, in his infinite wisdom, is cutting off funds to stop efforts against, you know, measles and tuberculosis and polio abroad and making state health departments here at home immediately fire as much as 90% of their infectious disease staff. While we are dealing with exploding measles outbreaks here domestically, one thing, of course, we can still offer from our government is the hard won expertise of the US Government. Right? We at least even though Trump is cutting all of this funding with no warning, immediate cutoff, no advance planning to account for any of this stuff, even with all of those funds being cut off, at least the United States government can still offer its wise counsel on how to contend with, you know, wildly contagious deadly infectious diseases. Remedies supported by Kennedy leave some measles patients more ill. After the Trump administration's health secretary promoted vitamin A as a cure, parents in West Texas began giving their children high doses vitamin A. Quote, Doctors in West Texas are seeing measles patients whose illnesses have been complicated by an alternative therapy endorsed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The Trump administration's health secretary. Parents in Gaines County, Texas, the center of a raging measles outbreak, have increasingly turned to supplements and unproven treatments to protect their children, many of whom are unvaccinated. One of those supplements is cod liver oil containing vitamin A, which Mr. Kennedy has promoted as a near miraculous cure for measles. Physicians at Covenant Children's Hospital in yes, Lubbock, Texas, now say they have treated a handful of unvaccinated children who were given so much vitamin A that they have signs of liver damage. Quote, There is no credible evidence that vitamin A helps prevent infection in children in the United States, where vitamin A deficiencies are exceedingly rare. In fact, at high doses, vitamin A can cause liver damage. It can cause dry peeling skin and hair loss. And in rare instances, seizures and coma. So far, doctors at West Texas hospitals have said they've seen patients with yellowed skin and high levels of liver enzymes in their blood work, both signs of a damaged liver. Health officials say the recent popularity of vitamin A use for measles can be traced back to a Fox News interview with Mr. Kennedy in which he said he had heard of, quote, almost miraculous and instantaneous recovery with treatments like cod liver oil, which he said was the safest application of vitamin A. In the weeks after the FOX News interview, drugstores in West Texas struggled to keep vitamin A and cod liver oil supplements on their shelves. And now, because Donald Trump's health secretary has said that's what you do for measles, parents are inadvertently poisoning their children and giving them liver damage with this miraculous cure that the Health and Human Services secretary went on TV and promoted as a miracle despite, you know, science, the government of the United States of America under Donald Trump firing the infectious disease doctors and cutting off funding to fight, for example, specifically the measles epidemic. But now there's kids in Texas with liver damage because Donald Trump's health secretary got on the Fox and said he found a miracle cure. And why wouldn't you trust him? He was handpicked by Donald Trump. That said, if you do want to take sickness away and live a long life, you can always just send $1,000 to the head of Donald Trump's White House faith office. She will take your check or cash or whatever. So tonight we're going to be joined by Tammy Duckworth, Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois. She is a veteran of the Iraq war who lost both legs when her helicopter was shot out of the sky in combat. Senator Duckworth is demanding the resignation of Defense Secretary Secretary Pete Hegseth as the fallout continues to mount from the revelation that Pete Hegseth endangered American pilots. Pete Hegseth and Trump's National Security advisor and his Director of National Intelligence and his CIA director and his Secretary of State and his treasury secretary and his White House chief of staff and his advisor Stephen Miller and his Vice President JD Vance and more. Apparently it was a cast of 18 senior officials altogether who all joined a commercial messaging app group chat on which they circulated things like the name of a serving CIA CIA officer supplied by CIA Director John Ratcliffe. And per Pete Hegseth, this handy TikTok of the exact battle plan describing when specific American piloted planes and drones and then sea based Tomahawk missiles would be used down to the minute for forthcoming strikes in Yemen. Pete Hegseth helpfully pointed out to the group that at 2:15pm all caps, this is when the first bombs will definitely drop. Remember their defense here, that they did nothing wrong here is that there was nothing specific on this group text, no actual plans, definitely not down to the minute talking about when the actual bombs will drop in this group text over signal that accidentally included a journalist, but no one noticed, even after he took his name out of the chat, when he realized these were actual senior government officials discussing apparently classified and definitely sensitive defense information. And being part of this kind of conversation is not something anyone should do. President Trump has not fired anyone for this debacle, which is astonishing. He did confess to NBC News in a new interview that he sees this as a, quote, glitch. A glitch. He said this scandal has been, quote, the only glitch in two months. This is kind of emerging as his take on this scandal. He told reporters yesterday they've made a big deal out of this because we've had two perfect months. Essentially saying that this scandal, with all of his senior appointees, including his White House chief of staff, all discussing these forthcoming battle plans over signal in a group text that they didn't notice included a journalist. He thinks this is all a hoax. This is. Now he's used the phrase witch hunt. This has all been ginned up as if it's something bad. They're trying to make it look bad because he's otherwise had two perfect months. This is the only thing that even looks bad. Everything else has been. And, you know, I will just say, between you and me, you have been alive for these past two months, and you have experienced what the first two months of this Trump term have been like. Do you think that Trump is right? That it's all been totally perfect? This has been the only glitch? I mean, just, you know, back of the envelope scratching here. It was a week or so after he was sworn in January 29, a jet carrying 64 people hit an army helicopter above the Potomac river outside Reagan national airport in D.C. everybody on both aircraft killed. The day before that collision, he had offered air traffic controllers all across the country a somewhat threatening buyout, trying to basically beg them to leave government service. Less than a week later, Trump reversed course. Ooh, actually, no, maybe that's a bad idea. Air traffic controllers, please don't leave. That same week was when we started to get the headlines about the kids who Trump's top campaign donor, Elon Musk, had brought in to his new agency to work with him to destroy the federal Government. Turns out one Doge staffer actually had to resign when it came out that he had a since deleted social media account in which he had advocated for loud and proud racism and racial human breeding tactics through eugenics. They soon hired him back. Another Doge staffer had been previously fired from a cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets. He also worked at a startup that hired convicted hackers. He went by the online moniker Big Balls. We would later learn that Trump and Elon Musk and their infinite wisdom specifically gave Big Balls, who again had been fired from a previous job at a cybersecurity firm for leaking company secrets. Trump and Musk gave that specific kid access to the systems at the top US Cybersecurity agency. Great choice. Then Trump fired the staff of the nation's nuclear security agency, the people who oversee the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile. Then Trump scrambled to unfire all of those nuclear safety workers because Oops. But in many cases, they couldn't figure out how to reach them because in their infinite wisdom, they forgot to collect contact information from those nuclear security workers before cutting them all off from their government email accounts. This includes people with Q level security security clearances who are cleared for access to our nation's top nuclear secrets. Those are great folks to lose track of and to fire for no cause. Trump then fired people at the CDC in charge of tracking the ongoing bird flu outbreak. That turned out to be a mistake as well. They then tried to hire all those people back, but didn't get them all back. Trump then instituted not only firings, but a hiring freeze that applied to, among other things, the national parks. Why is it particularly bad to do that at the national parks? Well, among other things, the national parks every year have to hire a whole new cast of employees for seasonal employment because the national parks have greatly increased visitors during vacation season. Hiring freeze isn't going to work at the national parks, right? They have to hire lots of new people every year. So they did that. And then, oops. Turns out they realized they couldn't do that. Turns out it would be wildly dangerous to radically understaff American national parks. Who knew? So they had to reverse that, too. Then a few days after that reversal, we saw them again scrambling, scrambling to rehire people they had fired from the FDA this time. Headline FDA scrambles to rehire entire teams overseeing medical devices after Doge fired them all, saying their terminations are, quote, rescinded, effective immediately. By this point, we're about a month in to the perfect two months. It was February 22nd, just about exactly a month in, when Elon Musk sent his first what did you do last week? Email. He demanded that all federal employees email his Doge teenagers a list of what they got done that week, or else it would be cause for immediate firing. That threat then promptly was deflated within 24 hours. The leaders of multiple agencies in the government, people in Trump's cabinet, like Tulsi Gabbard say, told their workers and their agencies explicitly don't reply to Elon's email. Womp, womp. At that point, Elon Musk had a running list of all the massive and spectacular savings he and his kids at Doge had found by cutting out supply, supposed fraud and waste from the federal government. They claimed to have found billions of dollars in fraud. It was all on their website for you to see. But then, February 25, the New York Times reported that the five largest items on that list had just quietly disappeared. Because it turns out they hadn't actually saved all that many. They'd just done all the math wrong. Day after the rug was pulled out from under Doge on that, they had to erase another big cut from their list. Doge claimed they had found $2 billion of waste and fraud to cut out from VA. Turns out a lot of that money was for stuff like, so, I don't know, medical services for veterans, cancer programs for veterans with cancer, burial services for veterans who die. Boy, that really does sound wasteful. Right? So, yeah, again, oops, they had to reverse course on that, reinstate some of that stuff. Saturday after that was March 1st, we learned another obvious but alarming side effect to all of Trump and Musk's firings through the federal government. CNN reported that US Intelligence showed that Russia and China were rushing to take advantage of the moment and working hard to recruit as many disgruntled workers as intelligence assets as they could get. You tired of all the winning, yet you tired of all the perfection. The very next day, Sunday, March 2, the Dow. The Dow started its trip off the cliff after Trump said he was going to go through with his tariffs on our closest trading partners like Mexico and Canada and also China. The next day, you could watch live on the Fox News Channel as the stock market tumbled down and down and down while Trump doubled down, down, down on his tariffs. Since then, we've seen industry after industry come forward to say just how much the tariffs have been just slaying them economically. But Trump is plowing ahead. A week after tanking the stock market with that incipient trade war Trump pulled yet Another reversal. Since taking office, he's been insisting on using military aircraft for deportations. Been making a huge deal about these deportations, deporting migrants, many of whom we now know had no criminal history whatsoever. But he wanted to make a big deal out of the fact that he was using military aircraft to them where to Guantanamo. Very transparent stunt to get footage like this to use for propaganda purposes. It was also unbelievably, eye wateringly expensive. So quietly, on March 5, they stopped using the military aircraft and a week later, they stopped using Guantanamo. They returned everybody they'd been holding there back stateside because they'd already got all their propaganda films made. Don't tell anybody. We're just not doing that anymore. Along the way, in their hunt to rid everything in the federal government of diversity, equity, inclusion, they purged a photo of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan from a Defense Department database. We believe that's because the plane, the Enola Gay, has the word gay in its name. So obviously just having pictures of that plane anywhere is going to make everybody gay. Look what it did to me. The next week, people still employed by the FDA and ordered back to the office told reporters they had returned to find offices that could not fit them with broken equipment and not enough chairs for people to sit in. Last week, Trump released the JFK assassination files unredacted, including 400 unredacted Social Security numbers and birth dates and birthplaces. Trump managed, among other things, to dox his own lawyer, who only found out Trump had done it when a reporter called to ask him about it. Also last week, the New York Times was first to report that Elon Musk was about to get the very next morning a top secret briefing for the US Military plan for any war that might break out with China. After he says he saw that report, Trump, quote, contacted White House Chief of Staff and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to ask them, hey, what's this briefing you're doing for Elon? That sounds like a big deal. He learned about it in the New York Times, he says, and so then they called it off. And briefly, that was a, you know, stop everything. What the heck is going on? News, right? The President's top campaign donor with all of his business ties to China and his multi billion dollar debts to the Chinese, getting a briefing on the US Military plans for going to war with China. But I mean, just to show you how these first two months of the Trump term is going here's the news from the very next day after Trump announced there would be no such El Musk China War Plan Briefing this is the Washington Post, Saturday, March 22. Just four days ago, tax revenue could drop by 10% amid turmoil at IRS. Staff cuts and disruptions related to Doge have officials bracing for a sharp loss of revenue for the US Government. The prediction, officials say, is directly tied to changing taxpayer behavior and President Trump's rapid demolition of parts of the irs. Rapid demolition, Neat. Seems like Doge, if those predictions seem to be borne out at irs, will have succeeded in robbing the United States government of a half trillion dollars in revenue it would have otherwise received because, again, in their infinite wisdom, they have decided to destroy the irs, which collects money to fund the government. Everybody who's ever run a business knows that the most efficient thing you can do in getting your bottom line straight of your business is to make sure you no longer have the capacity to earn any money right? It's been perfect. These two months have been Other than this little glitch with the giant group text about forthcoming military operations, everything has been perfect. I will mention just today, the Social Security Administration has announced that they are not going to go ahead with the changes they'd previous announced that would force millions of retired and disabled Americans to go in person to a Social Security office to do things that they can now do by phone while they are simultaneously closing Social Security offices and firing their staff. Turns out, per the Washington Post tonight, they had not done any training to prepare their staff for this giant change which they were going to implement as of Monday. They also had not actually done any work to set up the new system that they were going to try to to shunt these tens of millions of Americans into Washington Post notes today that the people who might have been called upon to invent and implement such a new system have mostly all been fired from the Social Security Administration. So there's nobody there to do that work and so the thing will be delayed. The headline here though is right Trump administration, quote, backs off plan to cut phone services after backlash. I mean, yeah, sure, they hadn't actually done anything to prepare for it, but it's not like they'd be afraid to go ahead with what they were doing because it wasn't well planned. What about the last two months tells you that what happened here is that the backlash mattered. People being outraged and pushing back mattered and stopped them. They say they still want to go ahead with these planned changes at Social Security in two weeks instead of Monday. We'll see about that. But for now, the pushback has worked. Trump announced new 25% tariffs on car sales today, which sent the futures for America's auto company stocks well off the cliff. To tonight, as Trump inflicts yet more economic pain on American businesses, on American consumers and the country as a whole. Tomorrow, Trump is sending his vice president to Greenland, which he is threatening to take by force. The trip was supposed to include the National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz, but now it's unclear whether Mr. Waltz is going after the group tech scandal which he apparently started. This trip to Greenland was also initially supposed to be just the vice president's wife and child and not the vice president himself. But after Greenland's politicians of every stripe expressed outrage over this trip and its implied intimidation, and green lenders announced plans to hold anti American demonstrations at the site she was expected to visit, including the airport she was due to fly into. Now they're sending the vice president himself and he and his wife are not only going, excuse me, and he and his wife will only be going to a US Military base and not to anywhere else in Greenland where the actual people of Greenland might be able to get within screaming distance of them because again, oops. So you know, in other words, these perfect two months just continuing on their perfect trajectory. Tammy Duckworth joins us here live next. Stay with us.
- [29:22]
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- [29:37]
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- [30:08]
Paula White
Stay connected with the MSNBC app. Watch your favorite shows live, read live blogs and in depth essays and listen to coverage as it unfolds. Visit msnbc.comapp to download.
- [30:27]
Rachel Maddow
Donald Trump's Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth isn't working out all that well. And it started right at the beginning. Right after he was sworn in. There was the mid air collision of a passenger jet and an army helicopter in Washington D.C. despite the strict and solemn rules of the Defense Department that say no information about deceased service members can be made public until 24 hours after the next next of kin has been informed. Pete Hegseth nevertheless blurted out to the public the ranks of the three helicopter crew members who had just been killed in the crash. Hegseth also blurted out that the crew members had been performing a training flight on a, quote, continuity of government mission. Mr. Hegseth, quote, was later told that he should not have publicly disclosed that it was a continuity of government mission which involves US Officials and military forces practicing how the government would react in the event of an emergency. Just a couple of weeks later, Mr. Hegseth took his first big international trip as Defense Secretary. Went to a big NATO meeting in Europe. And he began the trip by just totally flummoxing not only our allies, but also a lot of Washington. When he again just blurted out that any peace deal in the Russia Ukraine war would have to include Ukraine giving up lots of its territory and abandoning its bid to join NATO. That caused major blowback for obvious reasons. He was just giving away Ukraine's major bargaining chips even before negotiations had started. When that blowback made its way to him, Pete Hegseth sort of angrily asserted that he had basically been the victim of his own comments.
- [32:09]
Pete Hegseth
As it pertains to NATO membership not being realistic outcome for negotiations. That's something that was stated as part of modern remarks here, as part of a coordination with how we're executing these ongoing negotiations.
- [32:24]
Rachel Maddow
That's something that was stated as part of my remarks here. I don't know who stated it, but it was part of my remarks. I did not state it. It was something that was stated by something inside my mouth in my remarks time. It's very offensive to me as well. Now we're all living through Pete Hegseth's latest and greatest.
- [32:50]
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Why were those details shared on signal and how did you learn that a journalist was privy to the targets, the types of weapons used?
- [32:58]
Pete Hegseth
I've heard it was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans. And that's all I have to say about that.
- [33:05]
Rachel Maddow
Thank you.
- [33:05]
Paula White
Appreciate it.
- [33:06]
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The NSC said it was authentic.
- [33:08]
Pete Hegseth
Nobody's texting more plans. Kazu, you're right. I know exactly what I'm doing, exactly what we're directing, and I'm really proud of what we accomplished. Nobody's texting war plans. You know who sees war plans? I see them every single day. I looked at them this morning.
- [33:26]
Rachel Maddow
Nobody's texting war plans. I know exactly what I'm doing. I know what war plans look like. War plans. I see them all the time. I eat war plans for Breakfast. I wouldn't know war plans. What do you mean I wouldn't know if there were war. Meanwhile, headline here are the attack plans that Trump's advisors shared on Signal. Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic magazine today releasing the entirety of the Signal message chain that he was somehow inexplicably added to, in which top Trump administration officials texted in detail about forthcoming airstrikes in Yemen. And despite Pete Hegseth and other officials in the chat saying there was no classified information and definitely no war plans, here is Pete Hegseth texting on a private messaging app to a group including a reporter, times and weapons and attack sequences about two hours before the first bombs exploded. Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Army helicopter pilot who lost both legs in combat. She now serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee. She had this to say today in response. This is an official statement released by her Senate office. I will warn you, it it contains a thinly veiled swear statement says quote, pete Hegseth is a effing liar. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could have gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately. Senator Tammy Duckworth joins us here next.
- [35:01]
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Rachel Maddow
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Rachel Maddow
Forts to building a life.
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- [35:33]
Paula White
Connected with the MSNBC app, watch your favorite shows live, read live blogs and in depth essays and listen to coverage as it unfolds. Visit msnbc.comapp to download.
- [35:47]
Rachel Maddow
Hey everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, why Is this Happening? Beverly Gage, author of J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Center. Hoover created this playbook of how you could use an institution like the FBI to intimidate your enemies to gather information. And then on the other hand, he's actually nothing like Kash Patel because Kash Patel is so open about being loyal to Donald Trump. In particular, he calls him King Donald. And Hoover was a very different creature. That's this week on why is this Happening? Search for why is this Happening? Wherever you're listening right now and follow this is Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, combat veteran, member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Today responding to Trump Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claiming there was nothing wrong with sharing detailed information about upcoming airstrikes in a private messaging app to a group that inadvertently included a reporter from Senator Duckworth. Quote, pete Hegseth is an effing liar. She didn't say effing. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could have gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately. Joining us now is Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. Senator, thank you so much for being with us tonight. I appreciate you making the time.
- [37:09]
Tammy Duckworth
Thanks for having me on, Rachel. Such an important issue that you're covering.
- [37:14]
Rachel Maddow
We first learned about this about midday on Monday. It's now Wednesday night. We have learned more over the last couple of days about what happened in this group text about these forthcoming strikes. This is a very strong reaction that you have had to it. It's not only profane, it's mad. You're angry here. Can you explain your reaction to it and why you think Secretary Hegseth should resign?
- [37:41]
Tammy Duckworth
I think he should resign because he put those pilots in danger. If you look at the text chain, my response was immediately after I read the act text chain that showed him putting up on this unsecured platform, the drones are going to strike. And then he put down exactly how long it's going to be until the F18s were going to be over the target area. If anybody had compromised that chain, those pilots could have been in danger. And that's why I was so upset and I used my army language in that text because he is the guy that's leading the military and he put those pilots in direct danger. And by the way, if I were our allies, if I were the UK or any of our allies, I would think twice about sharing intelligence with us in the future, because we've shown that our Secretary of Defense, our national intelligence community, does not know how to safeguard classified information.
- [38:40]
Rachel Maddow
Let me ask you about the classified portion of this. Obviously, there's potential criminal liability here whether or not this was classified information. But we've also now had these blunt assertions from the President, from other White house officials, from Mr. Hagg, saying that there was nothing that was classified or that could be construed as classified information. In the text, we know what Mr. Goldberg has published. We know that the NSC says that they've verified that this was the actual text chain. Does it seem to you that this is classified information?
- [39:13]
Tammy Duckworth
It absolutely is. Any type of targeting information, sequencing of the attack that's automatically classified. And that's why I called him a liar, because he'd been saying there was no classified information. And then this text chain gets published and we see clearly that it is classified information and that it directly put those pilots in danger.
- [39:36]
Rachel Maddow
Once all of those people on that text chain and there were 18 or 19 people or something on it, once all of those people started seeing the type of information that was circulating again on a commercial app, non government device or non government system, certainly not a classified information system, what kind of responsibility did they all have? Because I'm struck here by Michael Waltz, the National Security Advisor, having started this text chain and having apparently added the reporter to it, I'm struck by the fact that Mr. Hegseth made the decisions that he made to post what he did to this chain. I'm struck by the fact that the CIA director posted the name of an active intelligence officer. But I'm also thinking about Stephen Miller in the White House and Susie Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff, and. And Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, and Tulsi Gabbard, the DNI and all of these other. The Secretary of the treasury was on this for some reason, all of these people, once they realized the type of information that was on this chain, if they were responsible with that type of information, what should they have done? And who do you think is most culpable in terms of their behavior here?
- [40:42]
Tammy Duckworth
Well, that is why I say they should all lose their jobs, because they needed to have spoken up as soon as he put that information on there and posted the information about the sequencing, what the strike was going to be, what platforms were going to be used, Tomahawks, drones, F18s, for example. Someone on that chain should have said, hey, this is not the correct platform. Let's switch over to the siprnet. And not a single one of them, not a single one of them spoke up. That is egregious dereliction of duty in terms of their jobs. They needed to have spoken up, especially those who are in the intelligence community. And don't tell me that they don't know that you've got Tulsi Gabbard, who claims that she's a combat veteran and she has all this experience. You've got the CIA director who at one point was also the dni, at one point in the previous administration. These people know better. And not a single one of them spoke up, which is why they're all culpable.
- [41:40]
Rachel Maddow
Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, member of the Armed Services Committee. Thank you for your clarity on this. Thanks for making time to be with us tonight. Senator, it's an honor to have you here.
- [41:49]
Tammy Duckworth
Thanks thanks for having me on.
- [41:51]
Rachel Maddow
All right, more news ahead, tonight's day. Stay with us. So it's an odd numbered year. It's 20, 25, it's March. This is like the definition of when you don't get any news about elections. But last night we had two big results out of two elections in the state of Pennsylvania which are a big deal to Democrats. The first one was in the House. Pennsylvania House Democrats won an election there that will hand them control of the the state legislature, the House in Pennsylvania. Now that race in the state House district that was considered a Democratic leaning district, Kamala Harris had won that district in November by like 16 points. So it's not a surprise that the Democrat won. That said, though, there still was a good news surprise for Democrats in that race because even though Harris had won that district by 16 points last night, the Democrats candidates state in that district won by nearly 30 points, which is a huge margin to take even in a blue seat. And that alone would have been a reason for Pennsylvania Democrats to be celebrating today. But then look at this. There was another election as well last night in Pennsylvania, one that Democrats did not expect to win at all. And this one wasn't for a Pennsylvania House seat. It was for a Pennsylvania Senate seat. And this seat had been held by a Republican. It was seen as a really red district in November. Trump won that district by 15 points. But last night a Democrat won there, managed to flip that seat from Republican to Democrat in a Trump +15 district in Pennsylvania. And this is kind of turning into a theme for Democrats this year. We already this year saw Democrats in Iowa score a huge upset win. This was an Iowa Senate seat and it was an even redder Senate seat than that one that Democrats won in Pennsylvania last night. This was an Iowa Senate seat and it's district where Trump had won by 21 points, 21 points. But the Democratic Senate candidate flipped it, won it as a Democrat. Then just earlier this month, it was Democrats in Minnesota who won an election for a state House seat. Now in that case, it wasn't a Trump district. That district was Democratic. And Democrats expected to win that race, but they did not expect to win by 70 points, a 70 point margin, the winning margin there for Democrats in that Minnesota race. So all of this comes, all of this very good news for Democrats comes as we're awaiting three very big special elections next week. On Tuesday in Wisconsin. There is of course the huge, very high profile special election that will determine control of Wisconsin State Supreme Court and by extension the future of abortion rights. And voting rights and so much more in that state. It is technically a nonpartisan race, but Elon Musk's super PAC has dumped more than 10 million doll already into supporting the candidate who is favored by Republicans. Musk's PAC is also paying people offering people $100 if they sign a petition against activist judges, thereby helping identify voters for their get out to vote efforts. Thanks to Elon Musk, Wisconsin Supreme Court race is now the most expensive judicial election in US History, which is gross. So I'll be keeping a close eye on that on Tuesday night in Wisconsin. There's also two special elections in Florida next week for Congress. Congressional seats. One race to fill the congressional seat vacated by Trump's National Security Advisor and group chat enthusiast Mike Waltz. Another to fill the seat vacated by Trump's first pick for attorney general, the one who had to withdraw his name over all the allegations of illicit drug use and sex with a minor, all of which he denies. Those are both considered heavily Republican districts, but in Mike Waltz's old district, Republicans are reportedly growing a little bit concerned. The Democratic candidate has out fundraised the Republican there by more than 10 to 1, which means even though that's a very, very red district, Democrats are fighting that to win it. We'll keep a close eye on that and much more. Watch this space. All right, that's going to do it for me tonight. I will see you again tomorrow and every night this week at 9:00 Eastern. In the meantime, you can find me on bluesky. I like it. Sorry I can't explain why, it's just better. I'm on blueskyadow.msnbc.
- [46:14]
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