← We Can Do Hard Things
We Can Do Hard Things
Who Said What in that Group Chat Debacle & Is MAGA Starting to Fracture? | Jessica Yellin
01:06:53
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- [00:00]
Glennon Doyle
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- [01:45]
Jessica Yellen
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. I am here with Jessica Yellen and we meet with you once a week to tell you what's going on in the world so that you know what's going on in the world in a way that is, I think the revolutionary thing about this, Jessica, is that it's meant to tell you what's going on in the world as opposed to meant to hook you in a vicious rollercoaster cycle of nervous system breakdown. Is that. Is that our objective?
- [02:15]
Amanda Doyle
I do think that that is a fair assessment of what we aim to do, at least.
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Jessica Yellen
Great.
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Amanda Doyle
Every week we try.
- [02:21]
Jessica Yellen
We really, really try. We're not saying that there won't be bit of a little bit of hilly terrain, but we're not intentionally taking you on the roller coaster. But we do want to respect you enough to tell you what's going on in the world as clearly as it can be seen. Jessica sees it super clearly. And then also the good news is then you have the information you need to take Some action and then you can go about the rest of your week without having to toxicify your body with the onslaught of news that is intended to activate you. Is this correct?
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Amanda Doyle
I love that. So we titrate the toxicity of your news. Ooh.
- [03:09]
Jessica Yellen
Always with an alliteration. I appreciate that.
- [03:12]
Amanda Doyle
I love it. I also appreciate how every week you try to frame our efforts in a way that people can understand. Like, we're not trying to make you stressed. It's just that these events are very hard to put in the most calm context.
- [03:26]
Jessica Yellen
It's like trying to make it calm is like the Homer Simpson. I can't promise to try, but I can try to try. We're going to try to try here today.
- [03:37]
Amanda Doyle
Let's try to try.
- [03:37]
Jessica Yellen
We're going to try to try. So this has been a shocking, although we say it every week as if it's an anomaly, a shocking week of news, which unless if you're hearing this bit of news for the first time, I'm really delighted for you because this.
- [03:55]
Amanda Doyle
One, sit down, get ready.
- [03:57]
Jessica Yellen
I would like to see your face. I wish I could see your face, listener, as you hear this, if you're hearing it for the first time, if not, Jessica, tell us about the stunning development of texts gone awry.
- [04:11]
Amanda Doyle
So this is the first story of all the many scandals that we've seen in the Trump administration in this second term. This is the first story that is starting to stick, Dick, that is generating criticism from some Republicans. And where we've it seems that the Trump administration is on, it's definitely on its back heels and may have to really ultimately fire someone. We'll see how to start. So a reporter, one of Washington's most acclaimed reporters, Jeffrey Goldberg, is the editor in chief of the Atlantic magazine, one of the most serious journalism outlets in America. The Atlantic has won multiple Pulitzer Prizes. He reported yesterday, or as we're recording this, it was yesterday that one day he was going about his business and in his group on his signal app. This is an encrypted messaging app that journalists use and government officials use frequently because it's considered to have slightly more security than just a text message, but not government level security. To be clear, he's just looking at his signal chats, which is something I do all day, too, and something pops up. It's an invitation from the White House's director of the National Security Council, the president's most senior national security advisor, inviting him, this top reporter, to join a chat that also has Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, director of National Intelligence. Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of State, Rubio, the head of the CIA, Ratcliffe, the White House Chief of Staff, and many more people. Who are our top national security principals. In this chat and what unfolds over the next few days is a conversation among them about what the Atlantic and every serious national security observer I know describes as the sharing of most likely classified intelligence. Um, specifically, they're chatting about the attack that the US Launched against the Houthis in Yemen. This happened in the last few weeks. And it was. The chat started before the attack. It described, like, deliberations about whether they should or shouldn't launch this. And then on the day of the attack, about two hours prior, Pete Hegseth, our Secretary of Defense, pops in there and starts texting specific plans. This kind of fighter jet is going to drop a bomb at this rough time in this rough, you know, area and starts detailing the operation. For so many reasons, this is outrageous, egregious, and dangerous. But the most serious problem here of all of those is that imagine if this had fallen into the, you know, possession of an enemy and they had shared it with the Houthis, the Houthis could have used this to target our fighter pilots as they were flying over Yemen and shoot them out of the sky. So when people say lives are at risk, they quite literally mean sharing this information put the lives of American service members at risk. Where to go from there?
- [07:20]
Jessica Yellen
Yeah, there's. There's a lot. There's a lot to unpack there. And I just keep thinking about. So. So Goldberg is receiving these texts. I've heard him say that he. He's convinced that this is a scam, right? That he's getting this. And he's like, okay, I've been targeted by some misinformation. They're trying to give me the bait to do something about this. Because there's no way in the world that this group of people is, A, having this conversation on signal, and, B, doing it with me present here. And. And he doesn't. So he's. So he's watching these texts come through. He's like, this is not. This can't be the case. And then he's waiting at the grocery store, and then he sees Hegseth's text come through with, like, the actual battle plans. First, this wave. Then here's the. The target will be located here. Here's the second wave of attacks. Here's the package that's being included in that, all of this. And. And it. And saying the exact time that the impact will be felt in Yemen. And so he says, I guess I'm about to find out, right? If, if I, if I see that there's an attack in Yemen, then I can be pretty clear that this is a legit text.
- [08:35]
Amanda Doyle
Yes. What he described is that he assumed that maybe this was like a phishing attempt and that it is true. Sometimes you'll get outreach from somebody who pretends to be a leaker, but they're really trying to feed you false information so that you report false information and you're embarrassed and your career is destroyed or tarnished. So he's like, this has to be what you're saying, right? Like, not real.
- [08:58]
Jessica Yellen
This is a bridge too far. They should have made it more realistic.
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Amanda Doyle
Right. There's no way the national security advice. First of all, as you said, there's no way they discuss this on a non secure platform, a commercially available texting platform. We should talk about how you're supposed to have this kind of conversation. And then B, there's no way somebody would have me in the group, and A, add me and B, not notice that I'm there. So I just want to pause and say two things. One is on signal. You can look at the. It would have the name of everybody who's in your chat so that you'd look. And I've been on group chats where we're all like, we're saying things that are rude. Let's just check that everybody who's on here is in the cone of silence. And there was somebody with the initials J.G. no one thought, like, who's JG? Should we find out what's going on?
- [09:48]
Jessica Yellen
And there's 19 people in this chat. I mean, this is not hundreds of people. It's a significant amount of people. But you know, on one look of your phone, you can see that list. Yeah.
- [09:59]
Amanda Doyle
And I keep saying, like the most egregious thing is that they had the conversation on signal. Like I keep saying that that's the most egregious thing, not that they added a reporter. And then I'm like, well know that they added a reporter as the most egregious thing. No, that they. It's like, it's just all bad. I wanna say it is honestly just a moment of pride for me in how much integrity Jeffrey Goldberg and the Atlantic have used in the way they've reported and proceeded with this story. So I'll just make a couple points on that front. First, as I said, he thought it was a fake and he didn't report on any of it or do anything when he got the information. So over these course of days, we said that Pete Hegseth finally gives the details of this attack that's meant to happen. And Goldberg's like, well, let's see. He looks at X and sees about within an hour of that text that the US reports an attack on Yemen. And he realized this is real. He did not report it. He didn't report it for days and days and days and days, weeks. What did he do? He approached. He convened with, like he said to his national security advisors that he knows and lawyers and asked what's the safest way to proceed to not endanger American lives. And he removed himself from the chat. I've had so many conversations with reporters about this. Like, I don't think I could have removed myself. I would want to see what comes next.
- [11:28]
Jessica Yellen
No, that would be really hard. That's a lot of integrity to remove discipline. Not to mention, when you remove yourself at that point, they are notified that you have removed yourself. Right?
- [11:39]
Amanda Doyle
So it would say, JG has left the chat and he saw that that message went. So he removes himself from the chat, confers with, you know, sort of lawyers, advisors, whoever else, and eventually goes back to the administration and each, each agency that was represented on the chat reaches out to them and says, basically, I was on this chat. You shared this. How did you not notice I was there? Why are you sharing this on signal? And how did you not notice that I left? And did you breach national security? So when they finally published the original piece, they said he published text to prove that this happened and share broadly, but he did not publish any of the operational details that he said they shared because he was worried about exposing US national security secrets, methods and agents and the like. So he's really displayed an enormous level of integrity. And in the end, the media did more to protect national security than America's top national security principles.
- [12:43]
Jessica Yellen
That's exactly right. And I think it is worth just. We should talk about, like, this is just basic level judgment. You know, your average human is like, I check every email before it goes out. Is it the wrong person? And my, my kind of bar of things happening is minuscule. You know, this is. This is a basic judgment issue, but it's also laws. There's so many laws that are violated by this. So, like, every standard of operational security was violated here in a way that had any other officer or soldier or anyone who, who had access to this kind of information would be relieved of command immediately and there would be an actual investigation. Including likely, you know, a criminal investigation and criminal consequences for, for this kind of recklessness.
- [13:44]
Amanda Doyle
Yes. And, and I will say even some Republican elected officials have said that, in other words, have said, you know, their former service members, had I done this when I was in active duty, I would have been court martialed or I would have been sent to the stockades or I would have been relieved of duty instantly and prosecuted. They'd also say, you know, an investigation has to be stood up instantly to understand at this point not just how did it happen and why are they using signal and how common is that. And by the way, I'll add that it's now been confirmed that both the Pentagon advised Pentagon staff that sign signal has been penetrated by Russia and to be very cautious if using signal at all, that the nationals. I think the NSC has advised people not to use signal, that it's just like there's an awareness internally that this is not a, that this has been breached as a platform and they shouldn't be using it, even though we'll get into it. But principals testifying today before Congress are pretending like that's kind of like unclear to them. Let me go back and answer your first question. When you have, and I know you know this, when you have national security conversations that are classified around something like an impending attack, there's extreme and very specific and clear protocols that you're mandated to use by law to protect both the lives of the military members doing the action and also sources and methods like how do we gather this information? How do, if you, if Russia or China finds out too many details that we have, they can backwards assess how we got them and who's giving them to us. So like big picture, you have to do some things that are very inconvenient. You can't take documents out of the building. You have to be in the building, in a secure space in for people at the level of the head of the CIA and the head of the Pentagon. They have both in their offices and in their homes something called a skiff, which is a secure compartmentalized environment. It means that basically it's a box that's wrapped interiorly with all this. Basically think of it like aluminum or tinfoil that prevents people outsiders from penetrating it with their surveillance systems. Where any device that you're used is scrambled. It's not using the standard Internet. There's many levels of moats you use like you have to use like VPN in and jump into another level and another level. I'm simplifying it for Commercial terms, but you get the general idea. It makes conversations slower and it's less convenient because you can't be walking around the street texting. You have to be in your skiff. We do that because it's so vital. Anybody who's on the Intelligence Committee or the Armed Services Committee in the House or the Senate also has to engage with classified information that way so they know what a reckless violation this is to boot. So they're not in their skiff when they're having this conversation separately. They're not doing it inside a government system. They're on a commercially available app that you could download right now in the App Store.
- [16:50]
Jessica Yellen
I mean, I text you on it all the time.
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Amanda Doyle
Like, yeah, it's, it's a, I use it. All right. We use it all day. They, many of them won't say if they were on their government issued device, which gets swept regularly for bugs for surveillance. So since they won't say, there's a big suspicion that they were on their personal device, which is a lot more porous. They were sharing things that they should not be sharing in any environment like that. And I'd add one member of that chat was physically in Moscow and potentially in the Kremlin meeting with Putin at the time this chat was taking place. And anytime a government official is in Russia, it is just assumed that they are penetrating the device. And I'll give you a for example, when I worked at CNN and ABC News and we would travel to Russia or China, they would, the network would tell us to leave our devices, computer, phone, iPad, personal or work at home. And they'd issue us a travel device that reporters only use when they're going to Russia or China because we know it'll be surveilled. They'll insert themselves into the system to watch. And so you have to go with a bad fake, the, you know, burner device, return it when you get home, it gets cleaned and swept for the next person. Even like I was a junior reporter at the time for a network. If you're Steve Witkoff, a top Trump White House official, and you're in Moscow, you can be sure that they're all over that device when they're texting this stuff on Signal.
- [18:29]
Jessica Yellen
Yes, because that's such an important distinction. Like Signal is allegedly, I mean, no one is contending that it complies with United States law, that, that, that that is a place where it would be allowed. I mean, there's a DoD memo from 2023 saying these specific apps cannot be used for any kind of sensitive information, much less this level of classified information. But even so, like, even if signal is secure, it's only as secure as the device that it's on. So, so if your device is, is penetrated, then signal means nothing in terms of it being secure. And so he's sitting in Moscow receiving this information on a very likely penetrated device.
- [19:25]
Amanda Doyle
Yeah. Just so people know it's signal, unlike text, it's end to end, encrypted, meaning. And signal, like let's say the government subpoena signal, and let's say signal complied, which they wouldn't. But if they did, what signal would turn over would be scrambled, garbled nothingness. So signal itself doesn't retain the text of your message in any way they could decipher, unlike Apple, which does, but they just don't turn it over to the government. Apple says signal couldn't even provide something legible to the government. But if somebody like Russia gets into your device, what they can do is they can watch the text come in on your device just as you're seeing your screen. Think of it like they can screen. Watch your, your screen.
- [20:11]
Jessica Yellen
Right.
- [20:20]
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- [21:27]
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- [21:44]
Jessica Yellen
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- [22:01]
Jessica Yellen
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- [22:14]
Jessica Yellen
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- [22:16]
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- [22:18]
Bill Schultz
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- [23:26]
Jessica Yellen
I was listening to some former military people talk about this, and there's something at a deeper level here other than, you know, the violation of the laws of custody of classified information, the violation of the laws about even archiving and keeping records. I mean, there, there are federal laws that say that you have to keep records of what happens in the presidential staff, in the cabinet, etc, and though those have to be archived and kept. And so the fact that they were setting these settings to have disappearing messages is a whole nother level of violation. Because unless they forwarded that entire chain to an official government account for the purposes of keeping those archived records, that's a whole nother set of violations. But even beyond those things, there's this bigger question to me about kind of military integrity and the kind of hallmark of, of the military command being uniform and what applies to one, applies to all. And there's something deeply disquieting about knowing that every member of the military command who did this would have severe and Immediate consequences, except at the highest level of person with responsibility for, for the military.
- [25:16]
Amanda Doyle
Right, let's talk about competence here. And that's what this really goes to, is nobody on this group chat said, hey y'all, we should probably take this offline to a skiff. You know, the White House chief of staff was on that chat. Why didn't she say, this is inappropriate? And it raises a question. How many other conversations around the government are taking place on a signal group chat?
- [25:40]
Jessica Yellen
Fast and loose.
- [25:41]
Amanda Doyle
Fast and loose. A signal you set it to erase. As you said, it can erase messages, which is against the law. Federal officials have to retain copies of all their messages that go into the National Archives. But what's going on here is like, we should talk a little bit about how they're reacting, the administration is reacting, the ass cover, the shifting of blame, the denials and that. It's not working. Like for the first time, the Trump strategy is kind of collapsing around them. So what's happened is since this was exposed, the people on the chat, the White House, a White House of Communications officer confirmed that, I guess Jeffrey Goldberg sent over the text chat, said, I shared what he asked and said, you know, comment on this. And they said, this appears to be authentic. We don't know how this happened, but they confirmed the veracity of the chat. Then Pete Hegseth was asked about it and he gave this rambling, rageful, like, hot headed response where he attacked Jeffrey Goldberg, the author, as pretending that he's a reckless mutt peddler who makes up Russia hoax stories and all this stuff and said all these things to play to Trump's ego, like we did. We smoked the Houthis, we did the mission right. That's all that matters. And this is a guy who peddles Russia hoaxes and no war plans were shared. Goodbye. And he tried to. It's a classic PR strategy in Washington, attack the messenger. Only the problem is Jeffrey Goldberg, as I said, is highly acclaimed, comported himself with the utmost integrity and has the receipts. So nobody's outside of like Trump and Die Hard MAGA is buying that.
- [27:27]
Bill Schultz
Right?
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Jessica Yellen
There's no characterization. Goldberg is not giving. He's not telling a story, he's not characterizing everything, anything. He's saying, I was included on a text chain and here's what all the text said. That's all, that's all he's doing.
- [27:41]
Amanda Doyle
Right? And they are trying to take issue with the way, like when he said, I'm not going to get into the specifics, I'll just Say they shared war plans and locations and ordinance or whatever they're saying. Well, they never shared like they're taking issue, like with nitpicky. Right, right. To try to make the case they didn't share an exact location. But what's basically happened is in the ensuing day and a half, Trump has first didn't know about it for hours because he was asked, hours after the whole media world started talking about this, you know, to comment on it. And he said, this is the first I'm hearing about it.
- [28:16]
Jessica Yellen
I found that amazing.
- [28:18]
Amanda Doyle
It just means his staff is not briefing him on bad news in a timely way. They're waiting for the press to tell him bad news. A well functioning White House, the staff tells you the bad news so that he obviously can't take it. And then they've since said, you know, he held a Cabinet meeting and instead of asking for anybody to apologize or saying, somebody's going to resign or there will be an investigation, he did the like, admit no weakness thing, where they all pretended like this was fine, that there was a small error in adding Jeffrey Goldberg and they're going to not do that again and no one's going to resign is the position they've taken so far.
- [28:58]
Jessica Yellen
And then that day, the day that all of this news breaks, or is it the day after there is an already scheduled congressional hearing, which unfortunately for the crew that was scheduled to testify, happens to fall on this day where the entire Senate is made aware of this news. So, so Gabbard is there, Ratcliffe is there, and they're. And so these senators are saying, hey, what are y'all doing? Making war plans over text message. And it's a really amazing scene because Gabbard won't even admit that she was on the chain. And Gabbard says very directly under oath before Congress, there was no classified information in those texts. And then, so my senator, Senator Warner is like, you can't have it both ways. It's either classified and so you don't tell us what was in there, or it wasn't classified, so you tell us what was in there. And she was having it both ways. She was saying, I'm not gonna tell you anything about it, but it wasn't classified. And Ratcliffe refused to. The CIA director refuses to say that it was even a mistake. So that's the day before they're saying nobody's seen what was in it, and we're saying there's nothing classified. Then this morning, there's a new Atlantic article.
- [30:35]
Amanda Doyle
So after the Director of National Intelligence head of the CIA, Pete Hegseth, the head of the nsc, the President, all say there's nothing classified.
- [30:42]
Jessica Yellen
Oh, yeah. Trump also said there's nothing classified. Yeah.
- [30:44]
Amanda Doyle
Yes. And I will caveat that at some points, Gabbard in particular said, well, really, the Department of Defense and Pete Hegseth have to decide what's classified. From what he said, I didn't share anything classified. So there's a lot of.
- [30:57]
Jessica Yellen
Yeah, that's what Radcliffe said, too. He's basically like, I didn't do anything wrong.
- [31:02]
Amanda Doyle
Right, right. And just to be clear, it is Pete Hegseth who's the one who shared location, times, et cetera, all those things. Ordinance. So the focus of really is on him. Like, why was he reckless enough to do that here? But classification, like, she's the Director of National Intelligence, she knows what's classified or not. Passing the buck to Hegseth is very telling because it shows there's division within anyway. So since they all say it's not classified, the Atlantic goes back and is like, well, they're saying it's not classified, so we should publish the rest. They contact every one of the agencies involved and say, do you have any problem with us publishing any of this? CIA responds and says, please don't publish one name that the Director mentioned in the chat. It's sensitive. And the White House press secretary finally responds for everybody saying, nothing's classified, but we want you to not publish it because it's sensitive. Lots of misspellings and typos in her message. So they say, well, we weighed it all and decided that given the circumstances, the public's interest in knowing what was in here is more serious than what the Caroline Levitt is saying. And also, we're not putting any lives at risk because the military operation's over.
- [32:16]
Jessica Yellen
It's.
- [32:17]
Amanda Doyle
So we're going to publish.
- [32:18]
Abby Wambach
Right.
- [32:18]
Jessica Yellen
And you have said it is not classified. If you, I mean it. Query whether. If they had said, yes, that was classified information, were so happy it wasn't leaked, and. And compromise the. The troops who are carrying out that mission. And we are going to figure out who is responsible for this, and we're going to take action. Maybe he doesn't even publish it. But if you say he's lying, there's no classified information, what is he supposed to do?
- [32:50]
Amanda Doyle
And this is now a matter of great national importance. Right. Are our national security principles acting in ways that are reckless, incompetent, and putting American lives and security at risk? So the press has a real, not just like, interest in Publishing for sensational reasons, but literal like duty to report. This is the role of the press to hold our leaders to account. And if they're clearly or quite possibly lying on matters of such national security significance, it's incumbent on the press to report. And I would say that they put themselves at great risk because I wouldn't be surprised if the Trump administration tries to sue the Atlantic for huge amounts of money, despite the fact that they said there's nothing classified there. So, you know, the Atlantic took a massive risk on behalf of democracy here. And now there's so many questions. I would add that not only did they, these principals have to testify on Tuesday in the Senate, they also had pre scheduled testimony before the House as we're recording this today, Wednesday, and as we're recording, they are before the House, testifying there and taking now questions about the second Atlantic report with the details where they're pretending, for example, that the magazine misrepresented things because the only location was saying it's at a Houthi girlfriend's house. Things like, I'm just trying to share as a reporter. They rip apart the smallest detail that you might have, like, slightly had off, but you could get the entire thing right and you're attacked. Right. Whereas these schmucks are acting like reckless Keystone Cops and getting each other's back and trying to pretend it's fine. I will add that even the New York Post and Fox News are not having it.
- [34:40]
Jessica Yellen
Yeah, that's been significant. Yeah.
- [34:44]
Amanda Doyle
And this is the first time why I'm saying, I feel like the wheels a little bit started coming off the bus with this. The Fox News has been consistently, there are defenders on there, but also people reporting that this is like national security officials say, this is unacceptable. This is not done. It put lives at risk. The New York Post has a headline that says, quote, a real Houthi done it. Trump team tries to spin war link. So even Rupert Murdoch is, you know, pushing back on this. As a side note, it would seem that Trump is most upset by the fact that somebody had Jeffrey Goldberg's number in their phone.
- [35:21]
Jessica Yellen
That is significant. And I saw him on. I saw him on Fox saying, I don't know how he got in this chat. I don't text him. He's not in my phone. Which I. How did he. If he was Mike Waltz?
- [35:39]
Amanda Doyle
So Mike Waltz, that national security director, is like, I've never met Jeffrey Goldberg. I've never spoken to him. I don't have his number. How did. And so they're pretending that Jeffrey Goldberg somehow like, knew about this group and somehow hacked his way into this group, which is not a thing. And Jeffrey Goldberg has the receipts that say Mike Waltz has added you to this chat. It's just like absurd. They're making stuff up to try to win over people who don't know anything about how anything works.
- [36:08]
Jessica Yellen
You know, speaking of not knowing anything, what have you seen about, I mean, the actual, the actual text that they published today, Tuesday in the Atlantic. It's just word for word exactly who said what. And what I thought was interesting is there's major undertones there, not even overtones there, of J.D. vance saying, I disagree with the President on this. And even more interestingly, I don't think the President understands, understands what a bad idea this is. And I don't think the President understands how taking this action conflates and confuses the policy on Europe right now, which is fascinating in front of all of those people who work for the President. Undermining the President like that is pretty amazing.
- [37:07]
Amanda Doyle
So it's. There's three things that are interesting beyond the classification stuff. Yes. One is that J.D. vance says the words I don't think the President understands, which reflects a perspective on the President that he not only has, that he wouldn't understand something important, relevant to something as important as a military strike, and B, that he feels comfortable using that language in front of all these people about the President. Two, that he personally feels empowered in this group without the President there to contradict war planning. Like, obviously there's been an agreement to move ahead with this and at this late stage, he's disagreeing. You also see Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff, who's the real policy hardliner in the White House, reminding everyone that he says, as I understand it, the President gave the go ahead on this, so we're going ahead with this. You see a tension between Miller and Vance. Vance's perspective is basically, we're doing a favor to Europe by clearing out the Houthis because the Houthis are making it hard to do shipping in these lanes. And it's Europe's economy that relies on shipping in these lanes more than U.S. economy. The National Security Advisors jumps in there and is like, well, sort of your numbers are wrong. And actually like, yeah, those goods get to Europe first, but then they come to us. So it's kind of hard to assess. And then the other piece of this that will have follow on consequences is JD Vance basically rips on Europe and is. I'm paraphrasing, but like, I'm sick And tired of us taking action that helps out Europe, those, you know, cheap losers who don't pay for anything, we should not be getting their back. And later on, Pete Hegseth is like, yeah, I agree, Europe is all caps. Pathetic. Now, we already know that the US Is having tension with Europe, but until this point, Europe had reason to maybe wonder whether this wasn't just public posturing, chest thumping to appeal to the MAGA base. And with these texts in this private group, Europe realizes that this is actually a privately and deeply held worldview, and they do now have motivation to distance themselves from the US Develop their own military and go their own way without us.
- [39:27]
Jessica Yellen
And in fact, I think it showed, like, a complete lack of understanding of Vance and Hegseth, even from knowing the military capabilities of Europe. Because then I forget who it was. The military dude steps in and he's like, well, actually, to clarify, Europe couldn't take these military actions because they don't have the types of weapons that can do this. We are the only one who can do it. It's a really, really fascinating. You know, it. It's like, reminds me of the wizard of Oz where you're like, surely I hope that that behind the curtain there is some careful and thoughtful and professional deliberation and respect and honor to, you know, the sacrifices that people are making to do these things. And when you look behind the curtain and you see all caps, pathetic, and, you know, fist emojis, it feels very, very disheartening and frankly, like dishonoring of the people who are out there every day acting out and taking the actual risks for these types of missions.
- [40:55]
Amanda Doyle
And the people back in Washington who, you know, are, in essence, the civilian heads of these intelligence and military services have traditionally comported themselves, at least in the work capacity, with a level of, like, rigor, calm, and almost like nobility, because they're humbled by what they know the people on the front lines are doing, and they're there to keep them safe. And the fact that this group is so glib and they're just, like, walking around the streets, who knows where. Like, Tulsi Gabbard didn't say it, but the implication is clear. She was probably on her personal device walking around. She says she doesn't know where she was in Asia. And it's unthinkable. So to people who do this as their daily work, it's unimaginable to them that anybody would consider even a fraction of this recklessness with this kind of information and these lives and sources and methods and it raises a lot of questions about the competence, seriousness and even effectiveness of Trump's team. And the drumbeat of concern is mounting in a way where for the first time, it's quite plausible that Trump might have to either fire someone or, you know, there could be an independent investigation or if not, this will be such a stain that it will hang over them going forward.
- [42:35]
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- [43:31]
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- [45:34]
Jessica Yellen
Do we accept Expect any other so the House is grilling them today, which will be an interesting, interesting to see since this is the first day that the full texts have been revealed. It'll be interesting to see what the Republicans do in this case for people who, I mean it just doesn't pass the common sense sniff test of all of us out here who, who know what's required of us in our jobs, who know what the consequences are and who would be forced to face them to, to see this and be like, really?
- [46:16]
Amanda Doyle
Yes. And I will say two things. One is there is a push for an investigation. First, the FBI and either the CIA or Pentagon should be investigating. Basically. Was any, was there a foreign adversary in this chat? Like was anybody, was anyone's device penetrated? Is it. Who, what, what was the consequence of this? Second, there should be a top to bottom review of government practice and are they using signal and are they getting kicked off of using signal? Trump has suggested he do that. He even said Elon's going to get to the bottom of it. At one point they said Mike Waltz, who created the group will investigate himself. Um, I'm sure he's going to get to the bottom of how he texted a report or two. So. And there's a call for none of that. I expect to be serious. What could be serious is if one of these congressional committees conducts an investigation. Granted it's run by Republicans, so it won't be that damning, but even a little bit of a something wrong happened here is going to be consequential. Um, we should note like you know, we have to say these are the same people who were elected originally by attacking Hillary Clinton for having an email server that contained far, far, far, far, far less sensitive classified material on it. The let the kind of quote, classified material Hillary had on her server but her emails was like her schedule which was considered classified because if you had gotten it in advance, you could have bombed and killed her. But she would. It was shared five years after the fact. So it's not dangerous. Compare that to sharing active war plans before the planes are in the air. No comparison. So it just calls bullshit on all their attacks on Hillary and then their ass cover for their own misbehavior now. And the very important thing I just want to button up with is it has been consistently the case that when we talk about what will slow Trump in his tracks, it's when people in his own party and in his own base turn on him. And for the first time, we're seeing Republicans in Congress. Not many, but some emboldened to be moderately concerned, critical. And Laura Loomer, one of the big MAGA influencers, put up a whole post yesterday blasting the administration for their disgusting hypocrisy. They can't be trusted. They're as reckless as any Democratic administration. I'm sick of all of these people. So now you're starting to see a crack in the armor in MAGA World 2.
- [48:53]
Jessica Yellen
Wow, that's interesting. So that. Just because I never really understood the whole. But her emails, Hillary Clinton situation, that was because she.
- [49:06]
Abby Wambach
It's.
- [49:06]
Jessica Yellen
It's a parallel to this in function. Right. It was. It was on a. Her. She used a private server to send emails. So it wasn't one of these secure kind of government servers that would have been required, but she was just sending, like, her Secretary of State schedules.
- [49:28]
Amanda Doyle
Yes. Sometimes things get stamped classified that are really just like, you know, someone's memo and it doesn't have any operational details. And then you could send that. Like, let's say I send it to you, and then you send it to Glennon, and Glennon sends it to Abby, and we're now all in a group. And then we, like, start talking about, hey, y'all, do you want to get dinner next week? And then there's 52 emails that follow.
- [49:51]
Jessica Yellen
Right.
- [49:52]
Amanda Doyle
Every single time we're replying, we are, quote, sending classified information because it's way back in the chain, back and forth. So when they said she sent, like, whatever it was, many thousand classified emails, the nut number of actual classified original material things was very, very, very, very small. But it was the case that it was sent back and forth, back and forth like that on a group, in a group, many times. So that's how the number got to be so high. And the level of cla, like, the sensitivity of the information she shared was far, far, far, far, far lower than even a fraction of what we're seeing here.
- [50:31]
Jessica Yellen
Got it, Got it. And then what. What happened to her in that situation. I remember it was a huge hullabahoo and everyone was talking about it and Trump ran on it. But like, what, what they, what did Congress or actually do to her because of that fundamentally?
- [50:48]
Amanda Doyle
I mean, there are many people who think it was the FBI that did something and she lost the election, you know.
- [50:55]
Jessica Yellen
Oh, is that when Comey came out right before the election and said they were investigating her emails?
- [50:59]
Amanda Doyle
Yes. So what happened is this was like this topic of conversation and whenever she tried to say, know Trump is too sympathetic to Russia, Trump seems to be a little bit reckless. Why is he doing, you know, he's corrupt, all these things, everybody's like, stop talking about that. But your emails, let's talk. That's why it's called. But your emails, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Trump close to Putin, but let's talk about your emails. She had a problem, challenge getting her message out because it kept coming back to the emails. And finally, for a series of reasons we don't need to get into, the FBI decides to investigate whether she did breach high level classification protocols with his server. They announced this investigation, you know, at some distance before the election. But the problem is the FBI has this policy that it does not do anything that might interfere with politics in the. I don't remember if it's a month or two months before an election because the FBI wants to stay above and outside politics. That was before Cash Patel. James Comey breaks that tradition. And I can't remember if it was two or three days before the vote, calls a press conference and it's the subject of like international live coverage. It's the biggest story to happen. And he holds this press briefing where he says, basically because nothing was important in those classified documents and nobody intended to share them, we're not going to charge her with a crime. But I want to make clear that this was sloppy, careless, bad statecraft. And it speaks to a level of like, unprofessionalism that's deeply concerning to me and the FBI. And no one, basically, like no one in their right mind would ever do anything this stupid. And it's just a matter of fact that undecided voters make their decision in the last two or three days before the election. And based on exit interviews, you know, post game analysis, those undecided voters had it in their head that she's unprofessional, not credible, reckless, and either stayed home or voted against her. And that James Comey in that announcement is one of the central reasons Hillary Clinton lost that election. It's not you know, an article like I can't. It's just one of the components and widely assumed to be true.
- [53:16]
Jessica Yellen
Wow. And that was forwarding emails five years after the fact. And this is sharing war plans prior to our troops taking off to execute on them. Okay, so we only have a few more minutes, but can we circle back just to for a little update on what we talked about last week, which was this brewing constitutional battle between the the federal judiciary that was telling Trump he couldn't, he did a bad thing that was against the law when he forced the removal of those flights of Venezuelan nationals from the United States without a hearing.
- [54:14]
Amanda Doyle
So the status of this is. Trump invoked the Enemy Aliens act, which was written in the 1790s and has only been used three times in wartime, always in wartime. And the last time was to inter Japanese Americans during World War II. Use this to say that America's under attack by Venezuela because all these gang members from Venezuela are coming to the US with illegally. And it gives him superpowers to basically override the law. And so assuming he could do this, he used government resources to basically pick up off the street more than 200 men and without giving them a court hearing, without charging them, without presenting any evidence to any court anywhere about what their illegal activity was, put them on planes and shipped them to one of the world's most terrifying torture density, a prison in El Salvador that's known for its human rights abuses and overcrowding. Since that time, it's become lawyers for some of the men say my client is a makeup artist who has never been charged with any crime and is not a criminal and has been deported to this place. There's a barber who has no criminal record. There's a legitimate asylum seeker from Venezuela who was legally granted residency in the US because he was being tortured in Venezuela with no criminal record, who are now sitting in this prison without charges. And they were disappeared from our database of names of who's in the immigration system. They weren't allowed to call their families. So their family members for this harrowing period of time have no idea. Essentially the American government disappeared to these people with no recourse. So what's happened is that Democracy Forward and the aclu, we told people about Democracy Forward before sued and the case went before a federal judge, Judge Boasberg. I'm saying the name because you're going to hear it a lot. And the real challenge was to the use of this Enemy aliens Act, this 1790s law saying, you know, is that applicable here? Because you know, you have to. It says you have to be at war and are we at war with Venezuela? So he's deciding the constitutionality of applying the Enemy Aliens act here. There's a whole lot we could talk about, but basically he puts everything on hold and says no more deportations, no more flights. I don't even want to call it a deportation because that's a legal process that wasn't followed. I'd say a forced removal. No more forced removals. And he's pissed that they shipped these guys out while his case was actively being heard and he's questioning them about the Enemy Aliens Act. The government refuses to provide any information even outside court chambers. They invoke State Secrets Act. They say it's too classified. I can't tell you, Judge, any of the details. And P.S. judge, who the F do you think you are? You don't even have a right to talk to us because in doing so you're trying to circumvent the President's wartime foreign policy decision making. You're not the Commander in Chief. And in doing this, they're creating an until now, never before seen claim that the federal courts have no power to check the constitutionality of a President's actions as Commander in Chief. They're making a claim that's that we've never seen. But they want to create new standards. So the judges put all these forced removals on hold and the government appeals and goes to a higher court, the D.C. circuit Court, to say, will you override this judge? We want to do more forced removals. And also will you agree that he has no right to tell us what to do? And in a hearing that happened earlier this week, it went before a three judge panel. The, the one judge on the panel who was appointed by Obama said what you've done here, basically, I'm paraphrasing, was so blatantly unconstitutional. Shocking. These people didn't have a court hearing under US law, they must have a hearing or a way to push back. And because you've done it that way, it's a fact that even the Nazis were given more rights than these men. And that's because going way back after World War II or the tail end of World War II, Nazis fled to the US and tried to hide here. When they were discovered, the US would put them through the court system, have it revealed that they are in fact Nazis and had this Nazi history and they'd be shipped to the Hague to stand trial. Those Nazis got the court hearing, these Venezuelan men did not.
- [59:05]
Jessica Yellen
So that panel, are they Also, I'm wondering if they're also looking at because Judge Bosebert, when he, he had made an order that the flight stop or turn around and they did not. So there's a big open question as to whether the Trump administration just blatantly violated that judge's order. That issue is still with the lower court. Right. The only thing with the appellate court right now is does the Alien Enemies act allow the administration to do these forced removals and can they keep happening?
- [59:44]
Amanda Doyle
Yes. And I'm pretty sure that as a subcategory of that, another question is, does this federal judge even have the right to tell us what to do on this? Like, should this be what they weigh in on this? And as a concerning development, the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, in a press like talking to reporters, casually said basically they're frustrated that the federal courts are standing in the way of so many Trump policies. And Speaker Johnson floated the idea that maybe Congress should dissolve some of these federal courts. We have the power to eliminate them, we have the power to fund them, he said. And so we need to think about whether we should do that. I'm not. That's a paraphrase later. Obviously, the set off alarms because it seems like a aggressive attack on the checks and balances system. He said that wasn't meant as a threat. But I will add that he used to practice constitutional law.
- [60:42]
Jessica Yellen
Well, it'll be really interesting to see what the D.C. circuit of Appeals does because two of those judges are Republican appointed judges. So if they have a decision that says that the administration can't do this, it's going to be a real challenge to the administration's talking points now, which are that, oh, all these activist Democratic judges are making this decision, these decisions to thwart us. In fact, Judge Bosebert that they're trying to paint as an activist judge, an Obama appointee was not an original Obama appointee. He was appointed by President Bush to the federal courts and Obama just elevated him. So it's not, it'll be interesting to see what the court does and then what the response from the administration is.
- [61:45]
Amanda Doyle
And we fully expect that whatever the court decides, this will get appealed to the Supreme Court. So they'll end up have, they'll have to weigh in on this eventually.
- [61:54]
Jessica Yellen
Well, what shall we end with, Jessica? Is there anything good we can give the good people for having endured this madness?
- [62:03]
Amanda Doyle
Yes, I will. There's a little bit of first signs of life in the resistance and some Democratic voices emerging. We can get into this more another time. But Hakeem Jeffries has sort of gotten a little more aggressive. He's called for Pete Hegseth to be fired. There's a lot of talk that he needs to sort of lead rather than letting Schumer lead. We'll see what happens on that front. AOC and Bernie Sanders have been holding rallies around the country, and at a rally this weekend, they got 34,000 people to show up.
- [62:36]
Jessica Yellen
Wow.
- [62:37]
Amanda Doyle
Whatever your views of, like, the Democratic Party, people have different feelings. The fact that they're getting such a big turnout shows that there is a hunger for clarity and leadership, people stepping forward in the party, and that people will show up when it happens. And then finally, a number of, you know, advocacy groups have called for both boycotts to stop shopping, shop with your dollars. And stop shopping at companies that have complied with Trump's demand to eliminate any diversity policies. Their first Target was Target, and Target has. It's worked.
- [63:12]
Jessica Yellen
Target.
- [63:13]
Amanda Doyle
So it's working. Uh, Target. There's a video of one Target store that had all its lights off. They said they're just conserving energy, but they're just not getting shoppers. I'm hearing from my audience that, you know, Target's shopping parking lot is usually so full. Empty. Empty these days. And they really are their stock prices down, They've been struggling. And they've also announced a buy cot asking folks to start spending their dollars at places that have stood by their diversity policies. And they started with Costco, and Costco is booming. Not only is business up, there are some days lines are around the block, and there's video of people lined up for a long time to get into Costco. So.
- [63:56]
Jessica Yellen
Oh, I love this. This is so good. It's like the. Take it away from the people who are supporting the regime and give it to the people who are not. That's wonderful. And who doesn't need 16,000 cans of beans? I do.
- [64:14]
Amanda Doyle
Yeah. Go get your paper towels for the next four years.
- [64:19]
Jessica Yellen
Oh, that's wonderful. Okay, great. And you said something happened with Disney that was.
- [64:24]
Amanda Doyle
Yes. So Disney shareholders had to vote on whether Disney would continue to participate in a national report on diversity. And there was a campaign to get them to drop out of this report. And a lot of, you know, concern among some groups that they'd feel pressure to because it'd be considered better for business. The Human Rights Campaign and advocacy group for LGBTQ rights worked hard to try to encourage people to shareholders to stay in the report. And in the end, Disney shareholders voted by more than 99.0percent to continue to participate in the diversity report. They decided to do what they think was in the best interest of the employees and the company and not to pre comply out of pressure.
- [65:10]
Jessica Yellen
This is so amazing. It's a whole new take on the power of the purse. If Congress is not going to use their power of the purse, it might be up to the American people to do it that way and to withhold from the correct places and invest in the correct places. That's wonderful. I like that. Thanks for giving us something good to end on, Jessica.
- [65:38]
Amanda Doyle
It's good to have something good to end on.
- [65:40]
Jessica Yellen
Exactly. The soap opera will continue next week, no doubt. Thank you for listening. Take a deep breath everyone, and go on with your day and think carefully about where you shop. Let's breathe. We can breathe and We Can Do Hard Things. See you next week.
- [66:07]
Bill Schultz
If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you'd be willing to take 30 seconds to do do these three things first, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the POD helps you because you'll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important, important thing for the pod. While you're there, if you'd be willing to give us a five star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our Executive producer is Jenna Wise Berman and the show is produced by Lauren Legrasso, Allison Schott, and and Bill Schultz.