Latest / The Front / Nobody’s fired: How Donald Trump is handling an epic group chat fail

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Nobody’s fired: How Donald Trump is handling an epic group chat fail · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's Friday, March twenty eight, twenty twenty five. Peter Dutton
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: has used his Budget reply speech to attack labor and
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the Prime Minister on energy, defense and the economy.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: We will immediately introduce an East Coast gas reservation. We
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: will defund the activist led Environmental Defender's Office. We will
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: cut the permanent migration program by twenty five percent. We
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: will ban foreign investors and temporary residents from purchasing existing
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Australian homes for a period of two years.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: But we're on the way to an election, with the
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Prime Minister tip to visit the Governor General this morning.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: New South Wales Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan has responded to correspondence
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: from the brother of missing Lennox Head mother Bromwin Winfield.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Andy Reid, says he's hopeful the case is now headed
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: in the right direction. Years after a owner recommended Bromwin's
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: husband John Winfield, be charged with murder, He's always denied
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: any wrongdoing. You can read that story and listen to
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: a new episode of the Bromwin Podcast right now at
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: brominpodcast dot com, a military operation, a group text thread,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and one big question. How did the Trump administration text
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: its own war plans to a journalist? That's today's episode.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: A floor below the Oval Office in the storied West
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: wing of the White House, the Situation Room is where
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  Speaker 1: the President and his top officials watch the highest dramas
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  Speaker 1: play out surgical strikes.
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  Speaker 3: Duck did an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the
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  Speaker 3: leader of al.
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  Speaker 4: Kadom attacks, in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist
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  Speaker 4: acts assassinations.
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  Speaker 5: President Kennedy died at one Central Standard time.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: The Situation Room was actually established by John F. Kennedy
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: in the early nineteen sixties after the intelligence catastrophe of
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the Bay of Pigs invasion, as a sacred space to
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: talk freely. Earlier this month, America did have a situation.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Its forces were dropping bombs on hoofy rebels in Yemen, who,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: with backing from Iran, have been attacking civilian shipping. The
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: most senior officials were following the action in real time,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: except because this is twenty twenty five, the conversation was
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  Speaker 1: happening outside the Situation Room in a group chat on
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  Speaker 1: an encrypted messaging app. Called signal. We've used AI voices
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: to bring parts of that text exchange to life. Defense
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  Speaker 1: Secretary Pete Hesith told a group of his most senior
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  Speaker 1: colleagues what was about to happen in just two hours time.
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  Speaker 5: Of eighteen's launch. First Strike package trigger based F eighteen
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: first Strike Windows starts target terrorist is at his known location,
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  Speaker 5: so should be on time. Also Strike drone's launch. Godspeed
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: to our warriors.
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  Speaker 1: Vice President J. D Vance jumped in.
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  Speaker 6: I will say a prayer for victory.
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  Speaker 1: After the strikes began, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who'd
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: created the group chat.
• 3:26
  Speaker 7: Wrote, building collapse had multiple positive id amazing job.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Jd Vance was confused what Waltz.
• 3:35
  Speaker 7: Replied, piping too fast? The first target their top missile guide.
• 3:41
  Speaker 7: We had positive idea of him walking into his girlfriend's building,
• 3:44
  Speaker 7: and it's now collapsed.
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  Speaker 1: CIA director John Radcliffe a good start. Mike Waltz then
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  Speaker 1: dropped three emojis into the chat, a feast, an American flag,
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  Speaker 1: and a flame. Also in the chat were Secretary of
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: State Marco Rubio, National Intelligence Director Telsey Gabbard, and a
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of a Washington
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  Speaker 1: DC magazine The Atlantic.
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  Speaker 6: It's a terrible mistake, terrible blunder.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Joe Kelly is the Australian's correspondent in Washington, DC.
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  Speaker 4: It's a who's who in the Trump administration, all discussing
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: as sensitive operational details about military strikes. So it seems
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: pretty unprecedented to me. This is a fly on the
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: wall situation, really, And you'd have to say that there's
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: a lot of justified criticism about the decisions to use
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  Speaker 4: this app to share such sensitive information about an operation
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: that's unfolding in real time.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, using the chat is one thing, but having a
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  Speaker 1: journalist quietly lurking in the corner of the room is
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  Speaker 1: quite another, isn't it.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, it is so.
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  Speaker 4: Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlanta appears to have been inadvertently
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: looped in by Mike Watz and then later invited into
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  Speaker 4: this particular chat group on the military operation targeting the Hoothies.
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  Speaker 1: And He's not just any journalist, is he. He's someone
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  Speaker 1: who Trump has described as a sleezebag and a creep
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  Speaker 1: and a wire in the past before this.
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  Speaker 4: I think this is interesting because, knowing Trump all his
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: political instincts, I think now will be to try and
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: push back against the Atlantic, against Goldberg. This is what
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: Trump likes. He doesn't like to admit mistakes.
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  Speaker 1: Sensitive government conversations are happening on signal in probably every
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  Speaker 1: jurisdiction in the world. People who work in government are
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  Speaker 1: just like the rest of us. We all live on
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  Speaker 1: our phones in group chats. Most of us have access
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  Speaker 1: to an official work sanction channel we could be using
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  Speaker 1: like Google Chat or Slack. But the appeal of signal
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  Speaker 1: is that it's informal and encrypted. That means government officials
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  Speaker 1: know what they say on signal chats is unlikely to
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  Speaker 1: be discoverable by freedom of information requests.
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  Speaker 6: For example, I don't think it's improper.
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  Speaker 4: That's probably not a surprising answer coming from a journalist.
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  Speaker 6: The issue is that.
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  Speaker 4: You don't want something to be in writing if it's sensitive.
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  Speaker 4: But I would have thought that is one hundred times
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  Speaker 4: more the case if you are actually revealing and discussing
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  Speaker 4: details about a military operation, particularly if there's a chance
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  Speaker 4: that those details could be compromised, that the mission itself
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  Speaker 4: could be put at risk, that lies could be put
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  Speaker 4: at risk. There were real life, pretty severe consequences from
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: doing that if things went wrong.
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  Speaker 1: This chat also contains substantive discussions, like before all the
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: bombing started, about whether the raids on the Hoofies were
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  Speaker 1: a good idea or not. He's JD.
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  Speaker 6: Vance, I think we are making a mistake.
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  Speaker 3: Three percent of US trade runs through the Suez, forty
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  Speaker 3: percent of European trade does. There is a real risk
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  Speaker 3: that the public doesn't understand this or why it's necessary.
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  Speaker 1: And then Vance raises Trump using his acronym POTUS for
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: President of the United States.
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  Speaker 3: The strongest reason to do this is, as Potus said,
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  Speaker 3: to send a message. But I am not sure the
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  Speaker 3: President is aware how inconsistent this is with his message
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  Speaker 3: on Europe. Right now, there's a further risk that we
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: am willing to support the consensus of the team and
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: keep these concerns to myself, but there is a strong
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  Speaker 3: argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work
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  Speaker 3: on why this matters, seeing where the economy.
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  Speaker 1: Is et ce Ceeia directed John Ratcliffe response, saying the
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: intelligence agency could use a delay to identify better starting
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: points for coverage on Hoofy leadership, that is targets. Heg
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: sith outlines some of the risks of waiting.
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: One this leaks and we look indecisive. Two Israel takes
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: an action first, or Gaza ceasefire falls apart and we
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: don't get to start this on our own terms.
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  Speaker 7: Mike Woltz, whether it's now or several weeks from now,
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  Speaker 7: it will have to be the United States that reopens
• 8:27
  Speaker 7: these shipping lanes, and jd Vance responds, if.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: You think we should do it, let's go. I just
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: hate bailing Europe out again.
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  Speaker 4: The comments from jd Vance in particular, I thought were
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: particularly revealing. I mean, he's questioning whether this is the
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: sort of thing that they really should be doing, because
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: he says not much of US trade goes through the
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  Speaker 4: Sewers Canal. He says, it's mostly European trade that goes
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: through it. Does America really want to get involved given
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: the recalorration that's going on between America and Europe more generally, Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Jd Vance really says the quiet part out loud too,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: doesn't it. He says he's not sure the President is
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  Speaker 1: aware how inconsistent bombing the hoofies is with his message
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  Speaker 1: on Europe right now, which is that they have to
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  Speaker 1: stand alone, and America is not going to help them
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  Speaker 1: out anymore.
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  Speaker 4: The point I always think about what will Donald Trump
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  Speaker 4: do when something is brought to his attention? And the
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  Speaker 4: starting assumption that I have a lot of journalists have,
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  Speaker 4: and it seems people inside the administration have, is they
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  Speaker 4: assume I don't think the President knows this, but once
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  Speaker 4: the president finds out, he might actually take a pretty
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  Speaker 4: firm view on something. So look, I often wonder whether
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump is aware that America is supposed to provide
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: or sell US three Virginia Class submarines. Does he know that?
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  Speaker 4: He asked what UCUS was a couple of weeks ago.
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  Speaker 4: So I think this shows there is this feeling at
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  Speaker 4: the upper levels of the administration.
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  Speaker 6: Does the President know this?
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  Speaker 1: Do you think we can draw from this that it's
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: actually jd. Vance who has the problem with Europe and
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: that he's the isolationist, and that that's not Donald Trump's
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  Speaker 1: instinct necessarily.
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  Speaker 6: I think we've known for a long time that jd.
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  Speaker 4: Vance has this particular view towards Europe, that he does
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  Speaker 4: support a recalibration of that relationship, that he's been very
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: skeptical of the support that's been going towards Ukraine. It
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: was really him who started the fight with Zelenski in
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  Speaker 4: the Oval office. But I don't think Donald Trump is
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  Speaker 4: a reluctant participant in this. Donald Trump in his first
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: term did the same thing by trying to get all
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: the European members of NATO to ramp up their defense spending.
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  Speaker 4: I think it's pretty quick as well that the president's
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: on the same page.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. Donald Trump says they'll be having those conversations
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: back in the situation room from now on. But will
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: he fire anyone over this fiasco we're seeing. In response
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  Speaker 1: to this, Donald Trump being quite benevolent and forgiving of
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Mike Waltz, who's had to admit that he did make
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: this mistake. The President has said maybe in future, we'll
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  Speaker 1: have to have these conversations in person, and we won't
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: be using signal anymore. Do you think that's just because
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: it's too early in the administration to start throwing people
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: under the bus. We know Donald Trump likes firing people.
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  Speaker 1: Why is he not firing Mike Waltz.
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  Speaker 4: Look, I don't think it's too early to start firing people.
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: I don't think that's something that Donald Trump would be
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  Speaker 4: concerned about I think he thinks making a decision to
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: fire someone over this will look weak.
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  Speaker 6: That's what I think his calculation is, and he doesn't
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  Speaker 6: want to give in to that media pressure.
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  Speaker 4: He doesn't want to allow the Atlantic to have a
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: win and to claim a scalp. So his political instinct
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: is to double down and call us a witch hunt,
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: defend Mike Waltz, defend Pete Haigseth. If he can't, then
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  Speaker 4: he might in time consider firing someone over it. But
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: I don't think that's his first instinct. He'll want to
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: try and ride it out first, Joe.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: People like us are having serious conversations of whether this
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: is a breach of national security and was national security
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: or classified information included. But for Trump's base, the Americans
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: who voted for him, do you think they are going
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: to think less of Donald Trump or less of the
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: administration because this has happened.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: I think it will raise questions about the experience of
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: Pete Hegseth. This seems to be in a pretty rookie
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: kind of mistake to have made. But I don't think
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: it will be a major concern for most Trump supporters
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: and the Trump base. I think they'll be pleased that
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: the operation happened. The administration has been drawing attention to
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: the fact that this operation was a success, and so
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of Trump's base will pick up
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  Speaker 4: on that rather than this debate about the signal app
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: and the communication of the plan.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Joe Kelly is The Australian's correspondent in Washington, DC. With
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: an election now just weeks away, the best place to
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: stay in touch is the Australian dot com dot au
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: to make sure you don't miss a thing.