<Type: SHOW>

<Head: THE BEAT with Ari Melber for March 26, 2025, MSNBC>
<Sect: News; Domestic>
<Byline: Jen Psaki>
<Guest: Martin Heinrich, John Harwood>
<High: Group chat scandal exposes security risks: Intel Director
Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe face scrutiny over
classified information leaks. Political fallout from leaked
messages: Gabbard and Ratcliffe's conflicting responses raise
concerns about national security and government transparency.
MSNBC analysis of classified leaks: Experts debate the
implications of exposed discussions on U.S. military actions and
intelligence credibility.>
<Spec: Group Chat Scandal; Security Risks; Classified
Information; Intel Director; Tulsi Gabbard; CIA Director; John
Ratcliffe; Scrutiny; Leaks; Political Fallout; Leaked Messages;
Conflicting Responses; National Security; Government
Transparency; MSNBC Analysis; Classified Leaks; Experts Debate;
Implications; Exposed Discussions; U.S. Military Actions;
Intelligence Credibility; Political Scandal; Media Coverage;
Testimony; Congressional Inquiry; Cybersecurity; Intelligence
Community; Whistleblower; Government Oversight; Policy Impact>

[18:30:28]

PSAKI: We're back with more follow-up from the group chat
scandal. Intel Director Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John
Ratcliffe facing tough questions about the security perils of
that chat.

Politico calling their response "chaotic," with Gabbard and

Ratcliffe both claiming there was no classified information
involved, which is quite a claim because we know so much more
now.

Their answers also obviously look quite different in light of the

actual text messages released by the Atlantic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN RATCLIFFE, CIA DIRECTOR: I don't know Jeffrey Goldberg and I

don't, I've already testified, I don't know whether or how he was
at it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The discussion included the vice president's

private opinion on the wisdom of proposed U.S. strikes in Yemen,
correct?

RATCLIFFE: I don't recall.

TULSI GABBARD, INTEL DIRECTOR: I don't recall specific weapons

systems being named.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did this conversation at some point include

information on weapons packages, targets, or timing?

RATCLIFFE: Not that I'm aware of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: The text I've showed exact timings and weapon system
names. We read them earlier, yet they don't recall. They were
literally on the text chain. The Atlantic reporting that
Ratcliffe also shared the, also said they shared, that he shared
the identity of a CIA official, which they have kept redacted
because that person is an active officer.

That's the decision the Atlantic made. Ratcliffe was pressed on

this issue by Senator Martin Heinrich.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARTIN HEINRICH (D-NM): There was no classified agent

mentioned as part of this story. Normally, that would be
classified information, so I guess what I'm asking, actually did
you just determine it was not classified or was there any
declassification after the fact?

RATCLIFFE: I communicated the name of a CIA officer not operating

undercover completely appropriate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: Joining me now is that very senator you just, saw Martin
Heinrich, of New Mexico. Senator, I know you've been living this
trying to get more information trying to ask very valid
legitimate questions over the last couple of days. You hadn't
seen, though, the text messages until this morning when the
Atlantic --

HEINRICH: Just like everyone else.

PSAKI: Just like everybody else. What did you think when you read
them?

HEINRICH: Well, I thought, how could you come and testify in

front of Congress and not think, given everything that's gone on,
that the details would come out? So, when you have the director
of the CIA, when you have the DNI just, just brazenly lying to
Congress.

How could they not think that this wasn't going to come out at
some point or that we wouldn't get to the bottom of it. It
really, it's, it's deeply disappointing.

PSAKI: I mean, there are receipts and there was a journalist not
of his own accord on this group chat. You pressed him and this
stuck out to me when I first read the story on Monday, and I
talked with Jeffrey Goldberg on Monday night, and he brought this
up too, and you pressed him on the CIA director releasing the
name of somebody who was a covert operative or somebody who
should not be released by any standard. Now, what Ratcliffe said
is that the CIA officer he named isn't undercover, therefore it's
appropriate.
HEINRICH: I've never seen that line of theory used in the past.
We normally would just not use people's names in these
circumstances, and and it creates risk regardless of what the
director may think. Having those names out in the open is not
something that we that we ever want.

PSAKI: I think it's important just because I think this is such a

piece that doesn't get enough attention and you press them so
well on this. Just because you have high-level security
clearance, as senators do and people in administrations do, it
doesn't mean you know the name of covert operatives.

And it doesn't mean that everybody on that signal chat knew the
name beyond Jeffrey Goldberg. There's a reason why it's kept to
smaller groups. You also pressed, of course, we showed part of
this, Gabbard and Ratcliffe, on the details of the text messages.
So, let's just play that for a moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEINRICH: Did this conversation at some point include information

on weapons packages, targets, or timing?

RATCLIFFE: Not that I'm aware of.

HEINRICH: Director Gabbard, same question.

GABBARD: Same answer and defer to the Department of Defense on

that question.

HEINRICH: Well, those are two different answers, but you're

saying that did not, that was not part of the conversation.

GABBARD: That's my knowledge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:35:02]

PSAKI: No, Secretary Hegseth also lied about this, that they
weren't the only people lying about it. They were sitting there
under oath, testifying in Congress. It was a text chain they were
on. Hard to imagine they didn't remember those details, but did
they lie to you?

HEINRICH: Yes, they did lie to us. And it's hard to imagine for
me that they didn't all go over the text chain the night before,
in the run up to even the morning, knowing that this was in the
news already. So, it's incredibly disappointing to see how
cavalierly they misrepresented this.

And obviously, I hadn't seen those parts of the text chain at

that point, but I suspected, and what we would normally really be
concerned about showing up outside of what we call the high side,
the secure communications infrastructure that we use, are these
operational details because that is what can put service members
at risk.
And this is a case where real lives are on the line. There were
details, there were intelligence details in these exchanges that
may well have put people's lives, as we heard from the general
earlier.

PSAKI: Yes, the general is making this point and they're still at
risk now, and this now gives the Houthis a better understanding
of how these communications happen and some of our adversaries.

Let me ask you, I mean, Senator Roger Wicker came out and said
today that the Senate Armed Services Committee is seeking an
expedited I.G. investigation, which it feels absolutely
appropriate. It would happen under any circumstance.

He is a Republican senator. We haven't heard that from a lot of

other Republican senators or any others that I'm aware of
publicly at this point, but you talked to them privately. Is
there, do you think more could come out? Is there more who might
call for that?

HEINRICH: I really hope more do come out because the private

conversations are, people know this was wrong. People know that
it was reckless. No one wants to defend this in the public, even
if you watch the worldwide threat assessment hearing in its
totality, you didn't hear Republicans coming to the defense of
this kind of recklessness. And so, we'll just have to see, you
know, there's this palpable fear of saying anything critical of
Team Trump.

And to his credit, I think Roger Wicker did what anyone would
normally do in this in this situation, which is just to say,
like, let's get to the bottom of it.

PSAKI: That's what I.G.s are supposed to do. Hence why it's so
problematic that a number of them were fired.

Senator, thank you so much and thank you for continuing to press
on this issue. I know there's many, many more questions out
there.

HEINRICH: We're not done yet.

PSAKI: I know you're not. I hope, we'll look forward to talking

to you again.

Still ahead, Marco Rubio's attacks on Hillary Clinton's e-mails

are not aging well, to put it lightly. We'll get into that, I'll
walk you through it.

But first we're going to talk about new polling that's out and
how it's pretty bad for Trump on this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[18:42:35]
JIMMY FALLON, COMEDIAN: Yes, today Trump said it'll never happen
again and from now on, they'll only talk about war plans over
Snapchat. It's here and then boom, it's gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: We don't know that nothing happens on Snapchat. I'm

doubtful that they can use it, but who knows? Maybe we'll find
out in the future.

OK, so tonight the first polling on the Signal Scandal is out.

It's only been two days, but it's not good for the White House.
Americans view it as more serious than Trump's classified
documents. You remember that on the screen. And of course, than
Hillary Clinton's e-mails.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans, 74 percent, say the Signal

leak is either somewhat or very serious, including 60 percent of
Republicans. All this from YouGov. Someone else who finds it
serious it seems is apparently Donald Trump.

Since the scandal broke, Trump has publicly supported Mike Waltz,
his National Security Adviser, but Politico reports that behind
closed doors, "The president was pissed that Waltz could be so
stupid."

Now, what most presidents, Democrats and Republicans, not named

Trump would be far more pissed about I will tell you, is the fact
that his national security team was sharing details about a
sensitive military operation on a group chat, but this is not a
normal president or a normal presidency.

Now, since Trump's focus is on the adding of the journalist part,

it's really probably not a surprise that Fox's Laura Ingraham
also press Waltz on that detail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE WALTZ, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: I don't know this guy. He

wasn't on my phone and we're going to figure out how this
happened.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: So, you don't know what
staffer is responsible for this right now?

WALTZ: Well, look, a staffer wasn't responsible, and look, I take

full responsibility.

INGRAHAM: How did the number get in his chat?

WALTZ: Have you ever had somebody's contact that shows their
name, and then you have somebody else's number there?

INGRAHAM: Oh, I never made those mistakes. But how did it end up
in your phone?

WALTZ: That's what we're trying to figure out. So, the person
that I thought was on there was never on there. It was --
INGRAHAM: Who was that person supposed to be?

WALTZ: Well I'm not, look, Laura I take, I take responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: OK. I can't say this too many times. Jeffrey Goldberg
being included on the Signal Chat is far from the most important
issue here. But what that interview does show you is some of the
pressure on Trump's hand-picked National Security Advisor Michael
Waltz and what he's getting from the right. Now, the Conservative
National Review magazine is also calling for Trump to fire Pete
Hegseth, and that's just two days into all of this.

Joining me now is John Harwood, a veteran D.C. Correspondent and

now a distinguished Fellow at Duke University. So, you have seen
spin from all sorts of people from every administration trying to
explain things that are controversial. What do you make of their
efforts in this moment?

JOHN HARWOOD, VETERAN D.C. CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're

ridiculous. They're transparently nonsense. Like you heard from
Mike Waltz there. Oh do you ever have somebody's name in your
phone and somebody another person's phone number? What is he even
talking about?

PSAKI: He also said that he wants Elon Musk to like look into the
best tech experts to help. It's like let me explain to you how
Signal works. You have to hand enter each person into form a
group chat. But anyway, continue.

HARWOOD: And, you know, they're trying to make this distinction

attack plan, war plan, also ridiculous. And I do think that's one
of the reasons why this makes this dangerous for Trump is you got
the National Review, you've got several senators now speaking up,
perhaps feeling a little guilty of having voted to confirm Pete
Hegseth. But this is a case where the incompetence and the
dishonesty are now so obvious and so many people are being made
aware of it.

I think this is damaging for him. They normally brazen their way
through because Republican media will take the spin and run with
it and say, oh, well it was Jeff Goldberg's fault. But I think
that's not sufficient now and Donald Trump himself, for all his
blustering about the press, he follows the mainstream media and I
think he has a sense of when he's being embarrassed. I think he
knows he's being embarrassed right now.

PSAKI: I think that's pretty clear because he's trying to kind of

move away from this. We do, he did do a podcast this morning, I
think it was this morning. I just want to play that because I
want to get your thoughts on that. It's very consistent with what
you just said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It's something that is not a big
deal, other than you want to find out who did it and how they did
it, because you don't want to happen in the future. You can't
have that happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: Now, we don't really know like how they did it and who did
it, but all the reporting suggests that his focus is really on
this, how did Jeffrey Goldberg get on there, and did Michael
Waltz have his contact in his phone? That is not an important
issue?

[18:47:13]

I mean, I do wonder about that, but the important question any

president, as I said earlier, would be asking, I think, is why is
my national security team having these sensitive conversations?
What did you make, what does Trump's answer tell you?

HARWOOD: Well, Donald Trump cares exclusively about himself. And

so, the idea that there was a risk associated with the way this
went down and that, you know, there was a danger that our pilots
could get shot down, that kind of thing, that doesn't really
register with him. What registers with him is bad press and
things that hurt Donald Trump. And I think, you know, he sounded
a little haggard there. And I think he knows he's, and his team
have really stepped in it.

PSAKI: He also typically gets support from the right wing media.
It's not universal right now. We'll see what happens. I just want
to play how Fox News is downplaying it too. So, I think it's
interesting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Maybe he manually put a phone number in and it

was the wrong phone number.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it happened to be that journalist?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: The outrage from the left
over a reporter accidentally being added, a one-off, one-time,
minor accident.

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Yes, you read some things
you probably shouldn't have, it was an accident. Accidents happen
when you're taking action.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: They're trying real hard there. What do you think?

HARWOOD: Well, they are, as they usually do, manning the battle
stations, but they're really undercut when you see the National
Review saying Pete Hegseth thought it get fired. The Wall Street
Journal editorial page also chastised the administration today.

So, I think they look a little silly trying to do that. And

they're also not addressing, as you indicated earlier, the real
threat, which is they're exchanging classified information on a
commercial app.

And it is the kind of thing that -- I can't imagine any other

White House that I've covered, apart from Trump's, because they
are uniquely, especially in the second term, uniquely
incompetent.

But George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, no, this
would never happen.

PSAKI: No question Jeffrey Goldberg said the same thing to me on

Monday night. John Harwood, always great to see you. Thank you so
much for joining me.

Coming up next, hypocrisy as the GOP gives Trump officials a pass

after blasting Hillary Clinton for her e-mails. Remember those e-
mails? They seem quaint now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:54:23]

PSAKI: So, many of the Trump officials embroiled in the Signal

scandal are also on record talking about the importance of
protecting classified information. God bless archive videos,
there's a lot out there. So, it's pretty revealing to hear what
they are saying now, how it compares to what they said back then.
I mean, compare Pete Hegseth's dismissive and defensive comments
this week to what he said about Hillary Clinton using her
personal e-mail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 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, and the timing?

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: I've heard I was

characterized, nobody was texting war plans and that's all I have
to say about that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People have gone to jail for one-one hundredth

of what, even 1 one thousandth of what Hillary Clinton did. It's
all ridiculous, it's all over the top, it's all criminal.

HEGSETH: My job, as it's said atop of that, everybody's seen it

now, team update, is to provide updates in real time. General
updates in real time, keep everybody informed.

If you are using unclassified means, there is the potential for

and likelihood that foreign governments are targeting those
accounts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: Wow. Archived video footage of Fox News. That sure is

tough for Pete Hegseth. Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a
different tone than Hegseth today. He conceded that it was "a
mistake to add a journalist to the group chat." Yes. But he took
a dramatically different tone downplaying the scandal rather than
hype it as of course he definitely did with Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): The White House is looking at it but

that none of the information on there at any point threatened the
operation of the lives of our servicemen.

We're going to talk about how she used her e-mail server
irresponsibly and recklessly thereby putting American information
potentially in the hands of our enemies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKO: Now, the scandal of course engulfing Hegseth and Rubio and
many other top Trump officials, forcing them to confront their
own self-professed standards. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:00:30]

PSAKI: That does it for me this hour. I'm going to be back at

10:00 p.m. Eastern tonight. Symone Sanders-Townsend is up next.

END