What was shared over signal then and now, however you characterize it was informal, unclassified, coordinations for media coordination and other things. That's what I've said from the beginning. At the beginning, it was left wing reporters from the Atlantic who got [00:00:15] a hold of it and then wanted, wanted to create a problem for the president. Got Ahold of it is an interesting way to put that, but that was Defense Secretary and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth defending the use of the messaging app signal in his official capacity in [00:00:31] the work he's doing over at the Pentagon. However, this isn't a new story, but it turns out that the extent to which the app was used in some in the the Pentagon is a lot more than what we previously thought. Jake, before we get into the details of this story, why is this an important story [00:00:49] for the American people to care about? Turns out that you might not want to pick a weekend Fox and Friends host to be the secretary of defense. If if any story involves national security. It's this one, and they're leaking like a sieve. [00:01:04] I want to point out a massive hypocrisy a little bit later in this story. But mainly the question that this that arises for me and, and we'll dive into the details here or the deets, as the kids say, and see what it is, because now I'm beginning to think maybe this isn't like [00:01:23] America First or Israel machinations, etc. Just might be that Hegseth is, like, enormously incompetent. Like there might be a really simple explanation, but let's hear the so-called deets and see what we decide. I got the deets. I have all of it for you. [00:01:39] Okay, so according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, Hegseth had at least a dozen signal chats going, many of which he started himself. Even though the app has not been approved for discussing sensitive information. So here's reporting from the Wall Street Journal. In one case, he told aides on the encrypted app to inform [00:01:57] foreign governments about an unfolding military operation, the people said. He also used the non-governmental message service to discuss media appearances, foreign travel, his schedule and other unclassified but sensitive information to people, said. [00:02:13] And the people that they keep referring to in the article, those are the journal sources. Hegseth used the app to send messages both from an unsecured line in the Pentagon as well as from his personal phone. And it turns out this was unknown before that, some of the messages from Hegseth [00:02:30] were actually sent by his military aide, Marine Colonel Ricky Berry, who had access to headsets. Personal phone. For instance, it was actually Berry who sent messages on signal regarding the US attack on the Houthi militants in Yemen. It was, of course, after a journalist from the Atlantic [00:02:47] was added to this group that we all became privy to all of this knowledge. The story went viral, and that led to an investigation at the Pentagon into the Pentagon's operations under Hegseth. In an attempt to get some kind of a fallout or Fall guy was able to keep [00:03:05] his job, but National Security Advisor Mike Waltz did lose his job. And this this move was panned by a lot of people, but it was seen widely as a move on Trump's behalf because he wanted to keep Hegseth around. Right. That's a Trump appointee that is a Trump sycophant. [00:03:22] He's going to do whatever it takes to push and promote Trump's agenda and to say whatever he needs to say. Meanwhile, Mike Waltz, not so much. Mike Waltz did not agree with Trump on everything 100% of the time, and it seemed like Trump was just happy for an excuse to get rid of a guy like that. [00:03:38] So here is more from the report. Among the messages posted in some of the other chats by Hegseth were his thoughts on personnel matters, Pentagon programs facing cuts, and details of administration national security debates. The text authorizing aides to tell allies about military operations are [00:03:57] among the most sensitive messages he sent. Instead of using the Pentagon's vast communications network headset preferred signal to run the Defense Department's day to day operations, the people said. Among those he added to chats were members of his security detail, [00:04:13] staffers in his personal office and that of the deputy secretary, as well as public affairs aides. So there are a few obvious concerns with using this app for handling these very, very classified or at least sensitive information that is [00:04:29] being passed and discussed in this app. So for one, these apps are susceptible to hacking. So potentially a lot of what is being discussed in these apps could end up in the wrong hands or just in the hands of people who are not authorized to have this information, which is most people. [00:04:44] Right. Including, you know, heat heads, wife and brother, and the journalist from the Atlantic. There are other concerns, with the reporting, the official reporting of the content of the apps, because some of Pete Headset's messages were deleted from the app, [00:05:00] or they disappeared before they could actually be added to the official record and more from the from the Wall Street Journal says DoD personnel won't use Non-dod accounts or personal email accounts, messaging systems or other nonpublic DoD information systems except approved or [00:05:18] authorized government contractor systems to conduct official business. So, Jake, I know you have a lot to say about this. It is very concerning that the extent to which that this app has been used, even though it's not, it's it's not recommended for [00:05:34] for information that could be classified. And the things that they're discussing on here are, you know, very, very high level information, very sensitive information regarding exact timing of military, airplanes and, and missiles being dropped and things like that. [00:05:50] So it is kind of scary. Not kind of it is very scary as a matter of national security, which is funny because Trump likes to say that everything is a is a issue with national security, but this one actually is, and he seems to be brushing it under the rug all in an attempt to just protect Pete Hegseth. [00:06:06] Yeah, that's really a good point, because later in the show, live 6 to 8 p.m. Eastern every day, we're going to talk about how he's going to try reviving Hollywood because it's a national security threat if they make movies out of Vancouver. [00:06:22] Is it is that a national security threat? You know, what's a national security threat? Hey, here's who we're bombing. And when we're bombing them and what, methods we're using. Oh. Oops. It's in an unsecured place. That's an actual national security threat. Movies out of Vancouver? [00:06:38] Not as much, but. So he doesn't care. But he. Of course, we all know this. He doesn't care about any policy or anything that's real or national security. He just cares about what things look like. Right? He's out of central casting, I like him. [00:06:54] Vancouver not out of central casting. Hollywood out of central casting. Hollywood invented central casting. We're going back there, right? We'll tell you later why he's obsessed with that and Alcatraz and stuff. Okay, but back to this story. So let's now note the hypocrisy. [00:07:11] Hillary's emails. I can't believe it was in an unsecured place. Unsecured. Hillary's emails. It is the greatest violation of national security ever. This is all non secured. [00:07:27] And what's interesting is that they chose to do I mean Hegseth is probably on TV crying about Hillary's emails about 2000 times right. And then he goes in, he becomes secretary of defense and he's like, oh, let's do what Hillary did. Let's just go totally unsecured right away. [00:07:43] Right away. Don't even like, oh, it was an accident or it happened later after I got burned by the, you know, people in the internal system. And there was something went. No, no, no. He's like, let's go illegal right away. And what's the illegal part? Number one, it's against the rules to to go to an unsecured app. [00:08:00] Right. But also number two, the more illegal thing. If something can be more illegal, yeah, it'll be it could be a harsher sentence, etc. Is if you delete these things because you're supposed to keep them as part of the record for the executive branch. [00:08:17] And why do you think they're going on signal. So they could delete them so that people can't see them. Which by the way, was the same reason that Hillary did it. And so we're like, I don't know if we're the only show left in America that is not biased, but it was wrong when Hillary did it. It's wrong when Pete Hegseth does it. [00:08:33] But for Hegseth and Fox News and all those guys. Are there, right? Like, I mean meltdown for years and years and years. And but look this is so Hegseth does it now Mike Wallace does it. They all do it. But remember in the first administration, the minute they went in, [00:08:51] the Trump kids did it, Ivanka did it, Jared Kushner did it. And he was in charge of Middle East policy. And they're like, I guess they love Hillary Clinton. They view her as a role model. And they're like, you know what? Anything she does may made. And maybe I was going to say that maybe they'll do speeches to the banks next. [00:09:09] But that's just amateur hour. Hillary got like a couple hundred thousand dollars of speech. Jared Kushner was like, I got 2 billion from the Saudis. Eric Trump just yesterday was like, I got 2 billion from the United Arab Emirates. Corruption. Hunter Biden, you amateur. Hillary Clinton, you novice. Okay. [00:09:26] Taking it in the hundreds of thousands or millions, we're taking it in the billions. So all this is reality. Like what is like from here to the end of his term? Is hardcore MAGA going to say about every story? [00:09:42] It's fake news, even though they all admit it. Everything is fake news. Haig said there's a genius and a military strategist. I saw him play risk once. I can't believe that he started in, you know, Australia and New Zealand, and he expanded out in one guise. [00:09:58] - He supposed that Fox. - And Friends on the weekends. Are we? Who are we? This is. Remember he threw the freaking ax in on some stupid stunt that they did for Fox and Friends and threw it over the target and nearly killed the bad guy. You know, behind the target. [00:10:13] This is not a like, like some rocket scientist. And also, this is so absurd. It's like. It's like, imagine if Bernie won and he's like, no, my new secretary of defense, Brett Erlich from Happy Half Hour. I mean, Brett's only 2000 times smarter than Hegseth, but it would be surprising. [00:10:34] So you pick a clown, you get a clown. I'm beginning to think that that's the simple answer here. That. That there isn't, like, some sophisticated. Hey, is that the neocons or not? The neocons that exists in parts of the government. But for Hegseth, I think it's mainly like, anyway, I, I don't want to get into [00:10:53] speculation about why he's a hot mess. Right? But he's clearly a hot mess. I kind of love the idea of Brett Erlich in our government. For better or for worse. You know, at Lisa would be entertaining for a lot of people, including me. So, there is one little addendum to this story that I want to get to quickly. [00:11:12] So Trump insists that despite appearances, Pete Hegseth is actually doing a great job in his role as the defense secretary, even though he is wildly unqualified for that position. So reports say that just a week or so into Trump's second administration, [00:11:28] the military with headset at the helm, ordered three freight airlines to stop 11 flights loaded with weaponry that were bound for Ukraine. And that isn't the story. The story is that this order created such chaos, not just in Ukraine, [00:11:43] where the weapons, the weaponry was bound, not just in Poland, where everything was supposed to be coordinated, but also in the white House, because Trump never told Hegseth to to ground any of these flights. So the whole fiasco went beyond just a new administration settling in [00:12:01] and, you know, getting their feet wet. It really was just a whole demonstration, that communication within the administration was lacking. First of all. Also that the goals of the administration, however, they were being communicated internally, not even talking about externally to us, [00:12:16] but even internally were poorly defined, and that the people that Trump had appointed into these high level positions were wildly, as I said, unqualified for those positions. So that's just one last little thing. But again, Trump seems reluctant to get rid of Hegseth because, as I said earlier, [00:12:34] he's kind of a Trump yes man. He has been loyal to Trump for a long time and in his tenure at Fox News. And he has proven to Trump that, you know, I'll do whatever you want. And that's why he has the job he has. Yeah, I actually think the second one is worse. He stopped these, you know, military aid going to Ukraine [00:12:54] without any authorization. And everybody's like, what are you doing? Nobody tells you to do that. Why'd you do that? Yeah, I don't know. - Let's start him. - Again. Look, I don't know if I'm supposed to do this speculation or not, [00:13:10] but I'm not saying it. Stone or Wolf, who's a Young Turks member on YouTube, is saying it. He said drunk people tend to leak a lot. Okay, that's kind of funny. Now, seriously, guys, I don't know if he's drunk at all. I have no idea. But I do know this right now. [00:13:27] We have. He fired all, like, tons of his top aides. They've gone on shows like Tucker Carlson's, and everybody's like, what? Why were they fired? What does this have to do with anything? He's leaking like a madman on a bender, on signal. [00:13:44] And everywhere else he's giving authority to his assistant to do these things that he shouldn't be doing. And now he's canceling actual military equipment that needs to go to a war zone when he shouldn't be. There's no other way to describe that than hot mess. [00:14:01] Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings. Totally not true. But it does keep you updated on our live shows.