vice president rick mitch shara was placed under house arrest last week. he's accused of having links with arm groups responsible for recent attacks. daniela cache, as a senior analyst, i'm substitute in for international crisis group. the contact says change a lot. one is that the, uh, when the agreement was put together in 2018 by that you got the seems when the money out of the actus engaged now in violence had come up. and so whatever the gods could actually, i see if you knew about if they wouldn't be able to achieve a dialogue between my job and president key, it will not have a huge impact on the, on the conflicts. because what, what actors are not will pressing on the different flags, not answerable to the president need that to the vice president. that's one problem . the advocates on is that the iranian many itself has not been entirely um without difficulties. the parties never implemented that agreement. the only implemented 10

percent of the provisions of that agreement with none of those had, i me ability or capacity to move the country to a democracy, which was in research when the agreement was put together. so now the problem in dubai is the political attentions between the president and the vice president. they might be able to start talking because they have not been talking the last few days. so that could be one positivity step. but there has to be more because the, the, the violence that is michael mean throw itself so then is, is not actually slowing down and he is picking up days and that could be a challenge as well for them. and then marks prime minister met the frederick son has pledged to support greenland against us president donald trump's plans to acquire at frederick centers on a 3 day visit to the island. a week after a trip by us vice president jdw events. trump has not ruled out force to bring the island under us control, a staff or something hot. it is our unity. and regardless of what discussions we

may have down the road about the commonwealth and the greenland duct inch relationship, it is clear that with the pressure from the americans on greenland and relation to the sovereignty and in relation to the borders and to the future, we must stand together, i think we have done the job well so far, but it is clear that we need to button down the hatches and that doesn't for me. so then a up next on alpha 0 is the bottom line and my colleagues are a hierarchy will be with you at the top of the hour and a lot more world to stay with us the the

a. hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question after us plans to attack them and on a chat app were exposed. what's been revealed about the inner workings of the trumpet administration and its policies. let's get to the bottom line

the this week the white house was in fav damage control mode, trying to pressure off and embarrassing, weaker national security. it all started 2 weeks ago as the us prepared to launch airstrikes on yemen. and the country's top military, political and intelligence leaders joined a chat group on the signal app to discuss this attack. besides the fact that top officials are supposed to use secure communications for this kind of sensitive information, a journalist from the atlantic magazine was somehow included in the group. this week the magazine published those texts. so what are they reveal about us policy games in the middle east and europe? and what does the entire episode tell us about how the trump administration works today, we're talking with alex wagner, who served as an assistant secretary of the air force and the chief of staff to the secretary of the army, among other positions in the pentagon and journalist kevin baron, who covers us defense and national security, and he's now the founder of elevation,

global strategies. thank you both for talking me today. kevin, let me just ask you. is this a tempest in a teacup? is this a small deal, or is this a real legitimate national security issue because it is playing like a storm? this is a really big deal. no, to cob. this is huge. and this is, that's the reason why everyone is talking about this. i mean, i, i covered the pentagon for 15 years on the beat. never, never would. i imagine let's, let's have we seen something like this where it says so carelessly necessary leaders and several agencies. honest. i'm on a messaging app. i'm talking about a strike. that'd be like, set a reminder on yeah, yeah, we had a bunch of national security issues. we had the secretary defense, we have the director of national intelligence. we've had, you know, the chief of staff of the white house, quite a number of people on signal. no mean, any of us use signal, i wanna remind people, siegel is a non profit, and it takes donations is not a profit making platform. i wonder if they are actually donors to signal, you know, you know, using this. but all of these people were on a commercial app that is not

a non profit app that is not clear for national security use, right. i mean, they're out there on an app that the national security council, the defense department warned their own people within the previous weeks, not to use because it is not secure, at least at that level that you would expect for things like an air strike, timestamps weapons all the things that that just are not supposed to be on cell phone. alex, you've worked in the national security base. you worked in and out of the pentagon for years. i've known you for a very long time. you've been in and out of that space. i've seen other times whether it was hillary clinton in a, you know, serving or a bath tub or other officials they ended up using their private phones. how normal would it be for people, for convenience, or for whatever reason, to use their personal equipment and an app that they just found to be more convenient is that, is that a behavior that you've seen a lot of in your experience, most new, if this were a part of an episode of beep. i wouldn't have believed it. i think it would

probably been struck from the script. it is the most insane thing i think i could have possibly imagined happening, particularly at that level. right. this is the principles committee of the national security council, and the one person you didn't mention was on that train is the vice president of the united states. i'll tell you, i have signal and i phone. i've used it. i typically use it when i leave the pentagon, when i left the pentagon to arrange, hey, are you going to this event together tonight, or can i get a ride somewhere? or what are you doing this weekend? or i just wrote something and not bad. and would you be interested in seeing it? the last thing i would ever do is talk about professional things. my work responsibilities on signal and i largely dealt with unclassified things. i remember when i 1st got to the pentagon, they said alex, if you put it on the unclassified system, or even the secret system, you should assume the chinese are reading. let's listen to the president from take

on this, but that's an app that a lot of people use and somebody got out. i'm going to happen to know the guys in totals leesburg from the atlantic. the atlantic is a failed bag and see does very, very poorly. nobody gives a damn about it. it gives this gives it a little bit of a shot. and i will tell you this that they may have more stories and, and they just a failing magazine. the public understands that he's a very good man. that man is a very good man right here that you criticize so slow. so truth in advertising, i used to be an editor at the atlantic. kevin, you worked at atlanta media a we both work with jeffrey goldberg, b us so called squeezed back in question, who is editor in chief of the atlantic. so i'm interested in your take, there's a long history of why the president doesn't like the atlantic and doesn't like to go over. one will be the atlantic. one of america's oldest, the magazines and publications took extraordinary step. the 1st time trump ran for

president. and the endorse his opponent, hillary clinton and the, to the 2nd time around. they also endorsed his opponent. so we know that that history is there, but it is absolutely extraordinary the way that the warehouse has pivoted to just attack attack, attack the media as much as they can. and especially like you said, specifically jeff, specifically, you know, this a real vitriolic way to do it when he just received their own mistake. now there's a lot there that as or military report i've written over the years. how is really troubling when military reporting and national security reporting is criticized in this kind of a way. because we have a professional class of, of officers and military professionals was as officer professional diplomats who come up the ranks. and they take queues from the senior leaders who often teach them how to relate to the media and the importance of the freedom in the press and every other, almost every other defense secretary i've covered for 1520 years before pete headset has left the office, giving some kind of praise to the press corps and canada. so i'm kind of praised to

look to america's repressed the same. so how important it was that they do their job to cover natural security united states sort of turn to try to just terms and make the says some kind of then data that of the, the atlantic against trump. it just holds no water. when you see the fax in front of you, we heard the secretary of defense not only to mean the journalist jeffrey goldberg in this case, but said that there was nothing classified in this, that there were no war plans that were done. now you may call them war actions or military actions or get lost on the x. it doesn't, right? the point is i would tend to, oh, if you look at these tests, which i hope everyone does because you can and usually can't see stuff like this. what would be classified if not this? i mean, it's not surprising. i mean, is coming from trump, who's done it or the media from day one. it is surprising from someone like waltz, who we were told was supposed to be one of the more responsible people to come into the ministration. and for a long time, people thought he was going to be the defense secretary. and before that, he was it just, you know, shifted to that actually security advisor and we end up with a headset who,

you know, has no experience whatsoever. so waltz is supposed to be the adult in the room. his responses are, are just as troubling sounds. as for jeff, i've said i've been to, i'm so thankful that just as is being phrase for acting responsibly and not revealing cost that information at 1st. not mean a holding back the name of intelligence officer, but i want to remind folks that's how all defense and national security reporters operate. you know, when i was on the beat almost every day, you're privy to some kind of sensitive level of information just by the nature of being insight, dependent on or traveling with the defense secretary or the air force secretary or the chairman to join cheese. things like where you're going, where you're staying the days are leaving, especially back in the war years and we were all going in and out of afghanistan or rack and other areas. there's a, there's a, a bit of an unwritten, an understanding with reporters. sometimes it is written and you have to sign off on it that you will keep those secrets because it's for, it's not just your own safety. it's for the safety of americans that you're covering anyway. so this has been, this is the norm of professionalism and journalism that jeff,

go over. it has demonstrated, almost every single person knows that they were discussing very sensitive national security information, mostly on their private phones, on a private app. what are the, what are the incentives to do that? it's a great question, steven. while i appreciate being sandwich between 2 journalists, talking about the journal of cit issue. i've spent a career as a national security professional and a lawyer. and what i'll tell you 1st and foremost is the american people should be breathing sigh of relief that those navy pilots weren't shot out of the sky. that's the 1st thing. the 2nd thing is, and it is as clear as day, the case, the countries that have the capability to read those messages that are being passed on an unclassified form are iran and russia to states that are supporting, excuse me, china and russia to states that are supporting iran, the who it is a principal backer. so the idea that you're going to have this type of conversation on an unclassified app that our adversaries have clear and clean access to if they

wanted to should be our 1st and foremost concern. and we really dodged a bullet. the 2nd thing is accountability. mm hm. i mean, this is what is so bizarre to me. every single person in the military, whether you're in uniform or there work in the defense department's, a civilian core has to go through this terribly annoying, but incredibly important training called cyber security awareness training. and not only do you have to do it in the beginning, you have to do it annually. not only do you have to do it when you start, but every single level including media. and my last job is assistant secretary, the air force. remember as my senior with terry assistance blocking off the portion of my calendar. so i could complete this training. they all should know better. now, what's unusual about this administration? we have people who have never worked in government before. people who have no idea how government works from the treasury secretary to others who have only worked at the lowest levels in the military like p takes out until seek albert. they should

still no better cause i promise you, they've had to do those training themselves. and so what's the answer? the only conceivable answer is either a far fetched theory that somehow they're playing 3 dimensional chess or that they're lazy. and despite the fact that the secretary of defense, and i know this because assistant secretaries of defense have installed in their homes, secret computers sometimes drilled into the concrete so they can't be taken away. but i promise you the secretary defense on a saturday has access to that computer. i promise you that he can get driven into the pentagon and be in the situation room. and the last thing i promise you is that if brock obama had been doing the song or been lawton raid on signal, he would have probably been in peach. well, let me ask you about the laziness factor here for a minute. what if the united states were responding in a contingency to china in

a taiwan stand off or the united states were deciding to take military action against greenland, or you know, some other or panama, i mean that there was some other actually some have floated the idea that they were, they were like a sort of reckless and lazy on this particular case because it was just yemen because it was a far off low level issue. and we're going to bomb a small country and, and, and just not take it quite as seriously that you couldn't imagine that if we were in a conflict directly with russia or a ron or with china, or other serious contingencies that this would have happened. what's your, what's your thought on that? i mean, when you engage in military operational, military, you action based on operational military plans and american lives are at risk. you've got to take it seriously. you've got to take it seriously and, and this is what the situation room and the basement of the west wing was designed for. each of those people have door to domiciled car service. they can pick them up

at their house and take them there. if it's an emergency situation, they can be under secret or top secret government email networks in their home. there is absolutely no excuse kevin. i want to reach you to small clips of this fascinating exchange over signal regarding europe and one is from gd vance. and it's to p takes a, is this, if you think we should do it, let's go. i just hate bailing europe out again. uh uh. and in other words, this is an action for europe, not necessary for us and heck, seth response. and i fully share your loading of european free loading. it's pathetic in all capital letters. the, the loading of europe in this is in all capital letters is, is really, really sick and viscous. and yeah, serious and load it. and i'm just interested what you think that does now, i mean,

if that is not, you know, because they said there's nothing classified in this. and maybe that's consistent with the position they took at the munich security conference and others and the kind of arms length distance that they are now imposing on a lot of relations with your but i think that had an impact. another negative impact on transatlantic relations. what are your thoughts? of course it does, and there's a couple of things. one, it shows that the fact that what these, these, these messages are being exchanged a couple of hours before the strike was supposed to happen. and they're still debating whether or not this is the president's policy. that's an alarm right there . how big that so that's literally the 2nd the last hour before either you should know this by now. secondly, to guess what? the declared, everyone chevy van should not want to proceed. he didn't write, it was worth doing it because to little of america's, uh, yeah, which is all goods goes. uh, he said he defer to everybody, but he, but he, you know, made his point that this might not be the president's policy. like, how do you not know that this is the president's policy or not as it actually before you get to the europeans. the 2nd part is what you said if they,

if this team doesn't understand why a stopping the who these is beneficial to us security, why are they doing it? they're not doing it as a favor for europe. it's clearly been a, they believe they are doing it. i mean they, they actually talk about charging europe, right. and, and, and getting reimbursed by europe for this entire miss under, without, in europe being in the chat. you know, the europe is not on this signal chat with right there. is that the same the purpose of united states military, which is to protect and defend against of, or protect and defend american interests. one of those beings, us economic interest. i used to joke when i was apparently, god reported that, you know, if war did break out, you mentioned taiwan in, in the, in the south china sea and the taiwan a straight in and the south china sea was shut off. how long would it be before united states ran out of its own underwear or clothing, or whatever items that united states doesn't make, but we live on china to make. that's just an economic interest. is united states really going to go to war? to reopen the shipping lanes for something like that and the actual, the pedagogy was always yes,

a 100 percent. that is our mission. that's our constitutional duty. this is a major shipping. now, you know, if you, if you know the whole story, a lot of it is because, you know, ran, want us to somehow stop shipping to job was just for israel. that's a whole nother topic. but the, the idea that this somehow should have been in europe to handle and not the americans. it is wrong that policy, it's also bad operational capability. understanding meaning, if there's a reason why the united states and only of united states has certain capabilities and it's part of the agreed defense structure between the united states and nato. united states was the only one that has more than one aircraft, carrier united states as your country, that has a significant ariel refueling capability. that's why even if it was french jets, they need the americans to operate the that's by design. the me that's, that's, that's been part of the burden of sharing that the united states and they don't have created for the last 50 years. this, this administration really wants to change that burden sharing, understand that which can do in real time. and, and, you know, real experts and you'll know to, i'm said, have said that balance is really not going to ship, or at least a decade,

even the europeans have a lot more to build before they can carry out an operation like this on their own. even if that's what you want that as good alex, i have been waiting a couple of months now and the trump administration to hear republicans and democrats on the same page on anything. uh, and it turns out that this is the issue uh, at least for some republicans so centered or roger wicker, you know, his german of the armed services committee is very upset about what's going on. it's called for a real investigation. some republic comes behind the scenes are pushing donald trump to fire mike walters, national security advisor, the democrats, are making this a lead story every day, every day. so just interested in whether or not from your experience, you know, from a pentagon perspective, dealing with the legislative branch of government use, think this is sound and fury that will finally matter. or is it going to signify nothing of the end? well, steve, what i can tell you is a 1st and foremost of there are some real professionals on capitol hill of care,

rather nation security on both sides of the aisle. in fact, 2 of those professionals were on that signal chain. mike waltz, who was on the intelligence committee in the house, and the armed services committee and marco rubio, who, who was the vice chair of the senate intelligence committee. both of those people should have known better and close the gap until together. they all should have known better, and they didn't say anything. what does that say to me? this wasn't the 1st time they've had this kind of conversation on. so, i mean, i just feel one little picture of it. emoji mike wald said after this was all done, you know, if this pump and a, uh, you know, a little flame. so they're good at sending emoji is as well. and this is the person that you said, no, see intelligence field. well, so i do you think this is going to go away or do you think as you call for heads will roll? what i think is that 1st, and this is the most shocking thing to me, that what's of what we have in press on our deal with the civilians and our military members is not good enough for the senior leaders. any,

any person i know myself included that took this, these types of actions in any ships, former or shape would either be fired on the spot or had a criminal referral to the department of justice or be current court martial. i was the head of personnel for the air force and the space for us. i saw officers getting in trouble all the time removed from the promotion list. for far, far less. i actually don't know how seriously those members of congress are going to take it when it comes to holding them accountable. i haven't seen the partisan split that you described. and i'm concerned that this will be turned into an issue of whether or not jeff goldberg at the right to be in that chat rather than previewing operational military plans on an unsecure network. moments before military action. putting our, putting our navy pilots flights of risk give let me ask you a little bit of

a nuanced issue about j. d advances perspectives. he was the most potent robust america 1st id log on that chat chain. others were engage in what was sort of larger conventional antiterrorist take out someone. yeah. so i hate to call it conventional, but i mean, we both know it is in a sense that they were going to attack, you know, a to a terrorist and made designated that terrorist and walking into his girlfriends building and seeming to be fine with blowing up an apartment building, but also attacking those that were using rockets, etc. that doesn't sound to me like mazda foreign policy. that doesn't want to go search monsters and destroy them. you know, i'm just sort of interested in that tension between a typical american you know, strategic class. and what ged vance was articulating and that was, i don't know if our people are going to understand why we're doing this. i don't know why we're doing this to bill it, you're so is there a deeper tension inside the national security establishment that we got

a glimpse of because of the signal, the signal chat part is a good question. various and perhaps i want to follow his answer outside of this. i don't think anybody gets fired. i don't think anybody resigns. i think we have a whole lot of investigations and complaints and this all goes away and we just keep on business as usual with the trumpet ministration. now on the question of maga is a and foreign policy. it's a good question. this goes back to the previous, from the ministration where the trouble likes to say, here's against 4 wars, but he likes to kill terrorists. he likes to say he doesn't want involvement and then a lease. but he sure loves when he sends you, those troops there to take somebody out there to look as tough as possible. and this goes all the way up to, even like the nuclear level. he likes to say the united states is in charge there. and is the biggest country it has the best military, but he wants to, he wants other military is to be more equal and have just more spending. he want so many likes to say he wants to fire people and he likes firing people. yeah. but after mike's lin, he's been really reluctant to try. yeah,

that's right. so i just kind of a of a of a strike. i think you're right. j events makes a good point. if either the going to make someone else do it, or you have to do it yourself. that's true also for defending europe from russia. for example. you can, you can say all you want i munich or anywhere else that you, your opinions have to defend yourself. but there's only so much capability they have before the guys has to do something about it. the same goes for taiwan. the same goes to japan and south korea and every other ally and partner and the united states has. so, and i think also it, it kind of reflects pulling in the united states when you ask americans about foreign policy. you know, depending on how you ask the question to get out, lots of different answers. but in the most part, my understanding and reading of it has always been that americans, they don't like to be engaged in long and d for more. they don't want to write. yeah, they don't get a sense, but they do like american troops overseas, right. do like right, we're deployed the do like small. busy right, you know, hits like this one where you can take out a terrorist and, and, you know,

claim victory. and so having of both ways might not be that hard for the, for the compliment of station, if they're smart about it, real quick, alex, just in our last 2nd. are we going to see more incidents like this from this administration? my sense is that, as i said before, this is not the 1st time they've communicated on signal. didn't think that the 1st time that that was created, someone would have said, hey, wait a 2nd, we need to take this somewhere else. i think cutting off. right, that oven, you might actually change how they do things, but i think the outrage and the shock there's going to be a lot more to come. well, thank you. former pentagon official, alex wagner, veteran reporter and defense and s security can bear. and thank you so much for joining us today. this is great conversation with i appreciate states. so what's the bottom line? the 1st rule of track groups you may ask, will check who's on your chat group. this may seem like a small time problem down the road given the types of systemic mistakes. demonstrated by so many of trumps top leaders in this single messaging controversy . but here are my 3 and a half takeaways. number one,

you have to be highly 90 or just plain derelict in your duties to think you can communicate about us national security on your private phone or a messaging platform not cleared for secrecy. if russia or china had made the same mistake, wouldn't america be listening? number to the white house has a hard time simply admitting mistakes. this whole episode could have gone away in one night. if proper, one of his officials had said, sorry, we screwed up and we'll do better. number 2 and a half. europe is in big trouble. the bias against europe in these conversations is vic, a 3rd, and this is just the hutch. this is probably not the end of the story, and that's the bottom line, the lips turn the part for over a decade. those words don't care about the country. that's good ideas from the

past and the term while good to be sensitive to types items urging them to invest forgiveness. subjects violence, join l g 0 world on a historical journey with the poets and a composer. creating an answer them for peace lips. a voice for reconciliation analysis, the era the limits to have a dream contained key stuff in your own adventure. now a toyota pod came into the dates, new, military abuse, bulk of around about a month at all. there's no character we don't do such facing reality. how do you

reconcile your needs for a security perspective with the human rights folks and everybody who wants to come to portland can do that, but we expect that person to accept our rooms, thought provoking on north korea. when does the extent. now korea is the mirror of what we need to avoid the case of the, of the store on talk to how does era boots on this next generation is his best educated, but this economy can keep up with its well qualified graduates. so many budgets and incense, so set the emissions on a safe, reliable government jump. there's not much people getting the time right now. we don't have many people compared to other nations. that's why i feel like the business is not a viable option, especially for young people. like myself, sometimes prime minister says the exodus of its educated, most productive age group is this country's biggest existential threats. there is a race against time to try and diversified economy to provide opportunities to

store young people leaving the, [000:00:00;00] the hello and welcome to the program. i'm sort of fights and this is the news i live from. so hard coming up in the next 60 minutes. the you and china condemned