Chrissy Houlihan Demands Resignations Of Top Trump Officials Over Signal Group Chat Leak

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On "Forbes Newsroom," Rep. Chrissy Houlihan (D-PA) was asked if anyone should resign over the Signal scandal.

Transcript

00:00There's the Silicon Valley move fast and break things thesis

00:04is being applied to the federal government right now

00:07that I think we're seeing the real time ramifications.

00:11Turning slightly, though, it kind of

00:13does relate overall to national security, which has been

00:15a theme of this conversation.

00:17Earlier today, you reiterated a call

00:19to have all government employees better

00:22trained on classified material.

00:24Can you explain why you put that letter out in the open today?

00:29Sure, and this is actually a specific call

00:31for our members of Congress to have security training.

00:35As a member of Congress, I get awarded, granted

00:39a top secret clearance just by being elected.

00:43There is no background check.

00:45There is no training process.

00:47And I come from a military background.

00:49And I actually come from a background

00:50where I held a TSSCI clearance, as did my father,

00:54as did my mother, as did generations of my family.

00:57And that is something that I don't take for granted.

00:59Sometimes it takes as much as two years for somebody

01:02to go through the vetting process,

01:03and then even more time to go through the sort of training

01:06process of what it means to hold some of the nation's

01:08most secret information in your hands,

01:11and how you need to manage it so that people don't die.

01:14And so what I've been trying to accomplish here in Congress

01:17is, OK, I give up on us going through background checks.

01:20I've tried to get that as a requirement.

01:23But at a minimum, when we come to Congress,

01:25we should have annual training that tells us

01:28how to manage classified information,

01:30and also who we can share it with and how we can share it.

01:33That's at a minimum, bare minimum,

01:35what we should be doing.

01:37And as you've seen today with the news,

01:39coming out of the administration and coming out

01:41of some people who ought to know better,

01:43and their background is significant enough

01:46that they do know better, that they have

01:49broken some of those laws.

01:50They have broken the trust and faith of the American people.

01:53And they have given information that, in people's hands,

01:56is deadly, deadly to Americans.

01:59And in my opinion, they ought to resign.

02:03Is there anyone specific that you would call to resign?

02:08I'm still in the process of weeding

02:09through all of these exchanges.

02:12Literally, it's right in front of me

02:14to try to understand who to aim my ire at.

02:20But I do.

02:21I come from this family of service

02:23where, if you do something like this

02:25and you know what you've done is wrong, you resign.

02:31And so I don't know that I'm, at this point,

02:33ready to name names because it looks as though there's

02:36more than a couple who ought to know better than that.

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