00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes.
00:06Joining me now is Congressman Seth Moulton. Congressman, thank you so much for joining me.
00:11It's good to be back. Thanks for having me. News of a second signal scandal broke over the weekend
00:17last month in a chat that included his wife, his brother and lawyer. Defense Secretary Pete
00:23Hegseth reportedly shared details about an upcoming attack on the Houthis in Yemen.
00:27To start off this conversation, what's your reaction to this new signal story?
00:33Well, first of all, I'm not surprised. As someone who can't be trusted once,
00:37can't be trusted a lot. And just in the same way that this guy can't be trusted in all aspects of
00:43his personal life, he's professionally totally untrustworthy, completely unqualified to do this
00:49job. And he himself has become a danger to the national security of the United States.
00:55This is very serious. I want to talk about the differences here between the first signal gate
01:01and this story, because National Security Advisor Michael Waltz last time inadvertently added the
01:08Atlantic's editor to the chat. This was a completely different chat. It reportedly was made before Pete
01:13Hegseth was confirmed. It included his family members as well as his lawyers. What are your
01:18thoughts on the difference here? I mean, it seems a lot worse, but the bottom line is that both are
01:25completely illegal. By the Department of Defense's own classification guidance, the details Secretary
01:32Hegseth shared are classified. And actually, they're classified top secret. Now, it's illegal even to share
01:39what's called sensitive but unclassified information on a signal chat. It's an unsecure platform. And it
01:47often exists on personal phones that can be hacked by our adversaries. In fact, some of their top targets
01:52are people like Pete Hegseth and his associates. So this is dangerous. It's illegal, no matter who you're
02:01talking to. And it's especially dangerous, because the top secret information he shared could be used
02:08by our adversaries to shoot down our own pilots.
02:12Pete Hegseth tried to tamp down concerns today at the White House's Easter egg roll. He said to
02:18reporters essentially that this was an old story. He blamed the media. He said that the media is taking
02:24quote, anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn
02:29people and ruin their reputations. Not going to work with me because we're changing the Defense
02:34Department. He didn't deny what happened though. What's your thoughts on how he characterized it?
02:39You learn in the military. I remember this from day one of Marine training is that integrity matters
02:45above all else. So you might drop out of a run and they'll let you try again. You might fail a test
02:49and you can take it again. But if you lie about anything in the Marine Corps, you're going home
02:54that afternoon. Well, Hegseth continues to lie about this. He's not taking accountability for
03:01his own actions. And as a result, he cannot be trusted. He's clearly not trusted by his own
03:08closest advisors. What do you think the troops think about him? Well, I know because I've heard
03:13from a lot of them that they are disgusted by this behavior from the top person in the Pentagon
03:18because they know that they would be fired in a heartbeat, probably prosecuted criminally
03:25if they did what the Secretary of Defense has done and is now lying about himself.
03:32What do troops abroad think about him? I think we're all curious about that because
03:36they're abroad, they're serving this country, and they're seeing the Secretary of Defense,
03:42their top boss there, sharing these sensitive details on separate group chats.
03:47One group chat that includes his family members, what are they thinking? Do they feel safe right
03:51now in their jobs? No, a lot of them do not. I've heard from active duty troops I've never heard
03:57before on an issue like this that's in the political discussion. They are disgusted. They know they can't
04:04trust him. They know they can't enforce these own rules, or at least they're gonna have difficulty
04:08doing so with their own troops. Because the top person in the Pentagon, the person who's supposed to
04:14lead by example, the person who's demanding accountability from his organization, but refuses
04:19to take accountability for his own illegal behavior, just cannot be trusted. I can't tell you just how
04:27frightening it is to be in a situation where you're putting your life on the line, and you can't trust
04:33the people above you. I remember what that feels like on the ground in Iraq, when people in Washington
04:40were making decisions completely out of touch with reality, with the reality that we faced on the
04:46ground in that war. It's an incredibly disheartening feeling. And even at that time, though, we didn't
04:52have a Secretary of Defense who was this incompetent. We didn't have a Secretary of Defense, even though I
04:58disagreed with many of the things they were doing, who just lied through his teeth and was completely
05:02untrusted by even his closest advisors. I don't think we've ever had a situation like this before
05:09in American history. And it's incredibly dangerous for our national security. We all know we can't
05:15trust Hegseth. That means our allies don't respect him and can't trust him. That means our adversaries,
05:21our enemies around the globe, don't respect him and don't trust his resolve. And worst of all,
05:28it means our own troops cannot trust him with their lives. I'm curious what you think our enemies
05:36specifically are thinking right now, because this is what White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt
05:40said today. This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against
05:46the monumental change you are trying to implement. And that quote sounds like some in the Trump
05:50administration are at war with the government they've run. And this approach arguably helped them
05:55win when they were campaigning. But now they're running the government here. So what type of
05:59message is this sending to the enemies abroad, as well as our enlisted men and women abroad too?
06:05It shows that the top people in the Trump administration know absolutely nothing about
06:11leadership. And what the message that it's sending to our adversaries abroad is that this is a good time
06:17to think about taking advantage of the United States. There's chaos at the top of the Pentagon,
06:22as admitted by some of Hegseth's own closest advisors. Our troops know that they can't trust
06:28their leadership. This is a recipe for American military disaster. And it's an invitation to our
06:36adversaries to take advantage of us now. John Elliott is a former DOD spokesperson. He recently resigned.
06:43As you said, he is an admitted Hegseth backer. He wrote an op-ed entitled,
06:48Pete Hegseth is the best choice to reform the Pentagon. He wrote that in December. This weekend,
06:53this is what he penned in Politico. Quote, it's been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon from
06:58leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings. The dysfunction is now a major distraction
07:03for the president, who deserves better from his senior leadership. He's describing, as you said,
07:08this chaos at the Pentagon. Senior leaders, including Hegseth's own chief of staff are also out.
07:13Do these concerns, are you hearing them from the Pentagon? Are people that you're talking to at
07:18the Pentagon painting the same picture? Yes. We hear them a lot on Capitol Hill. They're heard
07:25by Democrats and Republicans. And what Democrats are saying publicly and Republicans are saying
07:31privately is that Hegseth needs to resign. And if Trump has an ounce of leadership and accountability
07:39in himself, he should just fire the secretary of defense immediately.
07:44How loud are those Republican calls to have him resign or have him leave, at least privately?
07:50Because Congressman Don Bacon, he appears to be the first Republican now to publicly call this
07:58situation unacceptable. He told Politico if it were up to him, he wouldn't tolerate it. And he said,
08:03there's a lot, a lot of smoke that's come out of the Pentagon. And I got to believe there's some
08:07fire somewhere. He also said Hegseth is acting like he's above the law, and that shows an amateur
08:12person. So you're saying that this is consistent with what Republicans are saying privately. Do you
08:17think what Don Bacon's saying now, do you think that's going to open a dam of Republicans now
08:22saying it publicly?
08:25I think that Congressman Don Bacon, former General Don Bacon, is the only Republican on Capitol Hill right
08:32now with an ounce of courage. And I give him a lot of credit for that. But the reality is that I don't
08:38see other Republicans following him. These other Republicans are just acting like cowards right now,
08:46unwilling to stand up to their own administration in the name of our troops for the sake of our national
08:53security, for the sake of upholding the oath to the Constitution that they all swore. It's a shameful
09:01time for the Republican Party right now in Washington. Congratulations to Don Bacon. But we need to see
09:07a lot more Republicans follow his lead. You're saying you have grave concerns when it comes to
09:13national security. You're seeing attack plans shared on Signal with family members, with people who don't
09:18need those imminent operational plans. You see this shakeup at the Pentagon, someone who just a few
09:24months ago was an ardent supporter of Hegseth now calling for him to be let go. What are specifically
09:30those concerns when it comes to national security? Well, let's just detail this. A well-worn adversary
09:37tactic to get at our top leaders is to get at their family members or close associates. And if our top
09:44leaders are so dumb and so irresponsible to share confidential, or in this case, absolutely top
09:52secret information with their family members, it's going to be pretty easy for adversaries like Russia
09:59and China to hack into that information. And it's actually quite remarkable that they just got so
10:05lucky that this targeting information wasn't captured by an enemy and shared with the Houthis on the ground
10:12who have anti-aircraft capabilities. They've already been shooting down our drones, much smaller targets
10:17than F-18 fighter jets. It's so lucky that they didn't get that information in time to target our brave
10:25American pilots. Pilots who show amazing bravery and have incredible accountability every day of their
10:34lives in stark contrast to their leader at the top of the Pentagon. It's amazing that they're still alive
10:40today because that information wasn't shared with the enemy in time. You want Hegseth out. You either want
10:47him to resign or President Trump to fire him. And I don't think it's going to take just Democrats
10:53calling for that, for that to actually happen. What do you think needs to happen then? Do you think
10:58if there's enough Republican voices, he's out? I mean, what are the next steps here for you?
11:03I mean, look, the definition of political courage is standing up to your own party.
11:07When Secretary Austin made a serious but much more minor mistake in comparison, when he didn't tell
11:14the president and other close associates about his own surgery, I didn't hesitate. I was asked,
11:21what do you think President Biden should do? And I said he should fire him.
11:25We need Republicans to have the courage to do the same thing, to be willing to stand up to Trump when
11:30they know he's wrong, when they know the secretary is wrong, and when they know they're putting American
11:35lives in danger by his continued service at the top of the Pentagon. Get Hegseth out. It's the right
11:41thing to do for our troops. It's the right thing to do for our country. It's the right thing to do for
11:46our national security to keep all of us safe. And you're a veteran. You said it's a really scary
11:52time when you're on the ground and you think that the decisions being made in Washington are out of
11:57touch. Let's say Hegseth goes. Who would you want to see replace him?
12:04Well, the irony here is that there are literally hundreds of people more qualified than Pete Hegseth to
12:10take this job because he's the most unqualified secretary of defense in history. He had the
12:15tightest confirmation vote of any secretary of defense in history. So we want to see the best
12:21person for the job. But there are actually a lot of people who could do it better than Pete Hegseth.
12:27Congressman Seth Moulton, I appreciate you as always. Thank you for joining me.
12:31Good to see you.
12:40Good to see you.
Comments