3/27/25: Full Signal Chat Leaks, Portnoy Demands Waltz Resign, Dems Flip Trump District In PA

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Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday.

Have an amazing show there. It is people live for the pound Bro show here, last Bro show of the week. It's okay, we're in morning here, just joking. We're waiting for Crystal I get back from vacation. We're all excited to actually, you know, we're excited to get back to some you know what, some people.

Daily clamoring for what you and Emily. They just want the unvarnished. They want the unvarnished, like just raw Mega, just like you would not celebration.

We could.

In fact, if Emily and I did to show together, we would probably be dunking even more vociferously on Maga, and so Magas would only get more upset at us. But that's okay, that's what we do here. All right, Let's go ahead and get started. We're going to be covering the fallout from Signal Gate. Ryan and Emily did a great job yesterday. They broke down some of the new messages. We're going to fully go through all of them, what they reveal, what the excuses are, what the administration

Super interesting.

It's the state's obviously, but does give US some indication this was what Trump plus fifteen Trump plus sixteen district Democrat there was very narrowly able to win. Could be a sign of west to come in the midterms. We're going to talk about some interesting developments in Gaza. There's been some protests on the ground in Gaza. Some people are saying it's against Hamas, some against perhaps like the Israeli military campaign.

Ryan's going to break that down for us.

There have been continuing arrests of some pro Palestinian foreign students here in the United States.

Ryan's going to give us an update on that.

And then finally Ryan and I will update NPR and PBS. We're going to talk about the defund campaign currently happening in Congress and some hilarious footage just no matter what side you fall on, that is coming out of Congress. But with that, let's go ahead and get to the signal texts, shall we. So, after the Trump administration spent better part of a day saying there was no classified information there at all. Nothing, don't worry about it. Everything

He just said, you know, it's screw it.

I'm going to release all of them. And you know what, he should have done that from the very beginning. But okay, here we are, and now we can all see it for ourselves, and judge, that's called journalism, isn't it?

Isn't it? So okay, let's go ahead and put them all up there on the screen. Let's start with the first one.

Now, what do you notice in that very first text message, Ryan, what's the very first.

Thing that it's Mr Added.

Michael Waltz added to you to the group.

There you go.

The second thing is what disappearing message time set to one week? Okay, my message group with my buddies, it's got a one day disappearing time, right, So.

Why is it set to one week? That's crazy?

You know, why do they have a better you know, like, why do we have better op sec quote unquote than this?

It's totally ridiculous.

Now let's continue, shall we We cut out and we're only including here some of the new text messages for people to see. But what's fascinating to me is the internal debate here. Joe Kent, some of you guys might know Joe Kent. He was ran for Congress twice in the state of Washington. Very very realist guy, and here he is as one of Tulsey Gabbard's deputies, actually arguing in the chat saying, there's nothing time sensitive that is

Quote.

The Israelis will likely take strikes and therefore ask us for more support to replenish whatever they use against the hoo thies. But that's a minor factor. I will send you the unclassed data on pulled on shipping. He's talking there specifically about the amount of shipping there. John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, says, we are mobilizing assets to support now,

So, by the way, can we boll has on this real quickly because there are a group of people in this country who still care about the constitution and the war powers, uh huh, and have insisted that this was an illegal strike and that you need congressional authorization for it. This proves that it was the case, because the only way you can get around Congress is if you say this was an emergency. That's right, because obviously commander in chief in an emergency situation doesn't have to let American

Unless it's the two thousand and one Authorization of Military Force, which I.

Don't even think they yeah, because that's against al KaiA and the Huthi's fight out kaya Ya.

But Ryan, they've been updating that there for a long time, right, and it never mattered to its point the constitution.

As we will talk about later in this show.

Who even cares about that anymore?

But let's continue here with the text messages, shall we, because this again, we're revealing here a lot both about how this entire thing was not only not time sensitive, it didn't work because it didn't actually accomplish its goal of stopping this. I also think just had to put this in here about mister Waltz Mike Waltz here. You could see him here arguing with jd Vance, who is saying, hey,

The Hoothies are now using. Let's pause on that, shall we.

So these European nations, let's say Germany, the UK, France, we're talking about, you know what, three of the top G seven economies in the world. Actually all of them have much more powerful navies than almost any other country in the world except for like the US in China. And so if our national security advisor is saying they don't.

Even have the capability to deal with.

A group that has been bombed into smithereens for the last ten years and is using like secondhand Iranian missiles that they've gotten, you know, by a transfer, that's a bit of a problem. Shall we can we all just sit there and ruminate on that a little bit?

Lucky luckily for Europe, right, and lucky the UK and France and the rest of them. Waltz is either a liar or a moron. Everything you read there is a lie. Yes, like they do have the capacity to shoot missiles.

Or it's like or Mike Waltz is saying that we need to do it now.

The only reason that.

We lying so that we can be the one that's right.

And why would we be the ones to do it Either a to feel big and tough and to stick it to Iran because that definitely worked under Biden, or it's to defend Israel. And as they admit also in the chat, the fall apart of the ceasefire has direct.

Impacts here, as Joe kentims Health admitted.

Now, let's continue here with the text messages and let's see what else that we can, shall we. So this is the actual update from Pete Heggsath and I would say, this is the one where you basically got them dead to rights, and let's keep this up here because this, by the way, America, this is what your government is telling you is not classified. This is before the Strike Team update time now eleven forty four Eastern stand time.

Weather's favorable. Just confirmed, We are a go.

Twelve fifteen F eighteen's launch thirteen forty five trigger BASEDFF eighteen strike window starts. Target terrorists is at his known location, so should be on time. Also, strike drones launch MQ nine's fourteen ten more F eighteen's launch second strike package fourteen fifteen strike drones on target. This is when the first bombs will definitely drop, pending earlier trigger based targets fifteen thirty six F eighteen second strike targets. Also first

Can we all just.

Stop, you know, for a second, Like this level of retardation is honestly just too much for me. Like you're really going to argue that the known like use of the munitions and the exact time of an attack was not classified at the time that you send it, Fine, then.

Tweet it out if you believe that.

If you believe that, then allow any American service member privy to that information to post it ahead of the attack.

Okay, go ahead. Now, as you and I know, Ryan, the.

Stupidest shit in the world is classified by the United States covery. We have a massive over classification problem, as you all saw with the JFK file. So there is genuinely no universe on planet Earth where this was not classified at the There was no like not classified at the time that they sent it. And then second, what you also can just see here in the sheer stupidity

It's it's just preposterous.

We never got a congressional authorization for war. Therefore, it's not a war, war plans.

What are we doing here?

I just I really cannot stomach this level of stupidity.

I cannot.

Now, let's continue with the text messages and let's go, because there's also more that we reveal here also in terms of the way that we conduct war and what exactly is a good a good plan to go. Yeah, here's my current my favorite from Pete x Seth.

More to follow. We are currently clean on opsteck, meaning that there have been no leaks. WHI to our warriors. We are clean, clean as a whistle.

All right, let's continue, and this also shows us, you know, again, how dumb a lot of the people who are in power actually are, namely mister Waltz who added Jeffrey Goldberg VP building collapse had multiple positive ID. He was JD goes what he goes, typing too fast, the first target, their top missile guy. We had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend's building and now it's collapse. Excellent

Right, so what's up?

And everyone else in the freaking apartment building?

Yeah?

And yeah, right, what is Jady Vance, by the way.

Doing drop an excellent on a war crime here? And who's the thumbs up on the war crime? Like that's a war crunt.

It's just one of those where, you know, you rarely get to see the internal you know, way that we even acknowledged this type of stuff. You're never supposed to put this in writing, right, whenever you just kill, you know it was innocent, standby or whatever. And it also, I can't tell you guys how many times I've been in the Pentagon briefing room and we would ask things like so, what steps did you take to me? They're like,

So the guy, the guy, the guy they're saying they killed, was a senior official who works in the missile department, right, they have other engineers, yes, Like okay, like.

This is not osam bin Laden.

This is a guy who is is like somebody's boss in a missile program. It's when they kill him and his girlfriend and everyone else in the apartment, they will hire, they'll put out a little wreck. Hey, we got a job opening now for a guy who can run a missile program.

And Ryan, you covered drone strikes for years, so can you just tell us, like, not only the pattern that this strikes with the war machine going all the way back to the Obama administration, but just for you to be able to nakedly see this, I.

Mean, what is it?

Because as you and I have done, we have heard these claims from the CIA and from the war the Pentagon for almost more than a decade. Now they're like, listen, you have no idea the amount of steps you know that we take. And here's not even a pretense of rules of engagement or any of that.

They're like, yeah, we just killed.

Them, all right, because I got it right, because they think nobody's watching they it's been It shows how normalized it is to not care about civilian casualties. Like nobody on that thread knows anything about the number of civilians in that apartment building. Nobody said, wait a minute, are we sure that this apartment building in the middle of the night was not filled with sleeping people? Had nothing

Well they're saying, oh God, bless our troops and all that. Maybe one thing, if.

I pray for victory, what do you would pray for victory? Victory?

And what this is not a this is not at that's the problem.

You're striking off of a ship, right, We're invert like using bombs, dropping them from very sophisticated airplanes and from guided missile destroyers and acting like we're invading Normandy on D Day.

And it's also victory. Guess what the red sea blockade is still going sea blockade?

What was going on there?

Actually was just strikes again yesterday, not that anybody's noticing and or doing anything in terms of the effect. Biden bombed Yemen for over a year. As you said, he even admitted, yes we have the strikes, will continue.

Will it work?

No?

Okay? But what are we doing here again?

And you know, there's so much to say here, both about the stupidity of just feel good operations like this which do nothing. You know, killed killed some hooty guy great strikes are maybe doing Yeah, maybe maybe not the thing here's some classified information. By the way, we have positive ID that he's in the apartment building, right, Okay, there's a chance that there's some drone that has some.

MQ nine Reaper drone.

There were m nine Reaper drones.

It's not obvious though that the MQ nine Reaper drone was the source of the positive ID that he's in the apartment. Did they have human intel, a human intel on the block that that said, hey, he's in there. Does that mean they have a mole like or is it a civilian who's on the block who they're working with. Now Iran is going to sweep up all the the comms from that block and try to snuff out who if there was a.

Mole a human source.

So did Hagseth give up a human source or Waltz give up a source like?

And maybe it was a drone. I don't know.

But that's why to say that this stuff is unclassified and you can just post it on Twitter it is absurd.

Let's call her bluff. Fine, do it before every attack post it. Fine, I'm fine with that. Actually be useful because We're like, Okay, here's here's where we use. Here's exactly where we use. Here are the targets, and then you and I can say, so, did it work right? Did it hit the I would actually like to know that right. It would be nice, wouldn't it? All Right, let's try that. So I already showed you, guys, Mike

Let's take a lesson.

What is it about what Pete Hegseth wrote that makes you say this is not classified?

Well, it's not just me saying that, Peter, it's the Secretary of Defense himself who is saying this as well. And he put out a very strong statement earlier today listing all of the things that were not included in that message that he sent to the group. And again this message, there was no classified information transmitted, there were no war plans discussed. Why did the Atlantic downgrade their

Nobody's texting war plans.

Well, I noticed this morning, how came something that doesn't look like war plans? And as a matter of fact, they even changed the title to attack plans because they know it's not war plans.

Attack plans not war plans.

They're insulting all of our intelligence as if this is an excuse. You know what a better excuse would be or a better response. Yeah, our national security advisor, he's an idiot, and he added this person and we're never supposed to be there, and he's being fired yesterday.

So we've dealt with the problem. We're moving on.

They instead, they're attacking Jeffrey Goldberg and the Atlantic as if it's his fault that he what did Wall say that his sucked sucked in. As much as I despise drug dealers, I ask you all the next time, do you drug dealers out there get caught to tell the police, Oh they got sucked in.

Yeah, I don't. I don't know.

You ever been in a situation where you have a contact and somebody else's number, Try telling that to put the police use that as a defense in a court of life. A lot I get. I asked you to do that for my own edification and amusement, to see how it will work out.

Every every guy in the country who's been caught teating his.

Foot or her number got sucked in.

No guy would even like.

Nobody, No one is even dumb enough to try that. You got to have some other like, oh, my friend sent it to me or whatever. You know, it's different initials. I didn't know what it was.

Fellas.

I want to text Jeffrey Goldberg.

Fellas, try that one next time. It's just too much.

The best what we've seen yet, the best actual response here has been from secon Terry Rubio. He's like, look, so I made a big mistake. Yeah, yeah, He's like, that's it. That's all we can say. Let's take a lesson a four first.

Question, let me just say on the signal thing, this thing was set up for purposes of coordinating how everyone was going to call you know when these things happened. I need to call foreign ministers, especially of our close allies.

We need to notify members of Congress.

Other members of the team have different people they need to notify as well.

And that was the purpose of why it was set up.

Obviously, someone made a mistake, someone made a big.

Mistake and added a journalist.

Nothing against journalists, but you ain't supposed to be on that thing, so.

They got on there and this happened.

I've been you know, so I can speak to.

Myself for my presence on it.

I think my role I on it was just speaking for my role.

I contributed to it twice.

I identified my point of contact, which is my chief of staff.

And then later on I think three.

Hours after the White House's official announcements had been made, I congratulated the members of the team. I've been assured by the Pentagon and every everyone involved that none of the information that was on there, though not intended to be bevulged.

Obviously that was a mistake and that shouldn't have happened.

In 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.

Somebody made a mistake, just say it.

But you know why you can't say it because then you have to fire the idiot who made a mistake. That's why I'm like, you know, watching heg Seth have to contort himself into a knot this is It's not even his fault.

This is Trump.

Trump is standing by and just allowing this idiot to stay in his job. I also want to say this, I think Trump is losing his edge in the old days. Anyone who have flailed like that on television.

You're right, first term, that's the crime, right, Yeah, well admitted.

Did you not see that TV interview? It was humiliating.

You know, anybody, you don't even need like a sixty IQ to watch that and be like, yeah, this.

Guy is this is this is obviously lying.

And Trump is not only allowing this, He's been clowning himself by allowing this to keep working for him. Who's like, oh, it got sucked into my phone? And now the White House said yesterday that Elon Musk's technical experts are what.

Technical expertsy do you get on the case.

Yeah, we need a forensic chain to look at how this happened. The guy had the phone number in his phone and then they added the wrong number.

It's not hard done, it is done. Yeah, he's closed.

We need an efficient review of this, not big Balls spending weeks with a committee.

I just can't get you know, for me, Ryn, you know, I'm watching these National Park rangers get fired, and you know, all these other folks get fired. Maybe some need to go, maybe some don't, whatever, But this guy gets the second chance forgiveness.

We know, fourteen years of impeccable performance reviews, right, and you're fired, Yes, because big Balls didn't understand what your job was and it and it's and it's had something in the word diversity, Yeah, was in it. And so but Michael, this guts to keep his job.

This guy is fine.

It's again it insults the intelligence of all good people. Next part, let's let's go to this one because this is great. So as you'll all recall, Mike Waltz said I have never met and never communicated.

With Jeffrey Goldberg before. Here's a photo of him and Jeffy Goldberg all right, standing right next to you.

Tell the world where they are.

Yeah, yeah, it's.

Actually even better at the French embassy where there are attendant. What was some French with a French filmmaker. Yeah, that's right, some Q and A for a French filmmaker. I'll tell you it is a nice embassy for all being, it's a beautif.

It's a bit incredible.

Yeah, you know that is the heart of Swamp Washington.

It's just it's too much.

Again where the guy says I've never met and never communicated, and then except the French embassy and here's a photo of me standing right next to him. What you think they didn't have a little conversation right before that. Maybe that's when his number got sucked into his phone. Right, Yes, it's just again, you know, I can say it over and over and then finally a six let's put it up here. Mike Wallace Apparently for some reason, his Venmo list is public.

I was talking to the team this morning.

I was like, bro, am I the only guys that is private venmoll list, And so I was like, twenty years old.

Is what are we doing here?

Is Michael Waltz still walking around with this phone that is known to just suck up random not.

Yeah, that's right, this is a de Would you want to get rid of this? Phone.

This is very Yeah, this is bad.

So let's presume here that the CNN journalist and the MSNBC producer and all these other journalists which were publicly available at Mike Waltz's venmo also got sucked into his phone. In terms of how this all happened, like goat shakes out. At this point, Trump is now allowed the humiliation of

He refused executive privilege.

The Secretary of Defense has to testify legally before Congress. I think, what is it four or five times a year or something like that, and so they're obviously going to press him if the Democrats do take the midterms. What's the easiest, you know, Lewinsky style hearing type of thing to initiate classified hearings referring things to the you just bought yourself two years of scandal for no reason. And you know, people might think this is dumb, but

This is everywhere.

Andy Cohen joked about it on Watch What Happens Live last night.

There you go, So.

That's what I mean. But okay, even take that out of it. Go on TikTok or Instagram or any of these. Everyone is making jokes about the group chat like it entered the zeitgeist.

Andy Cohen joked about it just talking about signals, as in, everyone understands this, like didn't need any context.

They go, it's just everyone understands the whole country.

If you're even like tangentially, you know, experiencing pop culture or the news or TV, this show, YouTube, whatever, you've heard about this, because.

This is a real thing.

Everyone's made that mistake, they have, but nobody has defended it.

And nobody has defended it as stupidly as Mike Walls. And so you know, I just keep coming back to this. You have a guy who literally committed the greatest Washington sin that you can make. Number one is jeopardized classified information. Then the second greatest Washington staffer sin is you become

It's just shocking.

And yeah, the problem that Democrats seem to have here is that they seem hell bent on trying to use this to get rid of Pete heggsay.

I noticed that.

I was going to ask you about that, because I don't get it. They got him dead to rights. He's an idiot. It's done close case.

I mean, look, the guy was sharing is a pro war like Washington creature.

I was going to say, And I think that makes him.

More Democrats are more comfortable with pro war Washington creatures who have the support of APAC right and the pro Ukraine war types like That's Democrats are just more comfortable with that kind of guy than with Hegxeth, who is more skeptical of I mean this his signal chats, notwithstanding like he's not exactly a dove.

He's not a dove.

He's not he's got a bad Neocon pass, but he's more maga let's put it that. Yeah, Whereas Walts, like you said, I mean this guy was arguing for war with Russia, like yesterday, yeah, forty work for.

He's like actively kind of undermined.

Right, He's like you can see it in the group chat. This guy's like, no, actually beat the bomb yeh. And here's why, because there's some chat g there's analysis thirty.

Of the containers or who knows where those goods are going? And the European you know, they may manufacture something it and then other.

Other component parts wind up, can hear? So really we should go to war with the entire world.

That's right.

It's like, okay, got it again. It's just the stupidest possible move. And watching the White House and even JD he was attacking Goldberg.

Democrats, Just go are we doing Democrats?

We're attacking Jeffrey Goldberg. I just readed something to that ran.

You know what making us defend Jeffrey Goldberg?

Goldberg?

I hate the man so much, And I said this, I go a journal exaggerating his headline. Now a bigger problem than being the National Security Advisor of the USA actually adding said journal to the chat and lying about it. As I said, you need a sub sixty IQ to go along with it.

And the better headline was, you know, war planners exposed war crime in real time. Here you go, that's a good headline. You know what else is he kept that out right that they knocked out apart.

The other thing I can't really understand here about Goldberg is he's clearly protecting Waltz to some degree because because they are obviously. But at the same time, if someone was like, if I lead something, let's say, and someone was like, oh, I've never met soccer before, I'm like, okay, oh, here's a photo of the two of us together, and actually here's whenever you added me, and right, here's all of our past communications, just so you all know, in terms.

Of my original tip, that they are in contact and that they had been contact previously. But he burned him because he kind of had to, because at this point, you've added it's a huge store. You have to you

Lost Internet salutes to go and find a photo of Goldberg. And if the guy says I've never met you before, like that's just literally not true.

I met you this time.

I met him. Yeah.

Yeah, he even said I met him before in the article.

And so for Walts to come out to say he didn't, it's like, yeah, just aggressively stupid, a liar.

Yeah, it's just like the public record.

And really, what they are betting on, and this might be a good bed, is that Maga and Trump are so stupid that they will allow their intelligence to be insulted to own the Libs and the Atlantic.

The only people you're owning are yourselves.

Yeah.

Dave Portnoy over at barstool News or what no, barsool Sports, not barstool News.

I guess it could Barstool Sports.

Dave Portinoy put out a video and he was like, you know, guys, Mike Wallas gotta go.

Let's take a listen.

I've seen a lot of people be like, oh, you're mad about this, but we had a president like Biden with dementia, with the nuclear codes. Yeah, that's exactly it.

That's exactly it.

That wasn't right then and this isn't right now in this new administration.

You want to take accountability.

Trump. You may love Michael Waltz, you love Pete Heskiff, you may.

Love these guys.

Somebody has to go down to me. Is Michael Waltz.

He's the one who added him to this conversation. But you can't have the top of the top security people in the United States with the most sensitive information in the world, adding random editors of a magazine that hates Trump's guts to a group chat talking about an attack before it happens on a terrorist group.

You can't pooh poo it.

You can't downplay it. You have to sit up there and be like, holy shit, this is a fuck up of epic proportions.

There will be accountability.

I will get to the bottom of this, And frankly, I think I don't like calling for people's heads.

Michael Waltz.

It seems like you're the guy who added him to the group chat. You have to lose your job.

Yeah, basic, basic stuff.

Yes, it literally says Michael Wallace added you to the group chat.

There's no sucking in. It's over.

There was even there Now the current spin from MAGA is him his deputies added him.

Guess what they literally said, No, the deputy didn't add him.

I added him.

Okay, So I mean the only way maybe that you could get around it is my deputy sent me the guy's contact and that's how the number got sucked into.

MICD, not even trying.

But even if you did that, then fire the deputy. Why are we standing by this? Do you do you know who his deputy is?

Because I do.

Alex Wang, Alex Wang been around this town for a long time, all right, Alex.

Wang, Lords Cotton, Lord lewis coming after Alex as you should.

Yeah, great, Thank you Laura for your service.

Alex Wang were for Tom Cotton, unreconstructed Neocon one hundred percent, probably been leaking to Jeffrey goldbersus he came to Washington. This guy is a complete like just blob individual. You know, not a surprise that Michael Wallace hired him. Those of us who track insider personnel been tracking this guy for a long time. But that's another thing, you know, for Wallace, why are you protecting this guy?

Then?

If it's not his fault, my only then I can only surmise it's not his fault, it's your fault. Yeah, it's like there's the only ray that this all went down. And yeah, Trump, for some reason again wants this to be the number one story that is surrounding him. I mean, I thought he was on better ground. Let's just look again. We could debate merits and all that stuff all day long, even if you disagree on the deportations thing, and Glenden mostly convinced me that there were serious screw ups there.

Immigration is his number one issue right now, number one.

Every single other issue is mostly underwater according to a lot of these tracking polls on issues.

Now.

Sure caveats and all that stuff, etc. But that's where I want to be fighting my incompetence on a group chat joke.

That's not where we want to be.

Underneath that is you're bombing Yemen because you failed to end the Bengal War Israel, which has the White House having to respond to Portnoy.

That's whatever. Whenever Portnoy is.

Being used against Caroline Levitt in the press room, you're losing. So let's roll that real a clip because it was just kind of funny.

That's right, he just cleared by who's investigating, who's leading that?

And also Dave Portnoy, who endorsed President Trump, said today that he thinks that Mike Waltz should leave.

Could you response to that?

Sure?

Great respect for Dave Portnoy, but I just answered that previous question from Jennifer. As for your original question about who's leading looking into the messaging thread, the National Security Council, the White House Counsel's Office, and also yes, Elon Musk's team. Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat again, to take responsibility and ensure this can never happen again.

Got all the greatest minds, Got all the greatest minds trying to figure this out.

Don't worry Portant.

Technical expert Ryan is too much man.

So Tulsi who handled herself.

Okay, you know some lying two days ago was brought back to the Hill. Let's roll some Tulsi from yesterday. Because this is they're just still taking the.

They are just going to take this is every time he tests fied for Congress, you're going to be forced to sit there and eat l after l after.

There's no defending it. And watch, let's take a listen.

The time mister Whitcoff was actually in Russia during this chat discussion? Was he not?

I was not aware of that.

Was he on his personal phone at the time? I don't know what's my understanding that he was indeed in Russia? Director Dabberd. You were also traveling during this discussion, correct, yes?

And where were you?

I was traveling through the Asia Pacific region. I don't recall which country I was in at that time. You don't remember the country.

I'd have to go back and look at this schedule we do. By the way, I have news.

According to Whitcoff, yeah, he did not bring his phone, so okay, good, Yeah, no, but.

Actually there's two things there were going on there. He goes, you guys, you idiots. You said that this was on my personal phone. I don't even have my personal phone in Russia. And you're like, okay, but you did just confirm this was on your personal phone. Man, you know, you just admitted that this is your personal phone. We're not supposed to do that in terms of in terms of the official government record.

They can penetrate your phone while it's sitting on your bedside.

And not to be annoying Ryan, because I do understand where people are going to take this the wrong way and be like, oh, are you asking for more inefficiency. I'd be fine if they use signal, but you do

You know.

Some of my favorite books are the reconstructions of very like difficult policy periods. So, for example, the decision to oil embargo Japan. It is so useful to go back and to read the internal discussion Cordell Hall said this and a memorial and you could see the cables you had our ambassador being like, don't do it. This is going to lead to this Roosevelt the minim it's in the Oval office.

You can literally watch it all happen in slow motion. Same thing.

Another one of my favorite books is called It's Like This No it's the best and the brightest David Halberstam and specifically a reconstruction of the US decision to escalate into Vietnam. Same thing reading the cables, McGeorge Bundy, Robert McNamara. This stuff matters, Like, you know, I understand why the people in charge may not want it to be preserved, but for historical purposes, this is actually important.

Someday some naval historian out there is.

Going to write about the ability of the Hoothi's a non state actor with limited technology to fully blockade the entire red scene for the for the global empire.

That's a remarkable event.

No, right, you know, yeah, and they're gonna have to rely on like Fox news clips, right, We're gonna.

On tweets and news clips and not be able to look back on it. And what I'm just saying is not just a norm, it's actually the law. Like you're supposed to have a restless preservation and for reason to be able to go back and for historical purposes and for subpoena and to make sure that the laws followed. And you know, just they're making a mockery not only of that, but really again, I just keep coming back

Let's take a listen.

Did this conversation at some point include information on weapons packages, targets or timing.

Not that I'm aware of, Director Gabbard, same question, same answer, and defer to the Department of Defense on that question.

Well that those are two different answers. But you're saying that that was not part of the conversation. Knowledge precise operational issues were not part of this conversation, correct.

So that was previously and they said precise operations were not included there. We showed you all the messages, like, it's pretty obvious, Director of Ratcliffe for the CIA, not that I'm aware of.

What are you aware of? Then you're not aware of.

Of your own group chat? I mean, what's happening. I don't read every message in every group chat, but that they do on.

But yeah, that's probably out of all the messages in that chat, that's only what I'm reading, right, That's the one that I'm.

Like, okay, got it.

Paying an attention and you know, maybe you would want to scroll back in your phone and look at it. Look I just again, they are continuing this of their own, making the easiest thing to do. Immediately after Mike Wallas, we appreciate your service that Susie Wilds calls him up and says, Mike, listen, man, we all all made mistakes. You added a journalist, you added a journalist.

The president needs his resignation letter on his desk right now.

We got to go. We'll see what we wish, see the best, and then you move on, and everyone moves on. Everyone Okay, Yeah, it's really dumb mistake. Yeah, there might be one or two things, but instead it's a you know, one day thing now becomes a one week thing that we've been covering this. I guarantee you the fallout and all this is going to continue. Every Republican in Congress is gonna get asked about this. Every Republican or every member of the Trump cabinet, you're gonna be pressed about that.

This is not going away.

And the press loves when an official says a thing that can be verified and you can verify that it's not true, like they love that.

It doesn't matter what it is.

Right and well, and you know, I think the public loves it too. Like I said, there's something about the story. It has penetrated the zeitgeist. People are loving it, they're eating it up. The memes are everywhere.

Stupid.

Yeah, it's the sheer stupidity of it. And then if we pair that at a major pull out level. What again, If I'm the government, what do I want my narrative to be. I want it to be about tariffs. I want it to be about immigrate, about the auto that's right, auto tariffs and more. We haven't decided to put in the show because it's actually kind of unclear what exactly they are, and I want to see the actual effect as they go in, just in terms of the whether it applies to just finish cars or not.

So we'll probably cover it on Monday.

But the point is that you want like news about things that you're doing to be the thing. And so again, like I said, even on the deportations, Look, we can argue about due process and all that stuff all day long. At the end of the day, this stuff is pretty popular, you know, in terms of deportation.

We'll acknowledge that.

Yeah, it's popular.

Like that.

That's what the ground that I want to be fighting on. Just today there was some MS thirteen operations.

Same thing.

That's what you want the news to be about. Now they can say, oh, it's your fault because you're not covering it. It's like, no, no, no, no, you're the people who made a colossal national security mistake, and you refuse to fire the guy and then be clown yourself elf for you know, a seventy two hour period by attacking the people who reported it as opposed to the people who were responsible for it. You deserve everything that's coming your way. So what this is the clown show? This

I mean Skaramuchi was fired after what thirteen days?

Yeah, and they're accidentally buttressing the credibility of the Atlantic and Jeffy.

Gould, Right, I know, people be like, oh, maybe that wasn't a hoax. Isn't that the worst losers thing?

Isn't that the worst part? That The Atlantic has been getting a bunch more subscribers.

It's like, guys, why do you do this? Yeah, they need each other. They were failing. They literally would go on their road to bankruptcy before.

All of this, and now you just gave them the number one story in the world. It drove a ton of subscriptions. I bet you they printed millions just.

Off of this. Don't Bezis' wife, No.

Loreene Powell Jobs even worse Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs's widow is the person who is bankrupt. They were going to be Okay, Yeah, they're always key fun, but yeah, why they even pretend to need to make money is always like a whole lot of That's a difficult and different conversation.

In a special election for state Senate in Pennsylvania, Democrats flipped a deep red Republican district. James Malone ended up defeating the Republican candidate by just a few hundred votes. On the other hand, you only have a few thousand people that end up voting in these races. This is Lancaster County, the suburbs outside of Lancaster and the more rural areas there. Trump had won it by something like

There is no safe seat, or there's no place that is not available to run.

Hours after polls closed across northern Lancaster County, Democrat James Malone was projected the winner of tuesday special election.

You can certainly imagine that guy being a good time at the tailgate ahead of the Birds game, can you not?

Saga? And apparently so.

He was running against the chairman of the County Langaster count Commission, who obviously is a high profile guy in the area but not terribly well liked. Elon Musk had invested some energy in this race. You know, he had you know, a bunch of paid voters throughout the state in his database, after you know, offering you know, one hundred bucks to anybody that would sign his petition and then then go out and vote against the law, by the way.

But you know.

This is so significant is not just the Trump margin but the registration advantage. So one of the things that was a canary in the coal mine ahead of the election was the crazy registration numbers coming out of Bucks

Had gone for Biden and went to Trump.

So the reason why this is significant is that in this county, the Republicans actually held a huge registration advantage. Now the seat opens up because the person who held it left to go work for Dave McCormick. That's the currently the Republican in the United States Senate for this state of Pennsylvania. But the Democrat has not won this seat since nineteen seventy nine, so.

Like eighteen yeah, so look eighteen seventy nine, Oh, it was really yeah, have post reconstruction, big deal, Tawi.

And the reason why it all matters is that in Pennsylvania they're all doing post Trump analysis.

What do we even do now?

Josh Shapiro recorded a robo call that went to all of the people in the district. Remember Shapiro dramatically more popular than any other Democrat, like in the entire state. What is your thirteen percent approval of margin or something like that.

It's crazy.

It might even repubably be nineteen You're right, it might honestly even be higher now here.

We see it.

I mean, you might be right, nineteen seventy nine.

Oh okay, all right, but that's yeah, that's as democratic district back regardles.

It doesn't matter a long time.

It's been a while. Eighteen their nineteen seventy nine, same thing, same day. Let's just consider that what we see here is a blessing and a curse for the Democrats. The blessing is this, before the election of twenty twenty four, these Libs who are registered and want to vote in low turnout elections.

They are ready to roll.

They're ready to you know, put up their signs and they're ready to vote, and they're ready to donate and to get activated that's the midterm advantage, same thing reason why we saw big midterm game there for the Democrat. The problem is is that in a high turnout election with very low propensity, people people who have no idea what the State Senate even is, which you know, I get it, if you're just living your life, you're like, what is the State Senate? You mean the United States Senate.

Right because they're the makeup. They were winning special elections and nonne.

Exactly, they were blowing it out.

No.

Nine.

You could see all the tea party stuff, all the script was right there for those of us who are watching.

And Lancaster is a particularly well organized area for the left. There's a group called Lancaster Stands Up that I've written about in the past, going back to like twenty eighteen, they've been doing a lot of grassroots organizing and door knocking and building up their local capacity, and so they might be slightly better positioned even in a.

Special election than in general.

But Democrats are looking at this and what you saw from a lot of them was okay, Now onto Wisconsin.

Yes, let's talk about that. Can you break that down here?

So Wisconsin, there's a Supreme Court race coming up between the liberal is or the Democrat. It's a non partisan race. Susan Crawford on on that side, and Brad Shimmel is the county judge, former Republican state attorney general. So even though it is a non partisan race, everybody knows, everybody Wisconsin knows. If you're a Democrat, you want Crawford, if you're probably want Shimmel. There are obviously major issues on all that it will come to the Supreme Court, abortion rights,

Elon Musk has.

His groups have put in He has put in something like seventeen million.

Dollars so far. It's like the most that.

There's been for a Supreme Court campaign already. It was April first, So this coming Tuesday, this election, Emily will be there on the ground for the election. Wisconsin Native Democrats, you know, they have money, they're you know, they're obviously can't keep up with you know, Tesla cash, but you know they're they're not going to be They're not going to be completely ignored and blanked off of the airwaves.

Wisconsin is going to have a Supreme Court race every year for the next six years or something.

So we're going to potentially see a lot of why do they care so much though back and forth.

Why do they care so much here about the state Supreme Court?

Because they because the geromandary cases which will influence whether or not you know what you know the So the Republicans when they took control in twenty ten of the state drew redrew the boundaries for the local, for the state legislature and also for the federal one, so that the House delegation has been imbalanced. Despite it being people can look it up now, but despite it being a fifty to fifty state, far more Republicans getting sent to Washington.

So if you if you can chip away at that.

When you only have a three state deficit in the House, it's important to move from there to retake control of the House for Democrats. And then the Supreme Court decides when you can vote, what the mail what the male voting rules are, what the what the what the rules are around counting.

You just had this.

Executive order from Trump yesterday trying to kind of take federal control of elections. It won't work because federal government doesn't really have that level of control, especially without congressional action. He tried to put in something in place that says, you know, ballots that come in after election day, which are mostly military ballots, you know, can't be counted.

But that so that's the.

Battleground and and the and the battleground is the Wisconsin Supreme Court got it. It's when Pennsylvania flipped its Supreme Court in twenty seventeen twenty eighteen. Republicans see that as a key reason that they lost Pennsylvania in twenty twenty because then the court opened up, you know, did redistricting and open and opened up mail voting. That's in a way that the Trump team thought was you know, fraudulent and unfair and illegal in all those.

States because they probably would. Whatever'll get into that.

It's like, yeah, you just happened to win the presidency with lower propensity voters next time, but whatever.

It doesn't need to go into that.

Yeah, as you said, this election, I was just looking determines whether you have the four to three liberal control. So this literally will determine the flip them. So that's why it's so important. And then more so you actually looking at some of the data. Pretty honestly, I've been pretty feeling pretty goody for I was a Democrat. Nearly forty eight percent more early ballots have been cast compared to the same point from two years ago.

Yeah, I mean, I don't.

Know if you only do so much intodies, right, and this is low perpendsy because if you're voting in the Supreme Court election, you care more than the average personalitics.

Yeah, you have real like you're no offense, but you're weird, you we care a lot of youscons you.

Might end up getting a couple million people turn out.

Yeah, so right now it is more than three hundred and forty five thousand people have returned their ballots rather by mailer part that's crazy compared to two hundred and thirty three thousand at this point just two years ago. What is even the voting population of Wisconsin. It can't be that many. So honestly, good for you guys. That's that's pretty high voter participation. But I mean they're also

JB.

Pritzker, who has been doing some rallies and stuff. So they're blanketing the entire state. And like I said, it's not that big of a state, so you easily could reach you know, a lot of people.

With this amount of overall media attention. So super interesting.

Just you know, we're always looking for what does it mean all of this, especially for the midterms. Like usually, I think the rule here is that with the midterms, these lower propensities, special elections and other things, you're gonna