You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM six forty signal pleasure being with you. Thank you so much for inviting us into your lives every morning. Neil Sebaibra is in for Bill next week, and your long national nightmare is nearly over. Three out of four Americans, including sixty percent of Republicans, now saying the Trump administration's use of the Signal group chat discussing the military strikes. They say that's a serious problem, especially since the Pentagon
said don't use that. This was from ABC.
The information was sent on the encrypted messaging app Signal, which the Pentagon found in twenty twenty one to be an unauthorized means of communicating sensitive information. Secretary of State Mark or Rubio says the chat was set up so Trump's national security team could coordinate communication with members of Congress and foreign leaders.
This was a sort of description of what we could inform our counterparts around the world when the time came to do so.
Growing calls on Capitol Hill from Democrats for Hegseth to resign or be fires is that going to happen?
Lebby Dean is the News Nation correspondent and Lebby joins us. Lebby. Is there any sign that Hexith is going to resign or be fired?
Today is the day if that is the case, because Hegseth right now is headed to Japan. He was in the Philippines. He's been doing this by that overseas trip for a couple of days now ever since the story broke with the day he left. And then you've got Waltz who was headed with the Vice President in his landing shortly in Greenland. So for President Trump to fire either of these two, to do it while they would
be overseas unlikely. So we head into this weekend with their heads not on the shopping block here, but certainly it's been talked about after everything that's happened.
Yeah, unlikely, but it wouldn't be unprecedented because if we recall, James Comy got fired via tweet while he was not in DC, although Collmy wasn't handpicked by President Trump either, whereas these guys are kind of his name is all over these guys, right, So does that pose a political issue for him?
I mean, if the past informs the president here when it comes to President Trump firing people, it wouldn't be shocking. I would say from my past experience of covering President Trump, this would seem to be more of a lenient approach
from him. We've seen him more or less stand completely behind his national security team, specifically Walt who was in that cabinet meeting earlier this week and sitting in the cabinet room rather and Trump was looking him up, despite him taking full fault for this and then saying the same of heg Seth as well standing behind them at this point. But Yeah, as you mentioned, it wouldn't be a shock if President Trump were to ultimately fire someone. It's a satellite Lebby.
Dean is a News Nation correspondent. Lebby. I don't know about you. You're probably a very professional person. I have pushed boundaries in my career in the past, and there have been times that I've been told by the boss. You know, this is your get out of jail free card. Is this if the President does stand by these guys this time, are they basically in double secret probation in the same way that my boss has said, one more screw up and you're done.
Look, I don't think that signal is going to be a means of communication in the future for either of these two, at least when it comes to things of this national security concern and whether this is a one off and they're getting off this time only to get in trouble next time. I mean, what is that saying. It's like first is the worst, second is the best, or I don't know. There is the possibility, of course, that they could find themselves in this kind of situation
again and potentially be fired by the president. It is interesting though Democrats, this is something they ailed against Teg. Sass from the beginning, the Defense secretary for Trump who sent the very detailed messages about these bombs being dropped in Yemen in this signal group chat, and they weious concerns about his viability in the position given he of course it was in the military and does have that background, but less intelligence community experience than some of his counterparts,
and was facing criticism on that front. But I mean, it's fully they're all fully back to work today. One headed to green Lend, the other has been overseas, So I don't see any developments happening today or at least through the weekend. But you never know when a true social post is going to come out and everything I've said has proven move does.
Is there an effort right now to expedite the news cycle on this. I saw in the past some administrators that have said, you know, this has lasted forty two hours, it was a mistake, let's move on. Let's not give them the next seventy two hours. I mean, there has to be This is a headache that continues on for this White House. I mean, I can't think of too many other examples where something out of the Trump administration happens and we discuss it for an entire week. That
is the case with this Signal Group chat app. It seems like they have not been able to turn the new cycle as fast as they want to.
Yeah, it's certainly the case that they would want this to fade into the background. I don't see that happening anytime soon. Now that you've got internal investigations happening at the White House, Congress pressing on this, the Atlantic releasing more messages. You've got the court battle as well playing out with DC Judge Boseberg, who is making sure that these intelligence officials keep these messages. I don't see this dying down anytime soon, because every day this week that
I've covered this. I mean we're on day five here. Every day this week i've covered this, something new has developed, whether that was overnight with last night Boseberg's decision here, or it was just the release of these messages. I mean every day there is a new development or a new comment from an official, which keeps this, of course in the headlines and a lot of questions moving forward.
I would say about what this looks like for the administration when it comes to using signal and just their means of communication as a whole, because this is the big so called scandal. I mean, it's fair to say this is pretty scandalous. This is their big that the first one for the Trump administration this second go around, and they certainly would like to see it die down. I'm sure.
Lebby Dean is our News Nation correspondent to talking with us about the signal chat stuff. You mentioned Judge Bosberg, who we recognize from He's also the judge that's overseeing the deportation of the Venezuelan alleged gang members to the l Salvadorian prison. His rulings have not been favorable for the Trump administration. Trump has called for him to be impeached and now he gets assigned this case as well. Does this give political fodder to claim which hunt.
Well, that's certainly what President Trump is doing and has continued to do. But I mean, Boseburg has four cases now related to the Trumpe administration, so that he's got this signal group chat one the Alien Enemies Act to one about the deportation flights as well as the subtle grant funding freeze, a lot of details of that, and then also DOGE records is what the other case relates to.
I will point out that, and this is actually how Boseburg started the hearing yesterday which I listened in to. I've listened into a few of these hearings with Boseburg. That one about the immigration flights was incredibly tense, with Department of Justice officials going back and tools with Boseburg and Boseburg calling their response is disrespectful. That wasn't the
case during this hearing yesterday with Bosburg. It was certainly more tame, and you weren't hearing from Department of Justicials because he was just giving his order. But basically Boseburg actually started out this hearing by specifying that the court decides who gets assign these cases, and Boseburg isn't making those decisions because that is where a lot of the blowback.
And I'm sure he's seen this pushback from the Trump administration who's claiming that he's assigning himself these cases in some form or fashion. But yeah, what ended up happening there was basically this hearing and he told these intelligence officials who were included in the chat, they need to maintain these records. It was I believe March eleventh through fourteenth that he had said, those are the dates that
you have to maintain these records. But what's interesting enough, and I'm curious to fight out and I will be asking intelligence officials about is there was on the Signal chat because I'm very familiar with Signal, I've used it. On the Signal chat, there was a one week dismissal of when these would disappear. I mean we're at March twenty eighth. I'm just curious what's still there. I mean, of course Goldberg had the screenshots, but I just don't
know how that all works with the Signal platform. And that's going to be something to look into as well.
Yeah, that's a great question. It's kind of like trying to retrieve a snapchat once it's gone and are understanding is way right?
Save the messages? But how do we save them if they're already gone? So that's a question. As this, I mean developed last night, so something that's going to be developing today I would watch for all right.
Let me Dan NewsNation White House Correspondent. Let me thank you so much for your insight into that, say for having me. Yeah, you bet. Of course I've told the story before, but I don't think i've told on the morning show, so I'm gonna do it again. First came to California in twenty twelve and I rolled in. I worked in San Diego and I rolled in. They were putting me up at a resort, which was nice until I got the tax bill on that that was fun.
So I roll up into this resort. It was February the twentieth, I believe, And as I pull into this resort, I had left. I was working in Kansas City, and I left Kansas City. I pulled into this resort, you know, drove a cross country pull in and as I'm driving in in February, there's girls standing in the parking lot in bikinis, and I thought, I'm never leaving California. This is the most amazing thing ever. So I start working at this radio station and great stations, still love it,
fantastic people there. And I hear about this high speed rail project again. This is twenty twelve, so still in the planning stages, and they said, well, you know, I was given a little bit of the backstory and I hadn't heard about it until then, and I'm giving the backstory and they said, well, the voters approved this eight billion dollars to go towards starting this high speed rail and eventually it's going to run from the Bay Area and eventually it'll go from the Bay Area all the
way to San Diego. But initially they want to get it from Bay Area and Sacramento to Los Angeles. And I thought, well, that sounds ambitious, and they said yeah, and the the projections are already at I don't know what it was at the time, twenty five billion dollar something like that. So shortly after I get there, they go, uh, oh, we're going to need more money. Projections are now up to thirty billion or forty billion dollars whatever it was,
and I said, I've seen this play out before. I've been fired from enough stations and enough cities to see how government waste is ubiquitous. It is not a California problem. It happens everywhere you have people. It's sort of like when you go to a buffet and your eyes are bigger than your stomach. That's what happens. When the politicians get just an iota of power, they go, we want to do this grand project, and they want to attach their names to it. Right, So Governor Brown really wanted
to have this high speed rail. He says, this is going to be great, and they all push for it. And you had a bunch of the politicians and Sacramento padding themselves in the back. This is going to be spectacular. And I went, wait a minute. The voters approved eight billion dollars. You're already up to forty or fifty billion dollars. I said, you mark my words, this is gonna go
up to one hundred billion dollars. And what I didn't realize is how wrong I was, because we blew past one hundred billion dollars a long long time ago, long time ago, and what do we have to show for it? Raise your hand. If you have ridden the high speed rail in California? Anybody, anybody? Anybody? Oh? Yeah, we are well over the initial projections, and not a single person has ever taken a single ride because there's no train
on any track. And yet the most Bruce Wayne looking politician in history, our governor, Governor Batman, is now saying, oh, it's on its way. Off we go.
As I say we did the railhead, we're starting to lay track. This thing's starting to get very very real.
Is it though? You're starting to lay track? Well, good, because you know you've gotten enough money and the projections are already at one hundred and twenty five billion dollars, and lord knows, we'd like to see something out of it. But where we lay in track? Is it coming out of the Bay Area? Is it somewhere in Riverside? No? No, we've spent all this money on the easiest part thus far, between Bakersfield and Mercet. But wait, there's more. CACRA had the story.
Governor Kavin Newsom defending California's high speed rail project on his latest podcast episode, released Wednesday morning. The project originally pitched to voters in two thousand and eight, as a bullet train between La to San Francisco is significantly short on funds and nowhere near finished.
Yeah, it's barely started.
The state has so far spent about fourteen billion dollars and needs more than double that just to finish the first line between Merced and Bakersfield.
The first line across the easiest part where they had to do the least amount of modifications to infrastructure, housing, zoning, everything else across the central Valley has already bloomed up to twenty eight billion dollars. Oh, this is this is going to be tremendous.
The Trump administration is now reviewing the use of four billion in federal funds so far.
Four billion. Oh, the fens got off easy on this one.
Finishing the full route between the Bay Area and southern California needs at least one hundred billion dollars.
Yeah, Finishing the full route needs one hundred billion. But we're spending twenty eight billion on the easiest part. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no. Most of that money has yet to materialize. Yeah, I mean the end of.
The day, we've got these constraints that are well established already, these pre existing constraints and there's not a high speed railing system that's not enjoyed some popularity and success. Most at least are wildly popular. It's an experienced no one's had in the United States of America. At least we're out there daring.
But some Democratic lawmakers during a hearing on the project wednesday had different thoughts.
Yeah, what are they say?
The definition of insn is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
I always love it when somebody tells me the definition of insanity. Actually, if you look up the definition of insanity, that's not it.
The high speed Rail had not yet submitted its annual report, which irked Assembly members Wednesday. The state's Legislative Analysts Office told lawmakers the project needs seven billion dollars by next June in order to move forward.
Oh is that all just another seven billion? Or else seven billion or else or else? What or else? Will have wasted the other? No, this is a fallacy, This is a sunk cost fallacy. Well, you've already spent eight billion,
or we've already spent fourteen billion. You better give us another seven or I mean, that's just a waste of the other fourteen or it's a waste of twenty one billion total, because you're going to come back and say, well, we got to have another ten billion, Well, we gotta have another fifty billion, while we gotta have another hundred billion. We gotta have another two hundred and fifty billion dollars and for what so that we can realize the dream
of Governor Choochu No stop. You got to know when to hold them, you got to know when to fold them, you got to know when to walk away, and in this case, you got to run. We saw the protests going on at southern California schools last year, as well as a number of other universities across the country, and now we're getting the crackdown. If you were protesting, you are on alert. One student at Tufts University was surrounded by plain clothed officers, cuffed and stuffed in a van.
Now I don't know about you, but if I had a bunch of randos wearing hoodies and masks that threw handcuffs on me, I would be pretty sure that I was being kidnapped. Even if they flashed flashed a badge, I'd go, you know what, I probably need to call somebody and make sure that you are who you say you are, just the same. That's what happened. AB Seniors had the report, mister secretary.
A Turkish student in Boston was detained and handcuffed on the street by playing clothes agents. A year ago, she wrote an opinion piece about the gas of war. Could you help us understand what the specific action she took led to her visa being revoked?
This is Marco Rubio she's talking to.
And what was your state department's role in that process?
Or we revoked her visa? It's an F one visa. I believe we revoked.
More like an FU visa. Am I right? Am? I?
We were voked it and here's why. And I'll say it again. I said it everywhere. Me be abundantly clear. Okay, if you go apply for a visa right now anywhere in the world, let me just send this message out.
If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason why you're coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a rock. We're not going to give you a visa.
Yeah, But did she and I don't know that she didn't. But did she vandalize buildings and create a ruckus? Or is this a guilt by association? Sitch?
If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, We're going to take away your visa. And once you've lost your visa, Yeah, you're no longer legally in the United States, And we have a right, like every country in the world has a right to remove you from our country. So it's just that simple.
Did she commit a crime?
I think it's crazy. I think it's stupid for any country in the world to welcome people into their country.
They're going to go to your universities as visitors. They're visitors and say.
I'm going to your universities to start a riot.
Again, some people did riot. That would be ignorant for me to argue otherwise, did this person were these students who were committing the violence, the vandalism, that sort of thing. Were they here on visus or are we just saying, well, We can't really get them because they're US citizens. We can get them for vandalism, but we can stick these other people who were in the crowd, they were nearby, guilt by association? Is there any evidence that this person
was pro terrorist? In fact, President Trump has said that they're going to get the pro Hamas students out. Well, can you be pro Palestinian without being pro Hamas? See, that's the nuance that were very bad as a society of understanding, and politicians know that. So what they want to do is they want to paint this as a binary choice. You're with us or you're against us and we're with Israel. And if you're not with us with Israel, then you are against us and you're with the terrorists.
And yet, is it possible? It's mind blowing here, Is it possible you could be pro not war, pro Palacetian and not be pro terrorists? Can you be pro United States and still think that Israel went too far with bombing rates. I'm not saying they did or they didn't. I'm saying can you have that opinion and not be un American? Or do we need to have some sort of a committee on Unamerican activities? Maybe that's what we ought to do. No one's ever tried that before in
this country. Oh, that's right, we did with the communist thing, but that was in the Listen. That was a long time ago. That was a mistake we made back in the fifties when we did the whole Red Scare and we were hunting for communists. We've evolved since then. We are no longer the same country that just says are you a communist? And if you are, there's going to be hell to pay. We don't do that any longer.
Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party?
Oh crap, that was Josh Hawley. He was talking with the TikTok guy. I guess we are still doing the same thing, are you now or have you ever been associated with Hamas? And even if the answer is no, we're still going to deport you. But that's what we can do, and we're very proud of it. It's not just a toughs also happen at Alabama. ABC's Eric Katursky was talking.
About that welcome back. Officials say federal immigration agents have detained a University of Alabama doctoral student who is a citizen of Iran. The student is currently being held in a detention facility, but ICE records don't list where he's being held or the reason for his detention.
Well, probably for pro hamasiness.
This follows the arrests of a Peah student at Tuffs University. Security video shows the moment the Turkish national who is in the US on a visa not anymore.
See, we can just we can just revoke that visa. We don't even have to tell you we revoked it. We just revoked visa and now you're here illegally.
When she was handcuffed by officials Tuesday night while on her way to Neet friends to break her Ramadan fast features see right there, She's listed in the ICE database as incostody and appears to be held at a processing center in Louisiana. Want to bring an ABC's chief investigative correspondent, Aaron Koturski to talk more about this, Aaron thinks, for coming in through here in studio, So what more King tell us about the student in Alabama.
We know that he's Iranian, we know that he's a doctoral student studying some kind of a metallurgy and otherwise we have got requests out to the Department of Homeland Security say why did you detain him? And they haven't responded to us. But the University of Alabama says he was detained and they are trying to figure out, just like we are, why where he's being held, what the circumstances are.
We just don't know.
But he's one of a half dozen at least international students that the administration has detained as they try to crack down on people at least that we know of who have been pro Palestinian or part of that activist community.
Are you now or have you ever been a Crimson Tide fan? That's good enough for me. Get them out of here in what has been a wild week. This has been this last week has been the longest year in a long time. So we've got the Signal chat app. We've got a Greenland visit, which we'll talk about coming up here after eight o'clock. We've got abducting students by ice who may or may not have been part of
protests and college campuses. And we're also dropping a twenty five percent taxes tariffs excuse me, on vehicles and parts that are produced overseas, and other tariffs are set to go into effect next week as well, because remember we were gonna have those tariffs that were set up to go into effect right away February, and then we went up, JK, it'll be in March. I put them into effect. The two days later, they're out of effect, but they got a thirty day reprieve. So here we are. The next
week will be another thirty days. Are we gonna do this every month or are we gonna say, well, we're gonna hold off for I mean, we're gonna give ourselves like three months at some point, or is it gonna drop down to just two weeks to get it done? Or are we actually going to see tariffs going to effect. I was watching NBCLA as they were talking about the tariffs and how these are gonna hit us in a number of different places, not just the vehicles either.
A regular trip to the grocery store for many is becoming less of a routine.
Just ask Ameliacal tearists pretty expensive right now.
I mean, it's just I don't know how a lot of people can you know.
Okay, well make it right now, to be honest with you, with increase on everything. Her trip to this grocery store off Gary Avenue on Thursday.
She says, was enough to get by. What do you want?
I know, palitas and tomatoes.
That's about it.
Customers say the hike in everyday goods is impacting their spending. Soon they will feel another punch to their wallet when President Donald Trump is expected to add additional tariffs.
Expectations are our prices are going to go up?
You see.
Irvine finance professor Christopher Schwartz says while he believes that while the economy is strong, the president's tariffs on imports could cause consumers to step back on their spending habits.
Yeah. And is that as vehicles? If we start throwing tariffs on the lumber from Canada, if you're trying to rebuild Palisades Alta Dina, that's going to be more expensive than it was before. Yeah. And I don't know if you've noticed already the most expensive place in the country to live.
This comes as the White House announced this week a twenty five percent tariff would be placed on auto imports to foster domestic manufacturing.
Most car parks are not manufactured here in the US, so it doesn't note of a new or an old car. If you go to your dealership to get a car fix that Dezza part. There's a high probability that part is not produced here and the US, and so the in theory, the price of that would go up.
Oh crap. Even my old beater has to have new parts every now and again, and that means it's going to cost me a little bit more still cheaper to fix it than it is to buy a new car. If you're talking about card prices going up four to twelve thousand dollars. But wait, what about Tesla that's made in the United States. Surely they're insulated from these tariffs. No, they're not because a lot of their parts are electronics. And where do we get our electronics? Yeah, yeah, overseas?
And what else happens? Well, Canada's Prime minister has already said the United States is no longer a reliable partner. They're working on retaliatory tariffs. Mexico is trying to figure out how to stall or evade the auto tariffs. But
you better believe they're going to hit US with retaliatory tariffs. Japan, China, European nations, all of them likely to hit US with retaliatory tariff, which means that the teslas will not be sold at a very high volume over seas, and can I just point out Greenland doesn't manufacture vehicles, so taking them over doesn't really help this situation. The Bill handleshow Chris Maryland for Bill k I AM six forty and
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