Hey guys, welcome to another episode of eyes On. We got a special Greek Independence stage episode for you. Joined here with Mark poly Moreopolis, former obviously senior CIA officer.
Uh, we're gonna go on one topic.
It's gonna be fast and loose about what went down yesterday with the signal chat from the article in the Atlantic which pretty much spelled out what was what.
So Mark, how's it going? Man?
Have you ever sent like, uh, you know, secret stuff to people on signal, like while you were working just to you with Jack?
I mean, come on, no, Well, first of all, I think there's this is this is a significant because now the two Greeks have taken over the show.
Yeah, no more marines, just Greek.
No more marines, and you know, another riff raft around and so uh, this is important. It is Greek Independence Day. And we could probably do a whole podcast on how our fellow Greek Americans were kind of snowed so many of them into into the Maga world. But that's for another time. So I will just say that. I will note I was not invited as a in my view, as I am a prominent Greek American, I was not invited to the White house yesterday.
I saw some of my I knew a couple of kids that were there.
Right right, So so I get and so the way I put it out on social media, I guess they lost, you know, my invitation.
In the mail.
Yeah, yeah, well you probably didn't even you probably didn't give money to like the inauguration or some shit, you know what I mean to get the.
NBA, I did not do that, but but thanks for having me on d Really an astonishing twenty four hours with this explosive report in The Atlantic, which I think, you know, for many of us in the national security world, you know, left us kind of gobsmacked. And that's, by the way, it's on both sides of the aisle. So you're gonna see a whole bunch of kind of Republican spin on this, necessarily saying it didn't happen, but downplaying it.
But in private, every single you know, Republican national security official that I know is equally as alarmed about what happened, because in essence, and just to kind of summarize a little bit, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Atlantic, was somehow added to what is called what was called in a signal Chat, the Hoothy Small Group and.
Chiefs Principal Committee.
The Hoothy PC Small Group. Now that, by the way, is the exact name that is used in such small discussions that of course usually are held in the situation room. So just the name itself is very revealing that this is almost certainly true. But in it individuals including the Vice President and then representatives from some other you know, national security agencies. Mike Waltz, I guess was the one
who organized this, the National Security Advisor. But there was clearly classified discussions that were including you know, war plans, and we'll address that in a second. But I think what was what was stunning for many of us is that, you know, Signal is a encrypted chat. It's pretty good. In fact, I use it to talk to a lot of people. It is considered though by the US government
to be unclassified. It is absolutely not appropriate to have, whether it's confidential, secret or top secret information on it, period, end of story. And so I think that's what kind of shocked a lot of people. Uh, there is something else in which, you know that we can talk all about the irony of this, But as a as a CIA alumnus of retiree, and I know there's other people who you certainly have here, you know, Mick mulroy, my
good friend. We all received on March twelfth an unclassified email and you can't make this up from this CIA alumni organization unclassified warning about what the dangers of signal, the vulnerable signal, and then we have our current director using signal or in partsticipating in this chat. Of course, this was generated by the National Security Advisor Mike Waltson. So there's just a staggering level of hypocrisy here. So
you know, there's so many things to think about. Then there's of course the content of it itself on the policy side, which is really interesting, and you know, we can kind of address these things kind of piecemeal. But bottom line on this is that this seems to be a very serious breach of national security information. Signal is not secure for this type of content, and you know,
let's see what happens again. In one of the another incredible ironies today and tomorrow, the entire national security establishment, including Telsey Gabber, the d and I, John Radcliffe, the CI director, Cash would tell the FBI Director, are all testifying today in front of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and an open hearing that starts at ten am, Oh my god, tomorrow in front of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. I mean, talk about incredible timing.
And these are important briefings because it's the Worldwide Threat Assessment, but I would imagine it's going to be dominated by this issue.
Yeah.
I mean, you saw Pete HeiG Set's response when he got off of his airplane, which he was obviously aware because Goldberg Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Atlantic, who was put into this group chat, and The Atlantic asked for a comment early in the morning before the story went out, so they were well aware of this story. And he Sets just went into some kind of like kind of like a rant, denying everything and stuff like that, even after the NSC.
Fucking you know, you know confirmed it. Well, right, I mean that's the thing, so you know, no one's story is straight. I think a lot of people, you know, and we can, you know, we can we can kind of dive into the players in this. I think a lot of people had faith that Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, would be responsible national security official. He's on this chat, that's unfortunate Mike Waaltz, who was a former Green Beret. I think it's disappointing that that he certainly
didn't understand the gravity of the security breach here. I mean, he initiated the chat. But Pete Hegseth's you know, uh, you know, plainside kind of diatribe against Jeffrey Goldberg was just ludicrous. Yeah, and I think that does bring into question his both his suitability and his qualifications as Secretary of Defense and in the White House this morning is
again is on full on denial mode. I mean, I guess what they're going to say is number one, somehow that signal was appropriate for this, which is of course not accurate. The biggest comment they'll have is that, well they someone inadvertently invited to journalist into the chat, and then then they're going to deny that these war plans were we're discussed. And I will just say that, you know, for Jeffrey Goldberg to so, it seemed to me he
acted responsible. The Atlantic did not report what was actually the content of it. But there's a lot of swirl going around in Washington that this had to do with you know, precise tar It's number of aircraft used literally timing of the sorties, the intelligence that was going to be used on the ground to help guide.
Some of the strikes.
And so presumably the Atlantic has this stuff and you know, so so you know, the White House denials, you know, are kind of interesting because at some point, you know, someone's not telling the truth, and it certainly seems to be that the White House is spinning. Now there's also some reports that Mike Wallas's Jeopardy might job might be injestiy.
Yeah.
I think that's probably because for two reasons. One is that this embarrassed the administration. Trump doesn't like this. But what's really interesting and maybe we can you know, I think we can establish the fact that this was an extraordinary security breach. Let me also say d that you know, myself or or any others in the national security world, if we had done this, put this type of information on signal, we would not only be fired, would probably
be prosecuted. So let's just flat out yeah, double enormous. But the content of the actual messages and then we can dive into that for a second. I know, this is a quick emergence. POD's fascinating because it shows policy differences you have JD. Vance, who is not advocating for the strikes. You then you have Stephen Miller, the Deputy Chief of Staff, then coming in from kind of left field and saying, hey, this is what the president wants
to do. It an end of story, and JD. Vance kind of comes in, and then there's this kind of discussion between Vance and Pete Hegseth shipping all over the Europeans saying how pathetically now, of course in Europe, and I have a lot of friends in Europe, I certainly have a lot of contact with your former national security officials there. They're focused on that. They're like, holy crap,
these fuckers really do hate us. These are internal communications, and so I think in some ways President Trump is probably pissed as well, because this shows some fissures within the administration, and the Vance actually saying in one of the chats basically, you know, the President really doesn't get it here, so it's a bit embarrassing for him. So again,
there's so many facets of this. There's the security breach, there's the incompetence of inviting a reporter, and then there's the content of of of the exchanges, which which do show some of the inner kind of workings of the Trump administration, you know, perhaps some of the of the of the fishers there, uh and uh and so uh. It's a this is this is a scandal for the ages. I mean, you know, not to get too hyperbolic, but I've never seen something like this. And again the notion
people use signal all over Washington. National security officials use signal and and probably at times they do so on policy issues that they shouldn't. They do not put in stripe plans, right, they don't run a small group.
You know.
Again, this is a this is a meeting that should be held in the situation room. And the other part too. D It's important to note there's a massive communications infrastructure that all of these officials have at their disposal that follow them around both sat at their house and mobile. Like, this is no reason to do this other than laziness.
Right.
Even Mick, who is Deputy Assistant Secretary, said he's like, there is a there's a you know, a proteo call to this. We get secure talent like communications from laptops to phones even, right, so you can have these kind of conversations without putting it on a commercial app. That yeah, it might be encrypted, but like my question is like if your phone's compromised, they can't see what you're typing and signal.
If your phone compromised, the whole whole thing's compromise. I mean again, signal is not approved for this, right And let me just say once again the CIA Alumni Association on March twelfth and an unclassified letter that we all got, and I say I can say this because its unclassified basically gave us guysance that signal was was it was not secure, was vulnerable, and there's here's some things you
can do to kind of tighten stuff up. And one of the things that that it's still we still don't know d is you know signals usually used on your phone? Sure so these are are these the personal phones of these US government officials? Again a massive violation. The final piece on this is Steve Whitcough that you know the Middle East slash you know Russia Ukraine envoy was actually traveling in Russia and apparently he joined the chat on
his on his phone. Again Russia being a denied area along with Beijing, a place where you would never do this. And again at any ordinary national security official would be fired and perhaps prosecuted if they had done it. So, you know, the double standard is enormous, enormous, and I would say, look, this was a mistake, got it, but
it's worth pointing out. And I'm sorry. You know, maybe some listeners won't like this, but the incredible, incredible hypocrisy, and you could do maybe this is a this is a good project for you die alongside whenever this this this pod comes out, you could do a compilation of Hegseth Tulsey, Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, uh and uh, certainly Mike Waltz and how they eviscerated Hillary Clinton for the whole issue with her server on and Marco Ruby as well, on and on and on and frankly, this issue and
the Hillary server issue was a real one. That's not good what she did. This is far worse because again we have to see if you know, if as Jeffrey Goldberg claims, and again I can't imagine this is not true, because this is this is putting The Atlantic, which is incredibly successful, Unlike what President Trump said in the interview, he did incredibly successful, profitable magazine in Washington, which has an enormous readership of over you know, a million subscribers.
They wouldn't put their reputation on the line on this, and so you know, the truth is eventually gonna gonna come out. I mean, you know, just they're they're they're kind of the administration is hanging on on the precipice right here.
So there's some word that I mean, and this is just speculation that the reason why Jeffrey Goldberg was added to the chat is because Mike Waltz regularly leaks some stuff.
Well, I mean, you know, look, I have a Signal chat. I have a ton of contacts on there, and every once in a while I do it. I do a request to someone and it's the wrong person and I go, oh shit, I didn't mean this because I've listed as Keith or D or something like that. You know, I have more than one friend who's D. And afterwards, as I'm having a chat with them, I'm like, holy crap,
I'm actually talking to the wrong person. Yeah, and so it's not in your contact list unless you have a reason to have contacted them before, right, And by the way, it's not you know, And so yeah, I mean that, you know, that's that's a that's something that Mike Waltz probably has some explaining to do.
Sure, I mean, listen, I'm sure this is not like that's just name it done Washington, by the way, that's normal, correct. Yeah, and he's the editor in chief too. I mean, I'm sure he's definitely leave them stuff. But what or at least got in comment or something.
I think Goldberg is a powerful figure here who has enormous respect. I mean, you know, he's a Trump critic, there's no doubt about that. Yeah, he's written extensively about you know, Trump's kind of disdain for the US military, and there's been controversy back and forth. But there's nothing that that Goldberg that I've seen that he's done that is actually not accurate. Now the White House is spinning this hegxeth did and this morning the press, the White
House Press Secretary again, they're you know, they're they're doubling down. Look, the Donald Trump method when a scandal hits is literally to deny it it didn't happen, even if it's you right in the face. You know, this is what he learned. This is what they do. And I think they probably think that because Republicans are so scared of them Republicans on the Hill that they can weather this, and they might.
I mean, that's the amazing definitely will. Yeah, And so so you know, should people lose their jobs over this? Absolutely will? They probably not, But there's there's there's something to you know, look, you have a lot of current and former military on this chat, and some people, you know, probably are Donald Trump fans, and some are not, and
some are neutral. But but but you know, assuming that Jeffrey Goldberg's right and they provided the actual and this is this is in advance two hours before the strikes of F eighteen of the time of the F eighteen sorties and their targets, that is putting US Navy pilots at risk. And I'm sorry, I have I do have actiduty friends in the military and they are appalled at this.
And he said, and they said, their troops are talking about this too, like hold on a second, like that kind of information advanced strike planning in terms of specific targets and locations of the platforms used. You know, thank god this wasn't intercepted by a hostile actor and that wasn't passed to the Hoofies. Yeah, the Hoothies do have air defense, and so you put US forces at risk. You gotta explain, you know, you gotta explain yourself. That to me, is is is probably the most egregious part
of this. People Americans could have died because of this.
Yeah, well, I mean, like, listen, I'm sure you're not supposed to use signal for talka even about like the broadest strategic like policy and stuff like that. But that that part of the conversation wasn't really that spicy outside of like kind of gossipy spicy until heg Seth dropped the you know, the plans that we haven't seen of the strike, what's going on?
What's what you know what I mean.
Like yep, and and let's let's ge and so so again that is that's kind of the holy grail here. That was the oh crap, because people do use signal for stuff that they probably shouldn't across administrations, but not to this, to this level again, that that could have gotten Americans killed. I want to make one point. You know, I love the show. I love coming on. I've been
on a million times. I'm sure I come on and some people get pissed because they know I'm a Trump critic, But I would remind folks who are listening here that and and of course I have a I'm a contributor for MSNBC. But during the Afghan withdrawal, which was a debacle, I went on MSNBC literally every day on Morning Joe and other places, and I slammed the Biden administration mercilessly, to the point where I think people are starting to
get pissed at me. But I was so outraged at what happened because why because I call it like I see it, and what I what I would ask that kind of the more conservative, you know, members of your audience, Uh, just just step back and take a look and say, look, it's okay when an administration screws up, they have to take responsibility, they have to take ownership of this. Defending them.
Uh uh, you know, to to the t is just you know, is is it goes to a level of kind of you know, being out there in the middle and in the middle of nowhere that I that I can't even believe. You know, there's a there's a friend of mine. He's a very conservative. He writes for The
Washington Examiner. His name is Tom Rogan. Great national security journalists and I'll just I'll read you a tweet he put out and which I think is really important, and he said, if your perspective is that the Signal chat controversy is just media bias or democratic partisanship, you either don't understand basic million military operations, or more simply, you just don't give a shit about carrier air wing one aviators, meaning that that even on the conservative side of the House.
Tom Rogan conservative, he writes for The Examiner, He's a friend of mine. I do have friends on the right, actually a lot of them. He gets it, you know. And and and what he's saying is like, yeah, this is not good. Sorry, and no amount of bullshit and spin is gonna is gonna kind of come around in this. And so there's there's got to be some accountability.
Yeah.
Well, earlier today on Fox News, Tom K Senator Tom Conton came out and said that the Biden administration actually approved signal as a reviews, which is which is not true.
Uh So, like you have not.
Only just the administration doing it from the press like the briefing room, you have people on the hill too that are also like, you know, trying to spin this and it's just like it's unspinnable because the NFC spokesperson confirmed it.
You're defending, defending the indefensible. What Tom Cotton said, it doesn't even matter. I mean, are you are we really gonna blame Biden for this? I mean that is pretty extraordinary in Tom Cotton knows better?
I mean geez, I mean, well you read that in the chat, in the chat that part where that was released, like their whole media strategy was blamed Biden and the Yeah, you know, so.
The wild thing about where I live in Northern Virginia is that, you know, I see Tom Cotton at high school baseball games. Josh Hawley is a senator. He lives around the corner for me. So all these people, you know, and they all know better. And so you know, we live in this weird bubble in DC where you look at people and you just you know, you know, they don't believe this, but they just feel like they have to say it because they have to blindly defend the administration.
Uh.
You know what I would like to see is and I watched this closely again, I have friends over at Fox. I want to see some Fox News. You know Brit Hume did. Yeah, I want to see some Fox News commentators and and and uh and some of the staff and the journalists there just come out and tell the truth. Hey, this was just like I did on MSNBC the Afghan withdrawal.
I was merciless against the Bible. And I know, by the way that that the White House watches that every morning, and I was like, look, I have to stay credible. So you know, it would be nice if people could actually tell the truth right here. This is a gargantuane fuck up. You know, there should be accountability. And then you move on, by the way, and and here's the here's the amazing thing. The strikes and the houthis I
totally support. I think it's actually really good that we're taking it to the houthis.
Uh.
But that's not the issue here. And so I think they're you know, well, we'll see in the in the in the kind of the days of weeks ahead. The one thing d is that you never know because some other kind of nationalists, what's going to happen tomorrow.
And that's maybe this kind of goes there's gonna be some scandal like Elon's gonna do something, or something's gonna happen, and it's gonna be it's gonna fade away. It might carry on for today because and tomorrow because the hearings going on, and that's going to become what this is about, the.
Hearings for sure.
But yeah, I can't see it lasting more than a few days because there's only there's something else on the horizon coming well.
I mean, and and again there's you know, there's there are things that actually, I mean, the American people should care about this. Military veterans and active duties should care about this. People in the national security world. But you know what, there's also you know, the the kind of the Trump administration's whole process on DOGE and now this kind of assault on social security. I mean, that's what Americans are really going to care about. Yeah, so you know,
who knows. But but again, go to emergency Pod. We needed to do this, Yeah, which is good. I was fired up. And uh and again I would just I would just kind of you know, urge urge listeners to keep an open mind, because you know, when something bad happens, you got to call it out. You call it out on both sides. And that's what that's that's what I try to do. I certainly know that's what you and the teamhouse always try to do as well.
Well, I was talking to somebody, a couple of people, yes, and I'm like, listen, me and my half criminal friends in Brooklyn have better op sect than these guys do. It's like, what do we what are you guys even thinking? Like maybe having the policy discussion about the strategy, that's one thing, for sure, fine, But once like Pete Hex has dropping like a PDF of like here's the whole plan of what we're gonna do, names, targets, everything in
a signal chat. I mean it's like, dude, they must have given a briefing when you on your first day, right, like they must.
Have given and by this signal again that unclassified message from the CIA Alumni Association located at CIA Headquarters instructing retirees, that signal is not sure. I mean that's on mark twelve, and I believe that in February of the NSA National Security Agency did the same thing, put out an unclassified but as well, you can't make.
This up, you know, no, it's it's unbelievable dead and just the title of the whole the title of the piece in The Atlantic was wasilarious, hilarious and also scary, Like the Trump administration sent me the war plan for It's insane? All right, Mark, Mark probably moreopolis check him out. All his links will be in the description. You can follow him on Twitter, Blue Sky, everywhere else. MSNBC contributor, new podcast is Cook and I know it is.
I can't talk about it, but stay tuned.
Stay tuned for that And if you want to support the show, Patreon dot com slash the teamhouse.
Thanks Mark, this is awesome.
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