00:16:44.020Good news coming out of Ukraine as that continues to move, we hope, towards a resolution and a ceasefire.
00:16:50.400We are talking about the signal story, the discussion that involved Jeffrey Goldberg, an Atlantic editor and writer, and some people, including Brian here.
00:17:01.900When we make a mistake, your job is not to keep the story alive.
00:17:06.480Sometimes you should just shut the F up.
00:17:09.600Appreciate Brian sending me that email.
00:17:13.120I think our job is to be honest with all of you about big stories.
00:17:18.180And sometimes when big stories are being talked about in a way that we think is dishonest, we should explain to you why when you're getting on Facebook and you're seeing somebody sharing a story that isn't representative of what actually happened.
00:17:32.620Or when you are out and about and somebody in your social circle brings something up.
00:17:39.160We want to make sure that you are well informed with every possible argument.
00:17:43.420This is the biggest story of the day so far.
00:17:46.340And I think we have a responsibility obligation to talk about it intelligently, even if it's not the perfect story.
00:17:55.580And so, you know, Brian, I appreciate the email, but my job is to tell you exactly what I think, good or bad.
00:18:02.520And if you don't like that, there's lots of people who will tell you only what you want to hear every minute of every day.
00:18:09.900I think it will keep you worse informed.
00:18:11.840But that's just, I think, a fundamental disagreement that we have about what exactly we're doing here.
00:18:18.160So I think that we always have, you know, there are a few things that we have to serve this audience daily, right?
00:18:26.440And that's always, you know, we just did an interview recently about crossing 555 stations, you know, no big deal.
00:18:31.780And Clay and I were talking to people in the media about how, you know, we work for all of you day in and day out.
00:18:37.760And we want to bring you the best information we can.
00:18:40.700So if you listen to this show for an hour, you're going to know everything that's going on.
00:18:45.060And if you give us three hours, we're hoping to, you know, give you a tremendous analysis and fun and tell stories and, right, give you a fully immersive experience.
00:18:52.980But one of the things, Clay, that I think we do, sorry, I was weaving there a little bit, guys, but, you know, as one does.
00:18:59.040One of the things that we do is I never want anyone who listens to this show to feel like, oh, but if I'm at a party or I'm at the office or wherever and someone challenges me on this issue, I'm not ready for it.
00:19:15.060Yeah, so I don't want you to be in a situation where you're annoying sister-in-law or, you know, you're, you're, you know, Bob from accounting or, you know, Sally from, from HR is like, did you see the big national security mess up, whatever?
00:19:56.560So my thoughts, couple of things as a layman here.
00:20:00.000One, why do we not have our own version of a signal app that could, and I want you to explain this to me because I've been doing reading because I want to know more about it.
00:20:11.100But it's hard to get everybody in a secure location when you've got people traveling all over the world.
00:20:20.700And you want to make sure that everyone is well informed with what the United States government is doing so that Tulsi Gabbard doesn't turn on the television and find out on Fox News that we have attacked the Houthis, right?
00:20:34.840And maybe she's in Yemen or wherever the heck she might be.
00:20:39.300And Pete Hegseth right now, I know because the pictures are out, is touring the Pacific.
00:20:44.880And these 18 people are in six different time zones.
00:20:49.100And actually the easiest way sometimes to communicate is text message.
00:20:53.940So point one, shouldn't we have a design system that is forward thinking from a security perspective for younger people who are used to communicating in this manner?
00:21:08.780And by the way, take it back 100 years or 80 years or whatever it was.
00:21:14.620And I'm sure people were like, we can never communicate on the telephone any secret knowledge.
00:21:35.360This guy, Goldberg, I think he should have had to.
00:21:40.560I mean, it feels to me like a big part of this story is his dishonesty and also staying involved in a conversation that he was aware he was never intended to be tagged on.
00:21:54.420And yet he stayed in there and continued to receive these messages in your own lives.
00:22:00.580If you were a part of a group text chain that you were not intended to be on, which I bet if you're under the age of 50 is something that has happened to almost everybody out there at some point in time.
00:22:13.820Certainly, if you're under the age of 40, wouldn't you just leave the group chat, either publicly say, hey, wrong guy, or just leave on your own volition?
00:22:23.000The fact that he stayed in there and kept receiving all of these messages makes me think that his behavior was quite nefarious to say nothing of waiting to drop the story like he did.
00:22:35.640Well, this is where journalists like to have it both ways, right?
00:22:38.900They're patriots and they care about the country, too.
00:22:41.540And when I say journalists, I mean, the the journos, right?
00:22:48.000He was the one who had his fingerprints all over the Trump suckers and losers thing from Arlington Cemetery, which I never believed for one second.
00:22:57.820You know, I'm not saying Trump is perfect, but Trump does not think people who gave their lives fighting for the military are losers.
00:23:07.780But Clay, what they'll say is, well, I have an as a journalist, I need to know whatever I can find out about the upper echelons of government and, you know, the sharing of information and everything else that's going on there.
00:23:20.660You know, I look if I were on this and I'm in text contact with some of these people, to be clear.
00:23:27.020This is what happens when you have people from the media and that you've known for many years who are now running massive departments of the government.
00:23:46.360But what I'm shining a spotlight on is just that, you know, these are individuals who are doing the best practices that they can to speak quickly to each other about things that matter.
00:24:00.820And if I were on, if I felt like I was in, you know, in the room when I shouldn't be in the room, so to speak, in this case, the chat room, I'd be like, hey, guys, hey, guys, I'm out because I wouldn't want them as senior government officials who've clearly made, you know, I'm not a nefarious foreign actor.
00:24:36.580And, you know, my my desire to get a scoop is infinitely less important to me than especially when talking about something like a military strike than my desire to protect U.S. national security secrets.
00:24:50.340I mean, look, I'll tell you, I mean, I had an example of this, Clay, when the Benghazi story broke on TV, I was actually on air at the blaze when Benghazi broke initially.
00:25:21.420Oh, let me tell you what's really going on here and really what the operations are.
00:25:24.960And, you know, hey, you guys know I was in CTC and the CIA and here's no, nothing, because my obligation to my to my clearance and to my country matters a heck of a lot more than breaking the story and getting some attention.
00:25:40.900And this is a different thing in this era where we have a lot of people that work in public facing jobs who have had access to high level national security information.
00:26:27.140And so I just sat there and had to just read information that came across the newswire like everybody else.
00:26:33.840And I'm sure, you know, Jeffrey Goldberg is like, oh, no, I need to get the information as much of it as I can.
00:26:39.360And then I'll make the determination about this.
00:26:41.720Is that in the best interest of national security?
00:26:43.840You don't think you want to give these guys a heads up that, hey, I'm not supposed to be on this chat.
00:26:47.600I mean, to your point, what really matters to him?
00:26:51.280I mean, my initial reaction when I'm on a group chat that I don't think I should be on is, hey, I want to get out.
00:26:57.340First of all, a lot of you probably get dragged into your group chats.
00:27:00.080If you're a mom or a dad, little league group chats, gymnastics group chats, dance team group chats, like, oh, my God, do I need to be on this?
00:27:08.600You might want to you might want to get out.
00:27:10.580But if you're dragged into something that, you know, you have no business seeing, I just it feels like to me like you would immediately withdraw and and not stay there.
00:27:23.060And I want to get your answer on this when we come back in the next.
00:27:25.600Do we need to update communication capabilities and standards for people involved in defense industries?
00:27:35.860Because I was I was actually just looking at Elon Musk and he was talking about just the government is so far behind in the tech that often it has relative to what other private sector organizations might have.
00:27:53.900In other words, whatever you do for a living, if you're a if you're in defense industries or something like that, I'm sure they have high tech communications capabilities.
00:28:05.120How would these 18 people have been able to talk if they're in four or five different time zones all around the world?
00:28:21.320Well, I guess my question for you, we come back.
00:28:23.080Why would this conversation exist in the way that it does?
00:28:26.040There are there are the equivalent of let's say let's say there's the equivalent of text communication within the national security sphere that is real time and that you can it is classified classified like you can talk about what you need to talk about.
00:28:40.920When we come back, then why would a communication like this be taking place in your mind?
00:31:51.980Jasmine Crockett, it turns out, Buck, went to a high school that cost over $30,000 a year.
00:31:58.860And she now cosplays as if she is someone from the streets, which raises a lot of interesting questions about the Democrat Party, I think, in general.
00:32:09.500When you pretend to be something that you are not in order to try to draw attention to yourself and gain political prominence,
00:32:20.020what does it say about her that instead of being educated, forthright, and an advocate in some way in a public manner for what she believes,
00:32:31.360that she would basically turn into, remember we played her a couple weeks ago saying Trump is Putin's hoe,
00:32:37.840that she would basically turn into a version of herself that is not representative of how she was raised.
00:32:43.220Well, here she is going after the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, and this is what she said a little bit earlier at, I believe, of all things, a human rights event.
00:37:05.020I think the way to deal with something like this, again, if I were giving advice to Greg Abbott would be with humor
00:37:09.660because Governor Hot Wheels is actually kind of a funny nickname.
00:37:13.940And you can throw it back on her by leaning into the humor and proving that you are going to mock her by doing so.
00:37:22.120I think that's a smart way to, to attack it.
00:37:25.660Um, but I do think that this is emblematic of them not really having a strategy.
00:37:32.880The fact, I agree with you, the Jasmine Crockett doesn't have a next level, right?
00:37:37.120If you think about it in a sports term, you're like, okay, you're the kind of boxer that can knock out somebody who's a so-called tomato can,
00:37:44.660but you don't have heavyweight title aspirations.
00:37:46.820Like you're kind of just a mid-range guy in the boxing world.
00:37:50.780I think that's where Jasmine Crockett is.
00:37:53.040I think they have aspirations that AOC could be their heavyweight.
00:37:56.420I think they think, I agree with you, that they could elevate her.
00:38:32.060But let me tell you and your audience why I did it, why I felt it was so important.
00:38:36.260The CR was certainly bad, you know, the continuing resolution, but a shutdown would be 15 or 20 times worse.
00:38:44.440Under a shutdown, the executive branch has sole power to determine what is, quote, essential.
00:38:50.400And they can determine without any court supervision, the courts have ruled it solely up to the executive, what to shut down.
00:38:57.900With Musk and Doge and Trump and this guy vote, they would eviscerate the federal government.
00:39:06.260Clay, he's saying, I'm still the best shot that we have for leadership on the Democrat side.
00:39:13.340I'm not, as I said, I'm not stepping down.
00:39:15.880And I don't see anybody who poses, you know, the option here would be, and this is what Bernie Sanders, I think, was referring to,
00:39:24.020who could run in the Senate against Schumer from New York, AOC.
00:39:29.900But I think Democrats are very, they're hesitant about this.
00:39:36.480Remember, Bernie, Clay, this is kind of a little funny anecdote.
00:39:40.640I was at CNN in 2015 when the Democrats were running their primary, you know, into 2016 when Democrats were running their primary.
00:39:47.480And all of the CNN commentators would say out of the side, the Democrats would say out of the side of their mouths, man, Bernie's really got the base.
00:39:56.200And Bernie's really, and then they'd go on TV because they were scared of the Hillary apparatus and they knew it was going to happen.
00:40:01.300It'd be like, well, we know that Hillary is really, Bernie's great, but Hillary, but off air, they're like, oh, man, Bernie's really where the base is.
00:40:07.680Because they totally, they scammed Bernie out of the nomination.
00:40:40.560I think what's going to happen with Schumer is Republicans, if they get the right candidates, and I think they are, are going to pick up seats in the Senate, I believe, in 2026.
00:40:52.800I think Georgia, Brian Kemp, the governor, will run.
00:40:55.600I think that New Hampshire, if they can get Sununu as the governor right now, right?
00:41:02.880Whatever the governor's name, the Republican popular governor, I think it was him.
00:41:10.040We've got multiple different states out there.
00:41:13.840I think if I were setting over under on pickups in the Senate, I would set it at one and a half.
00:41:18.820But I think there's a good chance that Republicans come out of 2026 in the Senate with 55 senators versus 45.
00:41:26.320At that point in time, with only two years left on his term, I think Schumer will announce this is his final term.
00:41:32.360And I think he will set the stage for AOC to become the senator from New York.
00:41:37.820And to your point, Buck, I think that will then set the table for her to be president now to run for president.
00:41:44.640Now, she may not even want to be in the Senate because the argument is, does she need to be in the Senate to run for president in 2028?
00:41:52.320Remember, everybody's running for the Democrats in 2028.
00:41:55.540They're going to have 25 names out there.
00:41:57.840Republican side, maybe not as many because it looks like J.D. Vance is going to be gobbling up if things keep going well, a lot of money and a lot of endorsements.
00:42:05.380But the Democrat side, everybody is running.