Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, March twenty eight, twenty twenty five. Peter Dutton
Speaker 1: has used his Budget reply speech to attack labor and
Speaker 1: the Prime Minister on energy, defense and the economy.
Speaker 2: We will immediately introduce an East Coast gas reservation. We
Speaker 2: will defund the activist led Environmental Defender's Office. We will
Speaker 2: cut the permanent migration program by twenty five percent. We
Speaker 2: will ban foreign investors and temporary residents from purchasing existing
Speaker 2: Australian homes for a period of two years.
Speaker 1: But we're on the way to an election, with the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister tip to visit the Governor General this morning.
Speaker 1: New South Wales Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan has responded to correspondence
Speaker 1: from the brother of missing Lennox Head mother Bromwin Winfield.
Speaker 1: Andy Reid, says he's hopeful the case is now headed
Speaker 1: in the right direction. Years after a owner recommended Bromwin's
Speaker 1: husband John Winfield, be charged with murder, He's always denied
Speaker 1: any wrongdoing. You can read that story and listen to
Speaker 1: a new episode of the Bromwin Podcast right now at
Speaker 1: brominpodcast dot com, a military operation, a group text thread,
Speaker 1: and one big question. How did the Trump administration text
Speaker 1: its own war plans to a journalist? That's today's episode.
Speaker 1: A floor below the Oval Office in the storied West
Speaker 1: wing of the White House, the Situation Room is where
Speaker 1: the President and his top officials watch the highest dramas
Speaker 1: play out surgical strikes.
Speaker 3: Duck did an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the
Speaker 3: leader of al.
Speaker 4: Kadom attacks, in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist
Speaker 4: acts assassinations.
Speaker 5: President Kennedy died at one Central Standard time.
Speaker 1: The Situation Room was actually established by John F. Kennedy
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen sixties after the intelligence catastrophe of
Speaker 1: the Bay of Pigs invasion, as a sacred space to
Speaker 1: talk freely. Earlier this month, America did have a situation.
Speaker 1: Its forces were dropping bombs on hoofy rebels in Yemen, who,
Speaker 1: with backing from Iran, have been attacking civilian shipping. The
Speaker 1: most senior officials were following the action in real time,
Speaker 1: except because this is twenty twenty five, the conversation was
Speaker 1: happening outside the Situation Room in a group chat on
Speaker 1: an encrypted messaging app. Called signal. We've used AI voices
Speaker 1: to bring parts of that text exchange to life. Defense
Speaker 1: Secretary Pete Hesith told a group of his most senior
Speaker 1: colleagues what was about to happen in just two hours time.
Speaker 5: Of eighteen's launch. First Strike package trigger based F eighteen
Speaker 5: first Strike Windows starts target terrorist is at his known location,
Speaker 5: so should be on time. Also Strike drone's launch. Godspeed
Speaker 5: to our warriors.
Speaker 1: Vice President J. D Vance jumped in.
Speaker 6: I will say a prayer for victory.
Speaker 1: After the strikes began, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who'd
Speaker 1: created the group chat.
Speaker 7: Wrote, building collapse had multiple positive id amazing job.
Speaker 1: Jd Vance was confused what Waltz.
Speaker 7: Replied, piping too fast? The first target their top missile guide.
Speaker 7: We had positive idea of him walking into his girlfriend's building,
Speaker 7: and it's now collapsed.
Speaker 1: CIA director John Radcliffe a good start. Mike Waltz then
Speaker 1: dropped three emojis into the chat, a feast, an American flag,
Speaker 1: and a flame. Also in the chat were Secretary of
Speaker 1: State Marco Rubio, National Intelligence Director Telsey Gabbard, and a
Speaker 1: journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of a Washington
Speaker 1: DC magazine The Atlantic.
Speaker 6: It's a terrible mistake, terrible blunder.
Speaker 1: Joe Kelly is the Australian's correspondent in Washington, DC.
Speaker 4: It's a who's who in the Trump administration, all discussing
Speaker 4: as sensitive operational details about military strikes. So it seems
Speaker 4: pretty unprecedented to me. This is a fly on the
Speaker 4: wall situation, really, And you'd have to say that there's
Speaker 4: a lot of justified criticism about the decisions to use
Speaker 4: this app to share such sensitive information about an operation
Speaker 4: that's unfolding in real time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, using the chat is one thing, but having a
Speaker 1: journalist quietly lurking in the corner of the room is
Speaker 1: quite another, isn't it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it is so.
Speaker 4: Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlanta appears to have been inadvertently
Speaker 4: looped in by Mike Watz and then later invited into
Speaker 4: this particular chat group on the military operation targeting the Hoothies.
Speaker 1: And He's not just any journalist, is he. He's someone
Speaker 1: who Trump has described as a sleezebag and a creep
Speaker 1: and a wire in the past before this.
Speaker 4: I think this is interesting because, knowing Trump all his
Speaker 4: political instincts, I think now will be to try and
Speaker 4: push back against the Atlantic, against Goldberg. This is what
Speaker 4: Trump likes. He doesn't like to admit mistakes.
Speaker 1: Sensitive government conversations are happening on signal in probably every
Speaker 1: jurisdiction in the world. People who work in government are
Speaker 1: just like the rest of us. We all live on
Speaker 1: our phones in group chats. Most of us have access
Speaker 1: to an official work sanction channel we could be using
Speaker 1: like Google Chat or Slack. But the appeal of signal
Speaker 1: is that it's informal and encrypted. That means government officials
Speaker 1: know what they say on signal chats is unlikely to
Speaker 1: be discoverable by freedom of information requests.
Speaker 6: For example, I don't think it's improper.
Speaker 4: That's probably not a surprising answer coming from a journalist.
Speaker 6: The issue is that.
Speaker 4: You don't want something to be in writing if it's sensitive.
Speaker 4: But I would have thought that is one hundred times
Speaker 4: more the case if you are actually revealing and discussing
Speaker 4: details about a military operation, particularly if there's a chance
Speaker 4: that those details could be compromised, that the mission itself
Speaker 4: could be put at risk, that lies could be put
Speaker 4: at risk. There were real life, pretty severe consequences from
Speaker 4: doing that if things went wrong.
Speaker 1: This chat also contains substantive discussions, like before all the
Speaker 1: bombing started, about whether the raids on the Hoofies were
Speaker 1: a good idea or not. He's JD.
Speaker 6: Vance, I think we are making a mistake.
Speaker 3: Three percent of US trade runs through the Suez, forty
Speaker 3: percent of European trade does. There is a real risk
Speaker 3: that the public doesn't understand this or why it's necessary.
Speaker 1: And then Vance raises Trump using his acronym POTUS for
Speaker 1: President of the United States.
Speaker 3: The strongest reason to do this is, as Potus said,
Speaker 3: to send a message. But I am not sure the
Speaker 3: President is aware how inconsistent this is with his message
Speaker 3: on Europe. Right now, there's a further risk that we
Speaker 3: see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I
Speaker 3: am willing to support the consensus of the team and
Speaker 3: keep these concerns to myself, but there is a strong
Speaker 3: argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work
Speaker 3: on why this matters, seeing where the economy.
Speaker 1: Is et ce Ceeia directed John Ratcliffe response, saying the
Speaker 1: intelligence agency could use a delay to identify better starting
Speaker 1: points for coverage on Hoofy leadership, that is targets. Heg
Speaker 1: sith outlines some of the risks of waiting.
Speaker 5: One this leaks and we look indecisive. Two Israel takes
Speaker 5: an action first, or Gaza ceasefire falls apart and we
Speaker 5: don't get to start this on our own terms.
Speaker 7: Mike Woltz, whether it's now or several weeks from now,
Speaker 7: it will have to be the United States that reopens
Speaker 7: these shipping lanes, and jd Vance responds, if.
Speaker 3: You think we should do it, let's go. I just
Speaker 3: hate bailing Europe out again.
Speaker 4: The comments from jd Vance in particular, I thought were
Speaker 4: particularly revealing. I mean, he's questioning whether this is the
Speaker 4: sort of thing that they really should be doing, because
Speaker 4: he says not much of US trade goes through the
Speaker 4: Sewers Canal. He says, it's mostly European trade that goes
Speaker 4: through it. Does America really want to get involved given
Speaker 4: the recalorration that's going on between America and Europe more generally, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Jd Vance really says the quiet part out loud too,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. He says he's not sure the President is
Speaker 1: aware how inconsistent bombing the hoofies is with his message
Speaker 1: on Europe right now, which is that they have to
Speaker 1: stand alone, and America is not going to help them
Speaker 1: out anymore.
Speaker 4: The point I always think about what will Donald Trump
Speaker 4: do when something is brought to his attention? And the
Speaker 4: starting assumption that I have a lot of journalists have,
Speaker 4: and it seems people inside the administration have, is they
Speaker 4: assume I don't think the President knows this, but once
Speaker 4: the president finds out, he might actually take a pretty
Speaker 4: firm view on something. So look, I often wonder whether
Speaker 4: Donald Trump is aware that America is supposed to provide
Speaker 4: or sell US three Virginia Class submarines. Does he know that?
Speaker 4: He asked what UCUS was a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 4: So I think this shows there is this feeling at
Speaker 4: the upper levels of the administration.
Speaker 6: Does the President know this?
Speaker 1: Do you think we can draw from this that it's
Speaker 1: actually jd. Vance who has the problem with Europe and
Speaker 1: that he's the isolationist, and that that's not Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: instinct necessarily.
Speaker 6: I think we've known for a long time that jd.
Speaker 4: Vance has this particular view towards Europe, that he does
Speaker 4: support a recalibration of that relationship, that he's been very
Speaker 4: skeptical of the support that's been going towards Ukraine. It
Speaker 4: was really him who started the fight with Zelenski in
Speaker 4: the Oval office. But I don't think Donald Trump is
Speaker 4: a reluctant participant in this. Donald Trump in his first
Speaker 4: term did the same thing by trying to get all
Speaker 4: the European members of NATO to ramp up their defense spending.
Speaker 4: I think it's pretty quick as well that the president's
Speaker 4: on the same page.
Speaker 1: Coming up. Donald Trump says they'll be having those conversations
Speaker 1: back in the situation room from now on. But will
Speaker 1: he fire anyone over this fiasco we're seeing. In response
Speaker 1: to this, Donald Trump being quite benevolent and forgiving of
Speaker 1: Mike Waltz, who's had to admit that he did make
Speaker 1: this mistake. The President has said maybe in future, we'll
Speaker 1: have to have these conversations in person, and we won't
Speaker 1: be using signal anymore. Do you think that's just because
Speaker 1: it's too early in the administration to start throwing people
Speaker 1: under the bus. We know Donald Trump likes firing people.
Speaker 1: Why is he not firing Mike Waltz.
Speaker 4: Look, I don't think it's too early to start firing people.
Speaker 4: I don't think that's something that Donald Trump would be
Speaker 4: concerned about I think he thinks making a decision to
Speaker 4: fire someone over this will look weak.
Speaker 6: That's what I think his calculation is, and he doesn't
Speaker 6: want to give in to that media pressure.
Speaker 4: He doesn't want to allow the Atlantic to have a
Speaker 4: win and to claim a scalp. So his political instinct
Speaker 4: is to double down and call us a witch hunt,
Speaker 4: defend Mike Waltz, defend Pete Haigseth. If he can't, then
Speaker 4: he might in time consider firing someone over it. But
Speaker 4: I don't think that's his first instinct. He'll want to
Speaker 4: try and ride it out first, Joe.
Speaker 1: People like us are having serious conversations of whether this
Speaker 1: is a breach of national security and was national security
Speaker 1: or classified information included. But for Trump's base, the Americans
Speaker 1: who voted for him, do you think they are going
Speaker 1: to think less of Donald Trump or less of the
Speaker 1: administration because this has happened.
Speaker 4: I think it will raise questions about the experience of
Speaker 4: Pete Hegseth. This seems to be in a pretty rookie
Speaker 4: kind of mistake to have made. But I don't think
Speaker 4: it will be a major concern for most Trump supporters
Speaker 4: and the Trump base. I think they'll be pleased that
Speaker 4: the operation happened. The administration has been drawing attention to
Speaker 4: the fact that this operation was a success, and so
Speaker 4: I think a lot of Trump's base will pick up
Speaker 4: on that rather than this debate about the signal app
Speaker 4: and the communication of the plan.
Speaker 1: Joe Kelly is The Australian's correspondent in Washington, DC. With
Speaker 1: an election now just weeks away, the best place to
Speaker 1: stay in touch is the Australian dot com dot au
Speaker 1: to make sure you don't miss a thing.