Colorado Democratic senator calls Trump administration's group chat controversy "an embarrassment"

In a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday that got heated at times, Democratic senators questioned Trump administration intelligence officials after a journalist was added to a group chat of administration officials appearing to discuss war plans in Yemen.

Democratic Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado was among those on the Senate Intelligence Committee who grilled the officials, including Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

"Does the CIA director not know that? I've seen conflicting reports," Bennet said to Ratcliffe. "Do you think that it's perfectly appropriate that there was a reporter added -- especially one that the Secretary of Defense says is 'deceitful, highly discredited, a so-called journalist who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes over and over again' -- is your testimony that it was appropriate that he was added to the Signal thread?"

Rattcliffe responded, "no, of course not."

Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was the journalist in question who was added to that chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal, apparently inadvertently. That group chat included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and President Trump's Middle East and Ukraine envoy Steve Witkoff, according to Goldberg, who detailed the conversation in a story at The Atlantic.

"I don't know how he was invited. Clearly he was added to the Signal group," Ratcliffe said. "I don't know if you use Signal messaging app-"

Bennet then cut him off, saying, "I do. "I do. Not for classified information, not for targeting."

In a separate exchange, Ratcliffe told Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the committee, that he didn't discuss any classified information in the thread.

Hegseth, when asked by reporters in Hawaii on Monday, didn't address the question of classified information and said, "nobody was texting war plans, and that's all I have to say about that."

The exchange back in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday got a little heated when Bennet asked Ratcliffe if he knew of Goldberg's claim or flight data that showed that Witkoff was in Moscow at the time of the conversations.

Ratcliffe said he was unaware that Witkoff was in Russia at the time.

"This sloppiness, this incompetence, this disrespect for our intelligence agencies and the personnel who work for them is entirely unacceptable. It's an embarrassment," Bennet said, at times bordering on yelling. "You need to do better."

Goldberg, in his piece at The Atlantic, said an account named "Pete Hegseth" laid out a plan for strikes in Yemen that included precise information about "weapons packages, targets, and timing" of the attack against Houthi rebels in Yemen shortly before it took place earlier this month.

Bennet went over his allotted time in the hearing but tweeted on Tuesday, "Finalizing sensitive war plans in an unclassified group chat is not just an embarrassment; it's an egregious threat to U.S. national security. We cannot accept this reckless behavior from our country's highest leaders. Democrats will be demanding answers at today's Worldwide Threats Intelligence committee hearing."

Mr. Trump, on Monday, said he wasn't familiar with the story, but in a later statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president "continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz."