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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Claims "No Classified Info" Shared In War Plan Chat; Rep. Mike Turner, (R-OH), Is Interviewed About War Plan Chat; Intel Officials Shift Responsibility On The Hegseth For War Chat; World Leaders React After Vance, Hegseth Trash Europe; FBI Announces Task Force To Combat Tesla Attacks; White House Pushing Social Security To Make Changes Fast; Judge Temporarily Blocks ICE From Detaining Columbia Student. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired March 25, 2025 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Wasn't the only two legged dinosaurs with the T. Rex arms. There was another one with two T. Rex like arms. I'm sorry, what? Paleontologists recently unearthed a 9 million year old fossil in Mongolia's Gobi Desert. Researchers say it is the largest complete claw ever to be found.

They think the claws were an adaptation to grabbing and pulling down branches or clusters of leaves more easily. Really? They just wanted to eat the leaves? I don't know about that. The fossil suggests the dinosaur looked like a bizarre mix of a sloth and a giraffe. OK, I guess that probably makes it a vegetarian.

All right, "The Lead" -- looks like we're out of time. "The Lead" with Phil Mattingly starts right now.

[17:00:42]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The president says no classified information was shared in that group chat with the journalist. The Lead starts right now.

President Trump defending the top adviser who somehow added a journalist to a conversation about a looming military strike while his top intelligence officials, they tried to shift responsibility, suggesting the defense secretary was the main person sending top secret details. Plus a major deal between Russia and Ukraine, but with caveats. What the Kremlin is demanding from the U.S. first. How will President Trump respond?

And critical benefits for those retired and people with disabilities. Will Social Security be cut? The new pledge today from the man in line to lead the agency.

Welcome to The Lead. I'm Phil Mattingly in for Jake Tapper.

We start in our politics lead with the White House in damage control and top intelligence officials under fire. The fallout today after the Atlantic reported Trump officials accidentally included a journalist in a group chat when discussing military strikes in Yemen. President Trump this afternoon defended his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, who was the one who reportedly added the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg to the signal chat, saying he, quote, "is a very good man." This comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, both who were in the group chat, faced a grilling today on Capitol Hill. Gabbard and Ratcliffe both rejecting any responsibility for what was discussed in the group chat, emphasizing that they did not share any classified information.

However, Democrats continued to push the top intelligence officials and at times the hearing grew heated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO): Shocked to find him on a thread that he's reading in the parking lot of a grocery store in Washington, D.C. And your testimony as the director of the CIA is that it's totally appropriate? Is it appropriate that the president --

JOHN RATCLIFFE, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: No, that is not what I say it was.

BENNET: OK. Go ahead, please.

RATCLIFFE: When did I use the word appropriate?

BENNET: Well, go ahead, please.

RATCLIFFE: Well, I didn't.

BENNET: That everybody in America --

RATCLIFFE: So, clearly, Senator --

BENNET: There is nothing to see here is what your testimony is.

RATCLIFFE: No, I never said that.

BENNET: This is just a normal day at the CIA where we chat about this kind of stuff over Signal. In fact, it's so normal that the last administration left it here for us. That's your testimony.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: We start things off with CNN's Kaitlan Collins, who's live for us in the North Lawn of the White House.

Kaitlan, you were with the president today. You asked him if he plans to change his national security policies based on the Atlantic's reporting of this group chat. What was his message?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, he defended the use of the app Signal. He didn't seem to be familiar with it until this incident happened and really talked about people using it. He talked about reporters using it. But of course, in this case, it was top national security aides with the highest security clearances who were using it. The president said they will conduct an investigation into all of this, including how that reporter, Jeffrey Goldberg, got on that sensitive chat with these top officials, including the ones who were testifying on Capitol Hill today.

He said he didn't believe it's something that the FBI should investigate and turned to the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, who was inside the cabinet room earlier with the other ambassador nominees that he has for his administration, as he was largely defending Mike Waltz and seeming to say that his job is safe amid some questions inside this administration about whether or not that was the case. And the president, as he maintained, as you saw his officials do on Capitol Hill, Phil, that there was no classified information in that group chat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There was no classified information. As I understand it. They used a app, if you want to call it an app, that a lot of people use, a lot of people in government use, a lot of people in the media use.

COLLINS: Mr. President, who told you that information was not classified?

TRUMP: Another question? Please, go ahead.

COLLINS: Which of your national security advisers told you that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Now, you could see there, the president clearly heard the question about who shared with him that it was not classified information, because those were the questions those lawmakers posed to the director of the CIA and the director of National Intelligence today is how imminent war plans, imminent attack plans on Yemen were not going to be classified and was not classified information. He declined to answer that question, though, Phil.

MATTINGLY: Yes, and it was notable, the decision, both the pause, clearly heard the question, the decision not to answer. And I think what's interesting, the administration clearly going on offense today trying to protect their officials, their top officials. But you put it in contrast with what we heard last night when you spoke to the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, the one who was added to the group chat, and he seemed to refute Pete Hegseth's claim that there was not texting about war plans. What did he tell you?

[17:05:22]

COLLINS: Yes, a lot of the focus and the defiant pushback that we're seeing out of the White House has been on Jeffrey Goldberg himself, on this reporter criticizing him, criticizing his past reporting, while seeming to skip over the fact that it was Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, that he says added him to this group chat, meaning he had him in his contacts, though he denied ever having met him or spoken to him today. And I spoke with Jeffrey Goldberg about what Secretary Hegseth was saying about there being no classified information. He was the first person we heard that from coming from the White House. Then Hegseth now something the president himself is repeating.

And I asked Jeffrey Goldberg, who read these messages and held back and did not publish everything that he saw in this group chat, his view of what Secretary Hegseth had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFFREY GOLDBERG, EDITOR, THE ATLANTIC: No, that's a lie. He was texting war plans. He was texting attack plans, when targets were going to be targeted, how they were going to be targeted, who was at the targets, when the next sequence of attacks were happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: So it's still not clear how exactly Jeffrey Goldberg was added to that chat, obviously the information he saw. But the question that has been raised now that the defense coming from the administration is that that information was not war plans or it was not classified, that Democratic lawmakers were raising today was whether or not they could turn all that information over to the committee then if they do not believe it is classified information. Of course, Phil, that remains to be seen.

MATTINGLY: Yes. A critical open question. Kaitlan Collins, great reporting throughout the day. Thank you as always. And of course, Kaitlan is back with more on her show, "The Source" tonight at 9:00 Eastern here on CNN.

I want to turn now to CNN's Evan Perez.

Evan, we've been talking about the testimony on Capitol Hill from Tulsi Gabbard, from CIA Director John Ratcliffe. It appeared to evolve on some level --

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- throughout the hearing. At first, both denied there was any classified information shared in the chat. However, by the end, it seemed to shift. What happened?

PEREZ: Yes, I mean, they certainly seemed to evolve as the time went on, and I think they finally arrived at putting it all on Pete Hegseth, here's the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA Director answering questions today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): So the attack sequencing and timing and weapons and targets you don't consider to should have been classified or worked by --

TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I defer to the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, on that question. RATCLIFFE: The Secretary of Defense is the original classification authority for determining whether something's classified or not. And as I've understood from media reports, the Secretary of Defense has said the information was not classified.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And those words right there from Ratcliffe are very important, Phil, because as you heard from the president, he doesn't think the FBI needs to investigate. And the reason why they've arrived at this is those words. Hegseth is the original classification authority for this operation. So he does have the authority to declassify the information. And so what they appear to be saying is that when Hegseth shared this on the group chat, he had declassified it or he somehow now considers this information to be declassified. And so that means they don't think the FBI needs to look into it.

And of course, you know, if the FBI doesn't, we know those committees on the Hill are probably going to be looking into it, Phil. We also know that the inspector general for the intelligence community also has the power to investigate this. We'll see whether any of that happens.

MATTINGLY: Evan Perez, thanks so much as always.

Well, joining me now is Republican Congressman Mike Turner from the great state of Ohio, is former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Congressman, really appreciate your time.

REP. MIKE TURNER (R-OH), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Phil, thank you.

MATTINGLY: I feel like throughout the course of the last 12 hours, people have been kind of lost -- gotten lost a little bit in semantics. Obviously, there's messaging going on both sides here. You're known as a straight shooter on Capitol Hill. Just to start with what you've heard, what you've learned at this point in time, do you view this as problematic?

TURNER: Well, certainly. Well, first off, this is unfortunately overshadowing the fact that this is a successful hit. This was important to do. The Houthis are a, you know, a franchise, a terrorist arm of Iran. Iran is, you know, we want to push back on them.

They're being diminished by what Israel is doing with Hezbollah and Hamas. This was an attempt to beginning to diminish them. This was important to do. So this is unfortunately overshadowing this.

When I first started hearing their answers, unfortunately, I thought what you're -- what we're all hearing is legalistic answers, and that as it starts to break down, you're starting to hear the struggling of us all trying to understand the legal answer. And you're getting down to what probably is going to be a legal semantics, and that is this issue of whether or not it was declassified. Clearly, at one point it must have been logically classified because of the nature of the riskiness of this information and its impact.

[17:10:08]

So that goes to the secretary of Defense and what action he took to declassify it in putting it on what clearly was a unclassified channel. And that also goes to the issue of judgment and the issue of that this really was not something that the type of communication that should have been happening at such a risky time.

MATTINGLY: What does that tell you about this administration's national security team right now? You've served with Mike Waltz in the House. You know, obviously Senator Marco Rubio, who is your compadre, I guess, on some level, on the Senate side at CC (ph) or the Senate Intelligence Committee before he became Secretary of State. There are Democrats saying, look, this should have never happened. This is an unprepared group.

Why on earth are they doing this?

TURNER: Well, Mike Waltz and Marco Rubio are stars, and they're absolutely essential to, I think, what's occurring in our national security. They are absolute pillars of what's occurring.

Now, hold on a second there.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

TURNER: But the issue of signal, I think, is one that I think everyone should have caution, and I don't use it because of the fact that what happens is that people get caught up in an unrealistic expectation that there is privacy there. And I think that's kind of what you see is this degradation of people having an expectation that they're in an environment of privacy, that they're not.

MATTINGLY: Shouldn't they know better?

TURNER: I think, certainly. But this human aspect of believing that you're in an environment where people go in and out of secure environments can result in this degradation of an expectation of privacy that you just don't have.

MATTINGLY: Would you like to see the full exchange? Because I think that's the issue right now. As Jeff Goldberg saying, this is what I saw. The administration is saying, no, that's not at all what was in there. So Jeff Goldberg can't release it.

He would be prosecuted, I think, if he did, on some level, with defense information potentially in the espionage.

TURNER: Well, I think we'll see. I mean, obviously that's going to be part of the dialogue that's going to occur. And I think certainly both with the committees of jurisdiction, there's going to be a greater release. I think certainly the Intelligence Committee, in the House, Intelligence Committee, the Senate, have greater work to do, and I think they'll do that work.

MATTINGLY: And you think the administration should turn over what's been the question by those committees?

TURNER: I think the committees will do the work that they're supposed to do. And I think that exchange will occur. And I think that, you know, clearly this should not happen in the future. And I think certainly, you know, Mike Waltz and Marco Rubio are doing a great job and it's certainly important in this that their work be preserved.

MATTINGLY: And so you don't think there should be any repercussions related to the individuals on this, secretary of Defense or the national security?

TURNER: Well, we'll see as this unfolds or who else might have been involved. But I think certainly this is an issue of judgment. And I think certainly, you know, that we'll see as that unfolds. But in this, you know, luckily at this point, we don't see any consequences that have occurred as a result of this issue of judgment. But, you know, we do know, I think that, you know, everybody's learned a really great lesson and certainly signal is something that should not be used in this informal type of communication because of what that risk that can occur, that people have that expectation of privacy that you don't have.

MATTINGLY: I'm being told we're out of time. But I do have to ask you, the policy debate that was ongoing here was actually pretty fascinating to look into, particularly the vice president, his views on Europe, which were, I think echoed by Pete Hegseth.

TURNER: Right.

MATTINGLY: What did you take from that?

TURNER: Well, I mean, one of the things that was kind of concerning, obviously, you know, when you hear the vice president's interjection, is that the vice president goes back to his one hit wonder again about Europe. I mean, I think, you know, the issue with the Houthis and Iran really is not an issue of Europe. This is an issue of terrorism. The American public, get this, they understand that President Trump is standing strong and that we need to make certain that we're standing against Iran. The issue of Europe is a separate issue that really needs to not be something that should be holding the administration back of America leading and understanding that we stand against Iran and terrorism.

MATTINGLY: Congressman Mike Turner, always appreciate your time, sir. Thanks so much.

TURNER: Thank you. Appreciate you having me.

MATTINGLY: Well, ahead, what longtime U.S. allies are saying about this group chat fiasco after being called, as were just discussing, freeloaders and pathetic in the Atlantic report. And just coming in, the restraining order issued for a Columbia University student wanted by immigration authorities. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:18:14]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Secretary Rubio, will you comment on the Signal Group chat that you were involved in? Secretary Rubio, the Signal Group chat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: That was U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio today. And that was a no comment or at least decision not to comment at all very publicly related to questions about that Signal Group chat after meeting with Baltic leaders. As U.S. allies, particularly European leaders, grapple with the harsh contents of those reported texts, including top U.S. officials lamenting about, quote, "bailing Europe" out again and even casting the longtime European allies as, quote, "freeloading and pathetic." That is according to The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg. CNN's Max Foster is in London.

Max, what's the reaction that we've heard from European officials today?

MAX FOSTER, ANCHOR, CNN INTERNATIONAL: Well, a lot of European leaders, Phil, obviously very careful with their language with the Trump administration. Don't want to say the wrong thing, but they're intimating things here. So Keir Starmer, for example, the British prime minister, saying today that for any classified information that has to be communicated across appropriate security systems, suggesting he didn't think, you know, this particular app would have been appropriate for intelligence.

The freeloading language that has caused quite a lot offense because it's not very diplomatic language. But at the same time, there is also an acceptance here that perhaps Europe has relied too much on U.S. military support, needs to bulk up its own military. So it's a big reminder to do more of that. But there is a sense that perhaps Europe has been freeloading, frankly, for some time.

So not necessarily inaccuracy, but they didn't like being described in that way. I think one area they certainly don't feel like they're freeloading is with intelligence sharing, particularly here in the U.K. which is part of the Five Eyes grouping, where they pretty much share all of their intelligence with the U.S. and that's where the concern really has been here in the U.K. today. Is their intelligence safe with the Trump administration if they're sharing it on what they would see as insecure apps? So that might weaken that intelligence sharing, some analysts suggesting, but there's no evidence of that yet.

[17:20:21]

I think perhaps the former Belgian president or prime minister spoke to this wider issue really resonating here in Europe and that is saying that another wake up call for a real European defense, when will EU leaders act? I think it's a big reminder that Europe doesn't have the defense that it needs. It needs to be more independent. And I was speaking to analyst earlier on saying, you know, that in itself might weaken America if Europe becomes less dependent on it.

So, I mean, I think it's a reckoning for Europe on this one. But certainly they're worried about intelligence sharing right now.

MATTINGLY: Yes, very fluid dynamics right now as the administration continues into its second and third month. Max Foster, great reporting as always. Thanks so much.

Let's bring in former defense secretary under President Obama, Chuck Hagel.

Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your time. I want to start with, you know, what's striking, Max, kind of hit on a key point here, wakeup call was what one individual was saying, one official was saying. This is kind of what the Trump administration has been saying publicly for a long time. Now, we -- it's very clear in these messages they believe it privately as well. Do you see this as an inflection point between this longstanding relationship?

CHUCK HAGEL, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY, OBAMA ADMIN.: Well, it is. It's another chapter and another specific example of where unfortunately this relationship is headed. And I don't think in the right direction. If you very quickly go back and look at how and why the post-World War II world order was built, that we built with our allies, by the way, and most of those European allies very much for a reason. NATO, collective security, institutions like United nations, so everyone could have opportunities and security, by the way, to avert a World War III and nuclear exchange all of the problems.

And where I see this relationship going between the west, specifically NATO allies in Europe and the United States is going the other way. A dismantling, dangerous dismantling, because if that happens, there will be a new leader of the world, there will be a vacuum. And I don't think we're going to like who the next leader is. And we've got to look at this not just from the specifics of what just happened yesterday and what the Intelligence Committee spent a lot of time on today. But we've got to look at this from a much wider angle.

Obviously, in my opinion, what happened yesterday was a fiasco. I mean, come on, is this incompetence, is this just sloppiness, is this recklessness? You never have conversations like this unless you're in a secure government surrounding, whether it's situation room at the White House or at the Pentagon or a secure -- any secure government network. So, this is bringing out, I think, a lot of things.

And then the comments made about the Europeans, and by the way, the classification here, was it classified or not, we'll find out when the transcripts come out. But when you start talking about when you're going to attack an area and how you're going to attack in the specifics of that, that's pretty damn close to classified. If it's not classified, we'll find out. But there are a lot of dimensions to this, Phil. But I don't like any of this where it's going and we'll see.

We're only two months into this administration and already we're pushing back allies everywhere. MATTINGLY: On some level, though, it seems to be a feature, not a bug, right? In the sense of this is what they campaigned on. I think breaking kind of the transatlantic alliance in the kind of pillars of western democracy that stood for 80 years was what they campaigned on. And so I guess the question becomes, were there opportunities missed in prior administrations to make the case for that so they wouldn't have this opportunity?

HAGEL: Make the case for what, Phil?

MATTINGLY: The validity of, or the necessity of the 80-year standing Western alliance that has kind of led to this moment in time, the basis of NATO, the basis of the European and U.S. alliance, the basis of the west and its authority and power over the course of the last eight decades.

HAGEL: Well, I think we took it for granted. I don't think there's any question about that. There's no question either about NATO partners, Western alliance, Europe specifically, not doing as much as they could have been doing. I talked about it, Panetta talked about it, Gates talked about it. I mean, all former secretaries in the last 20, 25 years have all talked about it.

[17:25:08]

And yes, it should have been more of a focus. But I think because of the issues that terrorism, I think 9/11 started it. And that's where we focused and that's where everybody focused. And we missed a lot of things here. And -- but that's no excuse to dismantle that structure because we'll pay a price for that.

And I'll tell you something else that's going to come out of this and report that you just got from your reporter from Europe. We're going to see more and more distrust by our valued allies. And don't think our allies aren't valuable intelligence sharing. We couldn't project power around the world, by the way, unless we had basis. We had these countries all over the world that allow us to use and place our soldiers, our planes, our assets, our ships in their countries.

And so we don't want to lose the trust, we don't want to lose the confidence of our allies because if we do, that will be a huge loss for us. And don't think it won't. It's also about tariffs and all the other dimensions because --

MATTINGLY: Yes.

HAGEL: -- this is an interconnected world. This is -- this is in America versus the rest of the world. Let's be great again. We'll do it alone.

MATTINGLY: Right.

HAGEL: No, that world's gone. So we are living at a very defining time. I think it's the most defining time since World War II.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, always appreciate your time, sir. Thanks so much.

HAGEL: Thanks, Phil.

MATTINGLY: Well, up ahead, the new layer of law enforcement added in the hunt for criminals vandalizing Tesla vehicles. Plus, what Elon Musk said today about a Chinese automaker trying to compete with his popular EV brand.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:31:17]

MATTINGLY: In our Law and Justice Lead, today, the head of Homeland Security is pledging to join the FBI's efforts to crack down on the targeted Tesla attacks. Secretary Kristi Noem calling the violence and vandalism on vehicles and at dealerships, quote, domestic terrorism, meant to inspire fear.

Meanwhile, Tesla, it's still dealing with its own problems as decreasing sales and competitors threaten its standing in the market. Joining me now, CNN's John Miller and Allison Morrow. John, FBI Director Kash Patel echoed President Trump and others by calling these attacks on Tesla's and dealerships domestic terrorism. My question right now is the task force, what exactly is it going to entail?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So the task force is going to bring together all of the cases in attacks against Tesla facilities, vehicles, charging stations across the country together. So that'll be FBI agents working with ATF agents. Now ATF has the premier lab when it comes to solving arson cases in the country.

So they're great investigators and they've got the -- the resources here. Along with intelligence analysts and to develop a unified case intake system so that they can track the cases and use those intelligence analysts and investigators to find out is there a connection between the attacks, the attackers or any particular network and to make sure that they are gathering evidence and driving towards prosecutions.

MATTINGLY: It's clearly a priority for the administration. Allison, priority for Elon Musk you would have to think would also be the business aspect of this. You wrote today about the Chinese competitor Tesla that's really taking advantage of this moment. I want to remind people this was Elon Musk talking about the company BYD in 2011.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why do you laugh? BYD is trying to compete. Why do you laugh?

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA: Have you seen their car?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: It seems BYD is the one that's laughing now on some level. What's the latest here?

ALLISON MORROW, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR WRITER: Yes, a lot can change in a few years. And in the last few years we've seen BYD be very successful in making cool cars that people want to buy and they happen to be very, very cheap. Most Americans may not even know BYD exists, but overseas it's hugely popular. Absent trade restrictions BYD would be also competing in America.

And so globally we saw sales of BYD last year across the 100 billion mark for the first time and that was better than Tesla. So it actually leapfrogged Tesla in global sales and of course Tesla has been the dominant E.V. brand for so long. This is really a sea change that we're seeing in a very competitive market.

MATTINGLY: John Miller, Allison Morrow, there are so many elements in this story. We need to talk more about it. Thank you guys. Always appreciate the time.

[17:34:03]

Well, are cuts coming to the Social Security Administration or are they not? What the next man who could lead the agency said about the future of benefits. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANK BISIGNANO, SOCIAL SECURITY COMMISSIONER NOMINEE: My job as a commissioner is to ensure that every beneficiary receives their payments on time, that disability claims are processed in the manner they should be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: That was Wall Street businessman Frank Bisignano, the President's nominee to run the Social Security Administration, and he was at his Senate confirmation hearing today. But just yesterday, sources told CNN the current acting commissioner said on a phone call he's rushing to make service cuts at the request of the White House that may make the job more difficult. Some of those cuts may include laying off 12 percent of the workforce, closing 47 field offices, and limiting what can be done over the phone, requiring more retirees and more people with disabilities to go to an office to request their benefits. Here now is former Social Security Administration commissioner for the Biden administration, former Maryland governor, Martin O'Malley. Appreciate your time.

MARTIN O'MALLEY, FORMER SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION COMMISSIONER: Sure Phil.

MATTINGLY: I want to start with the hearing itself. We heard from Democrats, including Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, making very clear the concerns about what the actual endgame here is for the Trump administration. I want you to listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BISIGNANO: I've never thought about privatizing. It's not a word that anybody's ever talked to me about, and I don't see this institution as anything other than a government agency that gets run for the benefit of the American public.

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-RI): Let's hope that that is the way this ends. Thank you.

[17:40:02]

BISIGNANO: You have my guarantee I'll make it end that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: You trust that guarantee?

O'MALLEY: I don't, because I find it ludicrous, laughable, and not at all credible that he's never ever thought about privatizing Social Security. I mean, this has been a Republican playbook for 40 years, and he's never thought about it. It's -- it's clear every action, Phil, that they've taken since this nominee was named and put his own person, Mike Russo, there, every decision is about breaking this agency's ability to serve the public. They were already at a 50-year low in staffing with all-time high beneficiaries because of us baby boomers, and now they're paying people to quit.

They are telling people they have to go into a field office, so they're jamming up the field offices. It's pretty clear that they're trying to turn enough of the public against the agency so they can either privatize it, disband it, and I think actually go after what's in the trust fund.

MATTINGLY: You think that's the kind of endgame here? Because that's been one of my questions, is -- is why I understand trying to find fraud, root out fraud, the misinformation related to the alleged fraud, I think is significantly problematic, but the why here is what I don't necessarily have my head around.

O'MALLEY: I don't understand it either, but I think the nominee was less than candid and perhaps less than honest when he was answering the questions to Senator Wyden about whether or not he'd been approving these decisions inside the agency. And here's the question, Phil. If he hadn't been approving the decisions inside the agency to lay off people, to cut service, then why would he still be going for confirmation? I mean, if you were going into a new business and somebody was setting it up to fail, and I do believe they've taken 90 percent of the actions necessary to crater this agency into a total system collapse that will interrupt the payment of benefits. If you weren't part of that, why do you still go after confirmation for this job? I think he's been less than honest, and I think Wyden probably has him on it.

MATTINGLY: There was a podcast appearance by Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, where he talked about Social Security, he talked about fraud. One comment in particular has really resonated. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWARD LUTNICK, TREASURY SECRETARY: The easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

LUTNICK: Because whoever screams is the one stealing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

LUTNICK: Because my mother-in-law's not calling me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: This is actually a common trope. Elon Musk says this a lot as well. If you stop the payments, the people who raise concern about it are the ones who are definitely committing fraud. What was your response when you saw that?

O'MALLEY: My response to that was that these guys must be on another planet. They clearly have never talked to hundreds and hundreds of beneficiaries as I have and listened to the people calling scared on the phone because, you know, of an overpayment policy, which, by the way, they also reversed in order to cram more people into field offices. It was so cruel-hearted, so disconnected to the truth that Social Security is a lifeline to millions of people.

I mean, it's the only thing that lifts them out of poverty. It's the difference between living with dignity or living under a bridge for a lot of seniors and a lot of people who are disabled. It's a callousness we've never seen, I think, at this level of government.

MATTINGLY: I read something you said the other day that really kind of has stuck in my brain, which is you said 30 to 90 days there will be an -- there's an imminent service interruption. There will be a collapse of the system. That's a very specific timeline. Why?

O'MALLEY: Because I was there for a year. Every day was risk management, and I was taught about the agency and the interconnectedness. Here's the things you're going to see, and you're already seeing it. First of all, massive firings, mass firings, layoffs, paying people to leave in an agency that's already at a 50- year low. And you know where the greatest number of people retirement- eligible are? In the Office of Business Information -- I mean, Office of Benefit Information Systems that effectuates the benefits that are paid. That's kind of the last step.

But you're going to see the mass layoffs and firing, reductions in staffing. You are going to see intermittent interruptions, which you've already seen, "The Washington Post" chronicled that -- chronicled that today. Then you're going to see those intermittent interruptions in the processing and the claims become longer. Ultimately, all of that will cascade into what is that old COBOL-based foundational system, because it's not only the ability to code COBOL, it's the knowledge that those people have of how that base system is connected to 50 major apps on top of it and thousands that are on top of that 50. And all of that is going to cascade, I do believe, within the next 60 days into a total system collapse. I hope I'm wrong. I think everybody should.

O'MALLEY: We'll see what happens. Certainly a lot of action going on at the agency right now. Former Governor Martin O'Malley, appreciate your time, sir, as always. Thank you.

[17:45:00]

Well, judges ordered just in, stops immigration officials from deporting a student at Columbia University for now, at least. We'll go to New York for this. It's next.

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[17:50:03]

MATTINGLY: Well, breaking news, in our National Lead, just moments ago, a federal judge in New York issued a temporary restraining order halting, potential deportation proceedings against a 21-year-old Columbia University student. CNN's Shimon Prokupecz is in New York. Shimon, what more can you tell us?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, definitely, Phil, this is a very significant case that was brought by this 21-year-old Columbia student. She's a -- she's from South Korea. She's been in New York since the age of seven in this country. She's been a Columbia University student. She's been living here with her parents. Her name is Yunseo Chung, and she's essentially been in hiding since the beginning of March. ICE agents have been hunting for her.

They even went to her parents' home in the D.C. area, they're trying to get them to get her to surrender to them. And so the hiding just got too much for her. She's been continuing her education, and so her attorneys yesterday went to court asking a judge here in Manhattan, federal court, to issue an injunction.

And today the judge, Naomi Buchwald, decided that what she would do is issue this temporary restraining order while she tries to figure out exactly what's going on. What was interesting, I was in court here, Phil. The judge said, I'm new to this. This is kind of unprecedented. We're seeing all of this happening all across the country. And so she said, I need some time to figure out what's happening here and what this -- what's going on here.

And she did -- couldn't understand why the government was trying to detain her. She said there's no indication that this student is any kind of a flight risk, that she's a danger to the community. And so she agreed, at least temporarily, until April, April 20th, when they will be back in court to hear arguments as to why the government, why ICE and Homeland Security wants to detain her and deport her.

And so we'll be back in court on April 20th. But for now, ICE agents, the administration, are prevented, prevented by this judge, from picking her up, from detaining her and trying to deport her.

MATTINGLY: Notable development. Shimon Prokupecz, thanks so much.

Well, over to our Health Lead now. Measles continues to spread throughout the country. The bulk of cases came from the West Texas outbreak, which hit 379 cases today and shows no signs of stopping. At least 431 total measles cases have been identified in the United States this year by state health department counts.

Just today, health officials said they're investigating a case of the highly contagious disease in a person who visited multiple locations in D.C. last week and traveled here on an Amtrak train. CNN medical correspondent Meg Tirrell has the latest. Meg, how far has this Texas outbreak spread?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so far, Phil, we know that it has reached two other states, New Mexico and Oklahoma. It's still growing the fastest in Texas. There now we're up to 327 cases. That's 18 more than we just heard about on Friday. 40 people there have been hospitalized and there's been one death.

New Mexico is at 43 cases. While that did take up more slowly, the experts there say they don't anticipate this is actually slowing down. It may have just been a temporary ebb in the number of cases.

And we are seeing the cases reach nine now in Oklahoma from just four last week. That is all tied to the same outbreak that is really centered in West Texas. And health officials are telling us they're concerned not just about the spread to other states, but also the spread, obviously, within Texas.

It started to reach more counties now. It's really centered in Gaines County, Texas, but it's up to 15 different counties across Texas, and that's concerning them as well. Clearly, this is not contained. They said this could take possibly a year, Phil, to finally get through this outbreak.

MATTINGLY: That was actually what I was going to ask you. It's multi- state. We've obviously spent a lot of time talking about Texas. What are officials saying are the next steps here?

TIRRELL: Well, trying to increase vaccination rates, and that's really the key question. We have -- you just mentioned that case that we saw in Washington, D.C. For folks who are vaccinated, they really don't have to worry too much about getting infected by measles. You do occasionally hear about a vaccinated case, but the vaccine's 97 percent effective at blocking measles. You can see here 20 states this year have confirmed measles cases. Most of them are in Texas, Phil, but we're also looking at 10 cases in Kansas.

We don't yet know exactly where those stemmed from, whether they're related or whether they're related to international travel, which is where most of the other ones come from. So vaccination really is the key here and will determine how far a case ends up spreading or becomes an outbreak.

MATTINGLY: You know, this is all happening, as you're hearing, of deep cuts to the CDC. What do you learning?

TIRRELL: Yes, so just today, we learned that five division directors at the CDC, pretty high-ranking leaders, are said to be planning to depart, and this comes, as we are expecting, pretty deep cuts across the public health agency, maybe even up to 30 percent of their workforce as part of a reduction in force. People are worried about entire departments possibly being wiped out, so this is extremely concerning as they have something like measles, not to mention bird flu and other things, also on their plates, Phil.

[17:55:02]

MATTINGLY: Meg Tirrell, great reporting as always. Thanks so much.

Well, if no classified material was on that group chat with Trump officials and a journalist just accidentally was added, why couldn't the contents be shared with lawmakers on Capitol Hill today? A lawmaker who is in today's hearing will answer that question, next.

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MATTINGLY: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Phil Mattingly in for Jake Tapper. This hour, President Trump is standing by his man, defending national security adviser, Mike Waltz, despite Waltz's role in starting a group chat to discuss highly sensitive information about U.S. military strikes. But a growing number of Republicans are raising concerns about how all of this unfolded.

[18:00:02]

Plus, new data out today show not only are Americans expecting higher inflation this year, but more are also predicting a recession.