CIA director John Ratcliffe clashed with a Democrat senator on Tuesday over a description of the Trump administration’s leaked signal chat lawmakers.
D-Colo, Ratcliffe and Sen. Michael Bennett. The exchange between took place Tuesday morning at the Senate Intelligence Committee’s annual “Threat to Hometown” hearing.
However, much of this year’s hearing was focused on the surprising news that Trump’s top top officers, including Ratcliffe, mistakenly included Atlantic editor Jeffrey Golberg in the Signal Group Chat, which he discussed plans for upcoming strikes in Hausis, Yemen.
The news was first reported on Monday on Golberg on a first-person account that sent shockwaves throughout Washington, DC
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FBI Director Kash Patel, director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, will appear on March 25, 2025 on the Senate Committee on Senate Intelligence Email Trials in Washington, DC (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images).
In particular, Ratcliffe was burned into the encrypted messaging app by lawmakers to exchange classified security information using the Trump administration. The senator requested to know who had added well-known editor and journalist Goldberg to the so-called “Houthi PC Small Group,” where he remained unnoticed for several days.
Bennett asked Ratcliffe if he shared his view that the signal thread in question had nothing wrong with the issue, and the director of national intelligence that the chat in question had no targeting information or combat sequences.
Bennett said this was in Ratcliffe’s testimony, but said, “It’s Coach Ratcliffe, who’s a bit off that’s your opinion.”
“Does the CIA have rules? [the] Processing classified information? ” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Ratcliffe. He added that he had never heard of Goldberg before, but admitted that he had admitted to the signaling thread that “evidently he’s been added” by someone in the group.
“I don’t know how he was added,” Ratcliffe said before Bennett stopped.
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President Donald Trump, accompanied by national security adviser Michael Waltz, will ask a reporter a question at a meeting with NATO Executive Director Mark Latte on the left in his oval office on March 13, 2025 (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“Everyone in America knows,” Bennett said.
Ratcliffe said it would not use the app to share sensitive information or share targeting information.
“And your testimony as CIA director is that it’s perfectly appropriate to have conversations like this at the signal,” Bennett asked. “Is it appropriate?”
Ratcliffe began to respond by saying, “No, that’s not me,” before the Democrat senator cut him off.
He then tried again and challenged Bennett: “Did I say that? When did you use the word “appropriate”? ”
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“Obviously, ‘I see nothing here’ what your testimony is,” Bennett said. “This was a normal day at the CIA. We chatted about this kind of signal, in fact, as normal as the last administration left us here for us,” that’s your testimony today. ”
“No, that’s not my testimony,” Ratcliffe fought back. “I wasn’t saying you just had something to do with, Senator.”
Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe are preparing to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 25, 2025 (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
The repetition wrapped in a fierce remand from Bennett, who told Ratcliffe about signal chat, tells him: “You need to do better. You need to do better.”
During the hearing, other Democrats, including Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, asked Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegses to step down from the signal chat in question.
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously tried to pay Signal Chat, informing reporters on Monday that the attack on Houthis, which was discussed in the group chat, was “very successful and effective.”
“President Trump continues to have the utmost confidence in his national security team, including national security adviser Mike Waltz,” she said.
Breanne Deppisch is a political reporter for Fox News Digital, covering the Trump administration, focusing on the Department of Justice, the FBI and other national news.
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