In what seems like a Cold War revival, enemies abroad are working to undermine American interests, lawmakers learned. China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are the major players who have committee members in a “state of alarm” for the threat level against the U.S., Ryan King, a New York Post reporter who covered both hearings, said on Washington Watch Thursday.
Discussion of those and other nations didn’t comprise most of the hearings’ time, however.
The dominant subject matter once the Democrats entered the chat was the Signal group text in which top U.S. officials discussed actions against the Yemen-based Houthis after journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, a frequent critic of President Donald Trump and his administration, was added to the text.
In 2024, Goldberg told CNN that he would not "participate in the normalization of Donald Trump," warning that "a second Trump term poses a threat to the existence of America as we know it."
The original intent of each hearing was for lawmakers to achieve a global threat assessment. However, “I'd say between both the Senate and House hearings, almost half the time, roughly” was spent discussing the Signal group text, King told show host Tony Perkins.
“It was basically a situation where Republicans would tend to focus on the national annual threat assessment, and then Democrats would go back to the Signal controversy,” he added.
The Signal story has been a gift that Democrats – according to King – likely won’t soon release.
“I think that's going to stick around for a little bit because there are multiple lawmakers who have pushed for investigations into it, and it's something that Democrats, I think, are very unlikely to forget,” King explained. “So, it might kind of go to the back burner for a little bit, but I think that this is something that Democrats are going to be interested in revisiting.”
Lawmakers want to know more about Signal chat
It’s not only Democrats who want to take a closer look at the Signal chat, King and the Post’s Josh Christenson have reported.
Senate Armed Services Committee chair Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) and the committee’s ranking member Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) jointly signed a letter to the Pentagon’s office of the Inspector General Thursday. They questioned the use of Signal, a popular social media app, as well as Goldberg’s presence in the group text.
Wicker and Reed are seeking clearance on whether classified information was discussed.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has denied sending actual war plans, but questions about classified material remain.
The administration has been unable to move ahead to the news cycle’s next story.
Attorney General Pam Bondi denied the presence of classified material and told a group of reporters on Thursday “what we should be talking about is it was a very successful mission.”
News coverage hasn’t been this intense for greater carelessness from a previous administration, the AG pointed out: “If you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was at Hillary Clinton’s home that she was trying to BleachBit.”
Friday is the administration’s next chance to regain control of the conversation as Vice President JD Vance and Mike Waltz, the national security advisor who has claimed responsibility for the mistake, visit Greenland.
They are scheduled to appear at Pituffik Space Base, a U.S. military installation.
“That will be interesting to see how that goes with Waltz going to Greenland after he has been the guy who admitted to inadvertently adding the Atlantic editor-in-chief to that Signal chat,” King offered.
As global threats go, the hearings didn’t focus only on sovereign enemies but also focused on Mexican drug cartels and “non-state actors” who are actually a bigger problem right now, King said.
The report to lawmakers described China as the most capable threat but, at present, the least adversarial.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told attendees that Iran does not presently appear to be pursuing a nuclear weapon, but it also currently has more uranium than necessary for a nuclear energy program, King said.
What’s the southern border really like?
It’s plain to see the Trump administration has reshaped the landscape at the southern border. What’s less clear is whether fewer illegal crossings have translated to less fentanyl and fewer deaths in the U.S.
Early data is “reassuring,” King said, including the announced arrest Thursday of a key MS-13 gang leader in Virginia.
“There was a recent study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that had suggested, based on some preliminary data from last year, that we've peaked in terms of deaths from fentanyl, and the Trump administration has announced a number of pretty high-profile arrests when it comes to some of the cartels and gang members.”
The DOJ's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recent operation in Boston and Massachusetts netted the arrests of 370 illegal immigrants, 205 of whom had "significant criminal convictions or charges."
