Trump’s brutal swipe at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins cutting her off mid-question TWICE over war chat scandal
President Donald Trump swatted down CNN’s Kaitlan Collins when when she pressed him on the stunning disclosure that his security team convened on Signal to discuss a coming military operation.
The network’s White House reporter, who has clashed with Trump in the past, tried to question him during a White House meeting with U.S. ambassadors.
‘Mr. President,’ Collins called out, adding ‘you said that your national security [adviser] learned a lesson after a reporter–’
‘Excuse me – I didn’t pick you,’ Trump cut her off, indicating he had called on someone else.
She had been trying to ask Trump about his statement that his National Security Adviser Mike Waltz had ‘learned a lesson’ from the experience and that he wasn’t going to be fired.
Trump also brushed past her second attempt to ask him about the Signal chat, stopping her before she got a question in.
He eventually did come back to Collins and said Waltz is ‘doing his best.’
‘We’ll have to find some other form of device,’ Trump acknowledged, when pressed on how his security team was using the commercial app, after journalist Jeffrey Goldberg penned a stunning piece about being inadvertently included on the ‘war plans’ group chat.
‘It wasn’t classified information. This was not classified,’ Trump said, when pressed on the contents of the conversations.
President Donald Trump shot down a question by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, but then later defended his security team’s use of a private messaging app to discuss an imminent military attack. Trump said critics made a ‘big deal’ out of it, but also said there would be an internal investigation
But he also repeatedly acknowledged that such operations should be discussed in person, in a secure environment, when possible.
He even admitted such unsecure conversations could be penetrated.
‘Sometimes somebody can get onto those things. That’s one of the prices you pay when you’re not sitting in the Situation Room with no phones on, which is always the best,’ Trump said.
‘People do get into those lines,’ he said.
Trump even described a recent incident where he kicked off two people from a high-level conversation in the Situation Room out of fears their presence made it less secure.
‘Last week, I was in the Situation Room with something very important, and we had a couple of people hooked up by line, and I said, cancel the line. Sorry, fellas, what you do is, we’ll tell you all about the meeting, because I know people do get on those lines, whether it’s Signal or anything else
He spoke of the convenience of the app, saying ‘everybody else seems to be using it’ but expressed his preference for conducting such business in a room with ‘solid lead walls and a lead ceiling and a lead floor.’
Trump said his national security advisor Mike Waltz would ‘look into’ the situation
An investigation is ongoing. Waltz, whose office has been identified with making the error, will be in charge.
‘I’ve asked you to immediately study that and find out,’ Trump told him.
Trump also repeatedly made two points when pressed on the group chat, attacking the reporter, Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, and touting the military operation the group had been discussing, the attack on the Houthis.
‘The guy’s a total sleazebag,’ Trump said of Goldberg.
Although Trump called for giving Waltz a break, he was less forgiving toward political rival Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign amid her email scandal. He said she should be put in jail.
Trump was asked whether the FBI would be investigating, after FBI Director Kash Patel told senators he was just being read into the situation.
‘It’s not really an FBI thing. It’s really something having to do with security, security like: will somebody be able to break it? Are people able to break into conversations? And if that’s true, we’re going to have to find some other form of device. And I think that’s something that we may have to do,’ Trump said – ruling out the need for a probe of any improper disclosure.
