President Donald Trump is desperate to talk about anything other than the exploding Signalgate controversy, CNN's Kasie Hunt reported on Thursday afternoon — even as his own party and supporters begin to ask tough questions of him.
"There are new questions in the defense and intelligence community about Defense Secretary Pete Hegsth's judgment, after he put incredibly detailed information about strikes in Yemen into a group chat," said Hunt, who added that sources are telling her, "The egregious actor here is Hegsath." They added, "He's in the bullseye now because he put all this out there on a signal chat."
However, she continued, "the White House would really, really like to change the subject."
She played a clip of Trump boasting on Wednesday about his new 25 percent tariff on imported cars, saying, "If they have factories here they're thrilled, if you don't have factories here they're going to have to get going and build them" — and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt trying to deflect Signalgate questions by saying, "We have never denied that this was a mistake ... we are making changes."
"And yet the questions persist," noted Hunt, playing clips of Republican senators expressing alarm.
"I can't see any rationale for the kind of conversation that took place over Signal, for not taking place in a more secure manner than that. I think that's hard to explain," said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS). Meanwhile, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said, "I'm worried about everybody and how they have handled this Signal controversy. Does it concern me? Hell yes."
"And it is not just people like those two Republican senators that you saw there," said Hunt. "Take a look at these comments from Barstool Sports' Dave Portnoy. He's the kind of social media personality whose male fans helped propel Trump back to the White House."
"Trump, you may love Michael Waltz, you love Pete Hegseth, you may love these guys," said Portnoy in the clip. "Somebody has to go down ... you can't pooh-pooh it, you can't downplay it, you have to sit up there and be like, "holy, this is a [mess up] of epic proportions, there will be accountability."
"It does beg the question: where's this guy when you need him?" Hunt added, playing a clip of Trump at a past event, saying, "I love to fire people that didn't do their job," said Trump to a campaign crowd. "I fired a lot of people that didn't do their — I fire 'em. You didn't do your job? I'm sorry, say hello to your family, you're fired, get out."
"Where is that guy?"
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