As mentioned in a previous article, the American people can see that while the presidential inauguration didn’t pose any national security threats itself, the administration of President Donald Trump post-campaign would be much more proving.
In the past three months of the Trump administration, citizens have reported viewing Trump as a huge threat to the integral National Security established here in America, including his party. According to National Security Action, many of Trump’s former advisors and board of trustees have fallen out of the woodwork to support claims of Trump’s current administration and Project 2025 becoming America’s biggest threat to national intelligence and domestic security.
The entire list of members of the Republican Party working with Trump can be found on NationalSecurityAction.org. It includes, but is not limited to, former U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, former Vice President Mike Pence, U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, and more.
As we can see, a lot of Republicans well-versed in modern politics have expressed concerns over the current and past administrative policies handling national security. But what has the recent administration done to prove that the American people see threats rising domestically?
The most recent Signal chat leak has been a prominent scandal that has raised growing concern over matters relating to war plans being leaked, the current capabilities of our cabinet, and the professional handling of the fallout from the leak.
According to Politico, “Waltz’s use of Signal to coordinate the work of the NSC has come under intense public scrutiny after he accidentally included a journalist on the Signal group text about military strikes in Yemen, sparking a firestorm of political backlash and calls for Trump to force Waltz out of his job.”
Meanwhile, the White House has sought to downplay the classified information leaked by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. In fact, a lot of democrats across the country have raised concerns over what the national security for the country will look like now, since violent war plans have become public information so easily accessible to the hands of the media.
Virginia Representative Gerry Connolly, the top Democrat on the oversight committee, wrote in the letters that the Signal group chat “raises immediate and deeply alarming concerns about the misuse of unsecured communication platforms” and “the reckless dissemination of potentially classified material.”
This becomes notable as we dive into looking deeper with the Center for Strategic and International Studies as they report on the recent Trump administration’s Annual Threat Assessment Hearing with CIA Director Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
According to the CSIS, there were two major points touched upon in this hearing. The first is the infamous Signal chat leak. Ratcliffe proceeded to tell congressmen and women at this hearing that none of the information that was leaked in the chat was considered “classified” information by Hegseth, and therefore, Signal was permissible to use, and no wrong was done. Even though a political journalist was still made privy to this information.
The second point discussed in the hearing was also related to the Signal chat, as the hearing turned into worrisome comments relating to the official governmental records of the event. Despite the Signal chat being leaked to the public and now having to be documented by the government as a leak of national intelligence information, Ratcliffe does not see a need to change policy in proceeding with confidential military discussions. Ratcliffe claims, “Changes in policy must be intentional,” implying that a change is not needed.
CSIS then stated that the Senate hearing closed with a stark exchange. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) asked Ratcliffe, “This was a huge mistake, correct?” Ratcliffe responded with one word: “No.”
Now, with the majority of the administration’s own party not agreeing with the risks taken so far, the American people watch as more and more chances on domestic and international intelligence are taken by the current administration.