‘Just own it’: GOP Rep. Bacon says Signal chat contained classified info

Amna Nawaz:

To further discuss the Signal incident, I spoke earlier with Republican Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska. He spent nearly three decades in the U.S. Air Force, retiring as a brigadier general.

Congressman, welcome back to the "News Hour." Thanks so much for joining us.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE):

Thank you very much.

Amna Nawaz:

So, as you have seen, many in the White House and many people who are on this Signal group chat have denied that it included classified information. We have seen "The Atlantic" has now published the text of those chats.

You specialized in intelligence in the Air Force. Do you see classified info in these chats?

Rep. Don Bacon:

I think it's clearly classified.

So, they're digging themselves a bigger hole. They should just be straightforward and honest, say, we screwed up.

Now, I want to say the operation itself, I praise it. We — the Houthis have been shutting down the sea lines of communication. We had to open it up. So I support that. I don't want to take away from that.

But there's no doubt, when you start saying two hours before an operation, we're going to launch these aircraft at this time, or we're going to have bombs go off at this time, and you're talking about Yemen, that is classified. And so I would implore the secretary of defense and others, just own it and say, it was my fault, I screwed up, and take responsibility.

I think they keep digging a deeper hole, and then, when you do that, you lose credibility. And I don't think that's good for America either.

Amna Nawaz:

So, on why this information was shared in the first place, I mean, one expert we talked to said that even a junior officer would have known that this is classified information.

Should Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense Hegseth, who did serve in the military, shouldn't he have known it was classified?

Rep. Don Bacon:

Yes.

He should have known it, absolutely. And I think everybody on that Signal chat should have known that was an inappropriate place to put launching data of our aircraft, the timing, the impact times, and all that. It's — the secretary of defense should have known that.

Now, I'm trying to give people the benefit of that. I just imagine maybe he felt pressured or rushed. I don't know. But there's really no excuse for putting that kind of data — and, by the way, it's endangers our crews, because that was put on an unclassified network two hours before the strikes.

That's enough time for — if somebody would have informed the Houthis, say, if Russia would have informed the Houthis, that they could have been more prepared for these attacks. And so that puts our forces at risk.

Amna Nawaz:

So if this was a breach and it puts our forces at risk, what does accountability look like? I mean, we know Mike Waltz added the journalist Jeff Goldberg to the chat. Pete Hegseth posted the information. Should they be fired?

Rep. Don Bacon:

I'm not prepared to say that.

I do want to thank Mike Waltz for coming online and saying, hey, it was my fault for adding the journalist. And that's what you want to see. You want to see someone take responsibility. I think Mike or — the — Waltz, he's a friend of mine, I believe he's a reasonable voice in the administration, a voice that we need.

The secretary is still in denial, though, that he did anything wrong. And I think that that reflects worse than the actual incident, when you can't own up to a mistake. So I think the jury's still out, and I'm a little reluctant to, say, fire this or do that. I just — I want accountability from the individual taking responsibility.

That's where I'm at.

Amna Nawaz:

But is taking responsibility enough for you? I mean, if accountability is what you want to see — for instance, if someone in your command when you were in the military disclosed information like this, they would have been prosecuted.

Rep. Don Bacon:

Right.

Amna Nawaz:

There would have been some kind of accountability. What does that look like here? And if there's no accountability, what message does that send?

Rep. Don Bacon:

Well, you're right. If I would have done this in the Air Force, I would have lost my clearance. I probably would have got an Article 15, which is nonjudicial punishment. It would have probably prevented me from being promoted. So you're absolutely right.

I also know we're dealing with a secretary of defense. He made a mistake. I'm more worried by the fact that he won't admit it.

Amna Nawaz:

I want to ask you too about just yesterday you hosted a town hall for your constituents. Thousands of people showed up. It was a virtual town hall. I know you said you hosted it so you could take more questions.

You had a lot of questions about the House Republican budget that was just passed. And you did say, according to reports, there are no threats right now to the stability of Medicaid, which people asked about.

Mathematically, sir, you know there's no way to reach the target cuts that have been set in the budget by that committee other than touching Medicaid. It has to be touched in some way. So how can you guarantee that the hundreds of thousands of people in Nebraska will not feel any impact to Medicaid?

Rep. Don Bacon:

You're right. If the final numbers are $880 billion out of E&C, I think you're right. It would affect Medicaid.

But I was assured by the chairmen of both committees that are involved with us, as well as the leadership, like our whip, Tom Emmer, that the final numbers will look a lot more like the Senate numbers. The Senate hasn't agreed to these numbers, and they won't. They're going to agree to something significantly less, we believe.

And so I voted to move this forward to create the negotiations between the House and the Senate. And I believe most Republicans, at least ones I affiliate with, are looking at significantly less reductions in E&C, which is where Medicaid is at.

Amna Nawaz:

I see. So you support it as long as it's not $880 billion that they're trying to cut there. I just want to clarify too. When I said hundreds of thousands, I meant hundreds of thousands of Medicaid recipients in Nebraska.

Rep. Don Bacon:

Right.

Amna Nawaz:

That's what I was referring to.

While I have you, can I ask you about Elon Musk's DOGE team? Because you said recently in an interview that you're urging them to take their time and not act too swiftly. That seems to be the opposite of the way this team is moving. Are you comfortable with their approach?

Rep. Don Bacon:

Well, I know that's the way he does business. Like, he has a space launch failure, they will just, OK, we will do another one real quick and try to fix what happens.

But you're dealing here with people's lives. And when you're firing people and then you bring them back in, I think that's traumatic for many of these people. This is their careers. This is their lives. So I would urge more caution and more analysis before you fire somebody to ensure — I think most people think our federal government's too big. It should be downsized.

But when you're firing nuclear physicists, inspectors in our meat processing plants, FAA folks who are helping keep our airspace clear, then you have to go back and hire them back, it's not a good way to do business.

Amna Nawaz:

But that's not what they're doing.

Rep. Don Bacon:

No.

Amna Nawaz:

Are your concerns being heard? Have you spoken directly to Mr. Musk about this?

Rep. Don Bacon:

I haven't spoken to him directly, but I have talked to the White House directly. And we have been able to get some of these things replaced.

So, for example, I learned that some of the folks that keep birds flying around our airports, they were fired. And so we don't want to dangerous airports with birds that could get ingested in aircraft engines.

So I was able to contact the White House and we got them reinstated. But we shouldn't have to do that anyway. They should have known this beforehand without having someone like me call us and say, hey, we got a problem.

So I am concerned. It's not right to have to fire people, then you have to find them to bring them back in. Let's do the analysis up front and do it right.

Amna Nawaz:

That is Republican Congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska joining us tonight.

Congressman, thank you for your time. Please come back again soon.

Rep. Don Bacon:

Thank you.