Newsmax attacks Fox's Jennifer Griffin for reporting that what Pete Hegseth shared may have been far more sensitive than war plans
Newsmax's Rick Leventhal lectures Griffin: “You do need to be careful with what you post”
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From the March 27, 2025, edition of Newsmax's Rob Schmitt Tonight
ROB SCHMITT (HOST): So there's a new rift between the Trump administration and Fox News. Just days after the president suggested that the white House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich should work for CNN, Fox's chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin, fiercely defending The Atlantic's reporting and Democrats' vast exaggeration of the seriousness of this Signal scandal that we've been watching for the last few days. Griffin reporting last night, she surveyed a number of defense officials about what Hegseth texted, saying that they agreed war plans is not the right term, but what was shared may have been far more sensitive than war plans. Citing one former senior defense official as saying this information was clearly classified. Here she was last night on Fox.
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SCHMITT: So for context here, Griffin and Hegseth worked together at Fox for years. Back in early February, just after Hegseth's confirmation, Griffin reported on House Democrats sending a letter to Hegseth about over a hundred thousand dollars of home repairs on his government residence, and doing so in light of the DOGE cuts. To which Hegseth responded, fake news of the day. Not surprising from Democrats and Jennifer Griffin. Same thing. Any and all repairs were going to happen, no matter who was moving in and were all initiated by DOD. But Dems and Jen don't care about facts. They are just Trump haters.
And two hosts, Ed Henry and Rick Leventhal, join us now to talk more about this. Ed, we'll start with you. There's a couple riffs here between Fox and the administration, right?
ED HENRY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, she said that the information was classified based on anonymous sources, when we have people on the record, like the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, saying it was not classified information. The second piece was that the information that Hegseth transmitted on Signal should have gone through proper channels. Well, as far as I know, going back to the Biden administration, they determined that Signal is encrypted. And that would seem to be a proper channel. So I think there's — you know, this is a story being, you know, fanned the flames, if you will, by the Democrats, because President Trump is on a big winning streak, right? And I think some of this reporting feeds in to what the Democrats and the mainstream media want to push — the narrative. And that's why I think the white House is pretty upset.
FINNERTY: Yeah. And Rick, when you look at it, I mean, it's a boo boo, right? I mean, it's a mistake. They added this, you know, rabid anti-Trump — I still don't understand how of all the people, this guy gets added to that chat. But at the same time, you know, it's — I mean, they're giving out — I mean, even the CIA director, as Ed just alluded to said on Capitol Hill, he showed up and he had Signal installed on his devices. They're telling people in government use this because it is more secure when you're going to have conversations that need — that are sensitive. It's not this explosive scandal that they're trying to make it be. But you got Jen Griffin over at Fox trying to make it into one.
RICK LEVENTHAL (GUEST): And it was the Biden administration that approved Signal for use by government officials. And let's remember that nobody got hurt by this operation except the people who were supposed to get hurt. And yeah, the government officials have been upfront about this from day one, and they admit that this guy should never have been allowed in. And I guarantee you they're going to make sure that it doesn't happen again. And I got to say, it's a little strange talking about former colleagues on this show. But I will say this, you got to be very careful at Fox what you post on X. And that was part of the issue here is that she posted something on X. I know it's in Fox contracts that if you post something that's not previously approved by the network, you can be fired flat out. They'll void your contract. And I'm not saying that's what's going to happen here. I respect Jennifer Griffin. But, you know, you do need to be careful with what you post.