{"id":15347,"date":"2025-03-26T19:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T02:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15347"},"modified":"2025-03-26T19:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T02:12:12","slug":"signal-scandal-gets-worse-for-trump-gop-big-special-election-victories-for-dems-in-pa-bradcast-3262025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15347","title":{"rendered":"Signal Scandal Gets Worse for Trump, GOP; Big Special Election Victories for Dems in PA: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 3\/26\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_MikeWaltz-PeteHegseth-Confirmation_032625.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">Today on <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>The BradCast<\/i><\/a>: Things get worse for the Trump Administration and the buffoonish Republicans who love him on Capitol Hill, following another embarrassing round of disclosures from &#8216;Signal Gate&#8217;, while Dems take back control of a state House and flip a <i>very<\/i> &#8220;red&#8221; state Senate seat in Special Elections yesterday in a key battleground state. [<i>Audio link to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>That&#8217;s hardly all we&#8217;ve got for you in yet another too big show today&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><b>&#8216;NOBODY WAS TEXTING WAR PLANS,&#8217; EH?:<\/b> Capitol Hill continued to roil on Wednesday, after <i>The Atlantic<\/i>&#8216;s Editor-in-Chief <b>Jeffrey Goldberg<\/b> published <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/money\/news\/here-are-the-attack-plans-that-trump-s-advisers-shared-on-signal\/ar-AA1BH7VQ?ocid=BingNewsVerp#\">the full message thread<\/a> from the <b>Signal<\/b> group chat that he was invited to join, for some still-unexplained reason, last week, by <b>Donald Trump<\/b>&#8216;s National Security Advisor <b>Mike Waltz<\/b> in advance of a U.S. attack on Houthi rebels in <b>Yemen<\/b>. The small group consisted of high-level Trump National Security and Defense officials, from the Vice President to the Sec. of Defense, Sec. of State, CIA Director, Director of National Intelligence and more. The newly published text messages from the Signal conversation on the unsecured commercial mobile app, reveal very specific times, places and methods of attack, just as Goldberg originally asserted in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/us\/the-trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans\/ar-AA1ByMHr?ocid=BingNewsSerp\">his original blockbuster report<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>In response to the original report, SecDef doofus <b>Pete Hegseth<\/b> falsely told reporters, &#8220;Nobody was texting war plans.&#8221; Today&#8217;s <i>Atlantic<\/i> report reveals that <i>he<\/i> very much did. The new details also appear to counter claims from Trump&#8217;s CIA Director <b>John Ratcliffe<\/b> and his wildly unqualified Director of National Intelligence <b>Tulsi Gabbard<\/b> to the <b>U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee<\/b> on Tuesday, when they both asserted that no classified information was shared with the Signal group. They were both members of that group. <b>Donald Trump<\/b> also <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-hegseth-signal-yemen-atlantic-group-chat-4b09973f4df3711d5d5ff88e8f9f96e0\">made that same false claim<\/a> on Tuesday. If very specific attack plans posted to Signal by Hegseth weren&#8217;t &#8220;classified&#8221; details, they certainly should have been. But, even if not, they were definitely National Defense Information, which means members of the group chat may have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/18\/793\">violated<\/a> the <b>Espionage Act<\/b>. The messages set to disappear after a number of weeks by Walz, would also be in violation of the <b>Presidential Records<\/b> and <b>Federal Records Acts<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/109540\/signalgate-relevant-criminal-law-cases\/\">according to legal experts<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Even a number of rightwing columnists are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/pete-hegseth-mike-waltz-calls-resign-fired_n_67e2a38fe4b0014ccec80915?origin=related-recirc\">calling for accountability<\/a> and the removal of Hegseth and Waltz. A few Republican U.S. Senators are <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/senate\/5213861-republican-senators-investigate-signal-disclosure\/\">calling for full investigations<\/a>. And, of course, Democrats have already been demanding accountability, both at yesterday&#8217;s Senate Intel hearing and in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/03\/26\/nx-s1-5341359\/intelligence-leaders-signal-house-hearing\">another one today<\/a> in the <b>U.S. House Intelligence Committee<\/b>, which also featured laughable testimony from Ratcliffe and Gabbard. Desi Doyen has details for us on today&#8217;s program. <\/p>\n<p><b>PA VOTERS PUSH BACK:<\/b> While things are falling apart politically for Trump and his incompetent aides and Congressional sycophants in D.C., voters are already ringing in with their dissatisfaction at the polls. In Special Elections in <b>Pennsylvania<\/b> on Tuesday, a <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/campaign\/5213743-democrat-dan-goughnour-wins-pa\/\">Democratic win in the state House<\/a> has resulted in the party regaining their slim majority in the Legislature&#8217;s lower chamber. But that was to be expected from a very Democratic district. <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/pennsylvania-democratic-party-donald-trump-election-094e907bd9af0d55a3ac76bb5e22d17c\">Bigger news<\/a> for Dems came in the Special Election for the state Senate, where the Democratic candidate managed to <a href=\"https:\/\/lancasteronline.com\/news\/politics\/democrat-james-malone-narrowly-edges-republican-josh-parsons-in-36th-senate-race-some-votes-still\/article_92d8d2e9-6953-42ba-b766-2828701ea781.html\">flip a seat in a very red district<\/a> that Trump won by 15 points last November. <b>James Malone<\/b> narrowly defeated his Republican opponent by <a href=\"https:\/\/lancasteronline.com\/news\/politics\/elon-musk-scott-presler-sound-alarm-over-republican-josh-parsons-chances-in-tuesday-s-state\/article_1ff583fc-b55e-4584-a72e-a5a61b037a69.html\">running against<\/a> Trump&#8217;s madness and <b>Elon Musk<\/b>&#8216;s DOGE Bro efforts to dismantle <b>Social Security<\/b>, <b>Medicaid<\/b> and the rest of the federal government. It was a huge upset victory for the Democrats, as they won this particular area of Republican-leaning suburbs and farming communities for the first time in <i>136 years<\/i>!  (Tuesday&#8217;s win echoes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/politics\/democrats-shock-republicans-flip-deep-red-iowa-senate-seat-in-pro-trump-district\/ar-AA1y41TE\">another last month<\/a> when Dems flipped a state Senate seat in a special election held in a deep red, Trump +21 district in <b>Iowa<\/b>.)<\/p>\n<p><b>MORE ELECTIONS NEXT TUESDAY:<\/b> Another round of critical elections are underway <i>right now<\/i>, with Election Day next week (April 1) in <b>Wisconsin<\/b> and <b>Florida<\/b>.  The battle for majority control of <b>WI&#8217;s Supreme Court<\/b> is underway (as we <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15330\">discussed recently<\/a> with the Badger State&#8217;s <b>John Nichols<\/b> of <i>The Nation<\/i>), as the world&#8217;s richest man, <b>Elon Musk<\/b>, has thrown some $18 million into the race to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2025\/03\/elon-musk-revealed-why-hes-spending-wisconsin-supreme-court-gerrymandering-crawford-schimel\/\">support far-right Trump Republican<\/a> <b>Brad Schimel<\/b>, in hopes of defeating liberal candidate <b>Susan Crawford<\/b>. <\/p>\n<p>In <b>Florida<\/b>, there are <i>two<\/i> special elections Tuesday for the <b>U.S. House<\/b>, though both are in very red districts. The CD-1 race will fill the seat vacated by alleged child sex trafficker <b>Matt Gaetz<\/b>, the other, in CD-6, is to fill the seat vacated by Trump&#8217;s incompetent National Security Advisor and Signal chat enthusiast <b>Mike Waltz<\/b>. Democratic candidates <b>Gay Valimont<\/b> and <b>Josh Weil<\/b>, respectively, are waging uphill battles to flip those <i>very<\/i> &#8220;red&#8221; U.S. House districts to &#8220;blue&#8221;. Each have, reportedly, outraised their Republican opponents. Though Musk has now also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/elections\/musks-super-pac-jumps-floridas-special-elections-rcna198106\">reportedly<\/a> jumped into those races with his billions as well, at the very last minute. A victory for Democrats in <i>either<\/i> of those seats (or anything close to it), will be seen as a political earthquake next week.<\/p>\n<p><b>TRUMP ATTEMPTS ELECTION POWER GRAB:<\/b> Finally, you may have heard about the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/03\/preserving-and-protecting-the-integrity-of-american-elections\/\">Executive Order<\/a> that <b>Donald Trump<\/b> issued last night, purporting to mandate proof of citizenship when registering to vote. That said, Presidents <i>DO NOT HAVE THE POWER<\/i> to issue such mandates. Election law is largely the legislative domain of States, Counties and occasionally via laws adopted by Congress. Trump&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/talkingpointsmemo.com\/edblog\/notes-on-trump-ii-month-3-how-long-do-we-have-to-keep-lifting-so-long\">largely performative<\/a> EO (which also includes a number of other voting and election mandates that are similarly beyond his powers as President) will face huge legal challenges. As Election Law professor <b>Rick Hasen<\/b> noted in <a href=\"https:\/\/electionlawblog.org\/?p=149153\">his initial response<\/a> to Trump&#8217;s &#8220;dangerous Executive Order&#8221; last night, the measure is an attempted &#8220;executive power grab&#8221; that, if successful, would &#8220;disenfranchise millions of voters.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ya know&#8230;Just another dull day in these United States&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman-SignalChatReleased-HouseIntelHearing-DemSpecialElectionWinsPA-TrumpElectionEO_032625.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pandora.com\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/PC:1000025838\">Pandora<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/podcast\/256-the-bradcast-w-brad-friedm-30973643\/\">iHeart<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-BradCast-w-Brad-Friedman\/dp\/B08JJRN86R\/ref=sr_1_1\">Amazon<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><strong>The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, <em>The BradCast<\/em> and <em>Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today on The BradCast: Things get worse for the Trump Administration and the buffoonish Republicans who love him on Capitol Hill, following another embarrassing round of disclosures from &#8216;Signal Gate&#8217;, while Dems take back control of a state House and flip a very &#8220;red&#8221; state Senate seat in Special Elections yesterday in a key battleground [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,89,675,55,299,272,479,1964,106,28,1736,883,16,1374,477,2036,107,48,2039,300,957,198,233,478,143,444],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountability","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-cia","category-democrats","category-dept-of-defense","category-donald-trump","category-election-2025","category-election-fraud","category-election-reform","category-elon-musk","category-fascism","category-florida","category-john-ratcliffe","category-kpfk","category-mike-waltz","category-national-security","category-pennsylvania","category-pete-hegseth","category-republicans","category-tulsi-gabbard","category-us-house","category-us-senate","category-wi-supreme-court-election","category-wisconsin","category-yemen"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15347"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=15347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}