Signal scandal could send Trump's cabinet crashing through 'thin ice': CNN analyst
Americans are keenly interested in the newly revealed Signal chats involving Donald Trump's high-ranking officials, and CNN's Harry Enten explained why that could pose a political problem.
The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg reported earlier this week that he had been added by national security adviser Mike Waltz to a group chat involving vice president J.D. Vance and defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who disclosed top-secret plans about a military operation in Yemen, and Enten said interest in the encrypted messaging app and the publication has exploded.
"Sometimes I get a little surprised when I look at some of the data, and, of course, it's very early on in this, but we can look at Google searches, and I think it gives you an idea that there's a lot of interest in this story," Enten said. "All right, Google searches this week versus last week for these topics for The Atlantic, how many people are searching for The Atlantic – up 900 percent. That is the highest on record since Google searches began. They started tracking them back in 2004. How about for Signal, of course, the app on which this all occurred? Up over 1,000 percent again the highest on record. It has gone up through the roof on these two particular topics."
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"Whether or not people ultimately end up caring and it changes their minds about the administration, that's one thing," Enten added, "but the interest at this particular point is absolutely there. People are interested in this story, right? Beyond the interest, their take on it, you don't read that in a Google search, but there is interest, absolutely."
Other members of Trump's cabinet, including secretary of state Marco Rubio and treasury secretary Scott Bessent, took part in the chat, which could have potentially exposed top-secret information to foreign adversaries, and CNN's Kate Bolduan wondered whether the scandal would hurt their already low public standing.
"Trump's cabinet, obviously, many of them are on this group chat," Bolduan said. "Many of them are facing a lot of scrutiny and questions right now. Trump's cabinet, to this point, before this, was already on somewhat, I don't know, we call it thin ice. "
Enten agreed they already had low approval ratings compared to previous administrations.
"Here we go, all right – disappointed with the administration appointments of these different presidents, you might notice only one of these presidents, only one of these terms that were a majority disappointed," Enten said, looking at data to Bill Clinton's first term, in 1993. "Look at this: In 2025, 52 percent were already disappointed with Donald Trump's picks for his administration. That is the first time you get a majority. Back in 2017, was only 44 percent [disappointed] for Donald Trump. Before that, you see 16 [percent], 17 [percent], 14 [percent]. Joe Biden's picks were not, in fact, polled, but less than 40 percent disapproved in separate Pew polling."
"So the bottom line is, even going into this, there was already a lot of skepticism about Donald Trump's picks for his cabinet, for his appointments," Enten added. "There's no doubt in my mind that this number will almost certainly tick a little bit upwards, because we already were dealing with a public that was quite skeptical. This story can only make things worse. "
The problem seems especially acute for Hegseth, who is already deeply unpopular.
"Obviously he's very much in the middle of this story," Enten said. "Despite what some of trump defenders try to say, if you speak to [retired general] Spider Marks, for example, he would absolutely say that Pete Hegseth was right in the middle, and again, what you see here was the most unpopular defense secretary going all the way back, you have to go all the way back to Donald Rumsfeld, who, of course, was basically kind of forced out a little bit back in 2006. The unfavorable rating for Pete Hegseth [is] 42 percent compared to this favorable rating, that was only 30 percent. Many more Americans disliked Pete Hegseth coming into the scandal than liked him."
"Again, skeptical, skeptical, skeptical public, they're only going to probably become more skeptical, and seeing how again, seeing where they begin and how it evolves as we continue to cover it," Enten added.
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