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Trump announces 25% tariffs on all cars not made in US amid scrutiny over Signal leak – live

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“This is the beginning of liberation day in America,” Donald Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office now for his remarks on new tariffs on cars made outside the United States. At the start of remarks being streamed live on the White House YouTube channel, the president said that tariffs of 25% will be imposed on all imported cars.The tariffs will apply to finished cars and trucks that are shipped into the United States, including those made by US auto companies whose automobiles that are made overseas.Asked by a reporter if the tariffs could be lifted before the end of his term of office, Trump said that the new 25% rate on foreign-made cars are “permanent, 100%”.The president just signed an executive order to put 25% tariffs on cars imported into the United States which, he says, will take effect on 2 April.Asked by a reporter how he will ensure that a car made largely outside the country is not completed in the US to avoid tariffs, Trump claims that there will be “strong policing” to prevent automakers from dodging tariffs.The president called the current system, in which cars are made in multiple countries, “ridiculous”.“This is the beginning of liberation day in America,” Donald Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office now for his remarks on new tariffs on cars made outside the United States. At the start of remarks being streamed live on the White House YouTube channel, the president said that tariffs of 25% will be imposed on all imported cars.The tariffs will apply to finished cars and trucks that are shipped into the United States, including those made by US auto companies whose automobiles that are made overseas.While fears have been raised about the possibility that Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy to Russia, was vulnerable to hacking because he was in Moscow when he was added to the Signal messaging chat about attacking Yemen (a concern Witkoff dismissed by saying he did not use his personal device on that trip), it has been somewhat overlooked that Mike Waltz, the national security adviser who created the group, was in Saudi Arabia on the day he accidentally invited the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to connect with him on the messaging app.In his first report on the incident for the Atlantic, Goldberg wrote: “On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz.”Since Goldberg did not specify the time of day that the invitation was sent, it is not certain where Waltz was when he sent the request, which was almost certainly sent from his nonsecure, personal phone. (It has been previously reported that the open-source Signal app cannot be downloaded on to secure government devices, although recent statements from the CIA director suggest that might no longer be true.)But we do know that Waltz spent much or all of that day in the Saudi city of Jeddah, where he and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, engaged in talks with senior Ukrainian officials over a plan for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine’s war to repel the full-scale Russian invasion that began in 2022.Since Waltz and Rubio spoke to reporters after 9pm local time in Jeddah that night, to announce that Ukraine had accepted the proposal, we know that Waltz was in a Saudi government-secured facility for most of that day, when, presumably, his personal phone would have been vulnerable to hacking by US adversaries, like Russia or China, and even US allies, including Saudi Arabia and Ukraine.It is not clear when Waltz left Saudi Arabia, but he was certainly there for most, if not all, of 11 March. Waltz and Rubio met with the Saudi crown prince, Mohamed bin Salman, in Jeddah on the evening 10 March, and Rubio’s itinerary on the state department’s website indicates that the secretary of state did not leave Saudi Arabia until 12 March, when he flew to Ireland and then to Canada.Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois released a statement calling for defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s resignation.“Pete Hegseth is a f*cking liar. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could’ve gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately,” reads the statement.“Hegseth and every other official who was included in this group chat must be subject to an independent investigation. If Republicans won’t join us in holding the Trump Administration accountable, then they are complicit in this dangerous and likely criminal breach of our national security.”Secretary of defense Pete Hegseth denied claims that the information he texted other Trump officials in a group chat earlier this month discussed classified war plans.“Nobody’s texting war plans,” he told reporters in Hawaii. “As a matter of fact, they even changed the title to attack plans, because they know it’s not war plans,” he said.Canada’s former spy chief says White House response to Signal leak threatens ‘Five Eyes’ securityCanada’s former spy chief has said the Trump administration’s attempts to downplay the leak of top-secret attack plans is a “very worrying” development, with implications for broader intelligence sharing among US allies.On Wednesday, the Atlantic magazine published new and detailed messages from a group chat, including plans for US bombings, drone launches and targeting information of the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions. Among the recipients of the messages was a prominent journalist, who was inadvertently added to the group.“This is very worrying. Canada needs to think about what this means in practical terms: is the United States prepared to protect our secrets, as we are bound to protect theirs?” said Richard Fadden, the former head of Canada’s intelligence agency. “Every country has experienced leaks, of varying severity. The problem with this one is that it’s being generated at the highest levels of the US government – and they haven’t admitted that it’s a problem.”Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand have for decades shared intelligence in a pact informally known as the Five Eyes. But the leak of classified information is likely to put further strain on the group as it weighs how seriously the current American administration takes the handling of top secret information.“When we have intelligence leaks, we admit it, we try to sort out what’s happened and we try to fix it. One doesn’t get the impression today that the US cabinet members will admit there’s a problem,” said Fadden, who also served as national security adviser to Canada’s Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper. “They’re just trying to clean it up from a political perspective. That worries me.”Despite a far more detailed picture of the information leaked to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the White House and key figures in the message thread have redoubled efforts to claimed none of the information was classified.Read the full story by The Guardian’s Leyland Cecco:Secretary of state Marco Rubio said the accidental inclusion of the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg in the Signal group chat was a “big mistake” but said that that “none of the information on there at any point threatened the operation or the lives of our service members.”Speaking to reporters from Jamaica, Rubio said:
Obviously someone made a mistake, someone made a big mistake and added a journalist. Nothing against journalists but you ain’t supposed to be on that … I contributed to it twice. I identified my point of contact … and then later on, I think 3 hours after the White House’s official announcements have been made, I congratulated the members of the team.
Rubio went on to add:
I’ve been assured by the Pentagon and everyone involved that none of the information that was on there … at any point threatened the operation of the lives of our servicemen and in fact it was a very successful operation … I want everybody to understand why this thing was even set up in the first place and also understand very clearly the mission was successful and at no point was it in danger and that’s coming from the highest ranking officials…
Another Democrat, the Florida representative Maxwell Alejandro Frost, has criticized the contents of the Signal group chat to which the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added.Writing on X in response to a screenshot that featured JD Vance’s reply to the US’s bombing in Yemen, Frost said:“Another disgusting part of all this is the proof of a blatant war crime to which the vice president of the United States responded: Excellent.”During a press briefing in Warsaw, Poland, Nato secretary general Mark Rutte was asked if Europeans could still trust the Americans after the Signal leaks.“Absolutely. Can we trust the Americans? Yes, they are our biggest partner, the biggest allies in Nato. They have freed my country together with Poland and Canada after the Second World War. Yes, absolutely. We can trust the Americans.”He was later asked about some of the comments made about “free-loading” Europeans.Rutte said he would not want to offer running commentary as that “would not be appropriate,” but acknowledged two main irritants in the new US administration’s relations with European Nato allies, on fair burden sharing and some caveats in “collective endeavours.”“We are addressing them because we are spending much more and we are working on, as I said, on the lethality of Nato, which is crucial,” he said.Here’s a look at where the day stands:

Democrats are calling on defense secretary Pete Hegseth to resign following the Signal group chat scandal. One Democrat, Illinois’s representative Raja Krishnamoorthi said: “Classified information is classified for a reason. Sec. Hegseth was openly sharing classified materials on an insecure channel that potentially endangered service members. And then he lied about it. He should resign.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Elon Musk’s team is investigating how the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was added to the group chat discussing a military strike in Yemen. “As for your original question about who’s leading, looking into the messaging thread: the national security council, the White House counsel’s office, and also, yes, Elon Musk’s team,” she said during a press briefing.

In rare signs of unrest, top Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the Signal leak scandal and demanding answers from the Trump administration, as they raise concerns it will become a “significant political problem” if not addressed properly. “This is what happens when you don’t really have your act together,” the Alaska Republican senator Lisa Murkowski told the Hill.

The US district court judge James Boasberg, whom the government has argued cannot be trusted with sensitive information in the Alien Enemies Act case, has been assigned to oversee a lawsuit alleging that government officials violated federal record-keeping laws when they used a group chat to discuss a planned military strike in Yemen, Politico reports. “Messages in the Signal chat about official government actions, including, but not limited to, national security deliberations, are federal records and must be preserved in accordance with federal statutes, and agency directives, rules, and regulations,” the plaintiffs argue.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who grilled top security officials during Tuesday’s Senate intelligence committee briefing, appeared on Morning Joe this morning to discuss the recently released text messages published by the Atlantic on Wednesday. “Well it sure answers that the two witnesses I believe lied when they said, ‘Oh, nothing to see here, nothing classified,’” he said.
Republican senator Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate armed services committee, said he and the senator Jack Reed, the committee’s top Democrat, will request an inspector general investigation into the use of Signal by top national security officials to discuss military plans, The Associated Press reports.Wicker is also calling for a classified Senate briefing from a top national security official and verification that the Atlantic published an accurate transcript of the Signal chat.This move is notable given the Trump administration’s defiance that no classified information was posted to the Signal chat.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Elon Musk’s team is investigating how the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was added to the group chat discussing a military strike in Yemen.“As for your original question about who’s leading, looking into the messaging thread: the national security council, the White House counsel’s office, and also, yes, Elon Musk’s team,” she said during a press briefing.“Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat again to take responsibility and ensure this can never happen again,” Leavitt added.She also said that the Signal messaging app, where senior Trump administration officials accidentally shared military plans in a group containing a journalist, is an approved app.Leavitt said it is loaded on to government phones at the Pentagon, Department of State and Central Intelligence Agency.Donald Trump will hold a press conference to announce tariffs on the auto industry today at 4pm, according to the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.Wednesday’s press conference will be in the Oval Office.National security adviser Michael Waltz said on Fox News that a staffer wasn’t responsible for adding the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief to the group chat and that he “takes full responsibility” for building the group and maintaining coordination.“Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number?,” Waltz said.“You have somebody else’s number on someone else’s contact, so of course I didn’t see this loser in the group,” he added, referring to the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg.The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont offers an analysis of what the latest Signal leak revelations expose:The disclosure by the Atlantic of further devastating messages from the Signal chat group used by the Trump administration’s most senior security officials has nailed the lie that nothing that threatened the safety of US servicemen and women was shared on the group.After the vague and evasive assertions by Trump officials at Monday’s Senate intelligence committee hearing, from the White House, and from the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, that no war plans or classified material was shared, readers can make up their own minds.Despite Hegseth’s angry denial, the exchanges in the leaked group chat did contain details of war planning, shared recklessly by him in advance of the attack on 15 March, on a messaging system and perhaps devices which he and others in the chat could not have been certain were secure.Most damning is the fact that Hegseth sent details in advance of the F-18s and other aircraft that would take part in the attack, including the timing of their arrival at targets, and other assets that would be deployed.As Ryan Goodman, a law professor who formerly worked at the Pentagon, put it after the latest release: “The Atlantic has now published the Signal texts with attack plans in response to administration denials. I worked at the Pentagon. If information like this is not classified, nothing is. If Hegseth is claiming he declassified this information, he should be shown the door for having done so.”In attempting to cover up and diminish their culpability for a shocking breach of operational security – including the fact that two participants in the chat were overseas (including one in Moscow at the time) – the Trump administration has made the scandal immeasurably more serious than it was already.At the most simple level, the pilots who flew on those strikes should rightly be furious that the most senior civilian defence official placed them in harm’s way.Read the full analysis here:In rare signs of unrest, top Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the Signal leak scandal and demanding answers from the Trump administration, as they raise concerns it will become a “significant political problem” if not addressed properly.“This is what happens when you don’t really have your act together,” the Alaska Republican senator Lisa Murkowski told the Hill.The Trump administration has been facing criticism from Democrats – and now Republicans – after Monday’s embarrassing revelation that a team of senior national security officials accidentally added a journalist to a private group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging app. The group, which included the vice-president, JD Vance; the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; and others, discussed sensitive plans to engage in military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.On Wednesday morning the Atlantic posted another tranche of messages that contained details of the attack on Yemen, including descriptions of targets, launch times and even the details of weather during the assault.Senior national security officials testified before the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday, where the national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA director, John Ratcliffe, were grilled by lawmakers over the scandal. The national security officials said “no classified material” was shared in the chat. Republicans are now calling for investigations as well.Read the full story by José Olivares here: More

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    Trump announces 25% tariffs on all cars not made in US amid scrutiny over Signal leak – live

    “This is the beginning of liberation day in America,” Donald Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office now for his remarks on new tariffs on cars made outside the United States. At the start of remarks being streamed live on the White House YouTube channel, the president said that tariffs of 25% will be imposed on all imported cars.The tariffs will apply to finished cars and trucks that are shipped into the United States, including those made by US auto companies whose automobiles that are made overseas.Asked by a reporter if the tariffs could be lifted before the end of his term of office, Trump said that the new 25% rate on foreign-made cars are “permanent, 100%”.The president just signed an executive order to put 25% tariffs on cars imported into the United States which, he says, will take effect on 2 April.Asked by a reporter how he will ensure that a car made largely outside the country is not completed in the US to avoid tariffs, Trump claims that there will be “strong policing” to prevent automakers from dodging tariffs.The president called the current system, in which cars are made in multiple countries, “ridiculous”.“This is the beginning of liberation day in America,” Donald Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office now for his remarks on new tariffs on cars made outside the United States. At the start of remarks being streamed live on the White House YouTube channel, the president said that tariffs of 25% will be imposed on all imported cars.The tariffs will apply to finished cars and trucks that are shipped into the United States, including those made by US auto companies whose automobiles that are made overseas.While fears have been raised about the possibility that Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy to Russia, was vulnerable to hacking because he was in Moscow when he was added to the Signal messaging chat about attacking Yemen (a concern Witkoff dismissed by saying he did not use his personal device on that trip), it has been somewhat overlooked that Mike Waltz, the national security adviser who created the group, was in Saudi Arabia on the day he accidentally invited the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to connect with him on the messaging app.In his first report on the incident for the Atlantic, Goldberg wrote: “On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz.”Since Goldberg did not specify the time of day that the invitation was sent, it is not certain where Waltz was when he sent the request, which was almost certainly sent from his nonsecure, personal phone. (It has been previously reported that the open-source Signal app cannot be downloaded on to secure government devices, although recent statements from the CIA director suggest that might no longer be true.)But we do know that Waltz spent much or all of that day in the Saudi city of Jeddah, where he and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, engaged in talks with senior Ukrainian officials over a plan for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine’s war to repel the full-scale Russian invasion that began in 2022.Since Waltz and Rubio spoke to reporters after 9pm local time in Jeddah that night, to announce that Ukraine had accepted the proposal, we know that Waltz was in a Saudi government-secured facility for most of that day, when, presumably, his personal phone would have been vulnerable to hacking by US adversaries, like Russia or China, and even US allies, including Saudi Arabia and Ukraine.It is not clear when Waltz left Saudi Arabia, but he was certainly there for most, if not all, of 11 March. Waltz and Rubio met with the Saudi crown prince, Mohamed bin Salman, in Jeddah on the evening 10 March, and Rubio’s itinerary on the state department’s website indicates that the secretary of state did not leave Saudi Arabia until 12 March, when he flew to Ireland and then to Canada.Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois released a statement calling for defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s resignation.“Pete Hegseth is a f*cking liar. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could’ve gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately,” reads the statement.“Hegseth and every other official who was included in this group chat must be subject to an independent investigation. If Republicans won’t join us in holding the Trump Administration accountable, then they are complicit in this dangerous and likely criminal breach of our national security.”Secretary of defense Pete Hegseth denied claims that the information he texted other Trump officials in a group chat earlier this month discussed classified war plans.“Nobody’s texting war plans,” he told reporters in Hawaii. “As a matter of fact, they even changed the title to attack plans, because they know it’s not war plans,” he said.Canada’s former spy chief says White House response to Signal leak threatens ‘Five Eyes’ securityCanada’s former spy chief has said the Trump administration’s attempts to downplay the leak of top-secret attack plans is a “very worrying” development, with implications for broader intelligence sharing among US allies.On Wednesday, the Atlantic magazine published new and detailed messages from a group chat, including plans for US bombings, drone launches and targeting information of the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions. Among the recipients of the messages was a prominent journalist, who was inadvertently added to the group.“This is very worrying. Canada needs to think about what this means in practical terms: is the United States prepared to protect our secrets, as we are bound to protect theirs?” said Richard Fadden, the former head of Canada’s intelligence agency. “Every country has experienced leaks, of varying severity. The problem with this one is that it’s being generated at the highest levels of the US government – and they haven’t admitted that it’s a problem.”Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand have for decades shared intelligence in a pact informally known as the Five Eyes. But the leak of classified information is likely to put further strain on the group as it weighs how seriously the current American administration takes the handling of top secret information.“When we have intelligence leaks, we admit it, we try to sort out what’s happened and we try to fix it. One doesn’t get the impression today that the US cabinet members will admit there’s a problem,” said Fadden, who also served as national security adviser to Canada’s Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper. “They’re just trying to clean it up from a political perspective. That worries me.”Despite a far more detailed picture of the information leaked to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the White House and key figures in the message thread have redoubled efforts to claimed none of the information was classified.Read the full story by The Guardian’s Leyland Cecco:Secretary of state Marco Rubio said the accidental inclusion of the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg in the Signal group chat was a “big mistake” but said that that “none of the information on there at any point threatened the operation or the lives of our service members.”Speaking to reporters from Jamaica, Rubio said:
    Obviously someone made a mistake, someone made a big mistake and added a journalist. Nothing against journalists but you ain’t supposed to be on that … I contributed to it twice. I identified my point of contact … and then later on, I think 3 hours after the White House’s official announcements have been made, I congratulated the members of the team.
    Rubio went on to add:
    I’ve been assured by the Pentagon and everyone involved that none of the information that was on there … at any point threatened the operation of the lives of our servicemen and in fact it was a very successful operation … I want everybody to understand why this thing was even set up in the first place and also understand very clearly the mission was successful and at no point was it in danger and that’s coming from the highest ranking officials…
    Another Democrat, the Florida representative Maxwell Alejandro Frost, has criticized the contents of the Signal group chat to which the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added.Writing on X in response to a screenshot that featured JD Vance’s reply to the US’s bombing in Yemen, Frost said:“Another disgusting part of all this is the proof of a blatant war crime to which the vice president of the United States responded: Excellent.”During a press briefing in Warsaw, Poland, Nato secretary general Mark Rutte was asked if Europeans could still trust the Americans after the Signal leaks.“Absolutely. Can we trust the Americans? Yes, they are our biggest partner, the biggest allies in Nato. They have freed my country together with Poland and Canada after the Second World War. Yes, absolutely. We can trust the Americans.”He was later asked about some of the comments made about “free-loading” Europeans.Rutte said he would not want to offer running commentary as that “would not be appropriate,” but acknowledged two main irritants in the new US administration’s relations with European Nato allies, on fair burden sharing and some caveats in “collective endeavours.”“We are addressing them because we are spending much more and we are working on, as I said, on the lethality of Nato, which is crucial,” he said.Here’s a look at where the day stands:

    Democrats are calling on defense secretary Pete Hegseth to resign following the Signal group chat scandal. One Democrat, Illinois’s representative Raja Krishnamoorthi said: “Classified information is classified for a reason. Sec. Hegseth was openly sharing classified materials on an insecure channel that potentially endangered service members. And then he lied about it. He should resign.”

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Elon Musk’s team is investigating how the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was added to the group chat discussing a military strike in Yemen. “As for your original question about who’s leading, looking into the messaging thread: the national security council, the White House counsel’s office, and also, yes, Elon Musk’s team,” she said during a press briefing.

    In rare signs of unrest, top Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the Signal leak scandal and demanding answers from the Trump administration, as they raise concerns it will become a “significant political problem” if not addressed properly. “This is what happens when you don’t really have your act together,” the Alaska Republican senator Lisa Murkowski told the Hill.

    The US district court judge James Boasberg, whom the government has argued cannot be trusted with sensitive information in the Alien Enemies Act case, has been assigned to oversee a lawsuit alleging that government officials violated federal record-keeping laws when they used a group chat to discuss a planned military strike in Yemen, Politico reports. “Messages in the Signal chat about official government actions, including, but not limited to, national security deliberations, are federal records and must be preserved in accordance with federal statutes, and agency directives, rules, and regulations,” the plaintiffs argue.

    Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who grilled top security officials during Tuesday’s Senate intelligence committee briefing, appeared on Morning Joe this morning to discuss the recently released text messages published by the Atlantic on Wednesday. “Well it sure answers that the two witnesses I believe lied when they said, ‘Oh, nothing to see here, nothing classified,’” he said.
    Republican senator Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate armed services committee, said he and the senator Jack Reed, the committee’s top Democrat, will request an inspector general investigation into the use of Signal by top national security officials to discuss military plans, The Associated Press reports.Wicker is also calling for a classified Senate briefing from a top national security official and verification that the Atlantic published an accurate transcript of the Signal chat.This move is notable given the Trump administration’s defiance that no classified information was posted to the Signal chat.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Elon Musk’s team is investigating how the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was added to the group chat discussing a military strike in Yemen.“As for your original question about who’s leading, looking into the messaging thread: the national security council, the White House counsel’s office, and also, yes, Elon Musk’s team,” she said during a press briefing.“Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat again to take responsibility and ensure this can never happen again,” Leavitt added.She also said that the Signal messaging app, where senior Trump administration officials accidentally shared military plans in a group containing a journalist, is an approved app.Leavitt said it is loaded on to government phones at the Pentagon, Department of State and Central Intelligence Agency.Donald Trump will hold a press conference to announce tariffs on the auto industry today at 4pm, according to the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.Wednesday’s press conference will be in the Oval Office.National security adviser Michael Waltz said on Fox News that a staffer wasn’t responsible for adding the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief to the group chat and that he “takes full responsibility” for building the group and maintaining coordination.“Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number?,” Waltz said.“You have somebody else’s number on someone else’s contact, so of course I didn’t see this loser in the group,” he added, referring to the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg.The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont offers an analysis of what the latest Signal leak revelations expose:The disclosure by the Atlantic of further devastating messages from the Signal chat group used by the Trump administration’s most senior security officials has nailed the lie that nothing that threatened the safety of US servicemen and women was shared on the group.After the vague and evasive assertions by Trump officials at Monday’s Senate intelligence committee hearing, from the White House, and from the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, that no war plans or classified material was shared, readers can make up their own minds.Despite Hegseth’s angry denial, the exchanges in the leaked group chat did contain details of war planning, shared recklessly by him in advance of the attack on 15 March, on a messaging system and perhaps devices which he and others in the chat could not have been certain were secure.Most damning is the fact that Hegseth sent details in advance of the F-18s and other aircraft that would take part in the attack, including the timing of their arrival at targets, and other assets that would be deployed.As Ryan Goodman, a law professor who formerly worked at the Pentagon, put it after the latest release: “The Atlantic has now published the Signal texts with attack plans in response to administration denials. I worked at the Pentagon. If information like this is not classified, nothing is. If Hegseth is claiming he declassified this information, he should be shown the door for having done so.”In attempting to cover up and diminish their culpability for a shocking breach of operational security – including the fact that two participants in the chat were overseas (including one in Moscow at the time) – the Trump administration has made the scandal immeasurably more serious than it was already.At the most simple level, the pilots who flew on those strikes should rightly be furious that the most senior civilian defence official placed them in harm’s way.Read the full analysis here:In rare signs of unrest, top Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the Signal leak scandal and demanding answers from the Trump administration, as they raise concerns it will become a “significant political problem” if not addressed properly.“This is what happens when you don’t really have your act together,” the Alaska Republican senator Lisa Murkowski told the Hill.The Trump administration has been facing criticism from Democrats – and now Republicans – after Monday’s embarrassing revelation that a team of senior national security officials accidentally added a journalist to a private group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging app. The group, which included the vice-president, JD Vance; the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; and others, discussed sensitive plans to engage in military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.On Wednesday morning the Atlantic posted another tranche of messages that contained details of the attack on Yemen, including descriptions of targets, launch times and even the details of weather during the assault.Senior national security officials testified before the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday, where the national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA director, John Ratcliffe, were grilled by lawmakers over the scandal. The national security officials said “no classified material” was shared in the chat. Republicans are now calling for investigations as well.Read the full story by José Olivares here: More

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    Doge shutters federal workplace mediator agency after Trump order

    The Elon Musk-run “department of government efficiency” (Doge) in effect shuttered a 79-year-old federal agency that mediates labor disputes on Wednesday – saving an estimated 0.0014% of the federal budget.The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), an independent federal agency that works to prevent and resolve work stoppages and disputes in the public and private sector, has shut down most of its services and placed employees on administrative leave with firings to follow.“The administration released an executive order a week and a half ago naming FMCS as one of the agencies to be shuttered, but other than our agency denying it and making a few adjustments, we didn’t hear anything further,” said Jefferson Dedrick, a commissioner at FMCS. “Earlier today our mid-level managers informed each of the commissioners that effective at close of business, we would be put on admin leave with a RIF [reduction in force] letter to follow.”The agency provided mediation for several high-profile strikes, including the Boeing strike last fall.“Doge basically decided to eliminate all but a few people from the agency. We don’t know the final count but maybe a dozen left out of an agency that had almost 200 employees through last year,” said a FMCS employee who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “It is shocking as the agency does not regulate and has always been non-controversial. Even Republicans have always seen the value of an agency that saves the economy far more money in reduced work stoppages in the private sector than the agency spends. It is also a blow to the use of more efficient dispute resolution by federal agencies who have used our services for non-labor disputes. That program has now been entirely abolished.”They noted the cuts were drastic to the point where the agency, in most cases, can no longer be effective and noted it will worsen and prolong labor strikes and lockouts.The FMCS was established by Congress in 1947. Its shuttering comes in the wake of Donald Trump’s executive order, signed on 14 March, to dismantle seven federal agencies, including FMCS.Dedrick added in a LinkedIn post on the dismantling of the agency: “Annually, FMCS saves the US Economy over $500 million by protecting household earnings, safeguarding company revenues and services, and ensuring the continuity of the robust commerce that promotes and underlines our national prosperity.”He noted this savings is achieved with fewer than 150 mediators around the US, accounting for less than 0.0014% of the federal budget.FMCS was contacted for comment. More

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    Newly shared Signal messages show Trump advisers discussed Yemen attack plans

    The Atlantic magazine has published fresh messages from a group chat among top US officials in which they discuss specific operational details of plans to bomb Yemen, spurring leading Democrats to accuse Trump administration officials of lying to Congress by claiming the messages did not contain classified information.The initial revelations by the magazine and its editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, who was accidentally added to the chat on the messaging app Signal, have sparked a huge outcry in the US.The Trump administration has faced withering attacks over the disastrous leak of sensitive information, including in a House intelligence committee hearing on Wednesday featuring two participants in the chat: the US director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the CIA director, John Ratcliffe.However, the magazine did not initially include specific details of the attack, saying it did not want to jeopardise national security. But as numerous Trump administration officials have claimed that none of the information shared was classified – despite the apparent inclusion of operational details of the US strike on Yemen’s Houthi militia, which has been attacking shipping in the Red Sea – the Atlantic said in a new article on Wednesday it was now releasing that information.It reproduced numerous messages from the text chat between the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth – who said on Tuesday that “nobody was texting war plans” – and top intelligence officials.They included details of US bombings, drone launches and targeting information of the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions.They also mention specific weapons to be used, timings for attacks and references to a “target terrorist”, presumably a Houthi militant. There is further discussion of confirmation that a target had been killed, and the use of several emojis.“There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared,” the magazine said.“If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests – or someone merely indiscreet, and with access to social media – the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds.“The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.”Trump administration officials have repeatedly claimed that the messages contained no classified information. On Tuesday, after the first article was published, Gabbard and Ratcliffe said the leak contained no classified information.The Atlantic also quoted an email response from the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt – after the magazine contacted the Trump administration to say it was considering publishing the entirety of the email chain – in which she said the chat did not include classified information but also that the White House did not want the messages released.“As we have repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat,” Leavitt wrote. “However, as the CIA Director and National Security Advisor have both expressed today, that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation.”Donald Trump, when asked on Tuesday about the leak, also said: “It wasn’t classified information,” while adding that the leak was “the only glitch in two months”.After the latest messages were published, Leavitt claimed on X that “these were NOT ‘war plans’. This entire story was another hoax written by a Trump-hater who is well-known for his sensationalist spin.”Waltz, too, wrote on social media: “No locations. No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS,”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLater , at the White House press briefing Leavitt said Elon Musk’s government team was investigating how the incident occurred. “As for your original question about who’s leading, looking into the messaging thread: the national security council, the White House counsel’s office, and also, yes, Elon Musk’s team,” she told reporters.“Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat again to take responsibility and ensure this can never happen again,” Leavitt added.She also said that Signal, on which senior Trump administration officials accidentally shared military plans in a group containing a journalist, was an approved app. Leavitt said it was loaded on to government phones at the Pentagon, Department of State and Central Intelligence Agency.But Democrats used the intelligence committee hearing on Wednesday to demand an explanation of how operational military plans are not classified information.The Illinois Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi had an aide hold up the messages in which Hegseth shared exact details of the strikes.“This is classified information. It’s a weapon system as well as sequence of strikes, as well as details about the operations,” Krishnamoorthi said. “This text message is clearly classified information. Secretary Hegseth has disclosed military plans as well as classified information. He needs to resign immediately.”The committee’s top Democrat, Jim Himes, asked Gabbard why she had told senators the day before that no details of timing, targets or weapons had been shared.“My answer yesterday was based on my recollection, or the lack thereof, on the details that were posted there,” Gabbard replied.“What was shared today reflects the fact that I was not directly involved with that part of the Signal chat and replied at the end, reflecting the effects, the very brief effects that the national security adviser had shared.”Ratcliffe, meanwhile, said: “I used an appropriate channel to communicate sensitive information. It was permissible to do so. I didn’t transfer any classified information.”Last week, NPR reported that the Pentagon warned its staff specifically against the use of Signal because of its security vulnerabilities. In a Pentagon “OPSEC special bulletin” sent on 18 March, it warned that Russian hacking groups could aim to exploit the vulnerability.Questions have also been raised about whether some of the participants in the Signal chat might have been using their personal phones.Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, who was in Moscow at the time to discuss Ukraine with Vladimir Putin, wrote on X that while in Russia “I only had with me a secure phone provided by the government” but then explained that the reason he did not make any comments in the chat until after returning to the US was “because I had no access to my personal devices until I returned from my trip”.The messages in the Signal chat were set to be automatically deleted in under four weeks. The Federal Records Act typically mandates that government communication records are kept for two years.The Atlantic said it did not generally publish information about military operations if it could possibly harm US personnel but that accusations from the Trump administration that it was “lying” caused it to believe that “people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions”.“There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared,” the magazine wrote. More

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    What we’ve learned from Trump team’s Signal chat | Letters

    You report that White House top dogs described their “loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC” in a group chat on Signal (White House inadvertently texted top-secret Yemen war plans to journalist, 24 March). The subject of the chat was secret military plans for US attacks on the Houthis to protect shipping lanes in the Red Sea.In early 2014, Victoria Nuland (then Barack Obama’s assistant secretary of state) was heard saying “Fuck the EU” to Geoffrey Pyatt (the US ambassador to Ukraine) in a bugged phone conversation about the crisis in Ukraine that led to the Maidan revolution. It seems that Europe’s approach to the election that saw a pro-west president replace a pro-Russia one was not hawkish enough for then US tastes.What’s new today, I suppose, is the medium through which these sentiments about an erstwhile close ally are communicated. What’s not new is the obvious inference that Europe is something for the US to pick out of its political dressing-up box when bruiting abroad its leadership of the free world.Susan HorwoodMillbrook, Cornwall What is fascinating in the Houthigate leak is the level of venom directed towards Europe by Donald Trump’s senior team. Surely Gulf petrostates and Israel, not to mention China, the US’s main strategic rival, would also hugely benefit from unhindered shipping flowing through the Suez canal, but they do not rate a mention.Could it be that Europe, with its model of higher taxes, longer holidays and more accessible healthcare, is a greater challenge to the US that the neoreactionaries are trying to construct than any autocracy, in much the same way that Vladimir Putin is trying to demonstrate to the Russians that a liberal Ukraine has no future?Jan KamienieckiLondon The Signal leak is yet another sign that the Trump White House is being run like a boys’ club, where responsibility is something to be dodged. The amateurish handling of sensitive military information should alarm not just Americans but all of us in allied nations. It’s astonishing that senior US officials treat matters of national security with such recklessness. This isn’t just political drama; they are playing with real-world consequences and the stakes couldn’t be higher.What safeguards exist to prevent these self-serving juveniles from mishandling even more dangerous aspects of the US military arsenal? If those in charge cannot be trusted with something as basic as secure communication, how can we trust them with strategic decision-making that affects global stability? The phrase “the lunatics have taken over the asylum” has never felt more apt.John ClucasSt Ives, Cambridgeshire The gods of human destiny certainly have a sense of humour. Just days after Donald Trump cancelled security clearances for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton et al, headlines reveal that the key defence team included a journalist in their messaging circle. Will Trump now revoke security clearance for JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth and the rest of the incompetent gang? Patricia Baker-CassidyOxford Is the VP referred to as a participant in the Signal messages Vladimir Putin, by any chance?Kapil JujWembley, London So Europeans are “free-loaders”. Is it about time we raised the rent for American airbases in the UK?David ChanterLedwell, Oxfordshire More

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    ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ and the Goldwater rule for psychiatrists | Letter

    A bill was recently introduced to the Minnesota legislature to categorise “Trump derangement syndrome” as a mental illness. The proposed bill defines the syndrome as characterised by “verbal expressions of intense hostility toward” Donald Trump and “overt acts of aggression and violence against anyone supporting [Trump] or anything that symbolises [Trump].”Such a bill obviously infringes on our constitutional right to freely criticise our elected leaders and can serve as a stepping stone towards labelling and punishing political opponents under the guise of utilising a variety of compulsory psychiatric interventions. However, this bill is reminiscent of anti-Trump mental health professionals who have opined that President Trump poses a great danger because of a severe personality disorder.Clearly, a psychiatric diagnosis can only be made by mental health professionals who are licensed to do so, and only after having examined a patient. It poses great danger to our society both when legislators use their political power to impose a psychiatric label on their political opponents and when mental health professionals misapply their expertise to give a psychiatric label to those whom they fear.In the 1960s, many psychiatrists opined on the mental health of the Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. As a result of that controversy, in 1973 the American Psychiatric Association developed the “Goldwater rule”, which applies to public figures. It states that it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a proper authorisation for such a statement.This rule is still in effect, though much too often broken. Perhaps we need to develop a comparable national rule prohibiting political personnel, both elected and appointed, from creating psychiatric diagnoses as a tool against their political opponents.Leon Hoffman Psychiatrist, New York City, US More

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    Now is not the time for the US or Europe to go it alone, warns Nato chief

    Nato’s secretary general has told the US and Europe it is “not the time to go it alone” amid reports that Washington and some European leaders want to weaken their commitments to the transatlantic military alliance.Mark Rutte said in a speech in Warsaw that the US needed to be told that European countries would “step up” and lift their defence spending – while they needed to hear that Washington would not abandon them.“Let me be absolutely clear, this is not the time to go it alone. Not for Europe or North America,” said the Dutch head of the alliance. “The global security challenges are too great for any of us to face on our own. When it comes to keeping Europe and North America safe, there is no alternative to Nato.”Europe “needs to know that Uncle Sam still has our back”, Rutte continued, but in turn “America also needs to know that its Nato allies will step up. Without restrictions and without capability gaps” because “reassurance is a two-way street”.The 76-year-old alliance has come under intense pressure following the election of Donald Trump, most recently with key administration members complaining about European defence “free-loading” in a confidential chat on the Signal app that leaked when a journalist from the Atlantic was added to the group by mistake.On his first trip to Europe earlier this year, Pete Hegseth, the new defence secretary, said the US was no longer “primarily focused” on European security and signalled that cuts to the number of American troops in Europe were a possibility.Since then, some reports had suggested that the US was willing to relinquish its hold on the position of Nato’s top military commander, the supreme allied commander Europe (Saceur), a position first held by Dwight Eisenhower and currently held by Gen Christopher Cavoli, whose tour expires in the summer.One Nato source said that idea had been dropped. A second said the UK was particularly keen to ensure the US remains inside the alliance at a time when any sustained end to the fighting in Ukraine could allow Russia to distribute 600,000 troops elsewhere along member states’ eastern flank.On Friday last week, Trump himself appeared to dismiss the speculation. When asked directly about the US being prepared to give up the top military command, he replied that the alliance was “gone until I came along” before praising Rutte, his predecessor and European members for increasing defence spending.“Nato is solid, is strong but they have to treat us fairly,” the US president added.Another report suggested Europe’s leading military powers wanted to devise a plan to shift the financial and military burden to European capitals over the next five to 10 years and present it to the US, amid worries about whether Washington would come to the defence of Europe in a crisis.However, this idea was dismissed by British sources who argued that the idea that the US contribution to European security could be replaced in five years or so was “living in cloud cuckoo land”.Rutte said he recognised that “the US commitment to Nato comes with a clear expectation” and “that European allies and Canada take more responsibility for our shared security”. He said he would work towards developing this at the next leaders’ summit in The Hague in June.Nato members have begun to announce some increases in defence spending, with the UK promising to lift its budget from 2.33% of GDP to 2.5% by 2027, starting with an extra £2.2bn next year. Germany has agreed to loosen its debt rules to allow for additional spending on defence under the incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz. More

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    Trump wants a Nobel peace prize. Here’s how he can earn one | Ken Roth

    Donald Trump’s instinctive deference to the Israeli government is at odds with his self-image as an expert dealmaker. Much as it may seem laughable that the president wants the Nobel peace prize, his quest may be the best chance we have for securing any US government regard for the rights and lives of Palestinians in Gaza.Trump currently seems to endorse the strategy of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of trying to pummel Hamas into accepting defeat. To force Hamas to release its remaining hostages and to disband its diminished military force, Netanyahu has resumed Israel’s strategy of starving and bombing Palestinian civilians. In less than a week, about 600 Palestinians have already been killed.The second phase of the ceasefire was supposed to have led to the release of Hamas’s last hostages in return for the freeing of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, and a permanent end to the fighting. Instead, the Israeli government has unilaterally changed the terms. It wants the hostages released and Hamas dismantled without committing to end the war. Hamas has rejected that one-sided ultimatum, evidently worried that Netanyahu would then resume attacking Palestinian civilians unimpeded.This is not an idle fear. The point of the renewed attacks may not be simply to wrest concessions from Hamas. The vast majority of the hostages freed so far have been released after negotiations rather than by military action, and most families of the hostages, prioritizing survival of their loved ones, want a negotiated solution.Rather, Israel’s aim may be to advance the project of expelling Palestinian civilians from Gaza, the longtime dream of the Israeli far right. Already the defense minister, Israel Katz, is threatening to seize and annex parts of Gaza, and Netanyahu is reportedly planning a new and larger ground invasion. Now that Trump has endorsed the forced permanent deportation of 2 million Palestinians from Gaza – a massive war crime and crime against humanity – Netanyahu may feel he has a green light to pursue that callous strategy.Tellingly, the far-right Israeli politician Itamar Ben-Gvir has rejoined Netanyahu’s governing coalition as police minister now that the temporary ceasefire, which he opposed, has ended. Head of the pro-settler, nationalist-religious Jewish Power party, Ben-Gvir has long been unabashed about his desire to “solve” the conflict in Gaza by getting rid of the Palestinians. And we should recognize that Gaza would most likely be just a prelude to the occupied West Bank.In these circumstances, a deal with Hamas seems unlikely. Why would Hamas capitulate if that would permanently separate the Palestinian people from their homeland?Netanyahu and Trump may calculate that overwhelming military force, if applied with sufficient brutality, would force Hamas’s hand. That has long been the Israeli strategy. Trump has even resumed delivery of the enormous 2,000lb bombs that Joe Biden had suspended because Israel was using them to indiscriminately decimate entire Palestinian neighborhoods.The international criminal court prosecutor has already hinted that this indiscriminate bombardment may be the next focus of his war-crime charges. Trump himself would be at risk of being charged for aiding and abetting these atrocities – an eventuality that would not lead to his immediate jailing but would severely limit his ability to travel to the 125 governments that as members of the ICC would have an obligation to arrest him. (Trump might ask Vladimir Putin about how it felt not to be able to attend the August 2023 Brics summit in South Africa for fear of arrest.)Hamas has so far shown no inclination to succumb to this war-crime strategy, and the surrounding Arab states have rejected becoming a party to another Nakba, the catastrophic forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948. The big question is whether Trump comes to recognize that a deal, not forced surrender, is the most likely way out of the current horrors in Gaza that he had vowed to end.For now, Trump’s deference to Israel seems firm, but one should never take anything for granted with Trump. If there is any constant to his rule, it is that his self-interest overcomes concern for others.That’s where the Nobel prize comes in. If Trump wants to be known as the master of the deal, it won’t be by underwriting more Israeli war crimes.Trump alone has the capacity to force Netanyahu to adopt a different approach. Despite Israel’s dependence on US military assistance, Netanyahu got away with ignoring Biden’s entreaties to curb the starvation and slaughter of Palestinian civilians because the Israeli leader knew that the Republican party had his back. But Trump has become the Republican party. If he pressures Israel, Netanyahu has nowhere to the right to turn.That is how Trump played a decisive role in securing the temporary ceasefire that began shortly before his 20 January inauguration. He could do the same thing now to force Netanyahu toward a more productive, less inhumane path.What might that look like? The best option remains a two-state solution – an Israeli and Palestinian state living in peace side-by-side. The main alternatives would be rejected by Israel (recognition of the “one-state reality” with equal rights for all) or most everyone else (the apartheid of endless occupation).The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has said that he will not normalize relations with Israel, which Trump craves, without a Palestinian state. Both the Saudis and the Emiratis have also insisted on a state as a condition for financing the rebuilding of Gaza.But wouldn’t a Nobel peace prize for Trump be preposterous? No more so than the one granted, however controversially, to Henry Kissinger. He had directed or approved war crimes or mass atrocities in Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, Bangladesh and Chile, but the Nobel committee honored him nonetheless for concluding a peace deal with Vietnam and withdrawing US forces. A Trump pivot away from Netanyahu’s endless war would be no more surprising than Kissinger’s about-face.Admittedly, it would be foolhardy to bet on Trump becoming an advocate for a Palestinian state, but it is worth recognizing that his personal ambitions could lead him in that direction. It speaks to the topsy-turvy world of Trump that the Palestinians’ best hope in the face of an Israeli government that respects no legal bounds is to play up what it would take for Trump to secure his coveted Nobel. We must persuade Trump to do the right thing for the wrong reason.

    Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book, Righting Wrongs, was recently published by Knopf and Allen Lane More

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    What the accidentally leaked war group chat reveals about the Trump administration | Moira Donegan

    Perhaps one of the greatest lessons of the Donald Trump era, for me, has been in learning the difference between being shocked and being surprised. And indeed it was a bit shocking to learn, via an essay published by the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, that a high-profile journalist had been included on a chat on the commercial messaging app in which a military strike on the Houthi rebels in Yemen was coordinated – including discussions of the timing of the attack, debates about political messaging, personnel coordination and weapons to be used – seemingly without anyone noticing that he was there.It was shocking that their incompetence was so fortuitous – that the person they included, seemingly accidentally, in their unsecured group chat about war plans was someone so uniquely equipped to broadcast their idiocy to a large audience. But it was in no way surprising that members of the Trump administration are behaving with such recklessness, shortsightedness, indifference to responsibility or peevish sadism. Of course they’re planning overseas bombings in a group chat, I thought when I first read Goldberg’s account. Because we live in an age where the people with the superlative power are those who are least temperamentally suited for it; because the stupidity of this White House outpaces any attempt at parody; and because these guys are exactly as dumb in real life as they look on television.The story goes like this: as part of its backing of Israel’s wars in the Middle East, the Trump administration sought to strike against Houthi rebels, a coalition of Yemeni militants and pirates who have been attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea in an attempt to pressure the west to stop supporting Israel’s war on Palestinians. Trump authorized a military strike on a scale more lethal and less precise than those that had previously been launched by the Biden administration; according to a Signal user identified as JD Vance, the president wanted to “send a message” and convey strength on the world stage. In the chat, no other strategic rationale for the strike was offered.Such operations are supposed to be planned in secret, so that neither the targets, nor foreign governments, nor members of the media are aware of them ahead of time; the secrecy is what keeps the military personnel who carry out these strikes safe from some threats to their lives, and what allows the US to carry out its objectives unprompted. But the planning is also supposed to be documented, as much federal action is, to comply with records-keeping requirements.The resulting measures can be intense: often, to discuss classified matters, high-ranking federal officials enter safe rooms equipped with anti-surveillance technology, in which they are not allowed to take their phones; at other times, they are only permitted to discuss such matters on specially secured government-issued devices. (Signal, according to Goldberg, is not downloadable on these government devices, meaning that the administration officials in the chat were using their personal phones.) These are measures that have been put in place in order to protect interests that are worth protecting: to guard against foreign intelligence agencies (or, for that matter, magazine editors) learning of America’s plans, to keep Americans safe, to comply with records-keeping laws. Abiding by them is a sign of respect – both for the power of the executive, and for the law.And so that’s not what the Trump administration did. Instead, in order to coordinate the military strike, which was apparently greenlit by Trump in an in-person meeting in the White House situation room, the national security adviser, Michael Waltz, created an enormous national security threat by convening a planning group on a commercial messaging app.Why did the Trump officials use Signal for this, of all things? The reality is that they’re probably using it for a lot; the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which has become something of a handbook for the Trump regime, recommends using private apps to conduct official business, so as to evade records-keeping laws. Signal is an app that is marketed for its privacy and message-disappearing features: a single member of a chat can mark messages to be deleted, permanently, for all members. (In another seemingly illegal move, Waltz reportedly set the messages in the war-planning group chat to disappear after a matter of weeks.)If the Trump administration’s members are habitually using Signal to conduct official business, the danger is not only that any foreign intelligence agency worth their salt (or any journalist who happens to benefit from their incompetence) could be listening in with relative ease. It’s that the records-keeping apparatus that is meant to preserve such conversations could not reach and document them – meaning that the use of Signal would specifically make such sensitive national security information more accessible to foreign adversaries and less accessible to historians and journalists here in the US.The content of the chats themselves is grim, too, providing an insight into the petty and eager social dynamics within Trump’s inner circle and the administration’s principle-thin commitment to any understanding of policy. Vance pipes up to suggest delaying the strike; he claims to be worried about public opinion on the issue, and complains that an attack on the Houthis would provide economic benefits to Europe, who he wants to punish for some reason. He does not seem to feel he has enough clout to actually oppose the strike, however, undermining his own complaints with caveats that he will defer to others.The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, chimes in, clearly thinking he’s supposed to be the center of attention, to eagerly but insubstantially support Vance’s points before pivoting to saying he wants to go ahead with the strike anyway. He has the cringing eagerness of a personality hire: he wants to be seen talking, but doesn’t really have much to say.Stephen Miller, Trump’s surrogate in the chat, says, bizarrely, that Europe will be made to compensate America for the strike at some later date, reflecting the Trumpian vision of all politics as an extortion racket to extract money, favors, or – perhaps more to the point – shows of deference. Everyone defers to Miller immediately. It is a group of very stupid people, trying to create post-hoc justifications for something their boss told them to do, not thinking too hard about what they’re actually doing – which is killing people.There is a risk, in talking about the Trump administration’s decision to plan a military strike over a Signal group chat in which they accidentally included a prominent journalist, of making it seem like the only problem with the administration’s actions was in their breach of confidentiality and decorum.But the controversy that erupted about the Signal chat after Goldberg revealed his inclusion on Monday seemed almost to overshadow the strategic folly and moral depravity of the strike itself: a reckless escalation in a volatile region that risked provoking Iran, the Houthi’s backer and a nuclear state, and which took the lives of 53 human beings, including five children. That the strike seems to have been planned in a way that endangered national security and violated several federal laws should not blind us to the fact that the strike itself was stupid.But there is something in the story of the accidentally leaked war secrets group chat that speaks to the essence of the second Trump administration: its cavalier incompetence, its contempt for human life, its fealty to grievance and resentment, indifference to consequence, and jeering, jocular enthusiasm for violence. It shows us something about the Trump administration that we have previously seen only rarely: what they act like when they think they are in private. It’s not a pretty sight.

    Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More