Hegseth, Pete

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    Forget the Signal Chat. The U.S. Strike on the Houthis Was a Necessary Blow to Pressure Iran.

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    It’s unfortunate that the recent uproar over the use of the Signal messaging app by senior leadership in the Trump administration has obscured the importance of the event they were discussing: a strike against the Houthis on March 15. The attack marked the beginning of a necessary military campaign and a potential turning of the page for the United States in the Middle East.The Biden administration mostly chose to ignore the growing threat to world commerce posed by the Houthis, an Iran-backed group that President Trump has designated a terrorist organization. Its responses were telegraphed and thoroughly watered down to avoid any possibility of escalation by Iran, and, concomitantly, any lasting damage to the Houthis. As a result, the impact on the group was ephemeral at best.It’s important to know that striking the Houthi position in Yemen serves United States interests first and foremost. By trying to assure safe passage through Bab el-Mandeb, the strait that leads into the Red Sea and is critical to international shipping routes, we’re doing much more than simply aiding European commerce. Instead, we’re pursuing several broader goals: First, we’re asserting the importance of free passage on the global commons; we are the world’s greatest maritime nation, and the concept of uncontested transit is fundamental to our security. Second, China is watching us, and will draw conclusions from our actions with Yemen about what we will or will not tolerate happening to Taiwan.Finally, striking the Houthis weakens the one still-fully functional arm of Iranian malfeasance in the region. Hezbollah, Syria and even Hamas are already significantly degraded; now the Houthis, too, are under attack for their reckless actions.Meaningful success will not come easily. Using air power alone to defeat militias has traditionally been difficult. In this case, though, there’s a distinction that has been overlooked by many critics: The goal is not to eliminate the Houthis, or create good governance. Instead, it is to force them to cease using high-technology missiles and drones to attack ships at sea. This is a much narrower and more achievable mission. The Houthi attacks have an electronic and visual signature that is uniquely discoverable, and it plays into our high-tech approach.It is quite likely that the Houthis will use the Yemeni population as human shields, just as Hamas has done with civilians in Gaza. This means that despite our very best efforts, there will be civilian casualties. Those are regrettable, and our forces will work hard to minimize them, even as the Houthis will almost certainly work to maximize both the actual casualties and the anti-American messaging about them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      These Are the 381 Books Removed From the Naval Academy Library

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      The Navy released the titles of 381 books on Friday evening that were removed from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Nimitz Library on the Annapolis, Md., campus this week because their subject matter was seen as being related to so-called diversity, equity and inclusion topics.President Trump issued an executive order in January that banned D.E.I. materials in kindergarten through 12th grade education, but the office of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth informed the Naval Academy on March 28 that he intended the order to apply to the school as well, even though it is a college.Read the Navy’s list of removed booksRead Document 19 pagesFirst on the list is “How to Be Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi. Also listed are “The Making of Black Lives Matter,” by Christopher J. Lebron; “How Racism Takes Place,” by George Lipsitz; “The Fire This Time,” edited by Jesmyn Ward; “The Myth of Equality,” by Ken Wytsma; studies of the Ku Klux Klan, and the history of lynching in America.The list also includes books about gender and sexuality, like “Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex” by Elizabeth Reis, and “Between XX and XY: Intersexuality and the Myth of Two Sexes” by Gerald N. Callahan. President Trump issued a separate executive order in January proclaiming that there are only two sexes.The academy began pulling books from the shelves at Nimitz Library on Monday evening and largely completed the task before Mr. Hegseth visited midshipmen on campus Tuesday afternoon. More

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      Hegseth Pledges to Step Up Military Cooperation With Japan and Deter China

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      The U.S. defense secretary sought to reassure its ally over security ties and vowed to speed up the creation of a joint “war-fighting headquarters” to deter China.Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrapped up his first official visit to the Asia on Sunday by offering reassurances to Japan that President Trump wants a stronger military alliance in the region to deter an increasingly assertive China.Following an 85-minute meeting in Tokyo with his Japanese counterpart, Mr. Hegseth said the Trump administration would abide by promises to increase security cooperation with its staunch ally. This would include speeding up a Biden administration-era plan to create a new joint U.S.-Japan military command in Tokyo that he called a “war-fighting headquarters,” although Mr. Hesgeth did not say when it would become operational. He also said there would be more joint military exercises in the Okinawa islands near Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China says is part of its territory and has threatened to take by force.Mr. Hegseth arrived in Japan from the Philippines, another U.S. ally, where the defense secretary also sought to allay anxiety about the Trump administration’s commitment to the region. Japan has watched with concern as the United States has broken with traditional allies in Europe to seek a deal that might allow Russia to keep territory seized from Ukraine.U.S. Marines training on the Japanese island of Okinawa.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesJapanese officials have worried in private that such concessions might encourage China to make a move on Taiwan. After the meeting with Gen Nakatani, the Japanese defense minister, Mr. Hegseth struck a strident tone about the alliance, proclaiming that the United States would work with Japan to secure “peace through strength” that will deter the Chinese from taking action.“America first does not mean America alone,” Mr. Hegseth told reporters. “America and Japan stand firmly together in the face of aggressive and coercive actions by the communist Chinese.” Mr. Hegseth did not address concerns about his sharing of military information on the Signal chat app that included a journalist.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Spartz, Republican Lawmaker, Faces Anger at Town Halls Over Musk Cuts and Hegseth

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      House Republicans have been told by their party’s leadership to avoid town halls after Democrats and others began to seize on the events to vent frustration with the Trump administration.Representative Victoria Spartz, a third-term Republican from suburban Indianapolis, decided not to heed the warning this weekend — and was met with fury over cuts to the federal government’s services and work force.On Friday and Saturday, Ms. Spartz hosted gatherings with constituents. And each day, she found herself in hostile territory.She was booed, jeered and scolded over the Signal scandal at the Defense Department (she acknowledged the Trump administration needed to do a “better job”), and the Homeland Security Department’s efforts to deport immigrants without due process (she declared that unauthorized immigrants were entitled to “no due process”). And she was accused of standing idly by as Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency steered cuts to government services (she said the Trump administration was trying to stop fraud).She faced chants of “Do your job!” At times, the events turned into shouting matches. Some of the exchanges have circulated widely on social media.“You don’t have to scream,” she pleaded at a crowded town hall in Westfield, Ind., on Friday night. The event lasted for two interruption-filled hours.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Naval Academy Takes Steps to End Diversity Policies in Books and Admissions

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      The Pentagon and U.S. Naval Academy are proceeding with actions in support of the Trump administration’s push to eliminate “woke” initiatives throughout the federal government.The U.S. Naval Academy said it had ended its use of affirmative action in admissions, reversing a policy it previously defended as essential for diversity and national security, according to a federal court filing on Friday. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office has ordered the Naval Academy to identify books related to so-called diversity, equity and inclusion themes that are housed in the school’s Nimitz Library, and to remove them from circulation.This week, according to a defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy decisions, Mr. Hegseth’s office became aware that the nation’s military service academies did not believe that President Trump’s Jan. 29 executive order to end “radical indoctrination” in kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms applied to them, as they are colleges. The defense secretary’s office informed the Naval Academy that Mr. Hegseth’s intent was for the order to apply to the academies, and that the secretary expected compliance.“The U.S. Naval Academy is fully committed to executing and implementing all directives outlined in executive orders issued by the president and is currently reviewing the Nimitz Library collection to ensure compliance,” said Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a Navy spokesman. “The Navy is carrying out these actions with utmost professionalism, efficiency, and in alignment with national security objectives.”The academy’s library in Annapolis, Md., houses roughly 590,000 print books, 322 databases, and more than 5,000 print journals and magazines, Commander Hawkins said.The court filing on the admissions policy, submitted by the Naval Academy, the Department of Defense, Mr. Hegseth and other officials, states that the Naval Academy changed its admissions policy in February in response to federal directives prohibiting the practice of considering race, ethnicity and sex during the admissions process.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bondi Indicates Signal Chat Episode Will Not Be Criminally Investigated

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      Attorney General Pam Bondi signaled on Thursday that there was unlikely to be a criminal investigation into the sharing of military operation details in an unsecured text group, declaring that the specifics of when fighter jets would depart and when bombs would fall were “not classified.”Ms. Bondi, speaking at a news conference in Virginia, was asked about the public debate surrounding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after he sent details of a coming attack on rebels in Yemen to senior administration officials in a Signal group chat that accidentally included a magazine editor.“It was sensitive information, not classified, and inadvertently released,” Ms. Bondi said, while praising the military operation that ensued.“What we should be talking about is, it was a very successful mission,” she said, before quickly accusing Democrats from previous administrations of mishandling classified information.“If you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was in Hillary Clinton’s home,” she said. “Talk about the classified documents in Joe Biden’s garage, that Hunter Biden had access to.”The Justice Department opened investigations into Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Biden in those instances, but neither ultimately faced criminal charges. She did not mention the prosecution of Mr. Trump over his handling of classified documents after his first term in office — a case which was ultimately abandoned when he won a second term.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Administration Deflects Blame for Leak at Every Turn

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      It was a hoax. The information wasn’t classified. Somehow the journalist got “sucked into” the Signal chat, either deliberately or through some kind of technical glitch.In the days since the editor in chief of The Atlantic revealed he had been inadvertently included in a group chat of top U.S. officials planning a military strike on Houthi militants in Yemen, senior members of the Trump administration have offered a series of shifting, sometimes contradictory and often implausible explanations for how the episode occurred — and why, they say, it just wasn’t that big a deal.Taken together, the statements for the most part sidestep or seek to divert attention from the fundamental fact of what happened: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used Signal, an unclassified commercial app, to share sensitive details about an imminent attack in an extraordinary breach of national security.Here’s a look at the main players and what they’ve said about what happened, and how much their reasoning matches up with what transpired.President Trump said the Atlantic’s article was a “witch hunt” and called the journalist a “total sleazebag.”President Trump told reporters on Wednesday that the fervor over the Atlantic’s article was “all a witch hunt,” suggesting that perhaps Signal was faulty, and blaming former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for not having carried out the strike on Yemen during his administration.“I think Signal could be defective, to be honest with you,” he said, after complaining that “Joe Biden should have done this attack on Yemen.” The fact that he didn’t, Mr. Trump added, had “caused this world a lot of damage and a lot of problems.” While the Trump administration has criticized Mr. Biden for not being aggressive enough against the Houthis, his administration led allied nations in several attacks on Houthi sites in Yemen in 2024.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      After the Signal Leak, How Well Do You Know Your Own Group Chats?

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      A journalist’s inclusion in a national security discussion served as a reminder that you might not know every number in the chat — and that could be a big problem.Hey, are you sure you want to send that to your group chat? Like, one thousand percent sure?Just checking. Because it’s been a strange week in the history of the group chat, those seemingly intimate text conversations that ping back and forth among friends and family members and, apparently, national security personnel.On Monday, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote that he had accidentally been added to a group chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal. He followed along as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth laid out attack plans against Houthi strongholds in Yemen and watched other national security officials post celebratory emoji after the strikes had taken place.As lawmakers on both sides of the aisle condemned the security breach, Americans with their own unruly group chats watched with recognition and disbelief: How had some of the country’s most powerful officials managed to so badly bungle using technology that millions of people rely on every day?“Obviously it’s a very relatable screw-up,” Mr. Goldberg said during an interview with Tim Miller of The Bulwark on Tuesday. “We’ve all sent texts to the wrong people,” he added.Those inadvertent texts, however, don’t typically contain high-stakes national security information that is being shared outside secure government channels.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Team Calls Europe ‘Pathetic’ in Leaked Signal Group Chat Messages

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      Trump administration officials haven’t kept their disdain for Europe quiet. But the contempt seems to be even louder behind closed doors.Europeans reacted with a mix of exasperation and anger to the publication of parts of a discussion between top-ranking Trump administration officials, carried out on the messaging app Signal. The discussion, about a planned strike on Yemen, was replete with comments that painted Europeans as geopolitical parasites, and was revealed on Monday in The Atlantic, whose editor was inadvertently included in the conversation.“I just hate bailing out the Europeans again,” wrote Vice President JD Vance, asserting that the strikes would benefit Europe far more than the United States.“I fully share your loathing of European freeloading,” Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, later replied. “It’s PATHETIC.”The exchange seemed to show real feelings and judgments — that the Europeans are mooching and that any American military action, no matter how clearly in American interests as well, should be somehow paid for by other beneficiaries.A member of the chat identified as “SM,” and believed to be Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump, suggested that both Egypt and “Europe” should compensate the United States for the operation. “If Europe doesn’t remunerate, then what? If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return,” SM wrote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More