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      US war plans leak shows Five Eyes allies must ‘look out for ourselves’, says Mark Carney

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      Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has said the inadvertent leak of classified military plans by senior US officials means that allied nations must increasingly “look out for ourselves” as trust frays with a once-close ally.Speaking a day after it was revealed that a journalist was accidentally included in a group chat discussing airstrikes against Yemeni rebels, Carney said the intelligence blunder was a “serious, serious issue and all lessons must be taken”. He said it would be critical to see “how people react to those mistakes and how they tighten them up”.Canada is one of the members of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network, alongside Australia, New Zealand and the UK and 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.The revelations came as Canada grapples with a rapidly deteriorating relationship with the United States, its largest trading partner and closest military ally.“My responsibility is to plan for the worst, is to think about the most difficult evolution of the new threat environment, what it means for Canada and how do we best protect Canada,” Carney said during a campaign stop on Tuesday. The prime minister called a snap election on Sunday.“Part of that response is to be more and more Canadian in our defence capabilities, more and more Canadian in our decisions … We have to look out for ourselves.”Asked about the incident on Tuesday, the UK’s armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, told the Commons Defence Committee that no British service personnel had been put at risk as a result.He added: “All UK service personnel are covered by our normal approach to operational security, and the committee will understand that I won’t go into the details of how we keep our involvement in any support for military operations in the Red Sea or anywhere else [secure].“But we’ve got high confidence that the measures that we have got with our allies, including the United States, remain intact.”A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke at length at a briefing about the contribution the UK makes to joint military operations with the Americans. However, the spokesperson refused to directly criticise the two figures who were most critical of Europe’s record on defence, JD Vance, the vice-president, and Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary. The spokesperson also insisted that the UK remains happy to share intelligence with the US despite the leak.The government of New Zealand declined to comment on the matter. When asked by the Guardian if the security breach had raised concerns about the sharing of sensitive intel with Trump’s administration, the offices for New Zealand’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, and the minister for defence, Judith Collins, said the situation was “a matter for the US administration”.Behind closed doors, senior government officials would likely be discussing the risks of sharing intelligence with the US, amid what could be viewed as a lowering of protocol standards, but the breach would not be a dealbreaker, said Andrew Little, whose ministerial roles covered security, intelligence and defence under New Zealand’s last Labour government.“Our relationship transcends individual administrations and individual political leaders. There will be things that – like everybody – members of this government, will be looking askance at. But I think it’s about managing the relationship in the long run,” Little said.So far, New Zealand has been managing its US relationship responsibly, Little said, but it was now “a relationship that requires constant vigilance”.Robert Patman, a professor at the University of Otago in Dunedin who specialises in international relations, called the security breach “extraordinary” and “cavalier”. “It does confirm what many of us felt, that Mr Trump has picked people according to loyalty, rather than competence, and this was almost a perfect storm waiting to happen,” Patman said.But the wider issue for New Zealand and other Five Eyes countries was knowing how to respond to the Trump administration’s “radical departure” from the rules-based order, which included making territorial claims against liberal democracies and siding with Russian president Vladimir Putin over negotiations in Ukraine.“We should be friendly towards the Trump administration where our interests converge, but this administration is doing things which are fundamentally a challenge to [New Zealand’s] national interests.”In Australia, the department of foreign affairs and trade said: “This incident is a matter for the United States. Australia and the United States engage regularly on implementation of mutually recognised standards for the protection of classified material.”Ben Doherty contributed additional reporting More

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      Danish PM accuses US of ‘unacceptable pressure’ over planned Greenland visit

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      Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, has accused the US of putting “unacceptable pressure” on Greenland – which she has vowed to resist – before an unsolicited visit to the Arctic island by members of the Trump administration.Later, just hours after her comments, the White House sprang a fresh surprise, as the US vice-president, JD Vance, announced he would join his wife on a trip to the territory this week.“There was so much excitement around Usha’s visit to Greenland this Friday that I decided that I didn’t want her to have all that fun by herself, and so I’m going to join her,” Vance said in a video on X.“Speaking for President Trump, we want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it’s important to protecting the security of the entire world.”Even before Vance’s announcement, Frederiksen told Danish channel TV 2: “I have to say that it is unacceptable pressure being placed on Greenland and Denmark in this situation. And it is pressure that we will resist.”The Danish leader also dismissed the idea of the trip being a private visit, saying: “You cannot make a private visit with official representatives from another country.”Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland, she said, should be taken seriously. “President Trump is serious … He wants Greenland. Therefore, it cannot be seen independently of anything else,” she told Danmarks Radio (DR).She said: “It is clearly not a visit that is about what Greenland needs or what Greenland wants from a visit. Therefore, no matter how we twist it, it is a completely unacceptable pressure on Greenland, the Greenlandic politicians and the Greenlandic population, but it is also on Denmark and thus the kingdom.”Copenhagen, Greenland’s former colonial ruler, retains control of security and foreign policy in the autonomous territory, which is still part of the kingdom of Denmark. Trump has repeatedly stated his desire for the US to gain control over the island, which he has said is crucial for American security.Greenland’s prime minister, Múte Bourup Egede, has accused Washington of “foreign interference” in relation to the planned visit, amid political uncertainty in the territory as coalition talks continue less than a fortnight after a general election.The US president responded by saying the delegation had been invited by “officials” on the Greenlandic side. “People from Greenland are asking us to go there,” he told reporters on Monday.The Nuuk government, however, disputed that. “For the record, the Greenlandic government has not issued any invitations for visits, either official or private,” it said in a statement. “The current government is acting as an interim government pending the formation of a new coalition, and we have kindly requested all countries to respect this process.”Also due to participate in the visit from Thursday to Saturday are the White House national security adviser, Mike Waltz, now embroiled in an embarrassing security leak, and the energy secretary, Chris Wright.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe territory is led by a caretaker government as the Greenlandic Democrats continue with coalition talks following an election earlier this month. On Monday, Greenland’s most US and Trump-friendly party, Naleraq, left negotiations over their belief that Greenland should rapidly declare independence.Kuno Fencker, a member of parliament for Naleraq, which came second to the Democrats in the election, said the party had been “thrown out” of coalition talks, in part because of the upcoming US visit.“It has an effect because many of the members think that we, especially me, are selling the country to the US,” he said, adding that it was not in his authority to do so.Accusing the Danish media of “fear-mongering” over the US and Trump, he said: “Divide and rule is being used extremely towards Greenland and fear-mongering about the United States. And especially Donald Trump is framed as the big villain, big bad wolf, here.”The White House has said Waltz and Wright will visit the US space force base in Pituffik, in the north of Greenland, for briefings from US personnel, and they are expected to join Vance to visit historical sites and attend a dog-sled race.The White House National Security Council has said the delegation aimed to “learn about Greenland, its culture, history and people”. More

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      The Guardian view on the Signal war plans leak: a US security breach speaks volumes | Editorial

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      It is jaw-dropping that senior Trump administration figures would accidentally leak war plans to a journalist. But the fundamental issue is that 18 high-ranking individuals were happy discussing extremely sensitive material on a private messaging app, highlighting the administration’s extraordinary amateurishness, recklessness and unaccountability.The visceral hostility to Europe spelt out again by the vice-president, JD Vance, was glaring. So was the indifference to the potential civilian cost of the strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, designed to curb attacks on Red Sea shipping. The Houthi-run health ministry said that 53 people including five children and two women were killed. The response by the national security adviser, Michael Waltz, to the attacks was to post emojis: a fist, an American flag and fire. The lack of contrition for this security breach is also telling. Individually and together, these are far more than a “glitch”, in Donald Trump’s words. They are features of his administration.Mr Waltz appears to have organised the Signal chat and inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of the Atlantic. The magazine says that the secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, posted details of the timing and sequencing of attacks, specific targets and weapons systems used, though the administration denies that classified information was shared. Other members included Mr Vance; the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; Steve Witkoff, special envoy to the Middle East; and “MAR”, the initials of the secretary of state, Marco Rubio.These conversations would normally take place under conditions of high security. While Signal is encrypted, devices could be compromised. Foreign intelligence agencies will be delighted. Legal experts say using Signal may have breached the Espionage Act.The hypocrisy is glaring. Mr Trump’s first presidential campaign – and several members of this Signal group – lambasted Hillary Clinton for using a private email server to receive official messages that included some classified information of a far less sensitive nature, and for the autodeletion of messages. These Signal messages too were set to disappear, though federal records laws mandate the preservation of such data.In many regards, this leak hammers home what US allies already knew, including this administration’s contempt for Europe, which the chat suggests will be expected to pay for the US attacks. The vice-president characterised an operation carried out to safeguard maritime trade and contain Iran as “bailing Europe out again”. Mr Hegseth responded that he “fully share[d] your loathing of European free-loading”. Concerns about information security are familiar territory too. In his first term, the president reportedly shared highly classified information from an ally with Russia’s foreign minister, and after leaving office he faced dozens of charges over the alleged mishandling of classified material, before a judge he had appointed threw out the case against him.The UK and others cannot simply walk away when they are so heavily dependent on and intermeshed with US intelligence capabilities. Their task now is to manage risk and prepare for worse to come. It may be that this breach is not chiefly distinguished by its severity, but by the fact that we have learned about it.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Stunning Signal leak reveals depths of Trump administration’s loathing of Europe

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      If Europe wasn’t already on notice, the extraordinary leak of deliberations by JD Vance and other top-level Trump administration officials over a strike against the Houthis in Yemen was another sign that it has a target on its back.The administration officials gave Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic a front-row seat to the planning for the strike against the Houthis – a stunning intelligence leak that has caused anger against Republicans who called for criminal investigations against Hillary Clinton and others for playing fast and loose with sensitive information.On the face of it, the strike against the Houthis had far more to do with the administration’s policies on protecting maritime trade and containing Iran than its concerns about Europe freeloading on US defense spending and military prowess.But Vance appears determined to push that angle as a reason to postpone the strike.“I think we are making a mistake,” wrote Vance, adding that while only 3% of US trade goes through the Suez canal, 40% of European trade does. “There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary,” he added. “The strongest reason to do this is, as [Trump] said, to send a message.”Vance was contending that once again the United States is doing what Europe should be. It is consistent with his past arguments that the US is overpaying for European security and the derision he displayed toward European allies (almost certainly the UK and France) when he described them as “some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years”. (Both fought in Afghanistan and the UK fought alongside the US in Iraq).It was during this policy discussion, Goldberg wrote, that he was convinced that he was reading remarks by the real Vance, as well as defense secretary Pete Hegseth, national security advisor Michael Waltz, and senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller.Then Vance went a step further. He tacitly admitted a difference between his foreign policy and Trump’s saying that the strike would undermine the president’s Europe policy – one that has been led by Vance in his divisive speech at the Munich Security Conference where he accused European leaders of running from their own electorates and of his Eurosceptic comments on Fox News.“I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Vance wrote. “There’s a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself. But there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy is, etc.”Those designated on the call also reflect the vice-president’s growing clout in foreign policymaking circles. Vance named Andy Baker, his national security advisor who helped lead the transition team at the Pentagon, as his representative. Hegseth named Dan Caldwell, a leading proponent of “restraint” in the exercise of US foreign power abroad to protect Europe and counter rivals like Russia, indicating the Vance team’s presence at high levels of the Pentagon as well.At heart, the disagreement indicated that Vance’s views of foreign policy are not quite aligned with Trump. Trump broadly sees the world as transactional and optimists in Europe have claimed he could force a positive outcome by forcing those nations to spend more on defense budgets. But Vance appears far more confrontational and principled in his antipathy toward the transatlantic alliance, and has attacked European leaders for backing values that he says are not aligned with the US.That makes Vance even more of a concern for Europe. Kaja Kallas, the European foreign policy chief, accused Vance of “trying to pick a fight” with European allies. Another European diplomat said: “He is very dangerous for Europe … maybe the most [dangerous] in the administration.” Another said he was “obsessed” with driving a wedge between Europe and the US.Back on the chat some sought – carefully – to talk Vance down. Hegseth said the strike would promote “core” American values including freedom of navigation and pre-establish deterrence. But he said the strikes could wait, if desired. Waltz, a foreign policy traditionalist, said: “It will have to be the United States that reopens these shipping lanes.” But he agreed that the administration sought to “compile the cost associated and levy them on the Europeans”.“If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again,” Vance replied. Hegseth agreed that “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.” But, he added, “we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this.”Miller, the Trump confidant, effectively ended the conversation by saying that the president had been clear. “Green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return.”Broadly, the administration’s policies on Europe are coming into focus. And there are few stepping up to voice backing for Nato or for Europe writ large. On a podcast interview this weekend, the senior Trump envoy Steve Witkoff mused about the potential for the Gulf economies to replace those of Europe. “It could be much bigger than Europe. Europe is dysfunctional today,” he said.Tucker Carlson, the host and another Trump confidant, agreed. “It would be good for the world because Europe is dying,” he said. More

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      European universities offer ‘scientific asylum’ to US researchers fleeing Trump’s cuts

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      Laced with terms such as “censorship” and “political interference”, the Belgium-based jobs advert was far from typical. The promise of academic freedom, however, hinted at who it was aimed at: researchers in the US looking to flee the funding freezes, cuts and ideological impositions ushered in by Donald Trump’s administration.“We see it as our duty to come to the aid of our American colleagues,” said Jan Danckaert, the rector of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), in explaining why his university – founded in 1834 to safeguard academia from the interference of church or state – had decided to open 12 postdoctoral positions for international researchers, with a particular focus on Americans.“American universities and their researchers are the biggest victims of this political and ideological interference,” Danckaert said in a statement. “They’re seeing millions in research funding disappear for ideological reasons.”The university is among a handful of institutions across Europe that have begun actively recruiting US researchers, offering themselves as a haven for those keen to escape the Trump administration’s crackdown on research and academia.Since Trump took power in late January, researchers in the US have faced a multipronged attack. Efforts to slash government spending have left thousands of employees bracing for layoffs, including at institutions such as Nasa, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US’s pre-eminent climate research agency. The government’s targeting of “wokeism” has meanwhile sought to root out funding for research deemed to involve diversity, certain kinds of vaccines and any mention of the climate crisis.In France, the director of the prestigious Pasteur Institute in Paris, Yasmine Belkaid, said it was already working to recruit people from across the Atlantic for work in fields such as infectious diseases or the origins of disease.View image in fullscreen“I receive daily requests from people who want to return: French, European or even Americans who no longer feel able to do their research or are afraid to do it freely,” Belkaid told the French newspaper La Tribune. “You might call it a sad opportunity, but it is an opportunity, all the same.”The sentiment was echoed by France’s minister for higher education and research, Philippe Baptiste, in a recent letter that called on research institutions to send in proposals on how best to attract talent from the US. “Many well-known researchers are already questioning their future in the US,” he said. “Naturally, we wish to welcome a certain number of them.”On Thursday, the Netherlands said it was aiming to swiftly launch a fund to attract researchers to the country.While the fund would be open to people of all nationalities, the country’s education minister, Eppo Bruins, hinted at the tensions that have gripped US academia in announcing the plans.“There is currently a great global demand for international top scientific talent. At the same time, the geopolitical climate is changing, which is increasing the international mobility of scientists,” Bruins said in a letter to parliament.“Several European countries are responding to this with efforts to attract international talent,” he added. “I want the Netherlands to remain at the vanguard of these efforts.”The Dutch effort comes after France’s Aix-Marseille University said it had set up a programme – titled Safe Place for Science – that would put aside funding for more than two dozen researchers from the US for three years.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We wish we didn’t have to do this,” said Éric Berton, the university’s president. “We’re not looking to attract researchers. But we were quite indignant about what was happening and we felt that our colleagues in the US were going through a catastrophe … we wanted to offer some sort of scientific asylum to those whose research is being hindered.”Two weeks after the programme was launched there have been about 100 applications, with researchers from Yale, Nasa and Stanford among those who have expressed interest. The university continues to receive about 10 applications a day, said Berton, many of them from researchers involved in studying climate, health or social sciences.Berton said he hoped universities across Europe would join his in providing a safe space for researchers. “I think that we need to realise the historic moment we’re living through and the serious, long-term consequences this could have,” he said. “Europe must rise to the occasion.”At VUB, the opening of the 12 postdoctoral positions was also aimed at acknowledging the global impact of Trump’s crackdown. Two research projects in which the university was involved – one delving into youth and disinformation and another investigating the transatlantic dialogue between the US and Europe – had been cancelled due to “changed policy priorities”, it said.For the university in Brussels, the openings were also a vindication of sorts. In a 2016 interview with Fox News, Trump had sought to characterise life in Brussels as akin to “living in a hellhole”, falsely accusing migrants in the city of failing to assimilate.“At the time, the statement elicited many emotional reactions in Europe,” the university said. “This gives additional symbolic meaning to the VUB initiative.” More

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      National security council investigating after Trump officials accidentally text journalist top-secret Yemen war plans – live

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      Members of Congress and national security staffers have been left stunned after top Trump administration officials, including the vice-president and the defense secretary, discussed war plans on Signal – and mistakenly added a journalist to the group chat.Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, wrote:
      The world found out shortly before 2pm eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44am. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing. This is going to require some explaining.
      He goes on:
      I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor in chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior US officials, up to and including the vice president.
      The National Security Council confirmed it was real and said it was investigating. Democrats are already demanding hearings as concerns arise about the security of classified communications.Democratic senator Jack Reed, the ranking member of the senate armed services committee, said in a statement:
      If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen. Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion, using approved, secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line. The carelessness shown by President Trump’s cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the Administration immediately.
      Democrat Pat Ryan an Army veteran who also sits on the armed services committee, wrote on X:Marine veteran and Democratic Arizona senator Ruben Gallego said: “If I handled classified and sensitive information in this way when I was in the Marines … oh boy … ”Donald Trump will nominate Dr Susan Monarez, the acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to permanently lead the agency, the White House said on Monday.The announcement came after the president earlier this month abruptly pulled the nomination for his first choice, David Weldon, a 71-year-old doctor and former Republican Florida congressman who was closely scrutinized for anti-vaccine views. Monarez has been acting director of the CDC since January and previously worked at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, another federal agency, the AP reported.The president said in a post on Monday: “As an incredible mother and dedicated public servant, Dr Monarez understands the importance of protecting our children, our communities, and our future … Americans have lost confidence in the CDC due to political bias and disastrous mismanagement.”A federal judge has ruled that the US government cannot remove two transgender men from the Air Force, the latest courtroom victory for LGBTQ+ rights advocates challenging Donald Trump’s executive order banning trans people from military service, the AP reports.On Monday, Christine O’Hearn, a US judge in New Jersey, issued a two-week restraining order barring the enforcement of Trump’s policy on the impacted plaintiffs. O’Hearn’s ruling comes days after a similar ruling by a federal judge in Washington DC.O’Hearn said the trans plaintiffs, Master Sgt Logan Ireland and Staff Sgt Nicholas Bear Bade, had shown that their removal from service would cause lasting damage to their careers and reputations, the AP reported. The judge said they were likely to prevail on equal protection grounds as they had been singled out due to their sex, and that the US could not justify the discriminatory treatment. The restraining order said, in part:
      The loss of military service under the stigma of a policy that targets gender identity is not merely a loss of employment; it is a profound disruption of personal dignity, medical continuity, and public service.
      Last week, Judge Ana Reyes of Washington DC sharply criticized Trump’s executive order, saying the ban on trans service members was “soaked in animus,” adding: “Its language is unabashedly demeaning, its policy stigmatizes transgender persons as inherently unfit, and its conclusions bear no relation to fact.”The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, subsequently mocked Reyes and subjected her to personal attacks.Donald Trump has now been asked about his cabinet members accidentally leaking war plans to an Atlantic journalist who was mistakenly copied on a Signal group chat.“I don’t know anything about it,” he responded at a briefing, before criticizing the Atlantic as a magazine “going out of business”. The president reiterated that he was not aware of the story, saying: “You’re telling me about it for the first time.”The use of Signal, a private commercial app, to discuss highly sensitive national security matters and war plans – and the undetected inclusion of a journalist – has sparked widespread, bipartisan outrage. More on the White House response from the Guardian’s Joseph Gedeon:
      The White House confirmed the leak. National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told the Guardian: ‘This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.’
      But the White House attempted to defend the communications, with Hughes describing the messages as an example of ‘deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials’.
      ‘The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to troops or national security,’ Hughes said.
      The White House’s shocking leak of secret military plans to a journalist, who was accidentally included in a group chat, has sparked widespread, bipartisan outrage.The Atlantic magazine’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, revealed in a stunning story today that he had been inadvertently invited into a chat group on Signal, a private messaging app, that included vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, secretary of defense Pete Hegseth and other high-profile figures in Donald Trump’s administration. Goldberg was apparently undetected in the chat as cabinet members discussed upcoming attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen.Elected officials are expressing disbelief and anger at the extraordinary security blunder, the Guardian’s Joseph Gedeon reports.Delaware senator Chris Coons said: “Every single one of the government officials on this text chain have now committed a crime – even if accidentally.” Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: “This administration is playing fast and loose with our nation’s most classified info, and it makes all Americans less safe.”Republican senator John Cornyn called it “a huge screw-up” and said it was being investigated. New York Republican representative Mike Lawler said: “Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels – and certainly not to those without security clearances. Period.” More reactions here:A spokesperson for the US state department has repeatedly refused to comment on the administration’s extraordinary blunder of discussing secret military plans on a chat that included a prominent journalist.Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic magazine, revealed today that key figures in Donald Trump’s cabinet – including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app, Signal, to discuss plans for US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen. The chat inadvertently included Goldberg, who was added by one of its members and apparently was unnoticed by the rest of the group.At a briefing, a reporter pressed Tammy Bruce, state department spokesperson, about the scandal, asking, “Why was the cabinet … discussing a potential military operation on Signal, which is a public app, and why didn’t they notice a phone number that was not part of their group, and how concerned is the secretary about the implications of this?”Bruce responded: “We will not comment on the secretary’s deliberative conversations … You should contact the White House.” Bruce continued to refuse to comment as the reporter asked for the perspective of Marco Rubio, the secretary of state. The national security council has said it is investigating the matter.More background here:

      The US treated alleged Nazis better during World War Two than the Trump Administration treated Venezuelan migrants last week, a federal appeals judge told a Justice Department lawyer during a contentious court hearing. “There were plane loads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people,” US circuit judge Patricia Millett said. “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here.

      It came hours after US federal judge James Boasberg ruled that the migrants deserved to have a court hearing before their deportations to determine whether they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang. He thwarted the Trump administration’s bid to vacate restraining orders protecting Venezuelans accused of gang ties from deportation, instead insisting on due process for those contesting the allegations. “The named Plaintiffs dispute they are members of Tren de Aragua; they may not be deported until a court decides the merits of their challenge,” Boasberg wrote.

      A law firm will present a habeas corpus lawsuit to El Salvador’s supreme court in defense of 30 Venezuelan citizens jailed in the Central American nation’s so-called “mega-prison” after being deported there by the US. The lawsuit, which will seek to question the legality of their detention, comes after the US sent some 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador, accusing them of being members of Tren de Aragua.

      In an extraordinary blunder, the White House accidentally texted top-secret military plans for recent US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen to a journalist. Key figures in the Trump administration – including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app Signal to convene and discuss plans – while also including a prominent journalist in the group. The breach was revealed by Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic magazine, who discovered that he had been included in the chat. The National Security Council said: “This appears to be an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”

      Trump announced that any country that buys oil or gas from Venezuela will pay a 25% tariff on trades made with the US. This “secondary tariff” will take effect on 2 April, the president said in a Truth Social post. He cited “numerous reasons” for the move, including his baseless repeated claim that “Venezuela has purposefully and deceitfully sent to the United States, undercover, tens of thousands of high level, and other, criminals, many of whom are murderers and people of a very violent nature”. China is the largest buyer of Venezuelan oil, with Spain, Italy, Cuba and India also consumers.

      On the issue of tariffs, Trump said he will in the very near future announce tariffs on automobiles, aluminum and pharmaceuticals. The president said the US would need all those products if there were problems including wars.

      Greenlandic leaders criticised an upcoming trip by a high-profile American delegation to the semi-autonomous Danish territory that Trump has suggested the US should annex. The delegation, which will visit an American military base and watch a dogsled race, will be led by Usha Vance, wife of vice-president JD Vance, and include White House national security adviser Mike Waltz and energy secretary Chris Wright. Greenland’s outgoing prime minister Mute Egede called this week’s visit a “provocation” and said his caretaker government would not meet with the delegation. “Until recently, we could trust the Americans, who were our allies and friends, and with whom we enjoyed working closely,” Egede said. “But that time is over.”

      The agency responsible for unaccompanied migrant minors will be allowed to share sponsors’ immigration status with law enforcement agencies under a regulatory change, a move critics say could discourage families from claiming their children. The US Office for Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which cares for the children until they can be released, will also scrap regulatory language that had prohibited it from denying release solely based on a sponsor’s immigration status.

      Trump appointed his former lawyer Alina Habba, who was previously sanctioned for filing a frivolous lawsuit, to serve as interim US attorney for the district of New Jersey. Habba represented Trump in the E. Jean Carroll case, which he lost, and again in the civil case against the Trump Organization’s civil fraud case, which he also lost. She said she looks forward to “going after the people we should be going after – not the people that are falsely accused”, but declined to elaborate further.
      That’s all from me, Lucy Campbell, for today. But stay tuned, my colleague Sam Levin is here to steer you through the rest of the day’s developments.Here’s more from my colleague Peter Beaumont on the White House adding a journalist to a top-secret Yemen war group chat by mistake.Senior members of Donald Trump’s cabinet have been involved in a serious security breach while discussing secret military plans for recent US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen.In an extraordinary blunder, key figures in the Trump administration – including vice-president JD Vance, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, secretary of state Marco Rubio and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app Signal to convene and discuss plans – while also including a prominent journalist in the group.Signal is not approved by the US government for sharing sensitive information.Others in the chat included Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles and key Trump envoy Steve Witkoff.The discussions seen by Jeffrey Goldberg include comments from Vance, who appeared unconvinced of the urgency of attacking Yemen, as well as conversations over what price should be expected of Europeans and other countries for the US removing the threat to a key global shipping route.Security and intelligence commentators in the US described the breach of operational security as unprecedented – both for the use of a commercial chat service and for the inclusion of Goldberg.Read the full story here:Members of Congress and national security staffers have been left stunned after top Trump administration officials, including the vice-president and the defense secretary, discussed war plans on Signal – and mistakenly added a journalist to the group chat.Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic, wrote:
      The world found out shortly before 2pm eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44am. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing. This is going to require some explaining.
      He goes on:
      I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor in chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior US officials, up to and including the vice president.
      The National Security Council confirmed it was real and said it was investigating. Democrats are already demanding hearings as concerns arise about the security of classified communications.Democratic senator Jack Reed, the ranking member of the senate armed services committee, said in a statement:
      If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen. Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion, using approved, secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line. The carelessness shown by President Trump’s cabinet is stunning and dangerous. I will be seeking answers from the Administration immediately.
      Democrat Pat Ryan an Army veteran who also sits on the armed services committee, wrote on X:Marine veteran and Democratic Arizona senator Ruben Gallego said: “If I handled classified and sensitive information in this way when I was in the Marines … oh boy … ”The US treated alleged Nazis better during World War Two than the Trump Administration treated Venezuelan migrants last week, a federal appeals judge told a Justice Department lawyer during a contentious court hearing on Monday.“There were plane loads of people. There were no procedures in place to notify people,” US circuit judge Patricia Millett said at the hearing in Washington. “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act than has happened here.”Judge Millett noted that alleged Nazis were given hearing boards and were subject to established regulations, while the alleged members of Tren De Aragua were given no such rights.
      There’s no regulations, and nothing was adopted by the agency officials that were administering this. They people weren’t given notice. They weren’t told where they were going. They were given those people on those planes on that Saturday and had no opportunity to file habeas or any type of action to challenge the removal under the AEA. What’s factually wrong about what I said?
      Deputy assistant attorney general Drew Ensign responded: “We certainly dispute the Nazi analogy.” He argued that some of the men were able to file habeas petitions.Prior to the Trump administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, the law had been used just three times in US history, most recently to intern and remove Japanese, German and Italian immigrants during the second world war.It comes hours after US federal judge James Boasberg ruled that the migrants deserved to have a court hearing before their deportations to determine whether they belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang.The election to fill a Wisconsin supreme court seat is quickly becoming a referendum on the Trump administration and a test of enthusiasm on both sides, the Associated Press reports.For national Republicans, the race is all about Donald Trump. But Democrats are trying a new tactic, focusing their fire on Elon Musk, the billionaire who is the race’s biggest donor, by far.The vote on 1 April will be the first major test of US politics since the president secured a second term in November, serving as an early barometer of how voters feel about the direction Trump is taking the country in one of the most contested battleground states (which Trump won by less than a percentage point).It’s also a test for Musk himself. His nascent political operation, which spent more than $200m to help Trump win in November, is canvassing and advertising in Wisconsin on behalf of the Republican-backed candidate, Brad Schimel. A win would cement his status as a conservative kingmaker, while a loss could give license to Republicans distancing themselves from his efforts to stymie government functions and eliminate tens of thousands of federal jobs.The contest will determine the court’s ideological balance for the second time in two years, and likely the future of several issues related to abortion rights, unions and congressional maps.Musk, the race’s biggest donor by far, has helped make the race the most expensive judicial election in the nation’s history, with nearly $67m spent so far. He held a get-out-the-vote event on his X platform on Saturday, writing:
      It might not seem important, but it’s actually really important. And it could determine the fate of the country. This election is going to affect everyone in the United States.
      Schimel has openly courted Trump’s endorsement, which he received on Friday night, as he campaigns against Dane county judge Susan Crawford, the Democrat-backed candidate. He attended Trump’s inauguration in January, has said that he would be part of a “support system” for Trump. Earlier this month, he attended a “Mega MAGA rally” where he posed for a picture in front of a giant inflatable version of the president, which had a “Vote Brad Schimel Supreme Court” poster plastered on its chest. Schimel has also resurfaced long-debunked conspiracies about voter fraud that Trump has embraced.Crawford campaign spokesperson Derrick Honeyman said:
      This race is the first real test point in the country on Elon Musk and his influence on our politics, and voters want an opportunity to push back on that and the influence he is trying to make on Wisconsin and the rest of country.
      State Democrats have hosted a series of anti-Musk town halls, including one featuring former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, and featured Musk heavily in ads. Crawford has also seized on Musk, going as far as to refer to her opponent as “Elon Schimel” during a recent debate. “Don’t let Elon buy the Supreme Court,” read billboards paid for the state Democratic party that depict Musk as Schimel’s puppeteer.“There’s so many people who are desperate for a way to fight back against what Trump and Musk are doing nationally,” said Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic party chair, and see the race as an “opportunity to punch back”. He said the party had seen an “explosive surge” in grassroots and small-donor fundraising from across the country tied to Musk’s involvement:
      Most voters still don’t know who Crawford and and Schimel are, but they have extremely strong feelings about Musk and Trump.
      This report is from Reuters:The agency responsible for unaccompanied migrant minors will be allowed to share sponsors’ immigration status with law enforcement agencies under a regulatory change, a move critics say could discourage families from claiming their children.The US Office for Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which cares for the children until they can be released, will also scrap regulatory language that had prohibited it from denying release solely based on a sponsor’s immigration status, according to a Federal Register notice due to be published on Tuesday.From ORR custody, children are released to sponsors – usually parents or relatives – as immigration authorities weigh their cases.ORR argued that existing regulations put in place under former president Joe Biden conflicted with federal law, which it said prohibited government agencies from withholding any individual’s citizenship or immigration status.Critics, however, say that sharing sponsors’ information with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) could make parents and other relatives reluctant to come forward to claim their children due to fear they could be detained or deported.An Ice official in 2018 estimated that 80% of sponsors and family members lacked legal immigration status.Migrant advocacy groups said the Trump administration last week largely shuttered a federal program that provided legal representation to unaccompanied children in court. They urged the administration to restore it.“Ending this long-standing program is a direct attack on due process,” Shayna Kessler, a director at Vera Institute of Justice, one of the groups providing legal services to unaccompanied children, said in a statement on Friday.The Administration for Children and Families, ORR’s parent agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the suspension of the program.Vladimir Putin has gifted Donald Trump a portrait he commissioned of the US president, the Kremlin confirmed on Monday.Putin gave the painting to Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Moscow earlier this month, the Russian president’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said in a response to a journalist’s question, declining further comment.The gift was first mentioned last week by Witkoff in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Witkoff told Carlson that Trump “was clearly touched” by the portrait, which he described as “beautiful”.Witkoff met Putin after talks with Russian officials about trying to end the war in Ukraine. During his interview with Carlson, Witkoff described Putin’s gift as “gracious” and recalled how Putin told him he had prayed for Trump last year when he heard the then-candidate for the US presidency had been shot at a rally in Pennsylvania. “He was praying for his friend,” Witkoff said, recounting Putin’s comments.It was not immediately known if the portrait Putin gave to Trump had been examined for bugs.The White House hasn’t commented on the portrait. Let’s hope Trump likes it better than the other one.Related: ‘Insecure baby’: Trump draws ridicule after throwing fit over Colorado capitol portraitA law firm will on Monday present a habeas corpus lawsuit to El Salvador’s supreme court in defense of 30 Venezuelan citizens jailed in the Central American nation’s so-called “mega-prison” after being deported there by the US, according to Reuters.The lawsuit, which will seek to question the legality of their detention, comes after the US sent some 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador, accusing them of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang.The judges in charge of the case are allies of President Nayib Bukele, who has offered to hold US prisoners in its prison system and accepted payment from the US to do so.Outside the court, lawyer Jaime Ortega told reporters that while 30 Venezuelan nationals had granted them the powers of attorney to represent them, they would request habeas corpus for the rest of the Venezuelans detained in the country.Some 137 of the group of Venezuelans were deported under an obscure US wartime law targeting “alien enemies” that was quickly blocked by a US federal judge, who ordered the flight carrying the Venezuelan citizens to turn around.However, the Venezuelan citizens were later received in El Salvador where they were taken into custody in a massive anti-terrorism prison, under a deal in which Washington is paying El Salvador’s government $6m, according to the White House.Lawyers and family members of many of the migrants deny they are members of Tren de Aragua and the US judge James Boasberg on Monday ruled they must be given the chance to challenge the government’s claim that they are gang members.The judge also cited accounts of poor prison conditions, including beatings, humiliations, irregular access to food and water and having to sleep standing up because of overcrowding.El Salvador’s presidential office did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment regarding the prison conditions.Related: US deportees face brutal conditions in El Salvador mega-prison: ‘Severe overcrowding, inadequate food’As expected, the US has extended Chevron’s wind-down of oil exports from Venezuela by two months on Monday, after Donald Trump said that any country buying oil or gas from Venezuela will pay a 25% tariff on any trades made with the US.The Trump administration extended until 27 May the wind-down of a license that the US had granted to Chevron since 2022 to operate in sanctioned Venezuela and export its oil. Chevron is only permitted to export that oil to the US.Trump had initially given Chevron 30 days from 4 March to wind down that license after he accused President Nicolás Maduro of not making progress on electoral reforms and migrant returns.Chevron did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.Earlier on Monday, Trump announced a “secondary tariff” to take effect on 2 April, in a post on Truth Social. The two moves taken together alleviate some pressure on Chevron while putting more pressure on consumers of Venezuelan oil, though it is uncertain how Trump’s administration will enforce the tariff.Benchmark crude oil futures jumped nearly 1.5% on the news of the tariff.China, which already has been the subject of US tariffs, is the largest buyer of Venezuela’s oil, the OPEC member’s main export. In February, China received directly and indirectly some 503,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan crude and fuel, which represented 55% of total exports.Tariff impositions in China on imports of certain types of Venezuelan oil in past years led to a decline in the volume of Venezuelan crude received by Chinese buyers, which ultimately forced state company PDVSA to widen price discounts to continue selling to its most important market.Spain, Italy, Cuba and India are other consumers of Venezuelan oil. US imports of the oil are set to end 27 May.There was no immediate response from Maduro’s government to a request for comment.Trump’s notice of the tariff occurred days after news that Shell Plc aims to begin producing natural gas at Venezuela’s Dragon gas field and exporting it to neighboring Trinidad and Tobago in 2026, a year ahead of the original 2027 start date.Donald Trump talked about the Ukraine war at the cabinet meeting. The president said he expected a revenue-sharing agreement with Ukrainian on its critical minerals will be signed soon.Trump also told reporters as he met his Cabinet that the United States is talking to Ukraine about the potential for American firms owning Ukrainian power plants.Our dedicated Ukraine blog has all the latest details: More