The White House and the Military: How a Marine Officer Could’ve Learned from a Private Chat about a Mishandled Messenger from the Atlantic
The White House continues to largely dismiss a highly sensitive discussion by leading national security officials on the open-source encrypted Signal messaging app that leaked to a reporter.
The press secretary said the media “continues to focus on a sensationalized story from the failing Atlantic magazine that is falling apart by the hour.”
The entire chat was published by the Atlantic. Jeffrey Goldberg, its editor-in-chief, had been added to a discussion that included the Defense Secretary, the National Security Adviser, the Secretary of State, the Vice President and the Director of National Intelligence.
“I’ve defended spillage cases where people were going to be put out of the military or people were going to be turned out of their job within the military for violations that are just the smallest fraction of what just occurred,” Carroll said.
Pete Hegseth is a liar. This was so clearly classified that it could’ve resulted in the deaths of our pilots. “He needs to resign in disgrace immediately.”
“There would be an immediate investigation launched,” Mulroy told NPR’s Here & Now. “They’d be removed from any access to classified information, and if this is what they in fact did, they’d likely get court-martialed. I think everybody in the military knows that is the case. They’re making excuses for every reason why they can do this, but instead of owning up and taking responsibility, they’re doing it.
The leadership share attack plans in advance on Signal, but thus far have been spared consequences, which is toxic to the troops. The double standard is so common that there is a phrase for it in the military.
Military officers who have sent battlefield assessments for several years have lost their jobs for giving the information over an unsafe channel. He defended a junior Marine Corps officer in court who sent urgent, potentially lifesaving information to fellow officers in Afghanistan from a nonclassified email server and was relieved of duty.
“What typically happens in a spillage like this is they’re immediately fired, which is what I’ve seen before in the first Trump administration,” says Kevin, who was in the Army, the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. He says there’s no doubt what would have happened to an active-duty officer who had participated in the Signal chat.
What Happened in the First 100 Days of Trump’s Presidency: Signal Chat Fallout, Trade War, and Deportations
We’ll be recapping what you need to know every Friday morning for the first 100 days of the Trump administration. Get the latest news and analysis from NPR Politics.
The week started with a chat among high-ranking Trump administration officials that ended with a reporter being added. There have been a lot of other headlines. There are more tariffs in effect that could hike the price of cars. There was more controversy surrounding Trump’s deportation efforts. And there are questions about the administration’s approach to the war in Ukraine.
Here are five takeaways from the week, followed by a day-by-day look at everything that happened this week on this 67th day of the second Trump presidency:
That goes against protocol, and the Defense Department has warned for years against not using the platform for any non-public information and issued a Pentagon-wide advisory earlier this month that the app has been a target of Russian hackers. This was an appropriate channel to have the conversation, according to the Trump team, who minimized what happened, tried to downplay the reporter, and claimed that they weren’t telling the whole truth.
- Lawmakers want more answers and Trump officials have tried to downplay the situation and make it only about how a reporter was added to the chat.
“HeGSeth?” How do you bring him into it? The reporter had a question. He had nothing to do with it. Look, look — it’s all a witch hunt.”
This isn’t the end of the story, because a bipartisan group of lawmakers wants an investigation. Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the conversation “appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that, based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified.”
He called for an expedited inspector general’s report, though that may prove difficult. Just days after Trump was sworn in, he fired more than a dozen IGs across multiple agencies, including the Defense Department.
Source: Signal chat fallout, tariff tension — and 3 more takeaways from Trump’s week
The price of living in the Trump era: The case of Venezuelans deported under the Tren de Aragua gang
This week, tariffs on foreign-made cars and car parts are likely to lead to higher auto prices. Things may become more expensive because of Trump’s tariffs.
That’s his gamble — that in the long run, these tariffs will even out trade imbalances and increase U.S. manufacturing. The auto worker union is applauding Trump for ending what it views as the “free-trade disaster.” But will people accept higher prices on groceries and cars when they’re already high?
“Now voters are saying, ‘OK, you’ve been elected; we know you’re going to be disruptive; we know you’re going to be that wrecking ball,'” said Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster, “‘but where’s the reduced cost of living I was looking for?'”
Anderson said that Trump’s overall approval ratings are better than in his first term, but his economic approval is worse. The Consumer Confidence Index fell to a twelve-year low this week. That’s a risky position for a president who promised to bring prices down on the first day. Given that Trump is barred from running again and if prices do go up, it could be something felt by the GOP in next year’s midterm elections.
One of the areas where Americans give Trump his highest marks is on immigration. His administration is pushing the limits with its arguments and continuing to battle the courts. The administration refused to give a judge more information on the timetable on the deportation flights of Venezuelas, who the administration believes are members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
An appeals panel, 2-0, denied the administration’s push to restart deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, as they found that the administration hasn’t given people the chance to prove they are not part of the gang before they are sent to a country. The administration will be appealing to the Supreme Court.
A doctoral student at Tufts University was taken into custody off the street by plain-clothesed officers with face coverings and whisked away to a detention facility in Louisiana. The student was on a valid visa at the time. But that visa has since been revoked.
“This is not about free speech, it’s about what’s in the interest of the country,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this month. This is about people who don’t have a right to be in the United States. … No one has the right to live in a country with a student visa. No person has a right to a green card.
Source: Signal chat fallout, tariff tension — and 3 more takeaways from Trump’s week
How does the government of Israel handle the war in Gaza? The American Oversight Advisory Committee meets with the High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, J. S. Taylor, D.C. Hearn, R.L.
For the first time in at least a quarter century, less than 50% of Americans say they feel sympathy for Israelis and Palestinians, but it’s at the lowest level in at least the past twenty years. More Republicans sympathize with Israelis and more Democrats sympathize with Palestinians. The Democrats’ support increased as the war continued. Independents side with Israelis.
Trump may feel that he has the public’s opinion on his side to continue with these expulsions, and that he may make the debate about: 1. This is not about the war in Gaza, but about ending anti-semitism on campuses. Does the United States have enough space to have a debate about what constitutes antisemitism and whether anyone has a right to criticize the government of Israel’s conduct of the war? The administration is bluntly making the point that certainly not if you’re a foreign student.
The records are kept in accordance with the Federal Records Act, which American Oversight sued this week to ensure. The group suspects that administration officials routinely use Signal to communicate.
“I’m glad we could figure out a solution,” the judge later said. He was told by the government to get an update Monday. The order will expire on April 10 if the measures are satisfactory to the court.
A Senate Intelligence Committee Investigation of a U.S. Wartime Strike against Yemen’s Houthis and a High-Centric-Japan Airborne Attack
The Senate Intelligence Committee was told on Tuesday that Hegseth was in charge of determining whether the information was classified.
The public has the right to view government records even if the messages originated on private phones, argued American Oversight’s attorneys.
They wrote that the effort to evade the rules for record retention was a systematic one. “There is no legitimate reason for this behavior, which deprives the public and Congress of an ability to see the actions of government.”
On the chat, Hegseth provided the exact timings of warplane launches and when bombs would drop before the attacks against Yemen’s Houthis began earlier this month. Hegseth laid out when a “strike window” would open, where a “target terrorist” was located and when weapons and aircraft would be used.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to preserve records of a text message chat in which senior national security officials discussed sensitive details of plans for a U.S. military strike against Yemen’s Houthis.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg barred administration officials from destroying messages that were sent over the encrypted messaging app Signal earlier this month.
American Oversight requested the order. A government attorney said the administration already was taking steps to collect and save the messages.
The agencies already worked to preserve the Signal messages, so it should not hurt the government, noted the nominee during Thursday’s hearing.
Boasberg, chief judge of the district court in Washington, has been at odds with the administration over a separate case involving flights deporting Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law. At least two flights carrying immigrants were temporarily blocked by him, but he did not order them to turn around. The judge has vowed to determine whether the administration ignored his turnaround order.
