Closing summary
We’re closing the blog for today, thanks for following along. Here are some key links and stories from the day:
In extraordinary blunder, top Trump cabinet members added the Atlantic magazine editor to a Signal group chat discussing secret military plans for recent attacks in Yemen.
The major security breach sparked bipartisan outrage and calls from one Democratic group for Pete Hegseth to resign as defense secretary.
Hegseth said that “nobody was texting war plans” and attacked the Atlantic, but did not refuse specifics of the magazine’s reporting.
An appeals court judge said Monday that Nazis were given more rights to contest their removal from the US during the second world war than Venezuelan migrants deported by the Trump administration.
Foreign workers at US government-backed media outlets being cut by the Trump administration say they face deportation to their home countries, where some risk imprisonment or death at the hands of authoritarian governments.
The US postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, who said earlier this month that he had asked the government team led by Elon Musk for assistance with a number of issues, announced he was resigning immediately.
A Columbia University student who took part in pro-Palestinian protests at the university is suing Donald Trump’s administration for attempting to deport her.
Trump’s administration is seeking sponsors for the White House Easter Egg Roll, in a break with tradition that is likely to draw further scrutiny over his government’s relationship with corporate backers.
Hundreds of firings inside the federal government’s student aid department have sparked concern among workers and student loan advocates, who warn that the student loan system is at risk.
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 Trump’s order banning trans people from military service.
Updated
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader, has addressed the Trump administration’s accidentally inclusion of a journalist on a group chat discussing planned attacks in Yemen, saying the leak of “sensitive national security information” on a “non-classified system” was “completely outrageous and shocks the conscience”. His statement continued:
It is yet another unprecedented example that our nation is increasingly more dangerous because of the elevation of reckless and mediocre individuals, including the secretary of defense [Pete Hegseth]. If House Republicans are truly serious about keeping America safe, and not simply being sycophants and enablers, they must join Democrats in a swift, serious and substantive investigation into this unacceptable and irresponsible national security breach.
Earlier today, Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said “this kind of carelessness is how people get killed”, adding: “It is how our enemies take advantage of us. It is how our national security falls into danger … It is bad enough that a private citizen was added to this chain, but it is far worse that sensitive military information was exchanged on an unauthorized application – especially when that sensitive military information was so, so important.”
The Democratic leaders’ statements came after the Atlantic magazine revealed that its editor in chief was added to a group chat on Signal, the messaging app, in which Hegseth, vice-president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio and other key figures discussed “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and attack sequencing”.
More here:
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