Vice President Vance will join wife Usha in Greenland Friday to check out security of the US Space Force base there, NPR reports. “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,” Vance said in a video (AP). (Scroll down center column for details of trip.)
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WEDNESDAY 3/26/25
Waltz Takes the Blame and Downplays Text Message Importance – Trump White House national security advisor Mike Waltz said that he, and not an underling, is responsible for the “embarrassing” use of Signal to hold a principles committee (PC) discussion of the US military attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen on March 15, in which a magazine editor was asked to participate.
National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe said at a Senate hearing Tuesday that no classified material was shared with the Signal group.
Waltz later Tuesday “confirmed” to host Laura on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle that “no classified information” was disclosed in the texts in the PC group that included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.
On Wednesday morning, The Atlantic published the attack plans that White House advisors shared on Signal. The magazine’s initial story Monday “withheld specific information related to weapons and to the timing of attacks that we found in certain texts,” Goldberg and Shane Harris write in Wednesday’s follow-up. “As a general rule, we do not publish information about military operations if that information could possibly jeopardize the lives of US personnel.”
But statements by Gabbard, Ratcliffe, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump, and other administration officials who say magazine staff are lying about the Signals texts’ content “have lead us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions.”
--TL
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TUESDAY 3/25/25
MAGA-Yanks Go Home – Greenland’s outgoing Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede called Second Lady Usha Vance’s trip to his country this week “highly aggressive” and accused the Trump White House of using diplomatic engagements as a smokescreen to cover up the US president’s goal of taking over his country, per Time magazine. Vance announced on Instagram Sunday she will attend a dogsled race and other cultural events in Greenland this week along with one of her sons, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
The second lady wrote that her visit was “to express hope” that the relationship between the US and Greenland “will only grow stronger in the coming years.”
President Trump wants Greenland for its abundance of industrially important minerals and its strategic location on the global map. But neither Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, nor Denmark, want any of it.
“Greenlanders have tried to be diplomatic,” Bourup said, “but it simply bounces off Donald Trump and his administration in their mission to own and control Greenland.”
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Smoked Signals – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth texted over Signal the US military’s plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen March 15 to Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic two hours before the attack on the Iranian-backed terrorist organization. Goldberg writes that four days earlier, he received a connection request from a Signal user “identified as Michael Waltz.’
“I assumed that the Michael Walz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser,” Goldberg writes. “I did not assume, however, that the request was from the actual Michael Waltz. I have met him in the past, and though I didn’t find it particularly strange that he might be reaching out to me, I did think it somewhat unusual, given the Trump administration’s contentious relationship with journalists – and Trump’s periodic fixation on me specifically. It immediately crossed my mind that someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me.”
Instead, Goldberg was tapped in to a “Houthi small PC group” – “PC” for principles committee – that included Waltz, Hegseth, Middle East and Ukraine negotiator Steve Witkoff, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, “S M” (whom the editor assumed was White House advisor Stephen Miller) and likely, representatives for Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard.
Democratic leadership is once again flailing at how to make something of this breach of security – unfavorable comparisons to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s release of emails when she was running against Trump in 2016 come up a lot. It goes without saying that the breach potentially put US troops at risk.
Trump says Waltz has “learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” according to Politico.
But Goldberg writes; “I have never seen a breach quite like this. It is not uncommon for national-security officials to communicate on Signal. But the app is used primarily for meeting planning and other logistical matters – not for detailed and highly confidential discussions of a pending military action.”
--TL
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MONDAY 3/24/25
Israel Considers Ground Invasion of Gaza – Israel is considering a plan for a full-scale military ground invasion of Gaza to establish military rule for Palestinians there, NPR’s Morning Edition reports, citing unnamed sources, noting that it is unknown at this point whether the plans will be carried out. Meanwhile, Palestinians have updated their death count to more than 50,000 in Gaza since Israel resumed its war on Hamas there.
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Peace Talks? – Russia continues to strike Ukraine as peace talks between US and Ukrainian delegations have begun in Saudi Arabia, The Guardian reports. What’s more, Trump White House special envoy Steve Witkoff has claimed that some Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Russian-held parts of Ukraine want to remain part of Russia, the BBC reports. Still, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ahead of negotiations Sunday the talks will be “constructive and beneficial,” according to The Kyiv Independent.
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Easing Trump Tariffs, Again – The White House is dropping tariffs for the industrial sector most recently set for April 2, though major trading partners still will be hit with President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, The Wall Street Journal reports. It appears to be working for the Trump White House – stock futures have “jumped” in early Monday trading on the news. Expect a rally when the New York Stock Exchange opens just before 10 a.m. Eastern.
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Former Rep Mia Love Has Died – Former Rep. Mia Love (R-UT), first Black Republican woman in Congress, has died at the age of 49 Politico reports. Love served in the US House from 2015-19. Born in New York City, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, had recently undergone treatment for brain cancer and had received immunotherapy as part of a clinical trial at Duke University.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa