U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., points to text messages by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during an annual worldwide threats assessment hearing at the Longworth House Office Building on March 26, 2025, in Washington, D.C. The hearing held by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence addressed top aides inadvertently including Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic magazine, on a high level Trump administration Signal group chat discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The now-famous group chat made up of high-ranking Trump administration national security officials and a journalist included a precise timeline of U.S. bombing of Houthi targets in Yemen, and revealed one of the targets of the attack was under surveillance, according to a release of the entire text chain The Atlantic published Wednesday.

Despite the newly revealed details of the leaked chat, administration officials, including President Donald Trump himself, continued to downplay the seriousness of the breach, and Republicans in Congress refused to join Democrats in calls for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to step down.

Administration officials argued the texts lacked key information and that the “attack plans” revealed in the chat were less damaging than “war plans,” the term Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg used to refer to information he’d decided to withhold for national security reasons. Trump aides also implied the magazine – which has endorsed Trump’s opponent in each of his elections – was spinning the entire episode to discredit the administration.

What’s been dubbed “Signalgate” began when The Atlantic on Monday published a stunning account by  Goldberg of his apparently accidental inclusion in a group chat on the messaging app Signal, titled “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.”

The others in the chat were senior administration officials discussing the upcoming war operation.

Administration leaders on Tuesday denied, including in testimony before Congress, that the chat contained classified information. The magazine then published a report Wednesday by Goldberg and staff writer Shane Harris that purported to include virtually the entire transcript of the chat until Goldberg’s voluntary exit.

The administration position was inconsistent with the screenshots published in The Atlantic of detailed and explicit messages in the chat. At the Capitol, concerns were raised even among the administration’s usually obsequious GOP allies in Congress, with U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker saying the information in the chat should have been classified.

“The information as published recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that, based on my knowledge, I would have wanted to classify it,” Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, told reporters on the Hill Wednesday.

Attack details revealed

In the initial story, Goldberg reported National Security Advisor Michael Waltz on March 11 added the journalist to a group chat on Signal that included Vice President J.D. Vance, Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Waltz and others.

Goldberg in the first story withheld details of the chat that he said could have compromised intelligence-gathering and military operations.

But after a day of administration figures claiming the Signal chat did not reveal classified material, while smearing Goldberg, the magazine published the entire thread with one redaction: the name of Ratcliffe’s chief of staff, at the request of a CIA spokesperson.

The unredacted messages show Hegseth shared plans of the bombing campaign about 30 minutes before the first planes took off on March 15 and two hours before the start of the window of opportunity for hitting a target.

“TEAM UPDATE,” Hegseth wrote in the chat on the day of the strike, according to the Atlantic’s Wednesday story. “TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.”

In the same message, Hegseth laid out a timeline of the attack, including confirmation that a target was at his expected location.

“Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME,” Hegseth wrote.

He also noted that the mission’s operational security was “clean.”

Two hours and 15 minutes later, Waltz told the group that bombs had destroyed a building where the Houthi “top missile guy” was thought to be present.

“The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed,” Waltz wrote.

Tuesday denials led to publishing

At a previously scheduled U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Tuesday, Gabbard said that no classified information was discussed in the chat.

Trump echoed that message and Hegseth said, “Nobody was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say about that.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on social media:

“Here are the facts about his latest story: 1. No ‘war plans’ were discussed. 2. No classified material was sent to the thread. 3. The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible.”

Gabbard and Ratcliffe told the Senate Intelligence Committee they did not recall specific weapons systems or the timing of the operation being discussed in the chat.

But the transcript published by The Atlantic showed Hegseth’s down-to-the-minute timeline of the launch of F-18 aircraft.

The denials led to the magazine’s decision to publish the full transcript Wednesday, Goldberg and Harris wrote.

“The statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump — combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts — have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions,” they wrote.

“There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared.”

‘No names. No targets.’

But Hegseth and other administration officials continued to deny the growing controversy was serious Wednesday.

“So, let’s (sic) me get this straight,” Hegseth wrote on X Wednesday. “The Atlantic released the so-called ‘war plans’ and those ‘plans’ include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information.

“Those are some really shitty war plans.”

Waltz posted a similar message.

“No locations,” he wrote. “No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent. BOTTOM LINE:  President Trump is protecting America and our interests.”

White House Counselor Alina Habba told reporters shortly after the second Atlantic story posted on Wednesday morning the issue had been overblown.

“We stand by Mike Waltz; he’s doing a tremendous job,” she said, according to a White House pool report. “I think this is a distraction.”

Bipartisan call for investigation

Leading members of Congress, though, were treating the matter with more seriousness.

Wicker said he and Armed Services ranking Democrat Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island had agreed on next steps, which included a letter to the administration asking for an expedited inspector general report on the matter.

He also said they were requesting “a senior person” come to a secure facility on Capitol Hill to provide a classified briefing to the committee to confirm the reporting was accurate.

Asked what the consequence should be for Hegseth if the transcript of the chat was accurate, Wicker took a forgiving tone.

“I make a lot of mistakes in my life,” he said. “And I’ve found that it’s best when I just own up to it and say ‘I’m human, I made a mistake.’ And I’m glad in this case no real damage was done. I think that’s probably the approach of the administration right up to the president.”

He also said that no targets or specific timing were mentioned.

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate who has voiced criticism of Trump more often than most GOP colleagues, wrote in an X post Wednesday that the incident should be a “wake-up call” to prioritize operational security.

“I am appalled by the egregious security breach from top administration officials,” she wrote. “Their disregard for stringent safeguards and secure channels could have compromised a high-stakes operation and put our servicemembers at risk. I hope this serves as a wake-up call that operational security must be a top priority for everyone—especially our leaders.”

Dems urge Hegseth’s resignation

Many Democrats went further, calling for Hegseth to resign over the use of an unclassified messaging platform to discuss impending military action.

Gabbard and others noted the Defense secretary can decide what information is classified to argue that the chat did not include classified information.

But critics said whether or not the information was technically classified, its disclosure would put service members at greater risk.

“Advance strike times are sensitive and classified because they put American military directly at risk,” Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, wrote on social media Wednesday. “The Secretary of Defense was blasting them out to unknown numbers over unclassified channels. It’s sloppy, careless, and dangerous. He should resign.”

Warner spokeswoman Rachel Cohen added that, despite the administration’s denials, the information revealed in The Atlantic would compromise intelligence sources and methods.

“They can keep repeating this but it’s not true,” she wrote, responding to Hegseth’s post. “Those messages, as released by the Atlantic, are source revealing, and include targeting and weapons information that would have, at the very least, been considered at the ‘secret’ classification level.”

The top Democrats in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, both of New York, also called for Hegseth to lose his job.

“The secretary of Defense should be fired immediately if he’s not man enough to own up to his mistakes and resign in disgrace,” Jeffries said on MSNBC Wednesday.

“I agree he should be fired,” Schumer told reporters at the Capitol.

FBI Director Kash Patel, left, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, center, and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe appear during a Senate Committee on Intelligence Hearing on March 25, 2025, in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — National security officials grilled by Democratic senators Tuesday denied any wrongdoing by Trump administration Cabinet members who discussed plans to bomb Yemen on a Signal group chat shared with The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard sidestepped questions about specific details shared in the text chain and insisted no classified information was relayed over the messaging app.

The officials testified for nearly two hours during the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s regularly scheduled hearing on worldwide threats.

Ratcliffe’s and Gabbard’s denials that operational details, including timing and strike targets, were disclosed in the chat contradict Goldberg’s stunning report on the breach. His article was published less than 24 hours prior to their appearance before the panel.

Goldberg told of receiving an invitation, presumably inadvertent, from National Security Advisor Michael Waltz to join a group chat of top security officials. Goldberg remained in the chat, apparently unnoticed, for multiple days and witnessed discussion of planning details and subsequent celebrations of U.S. strikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

‘I don’t want to get into this’

Gabbard initially refused to confirm she was part of the chat, under the initials “TG.” “I don’t want to get into this,” she told Sen. Mark Warner, the panel’s vice chair.

Turning to the CIA director, Warner asked “You were the ‘John Ratcliffe’ on that chat?”

“I was,” Ratcliffe confirmed to the Virginia Democrat.

Ratcliffe defended the use of Signal, an encrypted commercial messaging app, as a regularly used channel by government officials to “communicate and coordinate for work purposes provided, Senator, that any decisions that are made are also recorded through formal channels.”

“My communications, to be clear, in the Signal message group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information,” Ratcliffe said.

Gabbard also testified to the panel that no classified information was discussed in the group chat.

Sen. Angus King, independent of Maine, told Gabbard he was “puzzled” by her assertion.

“According to open source reporting, at 11:44 on the morning of March 15, (Defense) Secretary Hegseth put into this group text a detailed operation plan, including targets, the weapons we were going to be using, attack sequences and timing,” King said. “Wouldn’t that be classified?”

“Senator, I can attest to the fact that there were no classified or intelligence equities that were included in that chat group at any time,” Gabbard said, telling King to ask the Pentagon for further information on classification.

“If that’s the case, please release that whole text stream so that the public can have a view of what actually transpired on this discussion,” King said.

While Goldberg did publish verbatim portions and screenshots of the chat — including emoji symbols the officials used to celebrate the strikes — the national magazine editor, citing troop safety concerns, did not quote from Hegseth’s messages regarding targets, weapons to be used and sequencing of strikes.

Adversary nations

Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia brought up the scenario that a wider leak of the chat would have been of interest to adversary countries, particularly revealing the “time period during which enemy air defenses could target U.S. air crews flying in enemy airspace.”

“Director Ratcliffe, this was a huge mistake, correct?” Ossoff asked.

“No,” Ratcliffe replied.

A Pentagon-wide advisory warned officials on March 18 against using Signal because of possible spying, according to an NPR investigative report published Tuesday.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the Signal group chat Tuesday morning in a post on the social media platform X, attacking Goldberg as “well-known for his sensationalist spin.”

“Here are the facts about his latest story: 1. No ‘war plans’ were discussed. 2. No classified material was sent to the thread. 3. The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible,” Leavitt wrote.

She added, “the White House is looking into how Goldberg’s number was inadvertently added to the thread.”

Attack on media

Just after noon Eastern Tuesday, the White House press office issued a statement characterizing media reporting on the breach as a “coordinated effort to distract from the successful actions taken by President Trump and his administration to make America’s enemies pay.”

When pressed by a reporter Monday at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickman in Hawaii, Hegseth attacked Goldberg and said, “Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that.”

Warner and other Democratic lawmakers have called for the resignations of Hegseth and Waltz.

Tuesday’s Senate Intelligence panel hearing was streamed in its entirety on C-SPAN.

Dozens were killed in the March 15 strikes, according to reporting by The Associated Press that cited Houthi-run health officials.

Former President Joe Biden, joined by British forces, also targeted Houthi strongholds in Yemen beginning in January 2024.

The rebel group has been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea since the beginning of Israel’s war on Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.

A demonstrator holds a sign outside the U.S. Capitol on March 25, 2025, protesting the detainment by immigration authorities of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A group of progressive U.S. House Democrats on Tuesday rebuked the detainment by immigration authorities of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil and demanded that he be released from a Louisiana detention center.

At a press conference steps outside the U.S. Capitol, Reps. Delia Ramirez of Illinois, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Pramila Jayapal of Washington state and Greg Casar of Texas argued that Khalil’s First Amendment rights were violated, as the Syria-born lawful permanent resident appeared to be targeted for his activism and not any immigration violations.

“The detention and threatened deportation of Mahmoud is illegal, and it is a direct assault on our constitutional rights to due process, freedom of speech and right to protest and on dissent itself,” Tlaib said.

Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Mike Zamore, national director of policy and government affairs at the American Civil Liberties Union, joined the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus in speaking out against Khalil’s arrest Tuesday.

Both advocacy groups are among those providing legal representation for Khalil.

“We should also be clear that this is not a regular deportation proceeding,” Warren said.

“What this is is an attempt at disappearance, again, something that happens routinely in authoritarian countries, and it is happening right here.”

In a filing on Sunday, the administration alleged that Khalil did run afoul of immigration law, saying he lied on his permanent residency application when he “withheld membership in certain organizations and failed to disclose continuing employment by the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut.”

Court challenge

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Khalil — a former Columbia University student who helped organize protests against the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza — in New York City this month. He was later moved to a detention facility in Louisiana.

Khalil challenged the lawfulness of his detention in a New York federal court, and a federal judge last week transferred his case to a court in New Jersey.

The administration claimed that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization” and is calling for his deportation.

President Donald Trump has vowed to crack down on students protesting against the war in Gaza.

He and his administration conflated Khalil’s protests of the war in Gaza with support for Hamas to rationalize the arrest.

Backlash

The lawmakers’ event Tuesday was part of the backlash against the arrest that civil rights groups view as targeting political speech.

Tlaib referenced a letter Khalil wrote inside the detention center, where he described his arrest as a “direct consequence” of exercising his right to free speech.

“The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent,” Khalil wrote. “Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs.”

Jayapal dubbed the administration’s actions regarding Khalil “unconstitutional.”

The Washington state Democrat, who led the Congressional Progressive Caucus  until this year, said Khalil’s detainment marked the start of a “chilling war” on free speech rights in the United States.

Casar added “the administration targeting people for detention based on their political views should send a chill down the spine of every single American.”

“This administration’s plans will not end with Mr. Khalil — they will target activists who speak out about the plundering of taxpayer dollars by billionaires,” said the Texas Democrat, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

“They will target those whistleblowers who speak out about the incompetence that we see within this administration,” he said.

Meanwhile, the American Association of University Professors, its chapters at Harvard University, Rutgers University and New York University, along with the Middle East Studies Association, filed suit against the Trump administration on Tuesday to block them “from carrying out large-scale arrests, detentions, and deportations of noncitizen students and faculty members who participate in pro-Palestinian protests and other protected First Amendment activities.”

French wine on Washington, D.C., store shelves on Thursday, March 13, 2025. (Ashley Murray/States Newsroom) 

WASHINGTON — Wine and spirits are front and center in President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with European allies.

Just after sunrise Thursday, Trump threatened in a social media post to slap a 200% tariff on all wine, Champagne and other alcohol products from France and other European Union countries.

“This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.,” Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social.

French Foreign Trade Minister Laurent Saint-Martin responded on X by saying Trump “is escalating the trade war he chose to unleash” and that France “will not give into threats,” according to a translation.

Alcoholic beverages ranked 11th on the list of top European products exported to the United States in 2024, according to the European Commission.

U.S. imports of European wine, vermouth, spirits and beer approached $13 billion last year, according to International Trade Centre data.

U.S. bourbon and whiskey

Trump said the U.S. would be imposing the tax “shortly” if the EU does not immediately drop its plans to impose levies next month on hundreds of American products, including a 50% tariff on the country’s iconic Kentucky bourbon and Tennessee whiskey.

The EU announced Wednesday forthcoming taxes on a lengthy list of American goods, also including beer, clothes, makeup and motorcycles, in response to Trump’s 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum that took effect the same day.

The latest round of tit-for-tat tariffs is not the first time American alcohol producers have been impacted by a trade war.

A new analysis by the center-right Tax Foundation shows American distillers lost hundreds of millions after tariffs imposed during Trump’s first presidency sparked 25% retaliatory levies from the EU and the United Kingdom.

American whiskey imports to the EU and UK fell 27% from 2018 to 2019, and another 15% from 2019 to 2020, according to the analysis published Thursday. The foundation calculated that domestic distillers lost about $649 million in exports, assuming the imports would have remained flat at previous levels. The industry did not rebound until 2023.

Rebuilding spirits exports

Chris Swonger, CEO and president of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, said Wednesday the return of EU tariffs “will severely undercut the successful efforts to rebuild U.S. spirits exports in EU countries.”

“Many spirits products are recognized as ‘distinctive products’ by the U.S. and EU and can only be made in their designated countries. As a result, the production of these spirits products, including Bourbon, Tennessee Whiskey, Cognac and Irish Whiskey, cannot simply be moved to another country or region,” Swonger said in a statement.

“Reimposing these debilitating tariffs at a time when the spirits industry continues to face a slowdown in U.S. marketplace will further curtail growth and negatively impact distillers and farmers in states across the country,” Swonger continued.

The transatlantic spirits trade increased by nearly 450% from 1997 to 2018 when the U.S. and EU agreed to reciprocal zero-to-zero tariffs on alcohol beverages trade, according to the council.

A new exhibit from the Wisconsin Veterans Museum features never-before-seen or rare objects on display to highlight the contributions that Wisconsin veterans make after they leave the military.

The post New exhibit explores Wisconsin veteran contributions after military service appeared first on WPR.