Amateur Hour in Trump White House
Trump’s foreign policy heavy hitters caught up in massive security breach; administration's disdain for Europe horrifies EU
President Trump characterized an extraordinary security breach as a minor transgression on Tuesday, insisting that top administration officials had not shared any classified information as they discussed secret military plans in a group chat that included the editor in chief of The Atlantic magazine. “So this was not classified,” Mr. Trump said during a meeting with U.S. ambassadors at the White House. “Now if it’s classified information, it’s probably a little bit different, but I always say, you have to learn from every experience.” Mr. Trump also stood by his national security adviser, Michael Waltz, who had inadvertently added the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat on the Signal app, which included Vice President JD Vance and others. In the chat, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared information on timing, targets and weapons systems to be used in an attack on Houthi militants in Yemen, according to Mr. Goldberg. “I think it was very unfair the way they attacked Michael,” the president said of Mr. Waltz. Former national security officials said they were skeptical that the information shared by Mr. Hegseth ahead of the March 15 strike was not classified, given the life-or-death nature of the operation. The president and the secretary of defense have the ability to assert, even retroactively, that information is declassified. But officials have refused to answer questions about the specifics of the information or who, exactly, determined that it was unclassified and could be shared on Signal, an encrypted commercial app. Mr. Hegseth denounced Mr. Goldberg late Monday, saying he had been “peddling hoaxes time and time again.” But on Tuesday morning, testifying in the Senate, the nation’s top two intelligence officials conceded that the exchanges released by The Atlantic were accurate - NYT
Russia will only implement a White House-brokered agreement to stop using force in the Black Sea when sanctions imposed on its banks and exports over its invasion of Ukraine are lifted, the Kremlin said Tuesday, adding further uncertainty to both ongoing peace negotiations and the wider ambition of establishing a full cease-fire. Following days of separate talks with Ukrainian and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia, the White House said the two sides had agreed “to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea” while also agreeing to implement a previously announced pause on attacks against energy infrastructure. The agreements – which represent a potentially significant step forward, while falling far short of a 30-day full ceasefire initially proposed by the White House – were outlined in two separate, but very similar statements from the White House on Tuesday. But while Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed in a news conference that Ukraine had agreed to stop using military force in the Black Sea, the Kremlin released its own statement on the talks, which included far-reaching conditions for signing up to the partial truce. Those included lifting sanctions on its agricultural bank and other financial institutions and companies involved in exporting food and their re-connection to the US-controlled SWIFT international payments system. Those sanctions were imposed after Moscow launched its unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. On Tuesday afternoon, US President Donald Trump told reporters that his administration was looking at Russia’s conditions. “We’re thinking about all of them right now. There are five or six conditions. We are looking at all of them,” the US president said at the White House. The Russian stipulations raise fresh questions as to how or when such a limited agreement could be implemented, and highlight what remains a significant gulf in expectations between the two warring sides - CNN
“It’s becoming clearer and clearer of an increasing alignment between the Trump administration and the Kremlin” - Michael Bociurkiw on BBC World TV
Experts react: What to know about the US-led Black Sea cease-fire deal with Russia and Ukraine
A sea change? On Tuesday, the White House announced that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a cease-fire on the Black Sea and to hammer out the details of a pause on attacking each other’s energy infrastructure. This deal marks the next step in US President Donald Trump’s fast-moving efforts to bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, following his call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 18. However, notable differences between the US and Russian readouts of the talks—especially with Russia saying the cease-fire will not begin until certain US sanctions are lifted—may indicate choppy waters ahead. Atlantic Council experts navigate us through what to know about the deal and what’s on the horizon. Click here to read.
Thousands of people in Turkey have turned out for a seventh night of protests which have so far seen more than 1,400 people detained, including students, journalists and lawyers. The nightly unrest began last Wednesday when the city's Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu - who is seen as the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's main political rival - was arrested on corruption charges. Rights groups and the UN have condemned the arrests and the use of force by police on the protesters. Imamoglu said the allegations against him were politically motivated, a claim the Turkish president has denied - BBC
The US vice-president will accompany his wife on a visit to the Arctic island, a trip Denmark's prime minister has previously said is not what 'Greenland wants or needs.' But JD Vance scaled back the visit amid criticism of the original trip. A delegation from Washington including JD and Usha Vance, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright were set to visit semi-autonomous Danish territory from Thursday until Sunday. Usha Vance's office originally said she and one of her three children had planned to visit Greenland's historical sites and take part in a dog-sled race, but her husband suggested the trip would now be centred on a visit to the US Pituffik Space base on the northwest coast of the island. Waltz's name has since been omitted from the list of visitors after JD Vance announced he was attending - Euronews
Police in Moldova detained the leader of the country's pro-Russian Gagauz ethnic minority at Chisinau's international airport late on Tuesday, following the unexplained disappearance of two other wanted pro-Russian lawmakers. Eugenia Gutul, the leader, or bashkan, of Gagauzia, was being held for 72 hours in the capital. "The action is being taken within the context of a criminal case," an official told reporters. Gagauzia, a 140,000-strong region in the south of Moldova, is dominated by ethnic Turks who favour close ties with Russia, adhere to Orthodox Christianity and have had uneasy relations with central authorities since Moldovan independence in 1991. Gutul, a fierce critic of the government, was elected bashkan in 2023 with backing from fugitive business magnate Ilan Shor, who was sentenced in 2023 to 15 years in prison in connection with the disappearance of $1 billion from Moldovan banks. She has met Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin while visiting Moscow. Gutul, whose election as bashkan has never been recognised by Sandu, is due to be sentenced soon on charges of corruption and financing a political bloc led by Shor from exile in Russia - Reuters
A military correspondent for Russia's state-run Channel One was killed by a mine explosion near the Ukrainian border, the broadcaster said Wednesday. The incident occurred on the Russian side of the border in the Belgorod region, according to Channel One. "Channel One war correspondent Anna Prokofieva died while performing her professional duty," the network said in a statement. "Channel One's film crew struck an enemy mine." The explosion also wounded cameraman Dmitry Volkov, the broadcaster said. Prokofieva, 35, has been covering the war in Ukraine for Channel One since 2023. Her last post on Telegram, dated Tuesday, showed her sitting in a forest wearing military fatigues and a head-mounted camera. Several Russian journalists have been killed during the war, including an Izvestia war correspondent who died Monday in Ukraine's Kharkiv region. At least 21 journalists have been killed since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, according to the International Federation of Journalists - Moscow Times
A US court granted Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) in its lawsuit against the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) over the termination of RFE/RL’s congressionally appropriated funding. As reported by the Prague-based media outlet, the United States District Court in Washington, D.C. said in its ruling on March 25 that the agency likely acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” in terminating RFE/RL’s grant and that the actions would cause the broadcaster "irreparable harm" if carried out. United States District Judge Royce Lamberth wrote in the 10-page ruling that the TRO was needed to halt the closure as RFE/RL had shown it is likely to win its case in a court hearing, that allowing the USAGM moves to continue until a court hearing on the fate of RFE/RL's funding would cause "irreparable harm" to the broadcaster, and that issuing the order was in the public interest. "The leadership of USAGM cannot, with one sentence of reasoning offering virtually no explanation, force RFE/RL to shut down—even if the President has told them to do so," Lamberth explained. The next step will be a decision on RFE/RL’s request for a preliminary injunction requiring USAGM to provide the approximately $77 million that Congress appropriated for RFE/RL’s activities for the rest of the 2025 fiscal year, which ends September 30. The court is expected to rule on that in the coming weeks.
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