National security adviser Mike Waltz said during tonight's Fox News interview that he does not support releasing a chain of messages on military planning that inadvertently included The Atlantic's top editor.

"I certainly want our deliberations to stay confidential," Waltz told host Laura Ingraham. "Of course, I don't want it all out there, because these were conversations back and forth that you should be able to have confidentially."

The comments were made in response to a question about whether — if the contents of the texts were not classified as Trump and his allies have claimed — Waltz would object to the public release of the messages.

Goldberg wrote in his article yesterday that plans in the group text “included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing,” but that he had not included those details due to national security concerns.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

A super PAC tied to billionaire Elon Musk has started spending in two deeply Republican House seats in Florida ahead of next week’s special elections, according to a new campaign finance report. 

America PAC, which has not filed a financial disclosure yet this year but was almost entirely funded by Musk in 2024, is spending $20,000 on “texting services” to boost Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis in Florida's 1st Congressional District and state Sen. Randy Fine in Florida's 6th District, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission Tuesday night, which was first reported by The New York Times.

America PAC’s spending in the special elections is minimal so far compared to the millions of dollars that have already been spent there. But it is a sign that Musk may be paying attention to the contests, as he is continuing to ramp up his political engagement while serving as a key White House adviser. America PAC has also spent millions of dollars on next week’s state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. 

Read the full story here on NBCNews.com.

In keeping with long-standing baseball tradition, President Trump has invited the 2024 World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers to the White House when they play in Washington D.C. on April 7. The Dodgers look forward to visiting the White House and celebrating our title.

In…

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) March 25, 2025

National security adviser Mike Waltz said during a Fox News interview tonight that he takes "full responsibility" for organizing a text group on the messaging app Signal that accidentally leaked plans for U.S. airstrikes on Houthi militants in Yemen to an editor from The Atlantic.

"I take full responsibility. I built the — I built the group," Waltz told host Laura Ingraham in his first public comments since the story broke yesterday. "My job is to make sure everything's coordinated."

The comment came in response to a question about whether a staffer was responsible for adding The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the group.

Waltz also suggested, without evidence, that Goldberg might have "deliberately" appeared in the group, which included top administration officials.

A Columbia University student who faces potential deportation for her involvement in a pro-Palestinian protest cannot be detained by immigration officials for now as she fights the Trump administration in court, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said in Manhattan court that the government had not laid out enough facts about its claims against Yunseo Chung.

The 21-year-old lawful permanent resident who came to the U.S. as a child filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Monday, arguing the government is “attempting to use immigration enforcement as a bludgeon to suppress speech that they dislike.”

In a statement Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said she had “engaged in concerning conduct,” including being arrested at a protest.

The president signed an executive order today punishing a law firm that hired Andrew Weissmann, a Trump critic who was a prosecutor on former special counsel Robert Mueller's team that investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The order directs that employees of the firm Jenner & Block be stripped of security clearances and have their access to federal buildings limited, and for federal agencies to terminate any contracts with the firm.

The order repeatedly singles out Weissmann, who's an NBC News & MSNBC legal analyst. "Andrew Weissmann is the main culprit, with respect to this," Trump said as he signed the order in the White House. "He's a bad guy."

Weissmann declined to comment this evening.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote a short letter to Trump today urging him to "immediately" fire Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, citing military plans that were inadvertently shared with a journalist in a group text.

"Pete Hegseth is the most unqualified Secretary of Defense in American history. His continued presence in the top position of leadership at the Pentagon threatens the nation’s security and puts our brave men and women in uniform throughout the world in danger," Jeffries wrote.

Referring to the leaked plans for U.S. airstrikes on Houthi militants in Yemen, Jeffries wrote that Hegseth had "recklessly and casually disclosed highly sensitive war plans."

"His behavior shocks the conscience, risked American lives and likely violated the law," Jeffries added.

The case was brought by several long-serving transgender military members who say the ban is insulting and discriminatory. They say their firing would cause lasting damage to their careers and reputations.

A Justice Department lawyer argued the president was entitled to deference in military affairs. The judge peppered him with questions, noting the government had offered no evidence that allowing transgender troops to serve openly has caused any problems for military readiness.

The judge said he will rule by 5 p.m. Thursday.

Last week a judge in Washington, D.C., issued an order blocking enforcement of Trump’s executive order, but then put her own ruling temporarily on hold. Following additional legal briefing, she is expected to make a final decision by Thursday.

Senate Armed Services Committee members are weighing how they intend to get more information from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the information he shared on the Signal chat with Jeffrey Goldberg, with Democrats urging Republicans to call Hegseth to testify before the Committee.

“Well, I think it would be helpful, certainly,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the committee's ranking member, told NBC News today about whether he wants Hegseth to testify about the Signal chat. “And also, it would reaffirm his assertions that there was nothing unusual or inappropriate about the conversation.”

The committee's chair, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said no decision has been made on the path forward.

Wicker and Reed discussed having Hegseth testify before the committee before the worldwide threats hearing, and Wicker signaled openness, according to a Democratic source with knowledge. But Wicker suggested he wants to get Hegseth on the phone or receive a copy of the full Signal chat. 

Kevin Cabrera, President Donald Trump’s pick for ambassador to Panama, faced a call from Democrats in his confirmation hearing to commit to upholding Panama’s sovereignty and advising the president to do the same. But Cabrera responded that he would defer to Trump.

Cabrera pointed out that Trump has said “all the options are on the table” when asserting U.S. control over the Panama Canal, but added that part of that included “diplomacy.”

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said she appreciated a “focus on diplomacy,” but was worried by the threats of sending military force or coercing Panama to relinquish control over the canal.

Cabrera responded, “President Trump is our commander in chief, and I stand behind him and his policies.”

Leon Neal/Getty Images

Speaking from the White House in a lengthy back-and-forth with reporters, Trump downplayed the events and said the chat contained “no classified information, as I understand it.” 

“They were using an app, as I understand it, that a lot of people in government use, a lot of people in the media use,” he said.

Trump said he didn’t want Waltz to be “hurt” by the breach and saw no need for him to apologize, even as the president said aides would “probably” not use Signal any longer. 

“If it was up to me, everybody would be sitting in a room together,” Trump said. “The room would have solid lead walls and a lead ceiling and a lead floor. But you know, life doesn’t always let you do that.”

A federal appeals court today temporarily halted a lower court's order that the U.S. Agency for International Development reopen its headquarters.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an administrative stay of U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang's order until Thursday, an indication it will decide in the next 48 hours on the administration's request for a stay while a full appeal is heard.

The Baltimore judge found last week that the efforts of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to largely dismantle USAID “likely violated the United States Constitution in multiple ways."

The judge issued a preliminary injunction ordering the agency to reopen its headquarters and restore access to email, payment and other electronic systems for all USAID employees and contractors.

The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-13 to advance Dr. Mehmet Oz’s nomination to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

A confirmation vote in the full Senate has not been scheduled yet.

A federal judge temporarily halted the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s cancellation of millions of dollars in grants that went to nonprofits that enforce the federal anti-discrimination law.

Those nonprofits field the majority of fair housing complaints, most of which concern discrimination based on a disability, and use the grants to help investigate and litigate the cases for Americans nationwide.

The Associated Press first reported last month that HUD sent letters of termination to over 60 of the nonprofits. The department said the terminated grants were incompatible with President Donald Trump’s executive orders, which partly targeted funding awards that included diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, language.

The judge ordered the money to keep flowing to the nonprofits for now, saying that he wanted to see how other, similar cases over funding cuts by the Trump administration proceed.

It is designed to “cut down” on the number of immigrants in the country illegally who are on the voter rolls and would “fully weaponize” Department of Homeland Security data to ensure such migrants aren’t casting ballots.

The action seeks to include a “citizenship question” on federal voting forms and reduce federal election funding to states that don’t take “reasonable steps” to secure their balloting.

It also revokes a Biden administration order from 2021 designed to promote access to voting.

The administration is calling it “the farthest-reaching executive action taken in the history of the Republic to secure our elections.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that he “suspects” the Senate Armed Services Committee may hold hearings and have national security officials testify who were involved in the signal group chat discussing strikes on the Houthis. 

“I suspect the Armed Services Committee may want to have some folks testify and have some questions answered as well,” Thune said. “I think everybody has acknowledged, including the White House, that, yeah, mistakes were made, and what we want to do is make sure that something like that doesn’t happen again.”

Trump has signed a pardon for Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's ex-business partner. Trump says Archer was targeted politically for cooperating with a probe into the Bidens and called him the “victim of a crime, as far as I’m concerned.”

Archer was convicted of securities fraud in 2018. A Trump aide told the president on Tuesday that the “tone and tenor” of the prosecution changed after Archer began to cooperate and serve as a witness against Hunter Biden, former President Joe Biden’s son.

Archer’s conviction was overturned later in 2018, but the court of appeals in New York reinstated it in 2020. The U.S. Supreme Court later rejected Archer’s appeals to overturn the conviction.

“Congratulations, Devon,” Trump said after he signed the pardon document.

President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Social Security Administration, Frank Bisignano, got an earful from Senate Democrats at his confirmation hearing Tuesday, in the wake of early actions by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to downsize the agency.

Democratic senators pressed Bisignano on whether he was involved in discussions about DOGE operations regarding onboarding personnel, which he denied. They grilled him on whether he agrees with Musk’s rhetorical attacks on the program, which he sidestepped. They asked him to reassure them that Trump is telling the truth when he says he doesn’t want to slash benefits for seniors, and that he’d protect the program if confirmed.

“It’s bedlam out there in Social Security,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking member of the Finance Committee.

“The urgency for today’s hearing couldn’t be greater. Since Donald Trump took office, Social Security has experienced the most chaos in its history,” he said. “Mass personnel layoffs, eliminating phone service for basic help, sending seniors to overcrowded and understaffed field offices that have also been put on the chopping block for closure, political appointees poking around your most sensitive private information.”

States that successfully sued the Trump administration over its federal funding freeze say the government has yet to release some disaster relief money, and are asking a judge to force the Federal Emergency Management Agency to release the cash.

"The parties remain at an impasse as to millions of dollars in obligated FEMA awards, which are and have remained frozen dating to as early as February 7," the coalition of states with Democratic attorneys general said in a court filing yesterday.

"Plaintiff States will need to wind down important programmatic emergency services, including disaster relief to people and communities affected by the Maui wildfires, in short order if funding is not immediately unfrozen." 

The filing says 4,000 individual wildfire survivors could lose services soon if the funds aren't released, and that Oregon and Colorado are facing imminent major disruptions as well.

Facing pressure from his right flank to take on judges who have ruled against President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Tuesday floated the possibility of Congress eliminating federal courts.

It’s the latest attack from Republicans on the federal judiciary, as courts have blocked a series of actions taken by the Trump administration. In addition to funding threats, Trump and his conservative allies have called for the impeachment of certain district court judges who have ruled against him, most notably U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who attempted to halt Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants.

“We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”

Read the full story at NBCNews.com.

Questioned by Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., at the hearing, Gabbard refused to say whether she was using her personal or work phone in the Signal text chain on planned strikes against Houthi forces in Yemen.

“Were you using your private phone or public phone for the Signal discussions?” Reed asked.

Gabbard replied: “I won’t speak to this because it’s under review by the National Security Council. Once that review is complete, I’m sure we’ll share the results with the committee."

Reed followed up: “What is under review? It’s a very simple question, were you using a private phone or officially issued phone? What could be under review?"

Gabbard declined to answer directly. “The National Security Council is reviewing all aspects of how this came to be, how the journalist was inadvertently added to the group chat and what occurred within that chat across the board,” she said.

President Donald Trump’s top intelligence officials claimed Tuesday that they did not share any classified materials in a group text about U.S. military plans that inadvertently included a journalist.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe both downplayed the mishap during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing a day after The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he had been added to a text thread about U.S. military plans to strike Houthi militias in Yemen.

The incident has raised questions about the Trump administration’s handling of classified information as well as its use of Signal and other electronic communications.

Read the full story at NBCNews.com.

The Republican strategy so far in the hearing appears to be to ignore, minimize and downplay the Signal chat.

No Republican senator has asked about it so far. Instead, Republican senators have focused their questions on migrants, cartels and China.

Gabbard did not mention the call in her opening statement. When Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the committee, asked her about the call, she downplayed its importance, saying, “There was no classified material shared." Ratcliffe gave a similar answer.

When Warner asked Gabbard if she planned to hand over the Signal exchange to the committee, she gave an unclear answer. When Warner asked FBI Director Kash Patel if he had launched an investigation into the call, he said he had only been briefed on it late last night.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., began his opening remarks at the Senate hearing on worldwide threats by slamming the White House officials whom The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg reported as having been involved in a Signal group chat discussing military plans that inadvertently included him.

Warner called the group chat mishap an example of "sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly towards classified information."

"Putting aside for a moment that classified information should never be discussed over an unclassified system, it's also just mind-boggling to me that all these senior folks were on this line, and nobody bothered even check," Warner said, referring to Goldberg having been included in the discussion. "Security hygiene 101: Who are all the names?"

Top officials reportedly discussed secret U.S. military plans in a group chat with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic who was inadvertently added. Secretary of State Pete Hegseth said Monday “nobody was texting war plans,” but the national security council spokesperson says it "appears to be an authentic message chain.” NBC’s Garrett Haake reports and NBC’s Hallie Jackson joins with analysis.

Trump is scheduled to sign more executive orders today at 2 p.m. ET, the White House said.

No details were provided on the focus of the orders.

Further contacts between U.S. and Russian officials on achieving a proposed ceasefire in Ukraine are likely to follow a round of talks Monday, a Kremlin official said Tuesday, but no concrete plans have yet been made.

The American and Russian negotiators held talks throughout the day on Monday in the capital of Saudi Arabia to hammer out details on a partial pause in the 3-year-old war in Ukraine, a day after U.S. officials held separate talks in Riyadh with a team from Kyiv.

It has been a struggle to reach even a limited, 30-day ceasefire — which Moscow and Kyiv agreed to in principle last week — with both sides continuing to attack each other with drones and missiles and disagreement over what kinds of targets would be included in a pause on strikes.

On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the the outcome of the talks in Riyadh “has been reported in the capitals” and was currently being “analyzed” by Moscow and Washington, but that the Kremlin has no plans to release any details of what was discussed to the public.

President Donald Trump gathered his Cabinet secretaries for a third known meeting Monday morning with Elon Musk in attendance, praising his department leaders for their cost-cutting measures even as he acknowledged they may not be “popular.”

Trump told the room that the cuts had to happen regardless of the political ramifications, saying, “I have no idea how it plays out in the public ... but it's something that has to be done.”

Musk, who is leading the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting initiative, has drawn criticism over his downsizing effort, and the meeting appeared choreographed to highlight its effectiveness and how department heads and Musk were delivering on its mandate. 

Read the full story on NBC News.com

Top national security officials for President Donald Trump, including his defense secretary, texted war plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen to a group chat in a secure messaging app that included the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic, the magazine reported in a story posted online Monday. The National Security Council said the text chain “appears to be authentic.”

Trump initially told reporters he was not aware that the highly sensitive information had been shared, 2 1/2 hours after it was reported. He later appeared to joke about the breach.

The material in the text chain “contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported.

It was not immediately clear if the specifics of the military operation were classified, but they often are and at the least are kept secure to protect service members and operational security. The U.S. has conducted airstrikes against the Houthis since the militant group began targeting commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea in November 2023.

Read the full article here

The Trump administration's top intelligence officials face Congress for back-to-back hearings this week, their first opportunity since being sworn in to testify about the threats facing the United States and what the government is doing to counter them.

FBI Director Kash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, are among the witnesses who will appear Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee and Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee.

Tuesday's hearing will take place one day after news broke that several top national security officials in the Trump administration, including Ratcliffe and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, texted war plans for upcoming military strikes in Yemen to a group chat in a secure messaging app that included the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic.