Jonathan Lemire

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared sensitive attack plans in a Signal group chat. No, not that one—a different one. Some of his top Pentagon aides have been ousted, but few in the building are sure what they were ousted for, or even by whom. And the talk in Washington revolves around who might be on the short list to replace him, even as President Donald Trump delivered a firm defense of Hegseth today while standing a few feet away from a giant bunny.

Ask President Donald Trump’s aides and allies, and they’ll tell you that the proclamation that jolted the stock market this afternoon was all part of the president’s grand plan to reset America’s trade imbalance. An aggressive push on tariffs had prompted dozens of countries to come begging Trump for mercy. Once they did, he offered them a 90-day reprieve while escalating the pressure on China. The decision sent the markets into a celebratory frenzy.

During Donald Trump’s first term, advisers who wanted to check his most dramatic impulses reliably turned to two places to act as guardrails: the stock market and cable news. If the markets reacted badly to something Trump did, they found, he would likely change course to match Wall Street’s moves.

President Donald Trump didn’t know what Signal was.
Shortly before facing reporters yesterday afternoon, Trump was told by aides about a story publishing in The Atlantic disclosing that the magazine’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, had been accidentally added to a group chat on the messaging app Signal, two White House officials told me on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Vladimir Putin isn’t going to make this easy for Donald Trump.
For weeks, Trump has bragged about his close relationship with his Russian counterpart and declared that Putin wanted to bring a quick end to the war that he, of course, started more than three years ago. Trump’s national-security team worked with Ukraine to come up with a 30-day cease-fire proposal in hopes of persuading Moscow to accept it.

He denounced the European Union as “hostile” and “abusive” while threatening to ratchet up tariffs on some of its most famous goods by 200 percent. He openly mused about annexing Greenland while sitting in the Oval Office across from the head of the military alliance that would be called to defend it. He vowed to escalate a trade war with Canada while threatening its very right to exist as a sovereign nation.

President Donald Trump’s shift on the Department of Government Efficiency began with a warning from an unlikely source.
Jesse Watters, a co-host of the Fox News hit show The Five, is usually a slick deliverer of MAGA talking points. But on February 19, Watters told a surprisingly emotional story about a friend working at the Pentagon who was poised to lose his job as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce.

Today, the war in Ukraine ended, at least in a sense.
Bloody fighting between depleted militaries will continue to barely move the frozen front lines. Russian missile and drone raids will still pummel Ukrainian cities and terrorize their citizens. Gutsy, covert Ukrainian strikes will hit deep behind the Russian border.

President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to put America first, just proposed the wildest and most improbable intervention by the United States in overseas affairs since the invasion and occupation of Iraq, more than 20 years ago.
At a joint press conference with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump promised that the U.S. would become the occupier of Gaza.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we’ll do a job with it, too. We’ll own it,” Trump said.

He did not receive a single vote. He did not get confirmed. He does not receive a government paycheck.
The world’s richest man has declared war on the federal government and, in a matter of days, has moved to slash its size and reach, while gaining access to some of its most sensitive secrets. He has shaped the public discourse by wielding the powerful social-media site he controls and has threatened to use his fortune to bankroll electoral challenges to anyone who opposes him.

“We’re so back,” one reporter whispered to another.
All of the chairs in the White House briefing room were filled, and reporters and photographers were crammed into every available nook and cranny. I was standing in the back, squeezed in between a window and a none-too-pleased Secret Service agent.

When Donald Trump completes his once-unthinkable return to the White House, he’ll face a world far more violent and unsettled than when he unwillingly gave up power four years ago.
And his very presence behind the Resolute desk feels destined to destabilize it further.
Trump has offered mysterious plans to bring quick ends to the wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East.