This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. The White House on Thursday announced it was walking away from the nomination of Elise Stefanik to be the United States’ representative at the United Nations, a plum gig that has been a launching pad for folks like George H.W. Bush and Madeleine Albright. In pulling the nom, the Trump administration acknowledged that the Republicans’ slim majority in the House would be imperiled if she stepped away. The choice of Stefanik, a no-nonsense and pragmatic millennial, to represent the U.S. at the United Nations was widely viewed as Trump’s most responsible pick in an otherwise chaotic Cabinet. Given a choice between a solid rep on the world stage and a guaranteed yes vote in the House, Trump served himself in the short term but short-changed his already-wobbly diplomatic portfolio. "There are others that can do a good job at the United Nations," the President wrote on his social-media platform, Truth Social. Earlier this year, Stefanik stepped out of her role as a member of House Republican Leadership to prepare for her new job in New York, where she was poised to serve at turns as Washington’s enforcer of MAGA’s vision for the world and as that world’s punching bag. Instead, she is being pushed aside on the argument that her House seat in Upstate New York is too valuable to be put in play. It was an unexpected development for many in Congress, including some Democrats, who looked forward to watching how one of their own might navigate the tricky terrain of global diplomacy while balancing the realities of Trumpism and responsible policy. House Republicans have a fragile majority, one that is going to be tested next week with special elections in Florida that should be safely red but have some worried a Trump backlash may be stronger than most realize. Republicans around Washington are worried about the pair of ballots heading to school gyms, church rec rooms, and library basements on Tuesday. With a razor-thin majority—and tons of outside money pouring into Florida—House Republicans have zero margin for error. And ceding New York’s seat held by Stefanik would only add to the frailty, even in yet another district that Trump carried easily just a few months ago. Stefanik had exactly the right resume for the job she just lost. Before joining Congress, she worked in the George W. Bush White House and served as a policy adviser to Mitt Romney’s running mate, future Speaker Paul Ryan. She is a Harvard-educated pro who was seen as a future heavy hitter in the GOP. She put on the armor to be Trump’s defender during two impeachments, even as she realized it was a risky move. She rolled the dice and learned why the House almost always wins. It was only a few months ago that Trump asked Stefanik to give up her hard-won seat and she agreed. She aced her Senate confirmation hearing. She wooed the right diplomats in courtesy calls. She made the rounds with the proper players in the foreign policy think tanks while winking that she still had an eye on Cold War strategic baselines. She even got plaudits from Democrats who otherwise view the Trump 2.0 team as a parade of amateurism worthy of contempt. Still, it fell apart when Trump realized he would rather preserve a coin-toss majority in the House than have what some hoped would be a slam-dunk Ambassador on the global stage. It’s why House Speaker Mike Johnson, half-jokingly, said in November that Trump “fully understands and appreciates the math here” to preserve the majority and told him to stop raiding the cookie jar. At Trump’s first joint address to Congress in his second term, rather than join the Cabinet in the primo stage, Stefanik sat with House rank-and-file membership. She was relegated to the cheap seats because her vote was needed to keep Johnson wedded to the gavel. The bet was that she would get the bump up to the U.N. once things were settled in Florida, where voters have choices next week over who gets to replace Mike Waltz, who got the promotion to run the White House Situation Room as Trump’s national security adviser, and Matt Gaetz, whose alleged interest in young women and drugs forced him from office. Instead, Stefanik is getting put back on the bench. The White House says she would rejoin House Leadership, but it’s not as if the slots there have an opening. There’s a rich history of parties creating new jobs when exceptional talent is willing to take them on, but Stefanik already gave up a legitimately powerful position to take on that unenviable task of representing Trump on the global stage. Now, she’s back at the job she was set to leave because Republicans have 218 seats in the House, Democrats have 213 seats, and four are open. Some are surely enjoying some schadenfreude at Stefanik’s expense. Eight years ago, she ran the numbers and decided aligning with Trump would serve her better than joining former bosses like Karl Rove. She defended Trump’s worst impulses, raised a boatload of cash for House Republican sycophants, and hitched her wagon to MAGA’s star. “I look forward to the day when Elise is able to join my Administration in the future,” Trump wrote. In the meantime, she’s the latest casualty of a President burning up his political capital faster than he expected.

When Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear on Saturday vetoed a bill seeking to overturn his Executive Order banning conversion therapy—a practice that attempts to alter a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity—the act was effectively futile. By Thursday evening, Kentucky Republicans overwhelmingly voted to overrule the governor’s veto, legalizing the practice and adding to the mounting score of attacks against LGBTQ+ people— especially youth—that has intensified over the past few years. More than 500 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in state legislatures for the 2025 legislative session, according to the ACLU’s legislative tracker. “What we're seeing now is the result of a re-energized coalition of groups—all of which are conservative—particularly enhanced at this moment by threads of Christian nationalism,” says Michael Bronski, a Harvard professor who specializes in gender studies. As legislative sessions across several states come to a close, experts do not expect a domino effect of state legislation seeking to overturn conversion therapy bans in the 23 states that have them. “States are more likely to go about the question in a slightly different way,” says Cathryn Oakley, senior director of legal policy at the Human Rights Campaign. Oakley expects to see states “conflating the critical distinction between the effort to ban conversion therapy—which prohibits fraudulent, abusive practices that fly in the face of medical recommendations—and the effort to prevent transgender adolescents from receiving best-practice, medically-supported, evidence-based transition-related care.” The Supreme Court this year will deliver a decision on U.S. v. Skrmetti, which challenges Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming-care for youth and could also restrict care for adults. Conversion therapy has been discredited by medical organizations such as the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, who have called the practice both ineffective at changing a person’s identity, and harmful. Youth who were exposed to conversion therapy are more than twice as likely to report attempting suicide, according a peer-reviewed study by the Trevor Project, published in the American Journal of Public Health. Of the LGBTQ+ youth who attempted suicide in 2023, nearly 30% of them were subjected to conversion therapy, according to the Trevor Project’s 2024 national survey on the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth aged 13 to 24. Conversion therapy is also linked to greater symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a 2024 study by Stanford Medicine researchers. There is no nationwide ban on conversion therapy. But even though nearly half of the U.S. has laws banning the practice, it is still happening across the U.S., with registered therapists in every state except Hawaii and Vermont, as of 2023. Some conversion therapists have been able to skirt bans by advertising their services as “reparative therapy,” or promising to help patients deal with “unwanted same-sex attraction.” Experts say the ideology behind conversion therapy is also part of the rhetoric behind anti-trans legislation. “You can only ban access to health care that doctors and parents want for their transgender kids if you believe that their gender identity can be changed,” says Casey Pick, director of law and policy at the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ+ youth. “The anti-trans belief structure of conversion therapy has been the unspoken participant in all of this anti-trans legislation.” Earlier this March, the Supreme Court announced it will hear Chiles v. Salazar, a case challenging Colorado’s conversion therapy ban. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which has been designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, is representing plaintiff Kathy Chiles, a licensed counselor who argues that the ban censors her free speech. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled in favor of the state, upholding the ban due to the harms of conversion therapy and alleging the law advises over therapists’ conduct. But the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled differently. In 2020, the court said that the free speech rights of conversion therapists were being infringed upon by a ban, enjoining bans on conversion therapy in three states—Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. The Alliance Defending Freedom did not respond to TIME’s request for an interview. Some experts optimistically view the upcoming Supreme Court case, in which a ruling is expected in June 2026, as a chance for the nation’s top judicial body to stand against conversion therapy bans, especially given the circuit split. “There's some disagreement within the many courts that have upheld the bans as to what the legal rationale is. So it may well be that the court can take a look at this and find that prohibiting these dangerous practices is entirely consistent with hundreds of years of tradition and practice in this country of regulating medical conduct,” says Pick. And she maintains that conversion therapy bans have been largely bipartisan, passing in states with Republican governors. The Trump Administration, however, has acted swiftly against the transgender community, passing Executive Orders limiting their ability to change gender markers and access gender-affirming-care. Democrats last re-introduced a federal conversion therapy ban in 2023, before Republicans took control over both chambers of Congress, though the bill did not move forward. The goal of both the Administration, and Republicans, Bronski says, is clear. “The attack on transgender people, which is devastating, is actually the beginning of the attack on other groups,” he says. The “larger project,” particularly with acts like conversion therapy that seek to make someone cisgender or straight, is the “simple eradication of queer visibility.” If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental-health crisis or contemplating suicide, call or text 988. In emergencies, call 911, or seek care from a local hospital or mental health provider.

The ongoing trade war between the U.S. and its neighboring allies has escalated further after President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he would be imposing a 25% tariff on auto imports. The act, which the President issued in an attempt to bolster domestic automobile production, adds to increasing tensions between the U.S. and Canada. The Administration has threatened Canada’s sovereignty by suggesting that Canada becomes the 51st state and referring to the former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “governor.” Trump Announces 25% Auto Tariffs On All Cars Not Made In US President Donald Trump displays a signed Executive Order related to tariffs in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, March 26, 2025.Francis Chung—Getty Images The ongoing trade war between the U.S. and its neighboring allies has escalated further after President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he would be imposing a 25% tariff on auto imports. The act, which the President issued in an attempt to bolster domestic automobile production, adds to increasing tensions between the U.S. and Canada. The Administration has threatened Canada’s sovereignty by suggesting that Canada becomes the 51st state and referring to the former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “governor.” Officials of the U.S.’ northern neighbor have continuously called on the President to pause tariffs between the two allied nations. “This is a very direct attack,” said Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Wednesday. “We will defend our workers. We will defend our companies. We will defend our country.” Autos are Canada’s second-largest export. Previously announced 25% steel tariffs also pose a risk to Canada, as it is one of the biggest steel import sources for the U.S., per the International Trade Administration. Trump, as part of his “America First” policy, has signaled that he wants to stop relying on other countries to produce local goods. “We don't need their lumber, we don’t need their energy. We have more than they do. We don’t need anything. We don’t need their cars. I’d much rather make the cars here,” Trump said earlier in March. “Now, there’ll be a little disruption, but it won’t be very long. But they need us. We really don’t need them.” The White House said on Wednesday that existing trade agreements between the U.S. and its neighbors have not “sufficiently mitigated the threat to national security posed by imports of automobiles and certain automobile parts. These new tariffs aim to ensure the U.S. can sustain its domestic industrial base and meet national security needs.” But U.S. dependency on Canadian exports is significant, standing at about 18%, according to a newly-published report by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, titled “Which American Cities Are the Most Export-Dependent on Canada?” That statistic is much smaller than Canada's export reliance on the U.S., which lies at 75%, but the Chamber’s research suggests that many U.S. cities stand to be affected by tariffs between the two countries. With Trump’s tariffs set to be implemented in April, here are the U.S. cities that would be most vulnerable to the impact of Canadian tariffs, per the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s report. San Antonio San Antonio, Texas, topped the list as the city that is most export-dependent on Canada, and thus would be most impacted from reduced Canadian demand. The metro is home to the automotive, aerospace, and oil refining industries. Per the Office of the United States Trade Representative, in 2024, Texas exported $36.6 billion in goods to Canada, which came second only to Mexico.
Overall, in 2023, San Antonio-New Braunfels recorded $12.8 billion in goods exports. Detroit Despite the historic decline of the Rust Belt, once the heartland of the steel and manufacturing industry, Detroit, Mich.,—also known as “Motor City”—earned the second spot on the list. Detroit (and its suburbs) is home to the major three automakers: General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Stellantis. The White House clarified in a Wednesday fact sheet that companies that import vehicles through the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) would remain tariff-free until Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick worked to build a process to “apply tariffs to their non-U.S. content.” Automakers are still seeking clarity on how they will be affected by tariffs. The city also has the Ambassador Bridge, which facilitates the transit of an estimated $323 million in goods across the Windsor, Canada-Detroit border on a day-to-day basis. Read More: What Are Tariffs and Why Is Trump In Favor of Them? Kansas City Kansas City, Mo., which also harbors a car assembly plant, exports nearly 40% of their product to Canada. In total, their exports to Canada amount to nearly $4 billion of goods, per the report. Estimates from the state as a whole amount to $6.3 billion in goods to Canada in 2024, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas met with Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham in February for a meeting that centered on trade relations. “Canada is a key part of Kansas City’s success in trade and economic development. I was honored to break bread recently with Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham,” Lucas said in an Instagram post. “I look forward to visiting Winnipeg and supporting the strong relationship of our cities and countries.” Canada is Missouri’s largest market. As a state, Missouri imports goods such as transportation equipment and primary manufactures from Canada, per a Missouri Partnership fact sheet. There are nearly 100 Canadian companies in Missouri and 31 Missouri companies in Canada. Louisville Similar to the other metros, Louisville, Ky., is also involved in the automotive supply chain. The region exports nearly $4 billion in goods to Canada, according to the Canadian Commerce report. Per the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Kentucky exported $9.3 billion in goods to Canada in 2024, representing 20% of the state’s total goods exports. Nashville Nashville, Tenn., is the fifth metro on the list. Tennessee exported $7.8 billion in goods to Canada in 2024, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Prior to the auto tariffs, Flair Airlines Ltd. announced it would be cancelling its summer flights to Nashville, according to the Financial Post. The Tennessee Department of Tourist Development cited Canadian reaction to political news. “We know how important the dollars are to spend, to keep talking to folks through the noise and, right now, it’s loud for Canada and we are seeing a lot of cancellations, but it’s one we think we can overcome because we think Tennessee’s got so many great assets and Canada is our No. 1 traveller market,” Mark Ezell, commissioner for the state’s tourism development office, is quoted as telling the Post.

The U.S. intelligence community published its 2025 annual threat assessment on March 25. Missing from the document was any mention of climate change—marking the first time in over a decade that the topic has not appeared on the list. "What I focused this annual threat assessment on, and the [Intelligence Committee] focused this threat assessment on, are the most extreme and critical direct threats to our national security," Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said in response to questioning on the removal during a Senate Intelligence Committee. Gabbard said she “didn’t recall” instructing the intelligence community to avoid mentioning climate change in the report. But the change comes amid the Trump Administration’s continued push for a deprioritization of climate change in the federal agenda. The U.S. government has considered climate change a global security threat for at least three decades. Academic reports at the Naval War College included environmental stressors and climate change in the 1980s, says Mark Nevitt, associate professor of law at Emory University. On the federal level, climate change was first acknowledged as a national security threat by President George W. Bush in August 1991, and the U.S. national security community first listed the issue as a threat in 2008. The issue has typically been included on the annual threat assessment list because of its destabilizing impact—both domestically and abroad. “The annual threat assessment is projecting forward about where the areas of concern and the areas of competition [are], and where the U.S. national security sector should be focusing its attention,” says Nevitt. “Because climate change is just destabilizing different parts of the world, through extreme weather, through droughts, through sea level rise…the intelligence community wants to be ready for future conflicts and future areas of competition.” Climate change is often referred to as a “threat multiplier” by the intelligence community, because it aggravates already existing problems, while also creating new ones. “It takes things that we were already worried about, like extremism or terrorism, and exacerbates the scale or nature of those threats,” says Scott Moore, practice professor of political science, with a focus on climate and security, at the University of Pennsylvania. “If you have these intensified climate change impacts, they place stress on things like food systems, and worsen already existing tensions within countries.” Climate migration, for example, is on the rise around the world—more than half of new internal displacements within countries registered in 2023 were caused by weather related disasters, according to the Migration Data Portal. “Mass migration leads to a lot of political and social tensions as well as border issues,” says Karen Seto, professor of geography and urbanization science at the Yale School of the Environment. “That … could affect national security, because it could destabilize an entire region.” One study from the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that extreme weather is contributing to migration into the United States through the southern border—with more migrants from agricultural regions in Mexico settling in the United States following extreme drought. Such displacement can have major impacts on people's lives and livelihoods, experts say—especially in already fragile regions. “If you have, for example, a really extreme and intensified drought in a country in which extremist ideologies are percolating, these climate change impacts may make it more likely that people are going to stop farming, or might migrate to cities where they may face difficult employment prospects, be socially dislocated and may be more vulnerable to extremism or engaging in some type of violence,” says Moore. On a domestic level, considering climate change helps the U.S. military ensure that infrastructure is built to withstand extreme weather events—and respond to national disasters both domestically and abroad. “You need the National Guard, the Coast Guard, the U.S. military, to basically help out their community when there's an extreme weather event,” says Nevitt. As extreme weather events intensify with climate change this could strain military resources and put more lives at risk if the military does not prepare to address the threat. Infrastructure within the U.S., like energy and internet grids, also need to be fortified. If regions were to lose power in the case of an extreme weather event, the networks could be vulnerable to attack. “Our energy grid is highly at risk, and we've seen wildfires happening across the country, and so these could again be threat multipliers," says Seto. “I think the national security risk is that we are not ready to respond to any threats from foreign agents that may take advantage of the weaknesses that we might have.” Showing that the climate crisis is a priority is also necessary to maintain the United States’s diplomatic strength—especially in regions that see climate change as a top concern. “Other countries, in particular countries that are very significant for the U.S. defense posture, like the Pacific Island countries, really care about climate change a lot. They want to hear what the United States is willing to do to help them deal with climate change,” says Moore. “And so when you have the instructions to essentially ignore climate change, or in an extreme version almost censor mention of climate change, that's going to have a harmful effect on diplomatic engagement with some pretty important countries.” And experts say that removing climate change from the list—and deprioritizing the issue writ large—is only going to leave the U.S. more vulnerable. “This is going to make the administration and national security sector less nimble, because they might not have the people, the plans, the policy, [and] capacity in place when disaster inevitably strikes,” warns Nevitt. “You can't just wish climate change away.”

Republican Rep. Byron Donalds had just strode into a waterfront yacht club in Naples, Florida, last month when his phone wouldn’t stop vibrating. As the host of a fundraiser for Rep. Andy Barr, he tried to ignore the relentless stream of calls and texts as he mingled with donors and noshed on hors d’oeuvres. But then he heard a special ring reserved for one person: Donald Trump. When Donalds slinked into a backroom to answer, the President told him the news. Trump had just endorsed him to be Florida’s next governor. This was a game-changer for Donalds. There was only one complication. He hadn’t announced he was running yet His political team moved quickly, filling out paperwork and booking him on Fox News a few nights later to formally declare his candidacy. “It's the biggest endorsement in politics,” he tells TIME, knowing he had to capitalize on the momentum. He also had to keep up with Trump. The President is only a few months into his second term but is not wasting any time shaping the future composition of the Republican Party. Sources familiar with Trump’s thinking say he’s strategically intervening in 2026 primaries early, with an eye toward bolstering young upstarts who will keep the GOP molded in his image when he exits the scene. Donalds, 46, isn’t alone. Last month, Trump also endorsed the biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, 39, to become Ohio’s next governor, making him the odds-on favorite to replace Gov. Mike DeWine. At the same time, some of Trump’s closest allies are laying the groundwork for other MAGA up-and-comers. Vice President J.D. Vance has encouraged the 44-year-old software executive Nate Morris to run for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky, sources familiar with the matter tell TIME. Since then, Morris has gotten a boost from Trump’s eldest son, Don, Jr., who hosted him on his podcast earlier this month. While Trump Jr. refrains from endorsing candidates before his father, his embrace has often been a prelude to GOP hopefuls securing Trump’s backing. In past cycles, he was highly influential in encouraging Trump to support young MAGA insurgents such as Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana, Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio, and Vance. For Trump and his inner circle, it’s a matter of establishing the kind of permanent imprint on his party that has eluded his predecessors. “President Trump is going to do what Obama and Bush failed to do, and that is cementing a lasting legacy through building up the next generation of leaders who share his vision for our country,” says Alex Bruesewitz, the CEO of X Strategies and a Trump adviser and family friend. Of course, Trump has long intervened in primaries. By building a social and political movement that gave him coercive power over the GOP, he’s been able to punish heretics and elevate loyalists committed to advancing his agenda and interests. The strategy hasn’t always worked. A handful of his picks lost critical races across the country in the 2022 midterms. But Trump’s grip over the Republican base is as strong as it's ever been. The upshot is that he’s now cultivating the class of Republicans he hopes will sustain MAGA as a political force in the post-Trump era. Donalds has been on Trump’s radar for years. After winning a U.S. House seat in 2020, he was among the lawmakers who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s election win in January 2021. Donalds then became one of Trump’s most vociferous defenders in Congress and endorsed him for President in April 2023, shortly after his first indictment. Over time, the two became close. On the campaign trail, Trump often invited Donalds to travel with him on his private plane, dubbed Trump Force One. They strategized over how to win young Black voters, a group Donalds targeted as a Trump campaign surrogate. (Trump doubled the share of votes he won with Black men under 45 compared to 2020.) In November, after the election, Donalds visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago to tell him he planned to run for governor and asked for his endorsement. Trump made no promises. “Obviously, he was busy with transition and inauguration,” Donalds tells me. But then, something made Trump speed up his decision: Ron DeSantis. The President still begrudges his former protégé for challenging him in the 2024 election. When he learned that the governor’s wife, Casey DeSantis, was preparing to run as his replacement, Trump chose a moment of maximal humiliation to undercut the duo, according to multiple Trump aides. He was planning on supporting Donalds anyway, but posted his endorsement of Donalds on Truth Social when DeSantis and his wife were flying to Washington D.C. for a Republican Governors Association meeting, where they would see Trump in a few hours. Trump has moved just as swiftly with other MAGA darlings like Ramaswamy, who often defended and praised Trump during a longshot presidential bid that raised his national profile. Last month, Trump endorsed Ramaswamy on the same night he launched his campaign for Ohio governor. It echoed an evening in January 2024 when Ramaswamy ended his presidential bid and endorsed Trump. It was around that time that they formed a bond. Together, Trump and Ramaswamy brainstormed future options for the millennial firebrand. “We had a lot of different possibilities that were floated,” Ramaswamy tells TIME. Initially, he was going to co-chair the Department of Government Efficiency with billionaire Elon Musk. But Ramaswamy left after Trump decided to fold the cost-cutting commission into the executive branch, replacing the United States Digital Service; he would have been legally prohibited from running for office while serving in the federal government. Early polls had Ramaswamy leading any of his potential competitors by far, with 61% of Republican respondents ranking him as their first choice, according to a Bowling Green State University survey. Trump’s stamp of approval further solidifies his glidepath toward clinching the GOP nomination. With Trump and Musk taking a chainsaw to the U.S. government, Ramaswamy argues that governors will be emboldened in the years to come. “It is the idea of devolving federal power to the states,” he says. “The center of gravity of changing the country starts now in Washington, D.C., but if you skate to where the puck is going to be in a couple of years, it's going to be the states that, from education to health care, are going to have to set policy and lead.” Trump’s allies are still setting their sights on Congress. Vance and Trump Jr. have spearheaded efforts to identify and promote young Trump-aligned national populists. Thus far, for 2026, they are mainly focused on Morris, a Louisville businessman and prolific Republican donor. When he was 23, Morris raised $50,000 for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign. He’s a friend and supporter of Sen. Rand Paul, a libertarian who has clashed with Trump on his tariffs. But he also counts Vance as a confidant and was a major donor to Trump’s 2024 campaign. Sources tell TIME he’s preparing to run for outgoing Senator Mitch McConnell’s seat, as Vance has urged him to do. Morris has made other powerful allies. He caught Trump Jr.’s attention after recently castigating McConnell, a former Senate Minority Leader and Trump World villain, for voting against the nominations of Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard. Shortly thereafter, Trump Jr. amplified Morris on social media and hosted him on his popular right-wing podcast. Morris’ moves come as Trump is looking for a candidate to replace McConnell. Trump has told his inner circle that he doesn’t want to support former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who has already entered the race. Trump endorsed Cameron for governor in 2024, but Gov. Andy Beshear defeated him handily. “He lost by five points in a state Trump carried by 30,” one of the President’s aides tells TIME. “He knows he’s not the guy.” For Trump, that’s the other part of the equation—finding candidates he thinks can win. Part of his path back to power, after all, was engineering the ousting of GOP critics on Capitol Hill like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and supplanting them with disciples. “You have to understand where the President's mind is and what he’s trying to accomplish,” Donalds says. “And you support that.” Trump’s lieutenants are also committed to the project. Donalds’ campaign includes several close Trump aides: pollster Tony Fabrizio, communications consultant Danielle Alvarez, and political operative Ryan Smith. On Friday, Donalds plans to officially launch his campaign in Bonita Springs, a seaside community in Trump’s home state, where he has taken a particular interest in leaving an enduring influence. “He’s very deliberate here about lasting legacy,” a source close to Trump says. “He uses the word ‘young’ a lot when talking about the moves he’s making.”

New revelations regarding the disclosure of sensitive military information in an unsecured messaging app by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amplified calls for his resignation on Wednesday, as fallout over the scandal continued for a third day. "Hegseth is doing a great job, he had nothing to do with this,” Trump told reporters late Wednesday, hours after The Atlantic published more of the transcripts from a Signal group chat that included Hegseth, other top Trump officials, and journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who was mistakenly invited to join. The messages revealed that Hegseth provided real-time details of a March 15 U.S. air assault on Yemen’s Houthi militant, including the launch times of F-18 fighter jets, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and Tomahawk missiles—information national security experts say is inherently classified. In one message to the group, according to The Atlantic’s transcript, Hegseth revealed the exact time “THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP.” “Everyone on that text chain should have been fired, but certainly Pete Hegseth needs to resign,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Democrat of Illinois and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told TIME in an interview on Wednesday in response to the revelation that Hegseth shared details of a military operation on Signal. The other Administration officials on the chat included Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who convened the group chat and mistakenly added Goldberg to it. After Hegseth, Waltz’s role in the scandal has drawn the most outrage, and he said late Tuesday that he takes full responsibility for the “embarrassing” leak. Trump defended his embattled Defense Secretary, who was narrowly confirmed to lead the Pentagon two months earlier despite having less experience in the military than his predecessors and facing allegations of heavy drinking. “Hegseth, how do you bring Hegseth into it?” Trump said to reporters Wednesday. “He had nothing to do. Look, look, it's all a witch hunt.” Sen. Jon Ossoff, Democrat of Georgia and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told TIME on Wednesday that “no military officer would survive this” and called the Administration’s handling of the matter “an egregious breach of operational security.” “Any military officer who inadvertently disclosed or recklessly handled such sensitive information would lose their security clearance and likely face court-martial,” he says. “Secretary Hegseth should resign by noon today.” Asked whether Waltz should also resign, Ossoff responded, “He’s also clearly incompetent and should be gone.” Even some Republicans are now pushing for a review. Sen. Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi and chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, announced on Wednesday he would request an inspector general investigation into the use of Signal for discussing military operations. Signal is often recommended for use by privacy advocates because of its encrypted messaging, but it is generally not considered secure enough for national security issues. Wicker, one of the few Republicans who has been skeptical of Hegseth’s leadership, questioned the Administration’s refusal to acknowledge the breach’s severity. “The information as published recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that, based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified,” he told reporters. The Trump Administration has insisted that the messages did not contain classified information. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt would not explain the basis for the Administration’s conclusion, instead claiming the controversy was overblown and accusing The Atlantic of spreading misinformation. “Do you trust the Secretary of Defense who was nominated for this role, voted by the United States Senate into this role, who has served in combat, honorably served our nation in uniform,” she said Wednesday, “or do you trust Jeffrey Goldberg, who is a registered Democrat and an anti-Trump sensationalist reporter?” However, leading Democrats have fiercely rejected the Administration’s dismissals. “It’s baloney. I mean, what world do these people live in?” Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, tells TIME of the Administration’s claims that the disclosed information was not classified. “When you describe the time, place, type of armaments used—do they think the American public’s stupid?” Warner argued that the leak not only endangered American troops but also undermined trust with key allies. “‘America First’ shouldn’t be America alone, and that’s where we’re headed.” Asked late Wednesday if he still believes the messages were not classified, Trump said: “You’ll have to ask the people involved...I really don’t know.” Duckworth, herself a combat veteran, told TIME that the information shared in the chat was, by definition, classified. “Sequencing of the attack and makeup of what platforms we’re using, that is automatically classified information,” she said. “This information was uploaded into an unclassified environment before those pilots were over the target area. If that Signal chain had been hacked, those pilots would have gotten killed.” In addition to the immediate risk to U.S. troops, Duckworth also raised concerns about long-term diplomatic fallout. “I’m absolutely sure our allies are thinking twice about sharing classified information with us,” she told TIME. “We’ve shown that our Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, NSA are not capable of maintaining security over classified information.” At a heated House Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe defended their participation in the chat, arguing that similar information had been shared with U.S. allies. But their explanations failed to sway Democrats, who accused the Administration of failing to safeguard critical military plans. Rep. Jason Crow noted that the Houthis had successfully shot down drones used in the attack and blamed the Administration for creating a security vulnerability. “It is a leadership failure, and that’s why Secretary Hegseth, who undoubtedly transmitted classified, sensitive, operational information via this chain, must resign immediately,” Crow said. Republican leadership, however, remained noticeably muted. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the former longtime Senate Majority Leader who broke with his party in voting against Hegseth’s confirmation, declined to comment when asked by TIME if he believed Hegseth should remain in office. Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas and chair of the Senate Intelligence panel, also refused to comment when asked if Hegseth and Waltz should be fired. Democrats argue that the Signal scandal follows a troubling pattern of careless handling of national security information under President Trump. From his early days in office, Trump repeatedly showed little regard for maintaining the nation’s secrets, to the point that it shifted relationships between the U.S. intel community and those of our strongest allies. In 2017, he shared classified Israeli-passed intelligence with Russia’s foreign minister in a meeting at the White House. “We're seeing a level of incompetence,” Warner told TIME. “If this was a one off…but this is a pattern.” Asked about the historical implications of the unfolding scandal, Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat of Massachusetts, told TIME: “It’s such a serious breach of national security, it’s hard to imagine someone surviving. But we’re in the Trump era, and anything goes.” Despite the mounting pressure, the White House has continued to stand by Hegseth and Waltz. Leavitt, the press secretary, confirmed on Wednesday that the Administration had launched an internal probe into how Goldberg was added to the Signal chat, enlisting the help of Elon Musk and his security team. However, she declined to say whether any officials would be fired. “What I can say definitively is what I just spoke to the president about, and he continues to have confidence in his national security team.” For many Democrats in Congress, the failure to hold Trump’s national security team accountable signals a broader disregard for truth and accountability. “Their first recourse is always to lie, to cover up, to add a bigger lie on top of a big lie,” Sen. Adam Schiff of California told TIME on Tuesday night. “Whether they can get away with it depends on the American people, and whether they demand more from their representatives in this firehouse of falsehood,” Schiff adds.

This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox. To put it bluntly: no one working for a three-letter agency in Washington trusts President Trump to keep his mouth shut. From early in his first term, Trump showed so little regard for the nation’s secrets that it shifted relationships between the U.S. intel community and those of our strongest allies. Less than a month into the job, Trump and the Japanese Prime Minister plotted their response to a North Korean missile launch in the open-air patio of Mar a Lago, photos of which ended up on Facebook. Then Trump shared Israeli-passed intelligence with Russia’s Foreign Minister in May 2017, horrifying Israeli intel leaders. Subsequently, a spy for the U.S. inside Vladimir Putin’s regime was extracted on fears Trump and his team were being sloppy with the nation’s secrets and could put the spook at risk. Also that year, Trump boasted to his Filipino counterpart that he had two nuclear submarines off the coast of North Korea and shared details of a Manchester arena bombing before the Brits were ready to release them—leading U.K. spy services to shut off the spigot of secrets for a spell. And he demanded his interpreter turn over his notes after a meeting with Putin, prompting some in the intel community to suspect he had spilled more secrets to Moscow. Trump’s Florida retreat became a mark for spies from around the world. Two years later, Trump tweeted—yes, tweeted!—spy satellite images over Iran that confirmed U.S. capacity to look into any adversaries’ backyards and confirmed a capacity that had been in doubt, at least publicly. That same year, he boasted to Bob Woodward that the United States had nuke tools that would shock Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. All that happened before August of 2022, when FBI agents raided Mar a Lago to retrieve classified documents that seemed to follow Trump from his presidency into his return to private life. This Trumpian trail of recklessness with the nation’s most valuable secrets puts the revelations that Trump’s senior leadership discussed an active military operation over an unprotected messaging platform in a different light. During his first term, the intelligence community could view Trump as the chaos agent who those around him were doing their best to contain. But the details of the Signal chat that Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg inadvertently gained access to show how different things are in Trump’s second term. The carelessness has spread beyond the Big Guy himself, seeping into those tasked with carrying out his agenda. The indifference to keeping America’s dirty laundry buried in the basket has been one of the rare constants in Trumpism, as has been a see-no-evil ethos by the President in response to forehead-slapping details that have stunned national security hawks of every background. “They’ve made a big deal out of this because we’ve had two perfect months,” Trump said Tuesday, responding to—but not really answering—questions from reporters about why his national security adviser Mike Waltz added Goldberg to a conversation that also included Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and spy chief Tulsi Gabbard. In an interview with NBC News on Tuesday, Trump described it the “only glitch in two months.” In fact, Trump seemed to treat the whole incident as an annoyance that was taking him away from his chaos-soaked agenda. “This was not classified,” Trump said during a session with visiting diplomats. “Now if it’s classified information, it’s probably a little bit different. But, I always say, you have to learn from every experience.” Early Wednesday, The Atlantic released a tranche of the messages to let the public have a broader look at what had been discussed in that Signal chat, including messages from Hegseth that included the precise timeline of air strikes scheduled to commence around two hours later—details that are routinely classified. The Administration called the whole story a “hoax” and “misinformation,” and said it proved no wrongdoing, while Democrats argued the exact opposite in real time. It was a classic choose-your-own-adventure reality. Instead of addressing the terrible mistake, GOP lawmakers mostly ignored it over two days of previously scheduled hearings featuring the nation’s top nat-sec players. At Tuesday’s Senate hearing on global threats, they asked exactly zero questions about the conversation that included the name of a CIA official, active targets, and the timing, weapons and aircraft involved in the surprise March 15 attack on Yemen’s Houthi militants. As TIME’s Nik Popli, on the Hill for the hearings, reported, Trump’s top intelligence officials insisted nothing was improperly shared—internally or externally—about the strikes. On Wednesday, when a House intel panel convened with the same Administration officials, the tone continued to be one of disbelief that details of any unfolding military action were being shared on an app widely seen as a vulnerability for hackers—by people widely seen as top hacking targets of foreign adversaries. Republicans maintained their defense of their team, with Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas even joking about the details. “I will note I always use fire emojis when I see terrorists getting killed,” he said, referencing Waltz’s response in the chat to an unfolding military attack apparently hitting its target. Crenshaw’s quip mirrored the attitude of much of Trump’s base, which has largely brushed aside Signal-gate, while also embracing a case of amnesia about how almost everyone on the leaked chain had blasted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 over the apparent national security catastrophe of her using a private email account—on par with what predecessor Colin Powell used during his time as President George W. Bush’s top diplomat. Those allegations birthed years of “lock her up” chants during Trump’s rallies. MAGA world’s reaction to Trump’s team using a similarly non-secure platform couldn’t be more different, proving once again that seemingly nothing will dent Trump’s invincibility among Republicans. “Lock her up” has found its update: Let it go.

Despite distancing himself from Project 2025 on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump’s early actions have taken plenty of inspiration from the conservative policy playbook created by think tank the Heritage Foundation. A Time analysis conducted in January found that nearly two-thirds of the executive actions Trump issued during his first days in office mirrored, either in full or in part, proposals in the 900-page document. This includes withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. Since then, Trump has continued to draw from Project 2025 when it comes to his cuts to the government’s climate efforts—from targeting national monuments and the weather service, to culling scientists from the Environmental Projection Agency. The deregulatory push mirrors the Heritage Foundation’s long history of opposing climate action. The think tank has also had a close relationship to the administration over the years. According to CNN, several former Trump staffers helped shape Project 2025. And during Trump’s first term, both the president and members of Congress cited a Heritage study on the economic costs of climate action that was found to be “strongly influenced by the subjective assumptions made by study authors,” according to a review by the World Resources Institute. (The report concluded that participation in the Paris Agreement would result in an aggregate GDP loss of over $2.5 trillion by 2035. That's compared to a 2024 estimate by the Climate Policy Initiative that puts the global cost of inaction at $1,266 trillion.) Here are the major ways that the Trump Administration is enacting the Project 2025 goals for targeting environmental regulations and climate action in the United States. Withdrawing from International Climate Agreements Project 2025 called for the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris Accords, the landmark climate initiative aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. On his first day in office,Trump did just that, issuing an executive order to initiate the process. The playbook has also proposed that the U.S. withdraw entirely from the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC), an intergovernmental body which facilitates negotiations on climate change. Trump has said that the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. would submit formal written notification of this, though it has yet to happen. Project 2025 also opposed U.S. participation in climate reparations funds, arguing that any fund administered by a non-U.S. organization “provides no assurance that U.S. interests will be protected.” Following through on this, in early March the United States withdrew from the board of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, created to help developing countries respond to the impacts of climate change. Targeting the National Weather Service Project 2025 calls for the dismantling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which houses the National Weather Service, the National Ocean Service, the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, and other agencies the group deemed “a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” The document called for NOAA to be “broken up and downsized,” which the Trump Administration is in the process of doing. In February, the Trump Administration attempted to fire hundreds of NOAA employees. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the move in March, but though the employees were reinstated by the Department of Commerce, the staffers were placed on administrative leave pending further litigation. The decision is already taking a toll. In mid-March, NOAA said it would reduce weather balloon launches—which provide key data for weather forecasting—in several locations due to staffing shortages. Reviewing National Monument Designations The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorizes the president to protect federal lands that are of historic or scientific importance. Under the Biden Administration, the government used this act to establish, expand, or restore eight national monuments totaling more than 3.7 million acres. The Heritage Foundation nodded to this in Project 2025 by calling for the “review” of those monument designations, saying that President Biden “abused his authority” in protecting those lands. A recent study from the Center for American Progress and Conservation Science Partners, however, found that the establishment of those monuments played a significant role in reducing the “nature gap” and providing access to nature deprived communities. The Heritage Foundation also called for a repeal of the Antiquities Act. Trump targeted the Antiquities Act during his first term, directing the Secretary of the Interior to review national monuments that had been designated in the past two decades. Two national monuments in Utah were downsized as a result, though the Biden Administration restored its original boundaries. The Trump Administration has not yet issued any orders on the Antiquities Act, however the Washington Post has reported that the White House has plans to eliminate two national monuments in California established by the Biden Administration. Reshaping the U.S. Global Change Research Program Project 2025 calls for an Executive Order to “reshape” the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), a federal effort to study the impact of human and natural forces on the environment. The organization is responsible for the National Climate Assessment, which researches the impact of climate change in the United States. It also puts together the National Nature Assessment, which looks at the state of U.S. lands, waters, and wildlife. In the weeks after Trump took office, three science reports relating to climate change—two of which are mandated by Congress—were removed from the USGCRP website, according to Politico. Reviewing FEMA’s Effectiveness The Project 2025 blueprint calls for “reforms” to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the organization responsible for responding to natural disasters in the U.S. Among the proposals include privatizing the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and shifting the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and cities. Trump has echoed this goal; on Jan. 24th, the president announced a council to assess FEMA and its effectiveness. The privatization of the NFIP would place the burden of responding to floods—and covering the costs incurred by these disasters—on cities, especially as flood insurance is not covered by standard insurance policies. As climate change worsens, floods are becoming more devastating. The number of flood-prone areas around the country is expected to grow by nearly half by the end of this century. The conservative blueprint refers to Alaska as a “special case” that “deserves immediate action” and calls for previously protected lands to be opened up for drilling and mineral extraction. The plan also calls for the end of wildlife and water resource protections and the approval of logging and infrastructure projects in the Tongass National Forest. “Alaska has untapped potential for increased oil production, which is important not just to the revitalization of the nation’s energy sector but is vital to the Alaskan economy,” the document says. Trump has signed an executive order implementing this, and the U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently announced that the department would be taking steps to open up more acreage for oil and gas leasing and lift restrictions on building a pipeline and mining road in the state. Culling EPA Staff In a chapter focused on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Project 2025 said that the EPA’s staff and activities, “far exceeded its congressional mandates and purpose.” The document also calls for “reform” of the Endangered Species Act. It calls for the delistment of the Grizzly Bear and Gray Wolf as endangered animals and wants an “end its use to seize private property, prevent economic development, and interfere with the rights of states over their wildlife populations.” It also plans to abolish the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey, an agency that provides scientific research to support the conservation of public lands and their resources. In March, Trump announced planned cuts to the agency, including the elimination of the Office of Research and Development, which would impact over 1,000 employees, including scientists. Also in March, the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries said it will consider legislation put forward to amend the Endangered Species Act. It will also consider a separate bill to remove the Gray Wolf from the endangered species list.

Abombshell report that top national security officials for President Donald Trump discussed war plans in a private group chat that accidentally included the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic has elicited fierce criticism from Democrats and media commentators who have framed it as a scandal for which heads should roll—but it’s largely been dismissed by a number of Republicans. In a story published on Monday, journalist Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz added him last month to a group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging app, that also included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Vice President J.D. Vance, and other top national security and White House officials. In the chat, the officials deliberated over an attack on the Houthis in Yemen and Hegseth sent operational details of strikes two hours before bombs dropped. Hegseth has suggested the story is fake, calling Goldberg a “deceitful and highly-discredited ‘so-called journalist.’” But National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes confirmed to Goldberg that the messages “appears to be authentic” and the administration is “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.” When asked about the report on Monday, Trump said “I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of the Atlantic.” While Politico reported that some in the administration are furious with Waltz and deliberating whether he should resign or be forced out, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that Trump still has “the utmost confidence in his national security team.” The Atlantic report comes days after the Department of Defense announced an investigation into leaks of sensitive information. The revelation of the leaked group chat set off a flurry of criticism from Democrats, including calls for consequences. DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement that Hegseth should resign or be fired: “Hegseth—and everyone else involved—put on a stunning display of recklessness and disregard for our national security,” Martin said. “This is one of the most stunning breaches of military intelligence I have read about in a very, very long time,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in a floor speech. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called it the “highest level of f--kup imaginable” in a post on X. “Wait. Pete Hegseth hasn’t resigned yet?” posted California Rep. Eric Swalwell. Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth posted that Hegseth “should be fired immediately.” In a statement posted on Threads, Illinois Rep. Jonathan Jackson also called for Hegseth’s resignation, adding that the incident is evidence of the Trump Administration prioritizing “ideological attacks over competence and accountability.” New York Times columnist David French, a former Army lawyer and self-described evangelical conservative who is a frequent critic of Trump, wrote: “There is not an officer alive whose career would survive a security breach like that.” French suggested that the breach, if committed by another officer, could even be investigated as potentially criminal and that “Nothing destroys a leader’s credibility with soldiers more thoroughly than hypocrisy or double standards. … If [Hegseth] had any honor at all, he would resign.” But some Republicans in Congress, which is meant to act as a check on and exercise oversight of the executive branch, have largely downplayed the incident, offering mild criticism if any. “A mistake was made. It happens,” Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy told reporters, adding that it’s “not keeping the American people up at night. … Trust me, this is not going to lead to the apocalypse.” Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said on Fox News: “This is what the leftist media is reduced to ... now we’re griping about who’s on a text message and who’s not. I mean, come on.” North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis said, “You got to know who you’re sending your text to,” but he also told reporters “it’s a 24-hour news cycle. … I’ve got a lot of confidence in Mike [Waltz]. This doesn’t undermine my belief that he’s a solid pick for the role.” Florida Sen. Rick Scott expressed similarly tepid concerns: “Clearly, they’ve got to, you know, make sure that they’re careful how they do this,” he told reporters when asked about the group chat. West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said the incident warranted “some kind of internal investigation” to “make corrections,” but Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville said a congressional investigation wasn’t needed: “You can’t put just blame on just one person, other than the fact that the person in charge, that the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, he’ll get it corrected. And you know, that’s just part of transition and growing,” Tuberville told CNN. Florida Rep. Brian Mast, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, seemed to echo Tuberville’s sentiment, telling reporters that the issue “wasn’t a systemic thing” and didn’t require a “special investigation.” South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds added that he expected Democrats to raise the incident during an intelligence hearing on Tuesday, and that “some of my Republican colleagues may raise it just as an issue to be very concerned about.” Gabbard and Ratcliffe are among those who were already due to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters it was an issue of “systems and process, not personnel,” suggesting that disciplinary action against anyone involved in the chat would be the wrong move. “The administration is addressing what happened,” Johnson said. “Apparently an inadvertent phone number made it onto that thread. They’re gonna track that down and make sure that doesn’t happen again. … Clearly, I think the administration has acknowledged it was a mistake and they’ll tighten up and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Still, the breach seems to have shaken up many others in the party. Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon spelled out the national security implications of the gaffe, telling reporters, “everybody makes mistakes, texting somebody, we’ve all done it. But you don’t put classified information on unclassified devices like Signal. And there’s no doubt, I’m an intelligence guy, Russia and China are monitoring both their phones, right. So putting out classified information like that endangers our forces, and I can’t believe that they were knowingly putting that kind of classified information on unclassified systems, it’s just wrong.” Texas Sen. John Cornyn said it “sounds like a huge screw up. I mean is there any other way to describe it? I don’t think you should use Signal for classified information.” And New York Rep. Mike Lawler posted on X: “Classified information should not be transmitted on unsecured channels—and certainly not to those without security clearances, including reporters. Period.” “We’re just finding out about it. But obviously, we’ve got to run it to ground and figure out what went on there. We’ll have a plan,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters the committee “will be looking into this.” “It’s definitely a concern, and it appears that mistakes were made,” Wicker added, but he said that whether someone should be held accountable depended on the results of an investigation. Meanwhile, Maine Sen. Susan Collins reportedly called the incident an “extremely troubling and serious matter”; Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski told a HuffPost reporter, “there needs to be some accountability”; and Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy put it most bluntly: “Well, somebody f--ked up.”

Louis DeJoy has resigned from his role as Postmaster General of the U.S. Postal Service, according to a source familiar with the matter. He told the USPS Board of Governors on Monday that it would be his last day on the job, naming Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino as his replacement until the Board names a permanent successor. Shortly after this story’s publication, DeJoy released a statement confirming his resignation. His sudden departure comes after he struck an agreement earlier this month to allow Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency inside the USPS to cut costs and remove bureaucratic red tape. DeJoy’s allies fear that his absence will leave the agency vulnerable to a dramatic and disruptive takeover by the Trump Administration. Both President Donald Trump and Musk have recently floated ideas to reshape the beloved institution, such as privatizing the Post Office or folding it into the Commerce Department. “It’s been just a tremendous loser for this country,” Trump said. In a letter to the agency’s 640,000 employees, DeJoy, 67, expressed confidence that Tulino and the organization could continue steering the USPS toward financial sustainability, saying “the entirety of the Postal Service will aggressively shape its future and become more efficient, capable, and competitive as it continuously changes and improves to best serve the American public.” Since taking the helm in 2020, DeJoy launched a 10-year plan to remake the USPS and save it from insolvency. He built new processing centers and modernized the delivery network. He renegotiated contracts for air and ground transportation to eliminate billions in expenses. Most consequentially, he shepherded major legislation through Congress to rescind a 2006 law requiring the Postal Service to prepay the next 50 years of health and retirement benefits for its entire workforce—a rule no other federal agency was forced to follow. Those changes have been starting to bear fruit. In the final quarter of 2024, the USPS made $144 million, its first profitable period in years. Still, DeJoy was always planning to step aside this year. Last month, he told the Board to start looking for a successor, ending a five-year tenure running the agency through a pandemic, three elections that relied heavily on mail voting, and his logistical overhaul. But he originally planned to stay in the position for several more months, helping the USPS transition to a new leader. A source familiar with the matter tells TIME that DeJoy had clashed in recent days with DOGE representatives assigned to the Postal Service, whom he tasked with reviewing the agency’s structural problems that he ascribed to a law passed in the 1970s. Musk’s lieutenants wanted more control over the USPS than DeJoy was willing to allow, a source familiar with the matter says. DOGE officials complained that DeJoy was “uncooperative.” Some suspect that DeJoy stepped aside to prevent a larger conflagration. For DeJoy, it’s a somber end to his government career. After making a fortune building a logistics firm worth more than $600 million, he became a GOP megadonor and helped to raise millions for Trump. He was set to serve as the official host of the 2020 Republican National Convention until the USPS Board asked him to become Postmaster General. Taking over in the thick of COVID-19, he initially struggled to transition from life as a corporate executive to a high-level bureaucrat. But, by his own admission, he grew to love the job and the arduous project of trying to rescue the agency from existential threats, even as Democrats and Republicans alike called for his removal. On his watch, the USPS struggled with on-time delivery and meeting its own service standards. But when the Postal Service turned a profit for the first time in years, it was a sign that his plan might be working for the only delivery service that reaches every American in every corner of the country. Yet for all his turnaround efforts—and his history as a Trump backer—it was not enough to withstand Trump’s war on Washington. Now, he will be leaving the agency unsure of what will follow him. “It has been one of the pleasures of my life and a crowning achievement of my career to have been associated with this cherished institution,” he wrote to his colleagues on Monday, “the United States Postal Service.”