We begin today with a Der Spiegel exclusive by Patrick Beuth, Jörg Diehl, Roman Höfner, Roman Lehberger, Friederike Röhreke, and Fidelius Schmid who report that several Trump Administration national security officials have all of their necessary personal business out on the streets of the internet.
Private contact details of the most important security advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump can be found on the internet. Der Spiegel reporters were able to find mobile phone numbers, email addresses and even some passwords belonging to the top officials. [...]
Most of these numbers and email addresses are apparently still in use, with some of them linked to profiles on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn. They were used to create Dropbox accounts and profiles in apps that track running data. There are also WhatsApp profiles for the respective phone numbers and even Signal accounts in some cases.
As such, the reporting has revealed an additional grave, previously unknown security breach at the highest levels in Washington. Hostile intelligence services could use this publicly available data to hack the communications of those affected by installing spyware on their devices. It is thus conceivable that foreign agents were privy to the Signal chat group in which Gabbard, Waltz and Hegseth discussed a military strike. [...]
It was particularly easy for Der Spiegel reporters to discover Hegseth’s mobile number and email address. They turned to a commercial provider of contact information that is primarily used by companies for sales, marketing and recruitment.
Chris Geidner of LawDork points out that while the clown car show that even as the Trump Administration failed to protect top secret defense information, the administration is also trying to invoke a “state secrets privilege” for their conduct in deporting Venezuelans to prisons in El Salvador.
Hours after Goldberg reported Monday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s messages were apparently among those sent in the group chat without his having realized that a reporter was in the chat, Rubio submitted a declaration backing the administration’s decision to invoke the “state secrets privilege” in the case challenging Trump’s use of the AEA to deport Venezuelans with no notice or process to a prison in El Salvador.
The state secrets privilege is a residual power from England picked up in the United States that allows the executive to shut down courts’ efforts to obtain evidence that the government asserts would force it to reveal “military [or] state secrets“ — with little room for pushback from the court. The privilege was regularly invoked during the George W. Bush administration to prevent what administration officials decided were too close of looks into its actions. As the ACLU stated at the time, “This once-rare tool is being used not to protect the nation from harm, but to cover up the government’s illegal actions and prevent further embarrassment.”
The Trump administration’s move to stack the rife-for-abuse state secrets privilege on top of its already challenged use of the AEA is alarming looking forward.
It is also, right now, a brazen attempt to stymie Chief Judge James Boasberg, a federal judge in D.C., in his effort to ascertain whether the administration violated his orders on March 15 when planes kept flying to El Salvador after he ordered planes still in the air to be turned around.
Paul Krugman says on his Substack that the tacky shoe salesman and his minions are both incompetent and evil.
But why were they sharing highly sensitive information over a private messaging app rather than using secure channels? The most likely explanation is that they wanted to evade accountability: texts between government officials are supposed to remain part of the record, while Signal texts can be and in this case were set to disappear. As Phillips O’Brien notes, war planning aside, what the group chat reveals is top officials’ contempt for and hostility toward Europe; some of them opposed an operation against the Houthis because clearing the shipping lanes might help our (erstwhile?) allies.
So the disaster reflected both stupidity and bad intentions. And the same is true of other ongoing disasters, including the shockingly rapid collapse of the Social Security Administration.
As I hope you’re aware, Elon Musk’s DOGE, which is supposedly rooting out fraud and waste, has made Social Security a special target. Musk has done this even though it’s one of the federal government’s cleanest, most efficient programs, and has done an immense amount to reduce poverty among the elderly… [...]
...Musk is incompetent and evil. He suffers from billionaire brain — that special blend of ignorance and arrogance that occurs all too frequently in men who believe that their success in accumulating personal wealth means that they understand everything, no need to do any homework. But he also clearly detests anything that makes life better for non-billionaires.
Ana Swanson, Jack Ewing, and Tony Romm of The New York Times report that as of April 3, a 25% tariff will be imposed on imported cars, trucks, and auto parts.
The tariffs will go into effect on April 3 and apply both to finished cars and trucks that are shipped into the United States and to imported parts that are assembled into cars at American auto plants. Those tariffs will hit foreign brands as well as American ones, like Ford Motor and General Motors, which build some of their vehicles in Canada or Mexico.
Nearly half of all vehicles sold in the United States are imported, as well as nearly 60 percent of the parts in vehicles assembled in the United States. That means the tariffs could push up car prices significantly when inflation has already made cars and trucks more expensive for American consumers. [...]
Mexico is the largest source of vehicle imports in the United States, followed by Japan, South Korea, Canada and Germany.
Stock markets fell on news that the auto tariffs would be imposed. Shares of major carmakers tumbled further in after-hours trading, after the White House clarified that the tariffs would also cover imported auto parts. General Motors was down nearly 7 percent and Ford and Stellantis were more than 4 percent lower after the markets closed. Tesla’s stock fell 1 percent in extended trading.
Jennifer Weiss-Wolf of The Contrarian points out that while there is no federal Equal Rights Amendment, state-level ERA amendments can be used as a form of resistance to some of Trump’s agenda.
Among the tools in states’ arsenals are often underused state-level equal rights amendments (ERAs). Even as the federal ERA remains in limbo, an unlikely bulwark for the next four years—see professor Laurence Tribe’s Contrarian piece explaining its legal status—29 states have some form of an ERA (e.g., broader sex equality language than the U.S. Constitution) written into their constitutions. Several have already been used to advance abortion rights (Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New Mexico); many are broadly worded and inclusive of protection against pregnancy discrimination, age, disability, and immigration status. Issues such as pay transparency and addressing gender-based violence also could be bolstered by a state ERA.
New York is the latest state to pass an ERA; last November Proposition One won big at the polls. It is a national model given its expansive reach, which include protections on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, reproductive health care and autonomy, ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and religion. Nevada’s ERA, passed in 2022, has similar language.
State ERAs are a sleeping giant. By wielding them against the tide of diminishing rights and liberties, states have the power to reset and even raise the bar nationwide for establishing a strong legal foundation for fundamental equality.
Nick Robins-Early of the Guardian reports on the contentious DOGE subcommittee meeting featuring the CEOs of National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
The Doge subcommittee hearing comes as the Trump administration, including the senior presidential adviser Elon Musk, wage a months-long campaign against public broadcasters and critical media more broadly. The FCC, led by a recent Trump appointee, opened an investigation into NPR and PBS in January. A day before the hearing, President Donald Trump said he would “love to” end public funding for the public broadcasters. [...]
Although Greene’s Doge subcommittee is separate from Musk’s “department of government efficiency” initiative, it bears the same ideological goals. Musk has likewise repeatedly demanded to defund public media. The world’s richest man also previously clashed with NPR in 2023 after he acquired Twitter and forced the broadcaster to be listed as “state-affiliated media” on the social media platform. NPR announced it would stop posting on the platform as a result. [...]
The hearing also featured testimony from two witnesses representing each side. Mike Gonzalez, a fellow from the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank, called for the dissolution of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and reiterated Greene’s argument that the internet makes government-funded broadcasters obsolete. The president and CEO of Alaska Public Media, Ed Ulman, spoke out on behalf of public broadcasters, stating that they were crucial for reaching rural communities and funding local news services.
Michael Lipka and Katerina Eva Matsa of the Pew Research Center conducted a survey that shows that Americans, by and large, support federal funding for NPR and PBS.
About a quarter of U.S. adults (24%) say Congress should remove federal funding from NPR and PBS, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted March 10-16. A larger share (43%) say NPR and PBS should continue to receive funding from the federal government, while 33% say they are not sure.
The funding structures for NPR and PBS are complicated, and much of their revenue comes from nongovernment sources like member donations and corporate sponsorships. But the proposed bill would ban all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which has received $535 million annually in recent federal budgets. The CPB helps to fund NPR and PBS both directly and through individual local public media stations, many of which pay NPR and PBS in the form of membership or programming fees.
Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to support ending federal funding for public media. Among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, 44% say Congress should end funding for NPR and PBS, while 19% say funding should continue and 37% say they are not sure. Republicans ages 50 and older are especially likely to support ending federal funding for public broadcasters.
By contrast, just 5% of Democrats and Democratic leaners say federal funding for NPR and PBS should be cut off, while 69% say funding should continue and 26% are not sure.
Finally today, Peter Hoskins of BBC News reports that Trump may severely limit tariffs placed on Chinese goods in exchange for a deal involving the sale of TikTok.
He made the comments after announcing new import taxes of 25% on all cars and car parts coming into the US in a move that threatens to widen the global trade war.
The BBC has contacted TikTok and the Chinese embassy in Washington for comment.
The biggest sticking point to finalising a deal to sell the TikTok business, which is worth tens of billions of dollars, has always been securing Beijing's agreement.
Trump has previously tried to use tariffs as leverage in the negotiations.
On his first day back in the White House, on 20 January, the president threatened more import duties on China if it did not approve a TikTok deal.
The hugely popular app is used by around 170 million Americans.
Trump, who called for TikTok to be banned in his first term as president, now has an account on the platform.
Try to have the best possible day that you can!
