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Chapter 1: What is the controversy involving President Trump and Signal app?
Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. President Trump is standing by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz after the Atlantic's Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported he was inadvertently added to a senior-level group chat about U.S. military plans in Yemen earlier this month. Goldberg says classified material was shared.
President Trump says not so, but Trump noted risks in using technology like the Signal message app.
Sometimes somebody can get onto those things. That's one of the prices you pay when you're not sitting in the situation room with no phones on, which is always the best.
At a meeting with Trump today, Walz accused the media of making up lies.
This one in particular, I've never met, don't know, never communicated with, and we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room.
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Chapter 2: Why are Congressional Democrats concerned about military communications?
Congressional Democrats are calling it a serious security failure. They said as much as they questioned top members of the president's intelligence team who are on Capitol Hill today to discuss world threat assessments. NPR has seen a Pentagon memo warning against use of the Signal messaging app.
NPR's Quill Lawrence reports Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared the plans on the encrypted app about a U.S. military strike on Yemen in mid-March.
Chapter 3: What are the implications of using Signal for classified communications?
In a group chat that inadvertently included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the Trump administration's top intelligence officials discussed sensitive attack plans over the Signal app. But NPR has seen an internal memo sent only last week to the entire Department of Defense that reads, "...a vulnerability has been identified in the Signal messenger application."
In the military, sending classified data over insecure channels is called slippage when it's considered minor, but even that can be a career ender for a military officer. There's almost no precedent for the heads of defense, state, and national security to be sharing such sensitive military intelligence in a forum that was known to be unsecure. Quill Lawrence, NPR News.
Chapter 4: What agreements has the White House made to help end the Russia-Ukraine war?
NPR CEO Catherine Marr is chair of the board of the Signal Foundation, the nonprofit that supports the Signal message app. The White House says they have come to some agreements aimed at ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. NPR's Deepa Shivaram reports on talks held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this week.
The White House says it's agreed to help restore Russian access to agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime security costs and open up access to ports and payment systems for those transactions.
The White House also says it's secured an agreement with both Russia and Ukraine on the Black Sea to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes. The U.S. has agreed to help Ukraine with the return of children, civilians and prisoners of war. and says there will be continued negotiations to bring an end to the conflict.
Deepa Shivaram, NPR News, the White House.
U.S. stocks have ended the day slightly higher, the Dow closing up four points. From Washington, this is NPR News. Vice President J.D. Vance says he will also visit Greenland this week.
Vance will join Second Lady Usha Vance, who had announced a cultural visit to the Danish territory earlier in the week, sparking consternation from political leaders in Greenland and Denmark who are concerned about the Trump administration's interest in acquiring the territory.
And appeals court has ruled that the Trump administration may temporarily halt new refugee entries while legal proceedings continue over the president's executive order that suspended the nation's refugee admissions program. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision requires that refugees who receive conditional approval before President Trump took office must still be processed.
Consumer confidence in the U.S. fell in March for the fourth month in a row, and Pierre Scott Horsley reports expectations for future economic conditions dropped to their lowest level in 12 years.
Consumer confidence has been hovering in a fairly narrow range for more than two years, but it dipped below that level this month, while survey respondents still feel good about the current job market, their assessment of current business conditions, and their outlook for the future worsened. The confidence index is compiled by the Conference Board, a non-profit think tank.
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