From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Friday, March twenty eight, twenty twenty five. Peter Dutton has used his Budget reply speech to attack labor and the Prime Minister on energy, defense and the economy.
We will immediately introduce an East Coast gas reservation. We will defund the activist led Environmental Defender's Office. We will cut the permanent migration program by twenty five percent. We will ban foreign investors and temporary residents from purchasing existing Australian homes for a period of two years.
But we're on the way to an election, with the Prime Minister tip to visit the Governor General this morning. New South Wales Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan has responded to correspondence from the brother of missing Lennox Head mother Bromwin Winfield. Andy Reid, says he's hopeful the case is now headed in the right direction. Years after a owner recommended Bromwin's husband John Winfield, be charged with murder, He's always denied
any wrongdoing. You can read that story and listen to a new episode of the Bromwin Podcast right now at brominpodcast dot com, a military operation, a group text thread, and one big question. How did the Trump administration text its own war plans to a journalist? That's today's episode. A floor below the Oval Office in the storied West wing of the White House, the Situation Room is where the President and his top officials watch the highest dramas play out surgical strikes.
Duck did an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al.
Kadom attacks, in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts assassinations.
President Kennedy died at one Central Standard time.
The Situation Room was actually established by John F. Kennedy in the early nineteen sixties after the intelligence catastrophe of the Bay of Pigs invasion, as a sacred space to talk freely. Earlier this month, America did have a situation. Its forces were dropping bombs on hoofy rebels in Yemen, who,
with backing from Iran, have been attacking civilian shipping. The most senior officials were following the action in real time, except because this is twenty twenty five, the conversation was happening outside the Situation Room in a group chat on an encrypted messaging app. Called signal. We've used AI voices to bring parts of that text exchange to life. Defense Secretary Pete Hesith told a group of his most senior colleagues what was about to happen in just two hours time.
Of eighteen's launch. First Strike package trigger based F eighteen first Strike Windows starts target terrorist is at his known location, so should be on time. Also Strike drone's launch. Godspeed to our warriors.
Vice President J. D Vance jumped in.
I will say a prayer for victory.
After the strikes began, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who'd created the group chat.
Wrote, building collapse had multiple positive id amazing job.
Jd Vance was confused what Waltz.
Replied, piping too fast? The first target their top missile guide. We had positive idea of him walking into his girlfriend's building, and it's now collapsed.
CIA director John Radcliffe a good start. Mike Waltz then dropped three emojis into the chat, a feast, an American flag, and a flame. Also in the chat were Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Intelligence Director Telsey Gabbard, and a journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of a Washington DC magazine The Atlantic.
It's a terrible mistake, terrible blunder.
Joe Kelly is the Australian's correspondent in Washington, DC.
It's a who's who in the Trump administration, all discussing as sensitive operational details about military strikes. So it seems pretty unprecedented to me. This is a fly on the wall situation, really, And you'd have to say that there's a lot of justified criticism about the decisions to use this app to share such sensitive information about an operation that's unfolding in real time.
Yeah, using the chat is one thing, but having a journalist quietly lurking in the corner of the room is quite another, isn't it.
Yeah, it is so.
Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlanta appears to have been inadvertently looped in by Mike Watz and then later invited into this particular chat group on the military operation targeting the Hoothies.
And He's not just any journalist, is he. He's someone who Trump has described as a sleezebag and a creep and a wire in the past before this.
I think this is interesting because, knowing Trump all his political instincts, I think now will be to try and push back against the Atlantic, against Goldberg. This is what Trump likes. He doesn't like to admit mistakes.
Sensitive government conversations are happening on signal in probably every jurisdiction in the world. People who work in government are just like the rest of us. We all live on our phones in group chats. Most of us have access to an official work sanction channel we could be using like Google Chat or Slack. But the appeal of signal
is that it's informal and encrypted. That means government officials know what they say on signal chats is unlikely to be discoverable by freedom of information requests.
For example, I don't think it's improper.
That's probably not a surprising answer coming from a journalist.
The issue is that.
You don't want something to be in writing if it's sensitive. But I would have thought that is one hundred times more the case if you are actually revealing and discussing details about a military operation, particularly if there's a chance that those details could be compromised, that the mission itself could be put at risk, that lies could be put at risk. There were real life, pretty severe consequences from doing that if things went wrong.
This chat also contains substantive discussions, like before all the bombing started, about whether the raids on the Hoofies were a good idea or not. He's JD.
Vance, I think we are making a mistake.
Three percent of US trade runs through the Suez, forty percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn't understand this or why it's necessary.
And then Vance raises Trump using his acronym POTUS for President of the United States.
The strongest reason to do this is, as Potus said, to send a message. But I am not sure the President is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe. Right now, there's a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices. I am willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself, but there is a strong argument for delaying this a month, doing the messaging work on why this matters, seeing where the economy.
Is et ce Ceeia directed John Ratcliffe response, saying the intelligence agency could use a delay to identify better starting points for coverage on Hoofy leadership, that is targets. Heg sith outlines some of the risks of waiting.
One this leaks and we look indecisive. Two Israel takes an action first, or Gaza ceasefire falls apart and we don't get to start this on our own terms.
Mike Woltz, whether it's now or several weeks from now, it will have to be the United States that reopens these shipping lanes, and jd Vance responds, if.
You think we should do it, let's go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.
The comments from jd Vance in particular, I thought were particularly revealing. I mean, he's questioning whether this is the sort of thing that they really should be doing, because he says not much of US trade goes through the Sewers Canal. He says, it's mostly European trade that goes through it. Does America really want to get involved given the recalorration that's going on between America and Europe more generally, Yeah.
Jd Vance really says the quiet part out loud too, doesn't it. He says he's not sure the President is aware how inconsistent bombing the hoofies is with his message on Europe right now, which is that they have to stand alone, and America is not going to help them out anymore.
The point I always think about what will Donald Trump do when something is brought to his attention? And the starting assumption that I have a lot of journalists have, and it seems people inside the administration have, is they assume I don't think the President knows this, but once the president finds out, he might actually take a pretty firm view on something. So look, I often wonder whether Donald Trump is aware that America is supposed to provide
or sell US three Virginia Class submarines. Does he know that? He asked what UCUS was a couple of weeks ago. So I think this shows there is this feeling at the upper levels of the administration.
Does the President know this?
Do you think we can draw from this that it's actually jd. Vance who has the problem with Europe and that he's the isolationist, and that that's not Donald Trump's instinct necessarily.
I think we've known for a long time that jd.
Vance has this particular view towards Europe, that he does support a recalibration of that relationship, that he's been very skeptical of the support that's been going towards Ukraine. It was really him who started the fight with Zelenski in the Oval office. But I don't think Donald Trump is a reluctant participant in this. Donald Trump in his first term did the same thing by trying to get all the European members of NATO to ramp up their defense spending.
I think it's pretty quick as well that the president's on the same page.
Coming up. Donald Trump says they'll be having those conversations back in the situation room from now on. But will he fire anyone over this fiasco we're seeing. In response to this, Donald Trump being quite benevolent and forgiving of Mike Waltz, who's had to admit that he did make this mistake. The President has said maybe in future, we'll have to have these conversations in person, and we won't
be using signal anymore. Do you think that's just because it's too early in the administration to start throwing people under the bus. We know Donald Trump likes firing people. Why is he not firing Mike Waltz.
Look, I don't think it's too early to start firing people. I don't think that's something that Donald Trump would be concerned about I think he thinks making a decision to fire someone over this will look weak.
That's what I think his calculation is, and he doesn't want to give in to that media pressure.
He doesn't want to allow the Atlantic to have a win and to claim a scalp. So his political instinct is to double down and call us a witch hunt, defend Mike Waltz, defend Pete Haigseth. If he can't, then he might in time consider firing someone over it. But I don't think that's his first instinct. He'll want to try and ride it out first, Joe.
People like us are having serious conversations of whether this is a breach of national security and was national security or classified information included. But for Trump's base, the Americans who voted for him, do you think they are going to think less of Donald Trump or less of the administration because this has happened.
I think it will raise questions about the experience of Pete Hegseth. This seems to be in a pretty rookie kind of mistake to have made. But I don't think it will be a major concern for most Trump supporters and the Trump base. I think they'll be pleased that
the operation happened. The administration has been drawing attention to the fact that this operation was a success, and so I think a lot of Trump's base will pick up on that rather than this debate about the signal app and the communication of the plan.
Joe Kelly is The Australian's correspondent in Washington, DC. With an election now just weeks away, the best place to stay in touch is the Australian dot com dot au to make sure you don't miss a thing.