Attention to the Unseen

Bloomberg reports: The US is pushing to control all major future infrastructure and mineral investments in Ukraine, potentially gaining a veto over any role for Kyiv’s other allies and undermining its bid for European Union membership. President Donald Trump’s administration is demanding the “right of first offer” on investments in all infrastructure and natural resources projects under a revised partnership deal with Ukraine, according to a draft of the document obtained by Bloomberg News. If accepted, the partnership agreement would…

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Garrett Graff asks: Who holds the power in the Trump administration? The full Signal chat provides some of the most “real” indications of where power lies in the Trump administration and how decision-making happens—and none of it is pretty. The answer is shocking, but perhaps not surprising: Donald Trump isn’t that engaged in the policy of his administration, JD Vance is weak and powerless, and the only one that matters is Stephen Miller. I wrote earlier this week about how fascinating it was…

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Mohammed Ali Kalfood writes: On his third day back in the White House, President Donald Trump issued an executive order re-designating Houthi rebels in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization. He ordered the Pentagon to start preparing military plans against the militant group and imposed sanctions on Houthi leaders, along with their main backer, Iran. Then, on March 15, Trump announced a new U.S. bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen that has now continued for 10 days. “YOUR TIME…

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Jeffrey Goldberg and Shane Harris write: So, about that Signal chat. On Monday, shortly after we published a story about a massive Trump-administration security breach, a reporter asked the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, why he had shared plans about a forthcoming attack on Yemen on the Signal messaging app. He answered, “Nobody was texting war plans. And that’s all I have to say about that.” At a Senate hearing yesterday, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and the…

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Jeffrey Goldberg writes: The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing. This is going to require…

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Following Jeffrey Goldberg’s revelation that he was inadvertently added to a group chat for discussing classified war plans, Garrett Graff writes: Lost amid the headline-grabbing insanity of the classified details is what the principals were discussing on the group chat. It doesn’t take reading too deeply between the lines to see that the principals weren’t entirely clear on what Trump had ordered — someone, apparently Stephen Miller, says, “as I heard it, the president was clear: green light” — which…

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Mykola Bielieskov writes: Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered an evasive initial response to US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire proposal, backing the idea in principle while listing a series of additional demands that make any meaningful progress unlikely. Officials in Kyiv will be hoping Putin’s reluctance to embrace the US-led ceasefire initiative will help convince their American colleagues that the Kremlin dictator is not genuinely interested in ending the war. Many in Ukraine have been dismayed by recent US suggestions…

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Pjotr Sauer writes: For once, the US president and European leaders were on the same page. Grasping for a familiar metaphor, a chorus of western heads of state declared this week that “the ball was in Russia’s court” after Ukraine agreed in talks with the US on Tuesday to an immediate 30-day ceasefire. Rather than making a play, Vladimir Putin on Thursday picked up the ball, scrawled a fresh set of conditions across it, and lobbed it back – insisting…

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The Associated Press reports: The Trump administration lifted its suspension of military aid and intelligence sharing for Ukraine, and Kyiv signaled that it was open to a 30-day ceasefire in the war with Russia, pending Moscow’s agreement, American and Ukrainian officials said Tuesday following talks in Saudi Arabia. The administration imposed the measures a week ago to push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to enter talks to end the war with invading Russian forces. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the…

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  A GOP lawmaker blasted the Trump administration for its latest decisions on Ukraine. U.S. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) has been outspoken about President Donald Trump’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine war and has been adamant about his support for Ukraine in recent days. In an interview with CNN’s Pamela Brown on Monday, Bacon said it was a “terrible mistake” to not include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in talks to end the war. “It’s a terrible mistake not to have the…

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NBC News reports: Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Sunday warned of potentially disastrous consequences for Ukraine if the Trump administration doesn’t restart military aid and intelligence sharing with the Eastern European nation. “As long as the fighting is going on, if we pull the plug on Ukraine, it would be worse than Afghanistan,” Graham said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “Until we have a ceasefire, I would give Ukraine what they need in terms of intelligence and weapons…

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