Democrats call for Hegseth to resign as Republicans echo Trump’s support for secretary
Despite rumbles in the Pentagon over Pete Hegesth’s ability to do his job, Republican lawmakers have largely followed Donald Trump’s lead and backed the controversy-mired defense secretary while Democrats are calling for his resignation.
A post on Senate Republican’s X account today, blamed “disgruntled” former employees for the bad press: “Secretary Pete Hegseth is a veteran who is implementing President Trump’s America first agenda. Disgruntled former employees at the Pentagon are trying to undermine the agenda that Americans voted for.”
Yesterday senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee blamed the left: “Of course the left, libs, and leakers are angry with Pete Hegseth. He is a strong @SecDef who is shaking up the status quo at the Pentagon to fight back against America’s greatest threats. Our military and nation are stronger because of his courage to serve.”
Senate intelligence committee chair Tom Cotton claimed former Pentagon employees were “trying to undermine” both Hegseth and Trump’s agenda. And Cory Mills, a member of House armed services committee, said on X: “I fully stand with and support @SecDef.”
However, reacting to that NBC News report, Democratic representative Angie Craig said Hegseth should be fired for “gross negligence” which had put US service members at risk: “He never should’ve been hired in the first place, but his gross negligence in putting our service members at risk is more than enough to be fired for.”
And Debbie Wasserman Schulz also called for his resignation: “Pete Hegseth’s incompetence is a threat to our national security. He needs to resign immediately.”
Key events
Donald Trump said he spoke with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, about trade and Iran.
The call went “very well”, Trump said in a Truth Social post, adding that the pair are “on the same side of every issue”.
The Department of Homeland Security denied detained Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil permission to attend the birth of his first child, according to documents seen by multiple outlets.
Instead, Khalil experienced the birth via a telephone call from a Louisiana detention facility more than 1,000 miles away from the New York hospital where his son was delivered.
In a statement released on Monday evening, Khalil’s wife Noor Abdalla said:
I welcomed our son into the world earlier today without Mahmoud by my side. Despite our request for ICE to allow Mahmoud to attend the birth, they denied his temporary release to meet our son. This was a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer.
According to emails reviewed by the New York Times, Khalil’s lawyers suggested several ways in which he could have attended the birth, including allowing him a two-week furlough while wearing an ankle monitor and requiring scheduled check-ins. The request was denied by the New Orleans field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Pete Hegseth blames ousted officials for leaks in latest Signal chat scandal
Joseph Gedeon
Embattled US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has defended his most recent use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive military operations, blaming fired Pentagon officials for orchestrating leaks against the Trump administration.
In an interview with former colleagues at Fox News on Tuesday morning, Hegseth suggested the problems stem from former officials, appointed by this administration, for leaking information to damage him and Donald Trump, adding that there was an internal investigation and that evidence would eventually be handed to the justice department. He asked:
When you dismiss people who you believe are leaking classified information… why would it surprise anybody if those very same people keep leaking to the very same reporters whatever information they think they can have to try to sabotage the agenda of the president or the secretary.
In a statement posted on X over the weekend, the three dismissed top officials – Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll and Darin Selnick – wrote that they were “incredibly disappointed” by the way they were removed, adding that “unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.”
Hegseth, in the interview, also confirmed the news that his chief of staff Joe Kasper will stay at the Pentagon, but it’s “going to be in a slightly different role”.
The controversy stems from recent reporting in the New York Times, after a second Signal chat was identified where he is again believed to have shared sensitive operational details about strikes against Houthis in Yemen – including launch times of fighter jets, bomb drop timings and missile launches – with a group of 13 people, including his wife, brother and personal lawyer, some of whom possessed no security clearance.
Hegseth dismissed those reports in the interview, characterizing criticism as politically motivated attacks. He told Fox and Friends:
No one’s texting war plans. What was shared over Signal then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordinations for media coordination among other things.
It has since emerged via NBC News that the sensitive information the defense secretary shared in that group chat came from a top general’s secure messages.
Here is Rubio’s full statement.
Today is the day. Under @POTUS’ leadership and at my direction, we are reversing decades of bloat and bureaucracy at the State Department.
These sweeping changes will empower our talented diplomats to put America and Americans first. pic.twitter.com/CGWz3JrYwu
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) April 22, 2025
Trump administration reorganizing state department, Marco Rubio says
The Trump administration is reorganizing the US Department of State to eliminate certain offices that it considers redundant as well as some programs that it says do not align with US interests, secretary of state Marco Rubio said in a statement on Tuesday.
This approach will empower the Department from the ground up, from the bureaus to the embassies. Region-specific functions will be consolidated to increase functionality, redundant offices will be removed, and non-statutory programs that are misaligned with America’s core national interests will cease to exist.
Don Bacon of Nebraska, a prominent Republican on the House armed services committee, on Monday became the first GOP lawmaker to publicly suggest Trump should fire Hegseth. He told Politico that the chaos at the defense department is reigniting Republicans’ fears about his leadership abilities.
I’m not in the White House, and I’m not going to tell the White House how to manage this … but I find it unacceptable, and I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge.
Democrats call for Hegseth to resign as Republicans echo Trump’s support for secretary
Despite rumbles in the Pentagon over Pete Hegesth’s ability to do his job, Republican lawmakers have largely followed Donald Trump’s lead and backed the controversy-mired defense secretary while Democrats are calling for his resignation.
A post on Senate Republican’s X account today, blamed “disgruntled” former employees for the bad press: “Secretary Pete Hegseth is a veteran who is implementing President Trump’s America first agenda. Disgruntled former employees at the Pentagon are trying to undermine the agenda that Americans voted for.”
Yesterday senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee blamed the left: “Of course the left, libs, and leakers are angry with Pete Hegseth. He is a strong @SecDef who is shaking up the status quo at the Pentagon to fight back against America’s greatest threats. Our military and nation are stronger because of his courage to serve.”
Senate intelligence committee chair Tom Cotton claimed former Pentagon employees were “trying to undermine” both Hegseth and Trump’s agenda. And Cory Mills, a member of House armed services committee, said on X: “I fully stand with and support @SecDef.”
However, reacting to that NBC News report, Democratic representative Angie Craig said Hegseth should be fired for “gross negligence” which had put US service members at risk: “He never should’ve been hired in the first place, but his gross negligence in putting our service members at risk is more than enough to be fired for.”
And Debbie Wasserman Schulz also called for his resignation: “Pete Hegseth’s incompetence is a threat to our national security. He needs to resign immediately.”
Sensitive information Pete Hegseth shared with wife and brother came from top general’s secure messages – report
As Pete Hegseth continues to find himself in hot water over Signal-gate, despite Donald Trump’s vocal backing, NBC News reports that the sensitive information the defense secretary shared in a group chat with over dozen people including his wife and brother came from a top general’s secure messages.
Per NBC’s report, minutes before US fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, army general Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads US Central Command, used a secure US government system to send detailed information about the operation to Hegseth.
The material Kurilla sent included details about when US fighters would take off and when they would hit their targets. He provided Hegseth – as he is supposed to – with information he needed to know and did so using a system specifically designed to safely transmit sensitive and classified information. Hegesth then used his personal phone to send some of that same information to at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, NBC reports citing three US officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges.
The sequence of events raises new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified. In all, according to NBC’s sources, less than 10 minutes elapsed between Kurilla giving Hegseth the information and Hegseth sending it to the two group chats, one of which included other cabinet-level officials and their designees — and, inadvertently, the editor of The Atlantic magazine. The other one was composed of Hegseth’s wife, brother and attorney and some of his aides.
Hegseth shared the information on Signal despite, NBC News has reported, an aide warning him in the days beforehand to be careful not to share sensitive information on an non-secure communications system before the Yemen strikes.
Trump insisted there was no controversy on Monday at the White House Easter Egg roll:
Pete’s doing a great job; everybody’s happy with him. There’s no dysfunction.
IMF slashes global growth forecasts due to Trump trade tensions
Graeme Wearden
The International Monetary Fund has slashed its forecasts for global growth this year and in 2026, due to the disruption caused by Donald Trump’s trade war.
The IMF is now predicting that growth across the world economy will fall to 2.8% this year, down from 3.3% in 2024, followed by 3% growth this year. Back in January, the Fund had forecast 3.3% growth in both 2025 and 2026.
It blames the direct effects of the new trade measures and their indirect effects through trade linkage spillovers, plus heightened uncertainty, and deteriorating sentiment.
In its latest World Economic Outlook, the Fund says:
The swift escalation of trade tensions and extremely high levels of policy uncertainty are expected to have a significant impact on global economic activity.
Growth in advanced economies is now projected to be 1.4% in 2025, half a percentage point lower than it forecast in January.
The report also shows how Trump has pushed up the US effective tariff rate to the highest in over 100 years – above the levels which compounded the Great Depression.
The IMF warns, soberly, that the outlook is dominated by “intensifying downside risks”.
Its World Economic Outlook says:
Ratcheting up a trade war, along with even more elevated trade policy uncertainty, could further reduce near- and long-term growth, while eroded policy buffers weaken resilience to future shocks.
Divergent and rapidly shifting policy stances or deteriorating sentiment could trigger additional repricing of assets beyond what took place after the announcement of sweeping US tariffs on April 2 and sharp adjustments in foreign exchange rates and capital flows, especially for economies already facing debt distress.
Broader financial instability may ensue, including damage to the international monetary system.
US supreme court to weigh objections to elementary school LGBT storybooks
The supreme court will hear arguments today from parents in Maryland who want to keep their elementary school children out of certain classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read in the latest case involving the intersection of religion and LGBT rights.
The justices are due to consider an appeal by parents with children in public schools in Montgomery County after lower courts declined to order the local school district to let children opt out when these books are read.
The parents contend that the school board’s policy of prohibiting opt-outs violates the constitution’s first amendment protections for free exercise of religion.
The supreme court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has steadily expanded the rights of religious people in recent years, sometimes at the expense of other values like LGBT rights. For instance, the court in 2023 ruled that certain businesses have a right under the first amendment’s free speech protections to refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation secularism advocacy group in a filing to the supreme court supporting the school board said:
Parents should not have the constitutional right to micromanage their children’s education to ensure that all secular education materials conform with their personal religious beliefs.
Such a rule would be boundless because “almost any book or idea – however commonplace or innocent – likely contradicts some religious ideals”, the group said.
The supreme court is expected to rule by the end of June. For more on this story, see the New York Times (paywall).
Donald Trump said overnight that he was planning to travel to Vatican for the funeral of Pope Francis, which is expected to take place on Saturday.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said:
Melania and I will be going to the funeral of Pope Francis, in Rome. We look forward to being there!
As Politico notes, “the president’s confirmed attendance means a procession of world leaders will now seek to use the occasion to grab some precious face time with the man upending global economics and security”.
China urges Japan to help fight US tariffs together, as US ‘very optimistic’ about ongoing US-Japan trade talks
Chinese premier Li Qiang has sent a letter to Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba calling for a coordinated response to Donald Trump’s tariff measures, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday.
The letter, sent via the Chinese embassy in Japan, stressed the need to “fight protectionism together”, Kyodo reported, citing multiple Japanese government officials. The foreign ministries of both countries did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Beijing warned countries on Monday against striking a broader economic deal with the United States at its expense, saying it will take “resolute and reciprocal” countermeasures against countries that do so, ratcheting up its rhetoric in a spiralling trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
Japan, one of Washington’s closest allies, was among dozens of countries targeted by Trump’s sweeping tariffs earlier this month and has begun negotiations with the US to try and resolve the issue.
The new US ambassador to Japan, George Glass, said on Tuesday he is “very optimistic” about ongoing tariff talks between Washington and Tokyo, ahead of the second round of the negotiations expected later in the month.
After meeting with Ishiba at the premier’s office, Glass told reporters that the two countries are in a “golden age” both “economically and friendship-wise”.
The Japanese government is considering expanding tariff-free imports of American-grown rice as part of negotiations over higher levies imposed by Washington, sources familiar with the matter told Kyodo on Tuesday.
Relations between Beijing and Tokyo have been strained in recent years by a range of issues from territorial disputes to trade tensions.
Catherine Shoard
George Clooney has said he is unconcerned about the persistent verbal abuse levelled at him by Donald Trump, after the president labelled him a “fake movie actor” on Truth Social.
Speaking to Gayle King on CBS Mornings, Clooney said: “I don’t care. I’ve known Donald Trump for a long time. My job is not to please the president of the United States. My job is to try and tell the truth when I can and when I have the opportunity. I am well aware of the idea that people will not like that.”
He continued: “People will criticise that. Elon Musk has weighed in [about me]. That is their right. It’s my right to say the other side.”
Trump’s attacks on Clooney renewed last summer, after the latter’s op-ed piece in the New York Times urging Joe Biden to step down for re-election. The actor wrote that Biden could continue with his work furthering democracy by allowing an alternative, younger Democratic candidate to run, who might stand a greater chance of beating Donald Trump.
“So now fake movie actor George Clooney, who never came close to making a great movie, is getting into the act,” posted Trump. “He’s turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are.”
Harvard sues Trump administration over efforts to ‘gain control of academic decision-making’
Johana Bhuiyan
Harvard University has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging it is trying to “gain control of academic decision-making at Harvard”.
The university is fighting back against the administration’s threat to review about $9bn in federal funding after Harvard officials refused to comply with a list of demands that included appointing an outside overseer to ensure that the viewpoints being taught at the university were “diverse”. Harvard is specifically looking to halt a freeze on $2.2bn in grants.
The lawsuit comes as the Trump administration has sought to force changes at multiple Ivy League institutions after months of student activism centered around the war in Gaza. The administration has painted the campus protests as anti-American, and the institutions as liberal and antisemitic, which Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, refuted.
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement that the “gravy train of federal assistance” to institutions like Harvard was coming to an end.
“Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege,” Fields said.
Political website the Hill is this morning reporting some misgivings among senior Republicans after Donald Trump increased his attacks on Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell amid market turmoil sparked by Trump’s tariff decisions.
It quotes a Republican source saying: “Republicans on the banking committee and even the financial services committee have a lot of faith in Powell and think it would be ill-advised to undermine his economic agenda by dismissing Powell or prematurely cutting rates.”
A Republican strategist told the Hill that high profile criticism of the Fed “usually backfires”, and that among older-school Republicans “people are thinking, ‘This isn’t going to work’”.
Of talk of replacing Powell, the strategist said: “The market is all based on emotions and vibes, so getting rid of that stability amidst everything else would be very bad.”
It isn’t clear that Trump has the legal power to dismiss and replace Powell in any case.