CNN's Fareed Zakaria - and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good March 25, 2025

 Insights, analysis and must reads from 

CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good

March 25, 2025

The Texting Debacle

A stunning leak by senior officials is now dominating news about the Trump administration. For those who have not read the story, The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg—who has covered national security, US foreign policy, and the Middle East for decades—detailed how he was included (presumably by accident) in a text chain on the commercially available, purportedly secure messaging app Signal. Goldberg received an invitation to connect via the app with US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz (not in itself such a strange development) and then was added to a text group among high-level administration officials who discussed military plans (a strange development indeed).

 

Based on their initials and a few other details, the other text-chain participants seemed to include Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, and senior White House adviser Stephen Miller. The content of their texts: plans to strike Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which later were carried out on March 15, and a debate about whether to proceed.

 

Along the way, Europe was described by Hegseth as “PATHETIC” for its free-riding on US military power; Hegseth seemed to offer that commentary in a conciliatory effort to persuade Vance, who had cautioned against the Yemen airstrikes operation for being too generous to Europe. Another comment, seemingly from Miller, indicated the Trump plan was to reopen shipping lanes in the Red Sea—which the Houthis disrupted in retaliation for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza—and then extract compensation from Europe and Egypt.

In an interview with NBC, Trump stood by Waltz and said this episode had been “the only glitch in two months” of his administration, “and it turned out not to be a serious one." 

 

We’ll begin with the obvious: this was a major breach of sensitive material, and the slapstick manner of it puts the Trump administration in quite a bad light. “Republicans spent years rightfully arguing that Hillary Clinton committed a crime when she kept classified information on her private server—including these particular Republicans!” Jim Geraghty writes for the conservative National Review. (Clinton was not charged with any crime, and there was no evidence her server had been compromised.) “I like Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth,” Geraghty continues. “I want them to succeed. … But these are lapses in decision-making that are inexcusable. Waltz must know that Signal isn’t a secure system for communication, and he’s got to know better than to just add any old ‘JG’ to the chat list without checking. Hegseth must know he can’t just discuss highly secret war plans on an insecure system.”

 

Beyond those observations, the world has learned something about the Trump administration’s true thinking and where key officials stand. Vance appeared hesitant about an operation Trump apparently had green-lighted, for reasons that fit with his public foreign-policy stances. The administration’s anti-Europe animus appears to be real.

 

“The news is that the characters played to their public type,” The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board writes. “National-security adviser Mike Waltz was a voice for U.S. leadership—and for carrying out the President’s policy. Vice President JD Vance was a voice for U.S. retreat even when Mr. Trump directed otherwise.”

 

Calling the whole episode “shambolic” and worthy of an episode of “Veep,” The Economist adds: “Mr Waltz and other cabinet-level officials expressed contempt for Europeans and insisted that allies should foot the bill for American military action, while emphasising the need to look tougher than Joe Biden’s administration. … There is no sign in these discussions of any debate about whether more bombing in Yemen, a country that has been blasted for years, would do much good; the possibility of escalation with Iran; or the role of Israel as the ceasefire with Hamas appeared on the brink of collapse.”

What It Means for

Allies and Enemies

“If Europeans didn’t already know what the new administration in Washington thinks and wants of them, they now do: ‘PATHETIC’ and cash, respectively,” writes Bloomberg columnist Marc Champion. “For a continent already worried that Trump may not honor any NATO Article 5 request or would be willing to shake down allies by withholding the spare parts and software upgrades needed to keep their F-35 Joint Strike Fighters flying, the content of this unintentionally leaked discussion has provided confirmation.”

 

There are even bigger problems, retired Australian Army Maj. Gen. Mick Ryan writes in his Futura Doctrina newsletter. The episode reveals a “cavalier attitude” toward “operational security,” Ryan writes. And due to the inclusion of journalist Goldberg, “the conversation may also have been compromised by other foreign interested parties.” Phones are hackable by spyware, so the risks were multiplied by Goldberg’s addition to the chain.

 

“There will also be many allies looking at this and wondering how secure their conversations with the administration are,” Ryan writes. “They will be wondering about the security of their information shared with this administration. What impact does this have on the trust between senior administration members and their counterparts in allied nations? In the past, there would have been an investigation into this security breach. Changes would have been made. People would have been sacked. What are the chances of this in the current environment?”

Watch Fareed’s Take

Fareed's Take

In a speech last week, Vice President JD Vance promised a “great American manufacturing comeback.” But the US has thrived as it has moved to a services-based economy, and Fareed argued on Sunday’s GPS against embracing protectionism in a misguided effort to restore past manufacturing glory.

Gaza Is Back

Where It Was

Before the Ceasefire

With the resumption of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza last week, the territory’s humanitarian crisis has worsened, and the danger to civilians has returned. The aid group Save the Children says more than 270 children have been killed in Gaza since the war resumed, Middle East Eye reports.

 

In his Home & Away newsletter, Council on Foreign Relations President Emeritus Richard Haass writes: “So, we are pretty much back to where we started” before the January ceasefire agreement that paused the war for nearly two months, “with Israel halting the entry of aid into Gaza and carrying out military operations against Hamas, operations that continue to degrade the terrorist organization but that also cause widespread civilian casualties. Arab efforts to come up with a viable postwar plan for Gaza have come to naught. The same holds for Trump’s mass deportation plan. We are looking at a future that resembles the past in Gaza: intermittent Israeli attacks, a dysfunctional Gaza in which Hamas, local gangs, and the IDF co-exist, and little in the way of fruitful diplomacy. Even worse, it is quite possible that the West Bank (home to 3 million Palestinians and 500,000 Israeli settlers) will increasingly come to resemble Gaza more than, say, Switzerland given ongoing Israeli operations and the weakening of the Palestinian Authority.”

 

Israel appears to be contemplating a scenario far-right politicians had supported—forcing Palestinians from Gaza and effectively governing the territory—surmises Amos Harel, a military analyst for the left-leaning Israeli daily Haaretz. “It seems that Israel is currently creating a smokescreen around the government and military's true intentions,” Harel argues. “While waiting for possible updates in negotiations [with Hamas], which are uncertain, preparations are underway for a large-scale operation to occupy Gaza and restore full Israeli control. This will occur while the far-right factions in the government push for the return of settlements and the forced expulsion of Palestinians, to be presented as ‘voluntary migration,’ with backing from Trump.”

Turkey’s Turn

Turkey’s arrest on corruption charges of popular Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, viewed as the leading political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been met with protests against the country’s authoritarian turn.

Imamoglu has a history of facing prosecutions and scrutiny that have hindered his political fortunes. In December 2022, before Turkey voted in May 2023, a court barred Imamoglu from politics for allegedly insulting electoral judges—just as Turkey’s opposition parties were struggling to unite around a candidate to challenge Erdogan. In 2019, Erdogan’s party contested Imamoglu’s mayoral victory, forcing a rerun, in which Imamoglu won again.

Al-Monitor’s Amberin Zaman writes that the arrest of Imamoglu looks like a political mistake for Erdogan’s administration. “If presidential elections were held today, few doubt that Imamoglu … would prevail in a landslide,” Zaman writes. “For five nights running, giant crowds have assembled around the Istanbul municipality building in scenes reminiscent of the 2014 Euromaidan protests in Ukraine that forced pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych to step down. … [W]hile [Erdogan] may well continue to hold on to power for the foreseeable future, the Erdogan who once inspired hopes for a better, freer and more prosperous Turkey is now firmly buried in the past.”

The Economist writes that Turkey’s ongoing authoritarian slide has damaged investor confidence, which had been rebuilt after Erdogan retained power in 2023 and his renewed administration turned to more orthodox economic policies.

“Behind the scenes, Turkey’s authorities are going to great lengths to shield the economy from the country’s biggest political earthquake in years,” The Economist writes. “Turkey’s capital-markets regulator has banned short-selling on the stockmarket. And in only three days last week, the central bank is estimated to have burned through up to $26bn of foreign-currency reserves to prevent a major run on the Turkish lira. … The central bank has the means to defend the lira in the short term, and a green light from Mr Erdogan. But down the line, the bank might have to pause or reverse its easing of [interest] rates to protect the currency and avoid a new surge in inflation. … Continued protests and brutal repressive measures by Mr Erdogan would further shake confidence in the economy. Ordinary Turks may end up paying the price for Mr Imamoglu’s arrest. The demonstrations show no sign of slowing. That suggests Mr Erdogan may pay one as well.”

What Did Trump’s Release of JFK Files Turn Up?

Under orders from President Donald Trump to release all files related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Jr, the administration released thousands of records last week. What did we learn from them?

 

Not much, writes The Atlantic’s Kaitlyn Tiffany. Mostly, the new files removed redactions that revealed no relevant information (but did reveal some people’s Social Security numbers). “I’m one of the people who cares a lot about the Kennedy assassination,” Tiffany writes. “I’m currently finishing a book about the case. On principle, and out of selfish personal interest, I agree that the government should make all of the documents public if it can. Of course I scanned this new batch to see whether there was anything exciting. There wasn’t, but some of it was kind of funny. … Relatively few of the documents even mention Kennedy. … After decades of releases, it may be that these are the only kinds of secrets the Archives still hold about the Kennedy assassination—tiny bits of color on things that are already well understood and boring details about people whose connections to the event are minimal if they even exist. … Even … when the count of secret things ticks down to zero, how will we know that was really, really all? We won’t, of course. We never will.