Good morning. It is March 26th. The morning is lightly overcast, but not too dim in New York City, and this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

The Atlantic published a sizzling follow-up to its story about how the Trump administration inadvertently included the magazine's editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, in a group chat on Signal discussing plans for the administration's attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen. Yesterday, in the course of a previously scheduled Senate intelligence hearing, some of the chat participants testified under oath that there had been no classified, sensitive military operational information in the chat, and so the Atlantic took that as permission to publish material it had previously redacted out of concerns about security.

Among those messages was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth texting the group, including the journalist of whose presence he was unaware. 

“TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.” 

Then,

“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”
“1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)” 

and so on, including a note that quarter past two Eastern time was, in all caps, “WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP.” 

Among the operational details also covered in the aftermath was that one of the targets was a building where the person they were trying to kill, was visiting his girlfriend. That is, a civilian residential building, that our armed forces collapsed with a deliberately targeted attack. 

As luck would have it, the officials are back on Capitol Hill for day two of that same hearing in which they now have more questions to answer. 

President Trump signed an executive order yesterday in which he purported to require proof of citizenship for people to vote in U.S. elections. The president of the United States does not have the power to enforce that sort of an order, but the press basically ran with it at face value, then tried to adjust the published product afterwards. 

The New York Times, for instance, edited its original headline, “Trump signs order requiring citizenship proof to vote in federal elections,” to “Trump signs order calling for citizenship proof to vote in federal elections.” 

The story itself still says the executive order will require proof of US citizenship on election forums. 

The Times also published online this morning a six byline story about how exactly it was that the law firm Paul, Weiss capitulated to a flagrantly illegal set of extortionate demands from the Trump administration, rather than working from its possibly unsurpassed position of strength, to fight back against the administration's ongoing campaign of retaliation and threatened retaliation against anyone who might try to use the legal system to constrain the Trump presidency's violations of the law and abuses of power. 

Paul, Weiss's will to fight in this account was sapped both by an onslaught of its competitors, who, rather than teaming up to defend the legal profession, set about trying to poach Paul, Weiss's most lucrative partners, and by the resistance of those lucrative partners themselves, in a firm whose number one source of revenue is mergers and acquisitions rather than litigation. 

“Among the leadership at Paul, Weiss,” the Times writes, “there was deep concern about how many of the firm's lawyers would be able to keep doing their jobs. Federal agencies often have to sign off on corporate mergers and stock offerings.” 

If your lawyers are chiefly in the business of making deals, then making a deal with Trump is simply a way to make sure that the clients are able to get the other deals they want done done without the president interfering, as the president has made it clear, he is eager to do if someone displeases him 

And, speaking of presidency by whim, the Boston Globe reports that a graduate student at Tufts, a Turkish national, in the doctoral program for child study in human development, was seized by ICE agents in Somerville, on her way to an Iftar dinner, and hauled away to detention. Yet again, this appears to be retaliation for someone supporting protests against the slaughter in Gaza. The student, whose name is Rumeysa Ozturk, does not, the Globe writes, appear to be a leading figure of the pro-Palestinian protest movement at Tufts. But according to Ozturk’s attorney, the student's photo and other identifying information were recently posted on Canary Mission, a website that documents individuals and organizations it considers to be anti-Semitic. Pro-Palestinian protesters say the site has doxed and targeted them. She's reportedly a Fulbright scholar. A federal judge has ordered ICE not to remove her from Massachusetts without prior notice. Phew. 

Only now, after all that barrage, is it time to look at the physical New York Times from the doorstep. The earlier Atlantic story about the administration's reckless chatting gets the first two news columns. On the right, “PRESIDENT TRIES TO DIVERT BLAME IN WAR PLAN LEAK / FUROR IN WASHINGTON / Playing Down the Breach as Democrats Call It a ‘Sloppy’ Error.”

Next to that, “Trump’s Team Bares Disdain Toward Europe / Texts Become Public, Shaking an Alliance.”

In the first story, the president and commander in chief is quoted as saying of the group chat organized by his national security advisor, Michael Waltz, “so this was not classified. Now, if it's classified information, it's probably a little bit different. But I always say you have to learn from every experience.” 

He also said, “I think it was very unfair the way they attacked Michael” and the Times writes he called Jeffrey Goldberg a “sleazebag.” And he said “they've made a big deal out of this because we've had two perfect months.” That is how the 78 year old man officially in charge of the nation's military talks these days, which may be why when they decided to bomb the Houthis, a bunch of other people just got together in a group chat. 

The story spreads out even more inside the paper on page A16 with the stories, “Republicans temper criticism, citing group chat breach as a mistake” and “Top spy chiefs take heat for attack briefing in chat.” Facing all that inside the paper on page A17, the headline is “Texas doctors treat measles patients who followed Kennedy's remedy.” The inset subheadline is, “children who took too much vitamin A had signs of liver damage.” Vitamin A, which is lethal in large doses, is what Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation's quack anti-vaxxer secretary of health and human services, recommends instead of measles vaccination in the face of a still out of control measles outbreak.

“So far,” the Times writes, “doctors at West Texas hospitals have said they've seen patients with yellowed skin and high levels of liver enzymes, both signs of a damaged liver. Many of those patients had been in the hospital for a severe measles infection. Doctors discovered the liver damage only after routine lab work.” 

Down below that is the jump from a front page story. “Despite skepticism of Kennedy, his health ideas gained traction.” The story talks about Kennedy's tendency to spin wild theories out of kernels of truth and his promotion of what critics say is quack medicine. Yet the story says “even some critics of Mr. Kennedy applaud his focus on obesity and healthy eating. He makes powerful industries and civil servants uncomfortable holding forth from his newly powerful perch as head of the Department of Health and Human Services on an eclectic menu of topics, offering up alternative remedy ideas one day and blasting industrial food companies the next. Now companies in the government,” the story says “must contend with what might be called the Kennedy factor.” Might it? “So far there has been little public pushback. The centers for disease control and prevention posted information about vitamin A on its website after Mr. Kennedy promoted it as a measles treatment to the consternation of public health officials who want him to advocate forcefully for vaccination, which circles back to where we just were on the topic of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” 

That is the news, or at least a bucket dipped into the onrushing news river. 

Thank you for listening. The Indignity Morning Podcast is edited by Joe MacLeod. The theme song is composed and performed by Mack Scocca-Ho. You, the listeners, keep us going through your paid subscriptions to Indignity and your tips. Continue sending those along if you're able. And if nothing unexpected gets in the way, we will talk again tomorrow.