Standing beside President Trump just three days ago, the US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said that America “looked like fools” under the presidency of Joe Biden. “Not anymore.”
But that is how Trump’s national security team is looking today after discussing war plans to attack the Houthis in a group chat that included the editor of a liberal magazine hated by Trump.
It is hard to know which aspect of the episode is the most damaging: the exchanges exposing deep disdain for Europe felt by the vice-president JD Vance and Hegseth; Vance’s disagreement with Trump on the wisdom of the strikes; the invitation to join the 18-strong group chat issued unwittingly to the Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg by Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz; the