Insider Brief for The View from the Front podcast, edition 4-21-25

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Insider Brief!

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There’s been a lot happen since last Thursday’s podcast.

Here’s a quick rundown on the stories you need to know about, and which I’m tracking for this week’s edition.

The biggest news is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared detailed military plans in a second Signal chat that included his wife and brother.

As CNN reports:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed plans about a military operation against the Houthis in Yemen on a second Signal group chat, this one on his personal phone and including his wife, lawyer and brother, three people familiar with the chat told CNN.

The chat was set up during Hegseth’s tumultuous confirmation hearing process as a way for his closest allies to strategize, two of the people familiar with the matter said. But Hegseth continued using the chat, which had more than a dozen people in it, to communicate after he was confirmed, the people said.

The revelation comes as some of Hegseth’s closest advisers have begun sounding the alarm about the secretary’s judgment, including his former press secretary, John Ullyot, and three former senior officials Hegseth fired last week — his top adviser Dan Caldwell, deputy chief of staff Darin Selnick, and Colin Carroll, who served as chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defense.

This impossible-to-imagine news has Hegseth on the hot seat. (Or possibly his time is already finished, according to NPR.)