WASHINGTON — Earlier this month, Vice President JD Vance debated the merits of U.S. airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels with the country’s top national security officials, questioning President Donald Trump’s judgment ahead of the deadly bombings that ultimately were carried out.
It was an extremely rare insight into the specific deliberations of a vice president and the president’s most senior national security advisers just two months into a new administration and one that is only publicly known because the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine was inadvertently included in the discussion, which occurred on the messaging app Signal and not in the White House’s Situation Room or using secure channels that top U.S. officials typically work with to discuss sensitive and classified matters.
“The first target — their top missile guy — we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed,” Trump national security adviser Michael Waltz wrote at 2 p.m. EDT on March 15.
“Excellent,” Vance responded a minute later in the group chat that included the secretaries of state and defense, the CIA director, the White House chief of staff and others. Earlier, Vance had written he thought the president was “making a mistake” and he wasn’t sure if Trump was “aware how inconsistent” the strikes would be with his message that European leaders need to do more to handle their international security concerns. (The strikes were in response to Houthi attacks on merchant vessels in the region, with Vance arguing that more of that trade benefits Europe and not the U.S.)
The strikes on March 15 killed at least 53 people, including children, according to health officials in the Houthi-controlled region. The Trump administration has continued to carry out strikes in the days since, including bombings on Sunday in a neighborhood of Yemen's capital, Sanaa, that killed at least two people and wounded 13 others, the rebel-controlled SABA news agency said, citing health officials.
On Wednesday, the day The Atlantic published the dayslong text conversation in full after Trump administration officials disputed any allegation of wrongdoing or carelessness, Vance was in Quantico, Virginia, to address Marines stationed there, serve food in the mess and shoot guns.
He made no mention of the growing scandal — after writing on social media earlier in the day that The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg “oversold” the sensitivity and importance of the text messagest — but slammed the diversity policies that Trump has routed from throughout the federal government, recalled his own experience in the Marines in the early 2000s and had his office issue statements from three Marines praising him, with two referring to him as an inspiration.
“Here's the thing, under President Trump's leadership, we believe in a very simple principle: We don't care who you are, where you came from. We don't care what skin color you are. We care about excellence and we care about patriotism, and if you are awesome and you are a patriotic, young Marine, then we are going to do everything that we can to make you the most lethal fighting force the world has ever seen,” Vance said. “No more quotas, no more ridiculous mumbo jumbo, no more diversity trainings.”
He later served food at the mess at Marine Corps Base Quantico and ate with a group of five Marines, three corporals and two lance corporals, all natives of Vance’s home state of Ohio. The three corporals issued statements through Vance’s office, praising the vice president, the first Marine to hold that title. One corporal said the vice president was “absolutely an inspiration.” Another said it was an “honorable opportunity” and “inspiring” to meet someone from a similar background as him and quoted from Vance’s 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.”
“‘Where we come from is who we are… but we choose every day who we become.’ And I strive to live by those words every single day,” Corporal Kayli Merritt said in the statement provided.
The vice president ignored questions from the media traveling with him in the mess hall and later visited the base’s shooting range for roughly 40 minutes and fired six different weapons, including a drone and a Howitzer.
Vance is set to travel to Greenland later this week, an autonomous territory of U.S. ally and NATO member Denmark and a target of Trump’s expansionist desires, and visit a U.S. Space Force facility. Trump has not ruled out the use of military force to seize control of Greenland.
Local media in Greenland reported Wednesday that U.S. officials have been going door to door in the capital Nuuk to ask if people wanted to meet Vance’s wife, second lady Usha Vance, who is scheduled to be in Greenland as well this week.
On Wednesday, the vice president’s team announced a reduced itinerary for the Vances in Greenland.
At Quantico, Vance joked about his delayed arrival by recalling a superior once telling him during his time in the Marines that “if you’re five minutes early, you’re 10 minutes late.”
“But what does it mean when the vice president is two hours late?” Vance said. “I guess I'm on time, because who the hell is going to get me in trouble, right?
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
