Trump's USA

Ministers' war chat
Donald Trump to interview journalist who revealed chat leak

US President Donald Trump will be interviewed by The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg later Thursday evening, he announced on Truth Social.

Goldberg is the journalist who was accidentally invited to the ministers' war chat on Signal. Trump writes that Goldberg is responsible for many "fictional articles" about himself.

"I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if The Atlantic can be 'truthful,'" Trump writes.

US-Russia relations
Russian spy chief: I want to meet with CIA chief

Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia's international intelligence service, says he wants to have a meeting with CIA chief John Ratcliffe. This is reported by Reuters, which refers to the Russian state intelligence agency Tass.

Naryshkin says he had a “constructive” phone call with Ratcliffe and that he would like to follow this up with a personal meeting “at some point.”

The spy chief’s initiative is in line with Putin and Trump’s signals of easing tensions between the two countries. 

The future of the Democrats
Democrats are shaken up – the whip is leaving

Dick Durbin, the Democrats’ second-highest politician in the Senate, will not run for re-election next year. This is reported by several media outlets.

The announcement shakes the party but is not unexpected. Durbin is 80 years old and terms last six years.

Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker are among the possible successors being mentioned.

Testing "War Plan" Against Trump: "Not Weak and Woke"

Senator and former CIA analyst Elissa Slotkin is set to give a series of speeches about the Democrats' path forward in the new Trump era, and she used militaristic language during a rehearsal of the speech that Politico heard.

Slotkin said, among other things, that Democrats must stop being seen as "weak and woke," that the party "has to take back the fucking flag," and that we need to get some "fucking alpha energy."

In the speech, she called the whole thing a "war plan," but Slotkin says it's not certain that that term will stick.

- It's a military-style operational plan. I don't understand how we're going to be able to come together around a coherent strategy if we don't agree on where we're going, Slotkin tells Politico.