An investigation into Mike Waltz’s Venmo account on Wednesday showed that the White House national security adviser was “friends” with a number of journalists, Mediaite reports.

“The White House is going to war over war plans, dusting off a familiar playbook that President Trump has used for decades to blunt controversies: attack, attack, attack,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The president, senior advisers and top cabinet officials launched a campaign to dismiss one of the biggest crises of Trump’s second term, as Washington grappled with the news that top administration national security officials discussed sensitive military operations on a nongovernment message app that included a prominent magazine editor.”

“Trump has privately expressed frustration about the incident, people familiar with his thinking said, but he has made a strategic decision to paper over his annoyance and cede no ground in public.”

“A growing number of Donald Trump’s allies are calling on the president to fire his national security adviser, Michael Waltz, to try to mitigate the political fallout from revelations that the nation’s top defense officials discussed sensitive military operations in a commercial app — and inadvertently included a journalist in their chat group,” NBC News reports.

Said one former adviser: “They need to put this on someone and clean it up that way. The most obvious person to do that with is Waltz.”

Politico: Trump gave Waltz a vote of confidence. It wasn’t as smooth behind the scenes.

“The Social Security Administration on Wednesday abruptly backed off planned cuts to phone services for disabled and some elderly Americans applying for benefits amid an uproar from advocates,” the Washington Post reports.

“The originally proposed changes — scheduled to take effect Monday but now delayed to April 14 — would have directed all people filing claims to first verify their identity online or in person, removing a phone option in place for years. Advocates said the shift would make it impossible for many disabled and elderly people with limited mobility or computer skills to apply.”

Axios: Social Security postpones and partially rolls back ID changes.

“Texts by President Trump’s advisers about whether to attack Houthi militants in Yemen underscored the ad hoc nature of the administration’s national security deliberations, a mode that has sometimes left allies bewildered and his own aides at odds,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Other presidents have relied on the State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council staff to develop and filter options in an orderly manner. The Trump team has operated in a far less orthodox fashion, one that stems from the president’s impatience with debate and skepticism of bureaucracy. Many of his top advisers, few of whom have held senior positions before, share that perspective.”

“President Trump’s executive order attacking Paul Weiss and severely restricting that law firm’s ability to represent its clients was widely seen by lawyers as a dangerous affront to the nation’s legal system,” the New York Times reports.

“To rivals of Paul Weiss, it was an opportunity.”

“Within days of Mr. Trump’s March 14 order, some of the biggest competitors were calling top lawyers at the beleaguered law firm — one of the nation’s most prestigious — asking if they wanted to jump ship along with their lucrative clients.”

President Trump issued an executive order targeting Jenner and Block, a big law firm that used to employ Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team who later became an outspoken critic of the president, the New York Times reports.

Said Trump: “He’s a bad guy.”

“President Donald Trump and his administration are vilifying judges who rule against them and targeting political opponents and law firms for retribution in ways that have no parallel in recent U.S. history,” the Washington Post reports.

“These actions and others show a presidency with a strikingly aggressive approach to power, moving swiftly to claim more authority and barrel through norms, according to legal experts and constitutional law scholars.”

“While their antagonistic posture toward court challenges and judicial orders is the most prominent display of resistance, the degree to which Trump and his associates have targeted foes for punishment is also a stark departure from past administrations.”

“The best-known member of Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service team of technologists once provided support to a cybercrime gang that bragged about trafficking in stolen data and cyberstalking an FBI agent,” Reuters reports.

“Edward Coristine is among the most visible members of the DOGE effort that has been given sweeping access to official networks as it attempts to radically downsize the U.S. government.”

Playbook: “What we’re watching here is the first major gaffe of the new administration — or at least the first since the aborted federal payments freeze of the first week. Since then, this administration has appeared way more competent than Trump’s first, which was plagued by farcical errors and scandals. But this story feels like something straight out of Trump 1.0 — and crucially, the clean-up operation has not been much better. Dems will be encouraged by all of that.”

“So watch this space: The White House knows this needs to be a one-off, and that the story needs putting to bed fast. So expect more forceful pushback today.”

Jonathan Lemire: “Trump—who is famously reluctant to use any electronic messaging, and who started sending the occasional text message only during his last campaign—had not heard of the encrypted app and opted against weighing in when he spoke with the press, the officials said. Instead, Trump insisted he knew little about the matter while taking a swipe at Goldberg and this publication.”

“But since then, the two officials and an outside adviser told me, the president has grown frustrated at the incident’s sloppiness and the negative headlines it has spawned—including from a contentious congressional hearing today—even as he and his allies have focused on attacking the media rather than showing outward concern for the apparent flagrant national-security breach.”

“Elon Musk’s demand for federal workers to submit five bullet points detailing their week’s work has hit a new snag: the inbox is full,” Bloomberg reports.

“Workers submitting their lists — part of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effort to cut the federal budget and downsize the federal workforce — are receiving bounceback emails informing them their messages weren’t delivered.”

“The Trump administration is moving to freeze tens of millions of dollars in federal family-planning grants to certain organizations while it investigates whether the money was used for diversity efforts,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The groups that would be subject to the freeze, which include Planned Parenthood affiliates, were set to get about $120 million this year.”

President Donald Trump stood by his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, after The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was accidentally added to a private, high-level chat on the messaging app Signal where military plans were being discussed, NBC News reports.

Said Trump: “Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.”

Bill Kristol: “If a scandal comes to light and no one does anything about it—is it a real scandal?”

Washington Post: “The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers’ experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.”

“And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.”