The politics of the Yemen chat scandal is obscuring key foreign policy shifts

The White House switched from stunned inertia over its Yemen group chat scandal to its regular truth-trashing, brutal attacks on its critics and a perennial defense – that President Donald Trump is the victim of a witch hunt.

Its response to the embarrassing spectacle revealed by Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg gripped Washington on Tuesday. An increasingly aggressive tone and the lack of resignations among top national security officials suggested the plan is to give no inch and to turn the storm into another example of the second Trump presidency’s capacity to defy the constraints that normally apply.

In a divided nation hardly fixated on air strikes on Iran-backed Houthi militants, and as conservative media and GOP lawmakers run interference, political impact from the furor may be minimal.