Overnight, the U.S. launched what analysts are describing as one of the largest bombing missions in Yemen in years, targeting what the U.S. says are Houthi leaders in terrorist infrastructure.

The Trump administration's campaign against Yemen has been going on for about two weeks now.

But the military action has been overshadowed by the messages sent by the national security officials in the

commercial messaging app signal leading up to and after the strikes. Nick Schifrin is here to

update us. Nick, it's great to see you. So looking at the policy, what is the military currently

bombing and how is that different from the Biden administration? Yeah, the Trump administration has

launched many

missile strikes and jet and drone sorties to target what the U.S. identifies as Houthi leaders,

their air defense, and weapons manufacturing and storage. One of the differences with the Biden

administration's approach, according to military officials, is delegating authorities down to the

commanders, allowing them more leeway on the timing and the targets.

And that is the other difference.

The Trump campaign has expanded the targets to include Houthi leaders and Houthi technical experts,

what the military we would call the Houthi's network, says retired Admiral Kevin Donagan,

the former commander of U.S. Navy Middle East.

It includes leadership, but not in the sense that everyone with the last name of Houthis would

necessarily be targeted. It would be leadership of those that are doing training, teaching,

of those that have the understanding of how to employ these weapons,

that put them together and build them. And Nick, I talked about it being very similar to what

we did against al-Qaeda or ISIS or Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula right here in Yemen.

Other former U.S. officials, Jeff, have told me that the U.S. did not have the intelligence

going into this campaign to target all of the Houthi leaders.

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