ELLABELL, Ga. (AP) — Hyundai celebrated the opening of its new $7.6 billion electric vehicle factory in Georgia on Wednesday by announcing plans to expand its production capacity by two-thirds to a total of 500,000 vehicles per year.

The news came as President Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on auto imports at the White House. Hyundai will be spared from those tariffs on its U.S.-made vehicles. Trump praised the South Korean automaker on Monday, saying its American investments are “a clear demonstration that tariffs very strongly work.”

Hyundai began producing EVs just shy of six months ago at its sprawling manufacturing plant in southeast Georgia. More than 1,200 people are working there.

With employees in blue shirts filling bleachers behind him Wednesday, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chairman Euisun Chung said the company plans to increase the plant’s capacity from 300,000 vehicles per year to 500,000. He said it shows Hyundai has come to Georgia “to stay, to invest and to grow.”

“Standing here today, I can say I have never been more confident about building the future of mobility with America, in America,” Chung said.

Hyundai Motor Company CEO Jose Munoz said the Georgia expansion was “like building a new plant.”

“This plant couldn’t come at a better time than now,” Munoz told reporters, “because definitely all the cars that we would produce here are going to be exempted from any tariffs.”

Hyundai employees worked the assembly line Wednesday alongside hundreds of robots that stamp sheets of steel into fenders and door panels, weld and paint auto bodies and even park finished vehicles awaiting their final inspections.

The plant that sprawls across 3,000 acres churns out a finished vehicle about once a minute. Its 1,200 workers are currently producing two electric SUV models — the Ioniq 5 and the larger Ioniq 9 set for release this spring. Hyundai also plans for the plant to make hybrids, which Munoz predicted will eventually make up one-third of the vehicles produced there.

The newly announced Georgia expansion is part of $21 billion in U.S. investments over the next three years that Hyundai announced at the White House with Trump on Monday. They also include a $5.8 billion steel mill in Louisiana to produce auto parts for Hyundai’s assembly plants in Georgia and Alabama.

Chung told Trump at the White House: “We are really proud to stand with you and proud to build the future together.”

Before the expansion was announced, Hyundai said it planned to employ 8,500 total workers at the Bryan County site, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Savannah. Two partners making batteries at the site are expected to add another 3,500 workers.

Hyundai hasn’t said how many additional workers would be needed to increase capacity by 200,000 vehicles per year.

During the first half of 2024, the Ioniq 5 was America’s second-best-selling electric vehicle not made by industry leader Tesla.

Hyundai took less than two years to start making EVs in Georgia after breaking ground in the fall of 2022. It was the largest economic development project the state had ever seen, and it came with a whopping $2.1 billion in tax breaks and other incentives from the state and local governments.

EVs accounted for 8.1% of new vehicle sales in the U.S. last year, up from 7.9% in 2023, according to Motorintelligence.com.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Atlantic on Wednesday released the entire Signal chat among senior national security officials, showing that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth provided the exact timings of warplane launches and when bombs would drop — before the men and women flying those attacks against Yemen’s Houthis this month on behalf of the United States were airborne.

The disclosure follows two intense days during which leaders of President Donald Trump’s intelligence and defense agencies have struggled to explain how details — that current and former U.S. officials have said would have been classified — wound up on an unclassified Signal chat that included Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg,

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said no classified information was posted to the Signal chat.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he and Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the committee’s top Democrat, plan to send a letter to the Trump administration requesting an inspector general investigation into the use of Signal. They seek a classified briefing with a top administration official “who can speak to the facts” of the episode.

Top military official was not included in the chat

The chat was also notable for who it excluded: the only military attendee of the principals committeethe chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Adm. Christopher Grady is currently serving in that position in an acting capacity because Trump fired former chairman Gen. CQ Brown Jr. in February.

National security adviser Mike Waltz was authorized to decide whether to include the Joint Chiefs chairman in the principals committee discussion, “based on the policy relevance of attendees to the issues being considered, the need for secrecy on sensitive matters, staffing needs, and other considerations,” the White House said in a Jan. 20 MEMO.

The Pentagon said it would not comment on the issue, and it was not immediately clear why Grady, currently serving as the president’s top military adviser, would not be included in a discussion on military strikes.

Hegseth has refused to say whether he posted classified information onto Signal. He is traveling in the Indo-Pacific and to date has only scoffed at questions, saying he did not reveal “war plans.” Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe told members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that it was up to Hegseth to determine whether the information he was posting was classified or not.

Very specific texts were revealed

What was revealed was jaw-dropping in its specificity and includes the type of information that is kept to a very close hold to protect the operational security of a military strike. But Hegseth’s spokesman, Sean Parnell, said in a statement Wednesday that “there were no classified materials or war plans shared. The Secretary was merely updating the group on a plan that was underway.”

The Pentagon and White House have tried to deflect criticism by attacking Goldberg and The Atlantic. The magazine and Goldberg, however, repeatedly reached out to the White House before and after publication to gain additional context on the Signal chat and ensure that publishing the full texts would not cause harm. In a response, Goldberg reported Wednesday, Leavitt described some of the information as sensitive and said the White House would prefer it not be published.

In the group chat, Hegseth posted multiple details about the impending strike, using military language and laying out when a “strike window” starts, where a “target terrorist” was located, the time elements around the attack and when various weapons and aircraft would be used in the strike. He mentioned that the U.S. was “currently clean” on operational security.”

“Godspeed to our Warriors,” he wrote.

“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”

“1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”

“1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”

“1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”

“1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”

“MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”

“We are currently clean on OPSEC” — that is, operational security.

A strike package includes the personnel and weapons used in an attack, including Navy F-18 fighter aircraft. MQ-9s are armed drones. Tomahawks are ship-launched cruise missiles.

Goldberg has said he asked the White House if it opposed publication and that the White House responded that it would prefer he did not publish.

Signal is encrypted but can be vulnerable

Signal is a publicly available app that provides encrypted communications, but it can be hacked. It is not approved for carrying classified information. On March 14, one day before the strikes, the Defense Department cautioned personnel about the vulnerability of Signal, specifically that Russia was attempting to hack the app, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

One known vulnerability is that a malicious actor, with access to a person’s phone, can link his or her device to the user’s Signal and essentially monitor messages remotely in real time.

Leavitt is one of three Trump administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First and Fifth Amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

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Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

When white nationalist Nick Fuentes recently praised ESPN host Stephen A. Smithit was just the latest in a series of data points showing how the loudest voice in sports entertainment has become a boon to MAGA world.

Fuentes praised Smitharguably ESPN’s most cherished employee, for being “clearly” Red-Pilled (a term for those who have embraced right-wing ideology) since he hosted far-right influencer Candace Owens on his show.

Smith’s far-right sympathies have seemed clear to me for years. I still remember, as a high schooler, witnessing his weak defense — interestingly enough, on MSNBC — of right-wingers who formed the anti-Obama tea party back in 2009. And a report I covered last year, highlighting various platforms that disseminate right-wing propaganda and misinformation among Black audiences, listed Smith’s show as one of the top culprits.

Last year, for example, Smith told his friend Sean Hannitywhose Fox News show he has appeared on numerous times, that liberals were weaponizing the legal system to stop Donald Trump’s momentum ahead of the 2024 election.

“Primarily, I have voted Democrat throughout my life, but I’m utterly disgusted with what I’m seeing,” he said.

Smith’s embrace of the MAGA movement and its influencers has only continued since then.

Smith’s embrace of the MAGA movement and its influencers has only continued since then. In recent days, for example, he has spoken with right-wing commentators Ben ShapiroMegyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly. You might be thinking that these were adversarial chats between a left-leaning “centrist” and a conservative — but to adroit listeners, they can come across more as conservatives in friendly discussion than anything else.

In his conversation with Shapiroin which the two disagreed over whether Trump should pardon Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd, Smith called Shapiro “a pretty brilliant dude.” Smith also praised the job Shapiro has done at The Daily Wire, the platform he launched that has become a cesspool of right-wing propaganda.

Appearing on Kelly’s showSmith said “it’s just so bad on the left right now,” called himself a centrist — and said it would be a “cakewalk” for him to win the Democratic primaries for president in 2028.

And while hosting O’ReillySmith accused Democrats of “hypocrisy” because Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., used words like “waste” and “abuse” years ago while discussing Medicare. This seemed like odd bothsidesism that lacked context and gave Smith an opportunity to do what he’s been known to do lately: target liberals and provide the Trump administration some cover.

Smith’s overt politicism seems to fly in the face of ESPN’s apparent effort, in recent years, to deter some of its talent from speaking on controversial political matters. Either way, the network’s most recognizable host is now regularly platforming MAGA propaganda at will.

Ja’han Jones

Ja’han Jones is an BLN opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. He is a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”