Witkoff and Kushner plan to continue talks with Ukrainian delegation in Florida on Saturday
Donald Trump’s advisers and Ukrainian officials plan to meet for a third day of talks on Saturday in Florida, after claiming to have made progress on sketching out a security framework for postwar Ukraine, should Russia agree to halt its invasion.
The officials, who met for a second day in Florida on Friday, issued a joint statement as Trump continues to press Ukraine and Russia to agree to a US-brokered proposal to end more than a decade of war, which intensified with Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
“Both parties agreed that real progress toward any agreement depends on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace, including steps toward de-escalation and cessation of killings,” the statement said. “Parties also separately reviewed the future prosperity agenda which aims to support Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction, joint U.S.–Ukraine economic initiatives, and long-term recovery projects.”
The talks with Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s lead negotiator, were led by Trump’s former golf buddy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who holds no government role. The US envoys previously held talks at the Kremlin in Moscow with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Friday’s session, the sixth meeting over the past two weeks with hte Ukrainian delegation, took place at the Shell Bay Club in Hallandale Beach, Florida, a private golf and destination owned by Witkoff’s real estate company.
Previous diplomatic attempts to broker peace, including Trump’s face-to-face meeting with Putin in Alaska, have come to nothing. Officials largely have kept a lid on how the latest talks are going, though the initial 28-point plan developed by the US, apparently based on a Russian wishlist, was leaked.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said his nation’s delegation in Florida wanted to hear from the US side about the talks at the Kremlin.
Asked by the Indian journalist Geeta Mohan this week to describe that Kremlin meeting with the US envoys, Putin said: “I doubt it would interest you to hear about it as it lasted five hours. Frankly, even I grew weary of it. Five hours is too much.”
In the same interview, Putin also insisted that Russia “did not annex Crimea” from Ukraine in 2014, after the pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was driven from power in protests. “It was ours already”, the Russian president said of the Ukrainian territory his forces seized that year.
“We simply came to help people who didn’t want their lives or fate tied to those who staged a coup in Ukraine,” Putin said. “They said, ‘Ah ha, nationalist extremists took over in Kyiv’”.
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White House deletes video Sabrina Carpenter called 'evil and disgusting', replaces it with another trolling her
The White House intensified its online spat with Sabrina Carpenter on Friday by posting video of the pop star that had been altered to make it seem as if she told a Saturday Night Live cast member of Cuban/Dominican descent, Marcello Hernández, that she was going to arrest him for being “too illegal”. In the original clip, Carpenter said she had to arrest someone for “being too hot”.
Earlier in the week, Carpenter had strongly objected to her music being used, without permission, in a previous White House video celebrating the arrest of people who protested ICE raids. The singer had replied to a White House post of the video set to her 2024 hit Juno’ by writing: “this video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.”
After Carpenter’s comment was viewed over 140 million times, the White House deleted that video, only to replace it with the new video that altered dialogue from on part of the singer’s recent appearance on Saturday Night Live. The new video also celebrated ICE arrests and included the caption, above Carpenter’s image: “PSA: If you’re a criminal illegal, you WILL be arrested & deported.”
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Adelita Grijalva, Democratic congresswoman from Arizona, said she was pepper-sprayed by an “aggressive” federal agent during an ICE raid outside a Mexican restaurant in Tucscon.
“I was here – this is the restaurant I come to literally once a week – and was sprayed in the face by a very aggressive agent, pushed around by others, when I was literally not being aggressive,” she said in a video after the incident. “I was asking for clarification, which is my right as a member of congress.”
Agents also sprayed members of the press and the representative’s staff, she said. “I just can only imagine if they are gonna treat me like that, how they are treating everybody else.”
Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said that Grijalva was not pepper-sprayed.
“She was in the vicinity of someone who *was* pepper sprayed as they were obstructing and assaulting law enforcement,” she said in a statement, adding that two law enforcement officers were “seriously injured” by a “mob”. “Presenting one’s self as a ‘Member of Congress’ doesn’t give you the right to obstruct law enforcement.”
In a statement after the incident, Grijalva sharply criticized ICE.
“ICE is a lawless agency under this Administration – operating with no transparency, no accountability, and open disregard for basic due process.”
Advocacy group urges court to uphold birthright citizenship
With the supreme court set to decide the legality of Trump’s order to heavily restrict birthright citizenship, the immigration advocacy group Fwd.US described the administration’s actions as “unlawful and unconstitutional”.
“As the Supreme Court has decided to take up this case on the merits, the Court should and must be as clear as the Constitution: those born in the United States are citizens, and no president can overturn the Constitution by executive order,” Todd Schulte, the organization’s president, said in a statement.
“Birthright citizenship is a core part of what it means to be American, guaranteeing that all children born here are equal under the law. Unlawful efforts to take it away would create confusion, discrimination, and lasting harm to families and communities. None of this should be up for debate.”
Letitia James, the New York attorney general, called it “a fundamental right of our Constitution”.
“Constitutional rights are not subject to the whims of a president,” she said.
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The judge presiding over California’s lawsuit against the Trump administration challenged the federal government’s authority and rationale for continuing to maintain command over the national guard troops it deployed to Los Angeles earlier this year.
The Trump administration federalized the state’s national guard in June, dispatching some 4,000 troops in response to protests in the city over immigration raids, despite opposition from the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom. The state quickly filed a lawsuit, with Newsom calling the move unprecedented and illegal, and the case has been unfolding in the courts for months.
During a hearing in San Francisco on Friday, Judge Charles Breyer appeared skeptical, according to a report from the Associated Press. He argued the situation in Los Angeles had changed since the troops were first deployed, and questioned whether the administration could command the state’s national guard indefinitely.
“No crisis lasts forever,” he said. ”I think experience teaches us that crises come and crises go. That’s the way it works.”
California has asked the judge to issue a preliminary injunction in order to return control of the remaining national guard troops in Los Angeles to the state, but Breyer did not immediately rule. He has previously ruled that the deployment was illegal, and ruled the administration must return control of the troops to California, but a ruling by an appeals court panel put the decision on hold.
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Lawmakers press Google and Apple to remove apps tracking immigration agents
The House committee on homeland security has asked Google and Apple to detail what steps they are taking to remove mobile applications that allow users to track federal immigration officers, Reuters reports.
In letters sent today to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple head Tim Cook, committee leaders singled out ICEBlock, an app previously used to monitor ICE agents, saying apps hosted on their app stores risk “jeopardizing the safety of DHS personnel”. Lawmakers requested a briefing by 12 December.
The letters urged Google and Apple to ensure these apps cannot be used to target officers or obstruct lawful immigration enforcement.
The committee noted that while free speech is protected, it does not extend to advocacy that incites imminent lawless action, referencing a landmark supreme court ruling.
Google and Apple did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
The letters follow concerns from the Trump administration that these tools allow users to anonymously report and track the movements of federal agents, including those from ICE and Customs and Border Protection.
In October, Google said that ICEBlock was never available on Google’s Play Store and added it had removed similar apps due to policy violations. Apple also removed ICEBlock and other tracking apps from its App Store at the time.
Attorney general Pam Bondi said the apps “put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs”, while Apple cited violations of its policies against content that could harm individuals or groups. The removals followed a surge in downloads of ICEBlock, which had more than a million users before being pulled.
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Judge approves release of grand jury transcripts from abandoned Epstein investigation in Florida
A federal judge has cleared the justice department to release transcripts of a grand jury investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of underage girls in Florida, a case that ultimately ended without any charges being filed against the sex offender.
US district judge Rodney Smith said a recently passed federal law ordering the release of records related to Epstein overrode the usual rules about grand jury secrecy.
The law signed in November by Donald Trump compels the justice department, FBI and federal prosecutors to release later this month the vast troves of material they have amassed during investigations into Epstein that date back at least two decades. Today’s court ruling dealt with the earliest known federal inquiry.
Transcripts of the grand jury proceedings from the aborted federal case in Florida could shed more light on federal prosecutors’ decision not to go forward with it. Records related to state grand jury proceedings have already been made public.
When the documents will be released is unknown. The justice department asked the court to unseal them so they could be released with other records required to be disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The justice department hasn’t set a timetable for when it plans to start releasing information, but the law set a deadline of 19 December.
The law also allows the justice department to withhold files that it says could jeopardize an active federal investigation. Files can also be withheld if they’re found to be classified or if they pertain to national defense or foreign policy.
A judge had previously declined to release the grand jury records, citing the usual rules about grand jury secrecy, but Smith said the new federal law allowed public disclosure.
The justice department has separate requests pending for the release of grand jury records related to the sex trafficking cases against Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in New York. The judges in those matters have said they plan to rule expeditiously.
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Indiana House Republicans pass Trump-backed map, setting up high-stakes Senate fight
Indiana state House Republicans have passed a new state congressional map – at the behest of Donald Trump – that would likely gerrymander Democrats out of two congressional seats, advancing the legislation to the state Senate, where it is unclear if enough lawmakers will support its final passage.
Lawmakers in the Republican-majority House voted 57-41 in favor of the map, which splits the city of Indianapolis into four districts to help the GOP potentially win all nine Indiana congressional seats. While Trump and many other Republicans are celebrating the passage, the map faces its true test in the Senate, where many GOP lawmakers have opposed mid-decade redistricting.
Supreme court agrees to decide legality of Trump's order to restrict birthright citizenship
The US supreme court has agreed to decide if Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship with an executive order is constitutional.
Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in office in January that declared that children born to undocumented immigrants and to some temporary foreign residents would no longer be granted US citizenship automatically – seeking to upend a guarantee of US citizenship to anyone born on US soil that has been understood since 1898.
Legal challenges were prompt, with judges in Washington state, Maryland and Massachusetts freezing the policy for the whole country. The supreme court later sided with the Trump administration on technical grounds dealing with how the challenges to the policy were handled by lower courts through universal injunctions.
That ruling blunted the power of federal judges but did not resolve the legality of Trump’s directive. The ruling left open the possibility for courts to grant broad relief to states or to individual plaintiffs through class action lawsuits.
The supreme court didn’t announce a date to hear oral arguments but it will probably be in the next few months, with a decision handed down by the end of June.
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The day so far
A key CDC advisory panel voted to abandon the decades-old recommendation that all babies get vaccinated against hepatitis B within the first 24 hours of life, in a major win for health secretary and vaccine-sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr. The 8-3 decision followed heated debate and three failed attempts at a vote. The advisers said that women who test negative for the virus should consult with their health care provider and decide “when or if” their child will be vaccinated at birth. They didn’t change the recommendation that newborns of mothers known to be infected or whose status is unknown be innoculated. The shift will only got into effect if approved by the CDC and is not expected to affect insurance coverage of the shots. Public health experts fear the change would lead to an increase in preventable infections in children. “Today is a defining moment for our country,” Michael Osterholm told the NYT. “We can no longer trust federal health authorities when it comes to vaccines.”
The New Democrat Coalition, the largest House Democrat ideological caucus, called for Pete Hegseth to “resign immediately before his actions cost American lives”. It comes after the Pentagon’s inspector general’s report found he had endangered the lives of US service members by compromising sensitive military intelligence in a Signal group chat earlier this year. The coalition’s chair Brad Schneider and it’s national security working group chair Gil Cisneros issued a statement blasting Hegseth as “incompetent, reckless, and a threat to the lives of the men and women who serve in the armed forces”.
Two men who survived a US airstrike on a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean clung to the wreckage for an hour before they were killed in a second attack, according a video of the episode shown to senators in Washington. The men were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible radio or other communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the US military was weighing whether to finish them off, two sources familiar with the recording told Reuters. The pair desperately tried to turn a severed section of the hull upright before they died. “The video follows them for about an hour as they tried to flip the boat back over. They couldn’t do it,” one source said.
The man charged with planting two pipe bombs near the Democratic and Republican party headquarters the night before the January 6 attack on the US Capitol told the FBI he believed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, NBC News and CNN reported. He’s appeared in court this afternoon. The judge was expected to read Cole the charges he’s facing and inform him of his rights, and could also decide whether Cole should be detained for now or set conditions of his release while he awaits his next court date.
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‘Cultivate resistance’: policy paper lays bare Trump support for Europe’s far right
Donald Trump’s administration has said Europe faces “civilisational erasure” within the next two decades as a result of migration and EU integration, arguing in a policy document that the US must “cultivate resistance” within the continent to “Europe’s current trajectory”.
Billed as “a roadmap to ensure America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history and the home of freedom on earth”, the US National Security Strategy makes explicit Washington’s support for Europe’s nationalist far-right parties.
The document, with a signed introduction by Trump, says Europe is in economic decline but its “real problems are even deeper”, including “activities of the EU that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition … and loss of national identities”.
The 33-page exposition of Trump’s “America First” worldview appears to espouse the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, saying several countries risk becoming “majority non-European” and Europe faces “the real and stark prospect of civilisational erasure”. It adds:
Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognisable in 20 years or less.
US policies must therefore include “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations” as well as enabling Europe to “take primary responsibility for its own defence” and “opening European markets to US goods and services”.
Trump administration moves to deny visas to factcheckers and content moderators
The Trump administration has moved to formalize a crackdown on the issuance of visas for people who it deems to have engaged in censoring the free speech of US citizens.
The action, detailed in a state department memo sent to overseas missions this week, first reported by Reuters and then NPR, directs consular officials to deny visas to any applicant “responsible for, or complicit in, censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression in the US”.
The order, which state department officials have not denied, requires enhanced vetting of applicants “to see if they have worked in areas that include activities such as misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance and online safety, among others”, Reuters reported.
It will initially focus on applicants for H-1B visas, usually given to highly skilled foreign workers in the technology industry among other sectors, but is applicable to all visa applications, the news agency added.
The directive is the latest in a number of recent moves by Donald Trump to restrict legal immigration to the US through consular avenues, and hardens a promise made by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, in May to bar entry to the US to anybody perceived to be suppressing the free speech “essential to the American way of life”.
Trump reveals that this is one of the biggest honours of his life and then proceeds to reiterate how great he is, for the benefit of anyone who might have been in the rest room while Infantino was talking.
He tells the audience about the “millions and millions of lives” he and Infantino have saved, before mentioning the huge number of tickets Fifa have sold for the World Cup, while steering a wide berth of mentioning Fifa’s dynamic pricing strategy. He also nods to his Mexican and Canadian counterparts. It’s a mercifully short speech.
A few moments ago Donald Trump was formally presented with the first Fifa Peace Prize. He was presented with a medal and a certificate by Fifa president Gianni Infantino. “I’m going to wear it right now,” said Trump, placing the medal around his neck.
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In further comments made before the Fifa World Cup draw in Washington DC, Donald Trump failed to answer a question from a CNN reporter about whether receiving the Fifa Peace Prize would conflict with his vow to strike “on land” soon in Venezuela.
“I haven’t been officially noticed — I’ve been hearing about a peace prize, and I’m here to represent our country in a different sense, but I can tell you I did settle eight wars, and we have a ninth coming, but which nobody’s ever done before,” Trump said.
“But I want to really save lives. I don’t need prizes. I need to save lives. And we’re saving a lot of lives.”
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Donald Trump has said he will meet with leaders of Mexico and Canada to discuss trade after the Fifa World Cup draw.
Trump on Friday said that he was “getting along very well” with both leaders and that the US is “working with” Canada and Mexico. He gave no other details.
A reminder that my colleagues are covering the draw in Washington DC here:
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Senator Warren slams Netflix-Warner deal: 'an anti-monopoly nightmare'
Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren has criticized Netflix’s $72bn acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery’s studios, calling it an antitrust “nightmare.”
In a statement on Friday, Warren said:
“This deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare. A Netflix-Warner Bros would create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market — threatening to force Americans into higher subscription prices and fewer choices over what and how they watch, while putting American workers at risk.”
She went on to add:
“Under Donald Trump, the antitrust review process has also become a cesspool of political favoritism and corruption. The justice department must enforce our nation’s anti-monopoly laws fairly and transparently — not use the Warner Bros. deal review to invite influence-peddling and bribery.”
Netflix was up against takeover bids from Paramount’s Skydance and from Comcast, which owns Universal Studios, NBC, and Sky.
Hailing the deal, Netflix chief executive Ted Sarandos said:
“The combination of Netflix and Warner Bros creates a better Netflix for the long run… In a world where people have so many choices, more choices than ever on how to spend their time, we can’t stand still.”
He also vowed in an investor call on Friday that the deal will be “pro-consumer, pro-innovation, pro-worker, pro-creator,” Deadline reports.
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The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, instructed law enforcement officials on Thursday to investigate antifa and other supposed domestic terror groups, and specifically directed them to search for “tax crimes” the groups may have committed, according to a memo obtained by the Guardian.
The document signals how the Trump administration and Bondi are ramping up efforts to crack down on leftwing groups. Antifa, short for antifascist, is not a clearly defined organization, but rather a loose network of activists. Trump signed an executive order in September declaring it a domestic terrorism organization – something legal experts say he does not have the authority to do.
“These domestic terrorists use violence or the threat of violence to advance political and social agendas, including opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality; and an elevation of violence to achieve policy outcomes, such as political assassinations,” Bondi wrote in the document.
For the full story, click here:
Pipe bomb suspect told FBI he believed conspiracy theories that 2020 election was stolen – reports
The man charged with planting two pipe bombs near the Democratic and Republican party headquarters the night before the January 6 attack on the US Capitol told the FBI he believed conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, NBC News and CNN are reporting.
Brian Cole Jr is expected to appear in court later today, he has not yet entered a plea. He was charged yesterday with transporting an explosive device and attempted malicious destruction by means of explosive materials. The FBI has not publicly cited a motive.
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Vaccine panel votes to restrict hepatitis B vaccines shot for newborns in major shift
The CDC’s vaccine advisers have voted 8-3 to remove the broad recommendation that all newborns in the US receive a hepatitis B vaccine, in a major move signaling the Trump administration’s regressive approach to vaccines that have been given safely and effectively for decades.
The committee voted to recommend that parents of infants whose mothers test negative for hepatitis should decide when – or if – their child should receive the vaccine series, after consulting a healthcare professional.
The move will add confusion to routine vaccinations and create access issues, especially for lower-income families, experts said. While the advisers make non-binding recommendations, they frequently form the basis of official policy, and they directly affect the way private and federal insurance providers cover the vaccines.
“This is going to lead to an increase in preventable infections among children,” said Michaela Jackson, program director of prevention policy at the Hepatitis B Foundation. The vote is “removing choice by causing barriers to access” and “parents are not going to know who to trust any longer,” she said.
Hepatitis B vaccines are still recommended to children whose mothers test positive for the virus, the advisers said. The shots for most infants at birth will now be “shared clinical decision-making”, the advisers deciding, voting 8-3, although this is a term that is poorly defined and usually reserved for non-routine vaccines.
If a parent is not able to get their child the vaccine at birth, the advisers now suggest waiting at least two months.
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'A disgrace to the office he holds': New Democrats call for Hegseth's resignation
The New Democrat Coalition, the largest House Democrat ideological caucus, has called for Pete Hegseth to “resign immediately before his actions cost American lives”. It comes after the Pentagon’s inspector general’s report found he had endangered the lives of US service members by compromising sensitive military intelligence in a Signal group chat earlier this year.
The coalition’s chair Brad Schneider and it’s national security working group chair Gil Cisneros issued a statement blasting Hegseth as “incompetent, reckless, and a threat to the lives of the men and women who serve in the armed forces”.
The Inspector General’s report confirms what we’ve known all along: Secretary Hegseth is incompetent, reckless, and a threat to the lives of the men and women who serve in the Armed Forces.
A true leader is responsible and accountable – Hegseth is no such leader. He failed to take responsibility for this shameful incident and refused to cooperate with the independent investigation. Now he is denying any accountability for the likely illegal double-tap strike in the Caribbean.
Time and time again, the Secretary has lied, dodged, deflected, and shockingly scapegoated his subordinates. He is a disgrace to the office he holds and should resign immediately before his actions cost American lives.
Key US panel to vote on changing infant hepatitis B vaccine recommendation
Lauren Gambino and Melody Schreiber
After a delay and an unusually contentious meeting, a federal vaccine advisory panel is expected to vote today whether to change the longstanding recommendation that all newborns be immunized against hepatitis B.
The first day of the meeting of the advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP) yesterday was marked by heated debate over restricting access to the hepatitis B vaccine for infants and a decision to defer the vote by a day to give members more time to review the wording. The panel, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on how to use vaccines, had twice before postponed the vote.
The shot is currently recommended for all infants within 24 hours of birth to prevent infection of hepatitis B, which can cause serious liver damage. It has been given to 1.4 billion people for more than three decades.
The meeting in Atlanta offered no new evidence of the harms caused by the vaccine. The advisory panel, hand-picked by Donald Trump’s controversial health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, includes longtime anti-vaccine advocates.
Kennedy, himself a prominent anti-vaccine activist, has long pushed for delaying the shot. Experts say any change to the current hepatitis B vaccination recommended schedule could have significant and far-reaching consequences for childhood health in the US.
In one pointed exchange yesterday, Joseph Hibbeln, an ACIP member and psychiatrist and neuroscientist, asked: “Is there any specific evidence of harm of giving this vaccination before 30 days? Or is this speculation?”
“There is limited evidence about the long-term risk,” said Mark Blaxill, an author who has argued that vaccines cause autism and other conditions, and who was recently named senior adviser at the CDC.
“So this was speculation and limited evidence,” Hibbeln replied. “OK, got it.”
Homeland security head reveals plans to widen US travel ban to more than 30 countries
The US plans to expand the number of countries covered by its travel ban to more than 30, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Kristi Noem, announced.
Noem, in an interview on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle yesterday evening, was asked to confirm whether the Trump administration would be increasing the number of countries on the travel ban list to 32.
“I won’t be specific on the number, but it’s over 30, and the president is continuing to evaluate countries,” she said.
Trump signed a proclamation in June banning the citizens of 12 countries from entering the US and restricting those from seven others, saying it was needed to protect against “foreign terrorists” and other security threats. The bans apply to both immigrants and non-immigrants, such as tourists, students and business travelers.
Noem didn’t specify which countries would be added to the list.
“If they don’t have a stable government there, if they don’t have a country that can sustain itself and tell us who those individuals are and help us vet them, why should we allow people from that country to come here to the United States?” she said.
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Per the White House schedule, Donald Trump will be at the Fifa World Cup drawing at the Kennedy Center at 11.40am ET. He’ll also be signing executive orders at 3pm in the Oval Office (currently closed press but if it changes we’ll let you know). And at 8pm, Trump and first lady Melania will attend a concert by Andrea Bocelli in the East Room (also closed press).
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Ilhan Omar says Trump made racist anti-Somali tirade because he ‘knows he is failing’
Ilhan Omar, the Somali-born Minnesota congresswoman, has said Donald Trump is lashing out at her and her community with bigotry because he “knows he is failing”.
The US president dismissed Somali Americans earlier this week as “garbage” in a racist rant.
Omar, a Democrat, made the observation in a personal essay published by the New York Times (paywall) praising the resilience of Somali Americans and condemning the Trump administration for its promise to send federal agents to Minneapolis and elsewhere in her state for immigration enforcement raids.
“The president knows he is failing, and so he is reverting to what he knows best: trying to divert attention by stoking bigotry,” she wrote.
Omar pointed out that some of her Somali constituents voted for Trump. She suggested that the president’s racial animosity was ingrained, and resurgent now because of a failed domestic policy agenda.
While the president wastes his time attacking my community, my state, my governor and me, the promises of economic prosperity he made in his run for president last year have not come to fruition.
Trump delivered a second tirade against Somalis in general, and Omar in particular, following a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. The congresswoman, who is a US citizen, “should be thrown the hell out of our country”, the president said. Using an inaccurate term for Somalis, he added: “Somalians should be out of here. They’ve destroyed our country. And all they do is complain, complain, complain.”
Omar, 43, has been a constant target of Trump and Republicans since arriving Congress in 2019 as one of the first two Muslim women in the chamber. She asserted in her essay that Somali Americans remain resilient against the onslaught of attacks from the White House. But she added:
I am deeply worried about the ramifications of these tirades … What keeps me up at night is that people who share the identities I hold – Black, Somali, hijabi, immigrant – will suffer the consequences of [Trump’s] words.
Omar’s essay concluded:
We will not let Mr Trump intimidate or debilitate us. We are not afraid. After all, Minnesotans not only welcome refugees, they also sent one to Congress.
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In other news, vice-president JD Vance is insisting that, amid a tonne of speculation online about missing rings and such, his marriage is just fine – in fact, it’s “as strong as it’s ever been”.
Asked whether he was frustrated by tabloid-style headlines about his wife Usha being spotted without her wedding ring on a number of occasions, Vance said in an interview with NBC News yesterday: “I think that we kind of get a kick out of it.” He went on:
With anything in life, you take the good with the bad. You accept that there are some sacrifices and there are some very good things that come along with it, too. But our marriage is as strong as it’s ever been, and I think Usha’s really taken to it, and it’s been kind of cool to see how she’s developed and evolved in this new role.
Last month, a spokesperson for the second lady explained to outlets that ran stories, including the Daily Mail and People, that she is “a mother of three young children, who does a lot of dishes, gives lots of baths, and forgets her ring sometimes”.
In his interview yesterday, the vice-president added:
There are certainly ways in which it’s difficult on the family. I’m not going to pretend that it isn’t. But it’s the sacrifice that we signed up for.
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Elsewhere, in a bid to revitalize his presidency amid sinking approval ratings, Donald Trump “next week will kick off a year of heavy stateside travel focused on selling his economic agenda ahead of the midterms”, Axios reports, with the cost of living set to be the defining issue for those elections.
Americans are deeply unhappy with a wide array of things under the second Trump administration, with the president accused of not doing enough to address high prices, and also under fire for things like his handling of the Epstein files and his so-called war on “narco-terrorists” in the Caribbean. There is also criticism that he’s prioritized foreign affairs and neglected the pocketbook issues that helped him get re-elected.
With Republicans in danger of losing control of the House next November, Trump will kick off his new push in the battleground of northern Pennsylvania. Axios reports that he will “aggressively push back against criticism over the cost of everyday essentials – indeed an issue that helped propel him to victory over Kamala Harris last year”. Recent heavy losses for the party in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City have all focused on affordability.
Trump has been growing visibly irritated with criticism of his economic policies, repeatedly insisting that everything is getting cheaper and calling the affordability issue a “hoax” and “con job” he blames on Democrats. He’s also floated a number of policies (which have been criticized as being economically unsound) including $2,000 tariff rebate checks and 50-year mortgages.
According to Axios, after Pennsylvania, Trump may hold another event this month with additional ones expected after New Year’s Day.
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One of the arguments defense officials have been quietly pushing in response to heavy criticism of the killing of the two survivors in a second strike on 2 September, is that they were legitimate targets because they appeared to be radioing for help or backup.
But Tom Cotton of Arkansas, the GOP chair of the Senate intelligence committee, admitted to CNN this morning that he didn’t see evidence of the men on the boat trying to use a radio to call for help.
He went on to defend the second strike, saying:
They were clearly not incapacitated. They were not distressed.
They were trying to get the boat back up and to continue their mission of spreading these drugs all across America.
That’s what they were doing and that’s why Admiral Bradley ordered the second strike.
Per my last post, others who saw the video said the individuals were in clear distress and clung to the wreckage for more than an hour.
CNN reported yesterday that Bradley told lawmakers during congressional briefings that the two men killed in the strikes did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, citing sources with direct knowledge of his briefings.
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US airstrike survivors clung to boat wreckage for an hour before second deadly attack, video shows
Joseph Gedeon and Chris Stein in Washington and agencies
Two men who survived a US airstrike on a suspected drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean clung to the wreckage for an hour before they were killed in a second attack, according a video of the episode shown to senators in Washington.
The men were shirtless, unarmed and carried no visible radio or other communications equipment. They also appeared to have no idea what had just hit them, or that the US military was weighing whether to finish them off, two sources familiar with the recording told Reuters.
The pair desperately tried to turn a severed section of the hull upright before they died. “The video follows them for about an hour as they tried to flip the boat back over. They couldn’t do it,” one source said.
The video of the attack on 2 September was seen by senators behind closed doors on Thursday amid growing concern that the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, and other officials who ordered the attack may have committed a war crime.
Jim Himes, a Democratic congressman who saw the video on Thursday, described it as “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service”.
You have two individuals in clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel.
Describing those on board as “bad guys” who “were not in the position to continue their mission in any way”, Himes added:
Any American who sees the video that I saw will see the United States military attacking shipwrecked sailors.
Here’s the full report:
Donald Trump to speak at World Cup final draw ceremony
Donald Trump will be speaking at today’s World Cup final draw ceremony at the Kennedy Center, Politico reports, where he will also be receiving Fifa’s inaugural peace prize.
Claudia Sheinbaum, the Mexican president, and Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, are also expected to attend the ball-draw ceremony that will determine which countries will face off in the first group stage matches – but only Trump will be receiving the peace prize, according to Politico.
Gianni Infantino, the president of Fifa and a Trump ally, announced the creation of what some are calling football’s version of the Nobel peace prize – just weeks after the Trump was snubbed for the real thing.
My colleagues are running a dedicated live blog on the ceremony here:
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Pentagon announces another boat strike amid heightened scrutiny
Hello and thank you for joining us on the US politics live blog.
The US military conducted another deadly strike on a boat suspected of carrying illegal narcotics on Thursday, the Pentagon said, killing four men in the eastern Pacific as questions continue to mount over the legality such attacks.
US navy admiral Frank Bradley and the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Dan Caine, had appeared on Thursday before the House and Senate’s armed services and intelligence committees for a closed briefing about a particular attack on 2 September that has come under scrutiny over whether the military had been ordered to issue a second strike upon survivors after an earlier attack.
While both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Congress said that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, had not ordered the military to kill surviving members of the 2 September attack, they clashed over whether the double strike was appropriate – particularly after video of the incident was played during Thursday’s closed briefing.
“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House armed services committee, said after exiting the meeting. However, he said that Bradley had “confirmed that there had not been a ‘kill them all’ order, and there was not an order to grant no quarter”.
Hegseth, who is also in hot water after a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general concluded that he had violated departmental policies when he shared secret information in a Signal messaging chat in March, has sought to downplay his own involvement in the 2 September attack. But the US southern command in Florida was clear in its social media post announcing the latest overnight strike that it had come “at the direction” of Hegseth.
In other developments:
The supreme court ruled on Thursday to allow Texas to use a redrawn that adds as many as five Republican-friendly congressional districts. Texas had redrawn its congressional map this summer as part of an effort that Donald Trump initiated to protect Republicans’ slim majority in the House ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
A federal vaccine advisory panel is expected to vote on Friday whether to change the longstanding recommendation that all newborns be immunized against hepatitis B. The panel advises the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
A grand jury declined to indict Letitia James on Thursday, less than two weeks after judge ruled similar case against New York attorney general unlawful. James has been one of Trump’s top political foes ever since she successfully brought a fraud lawsuit against him in New York.
A man was arrested for planting pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic party headquarters on the eve of the January 6 insurrection.
A federal appeals court sided with the Trump administration on Thursday and paused a lower court’s order to end the administration’s deployment of national guard troops in Washington DC.
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