Pete Hegseth says he ‘didn’t stick around’ to watch second strike on alleged drug boat as Democrats slam administration over attacks – as it happened

03Dec

Here’s a recap of the day so far

In a cabinet meeting that lasted for more than two hours, defense secretary Pete Hegseth gave more details about the decision to re-strike an alleged drug trafficking boat off the coast of Venezuela on 2 September. He said that he “watched that first strike” but ultimately did not “stick around for the hour or two hours” after. “So I moved on to my next meeting,” the defense secretary said. “A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the which he had the complete authority to do.” Hegseth went on to say that decorated US Navy admiral Frank Bradley made the “right call” as he described the unfolding events to reporters.
For his part, Donald Trump said that countries manufacturing and selling drugs to the US are “subject to attack”, adding that strikes wouldn’t be limited to Venezuela. The president also said that the administration is “going to start doing those strikes on land,” after defending his crackdown on alleged narcotics smugglers, which has largely been contained to the sea.
Democrats have come out swinging against the administration over the much-scrutinized second boat strike. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called Hegseth “spineless” and “a national embarrassment” and called for the defense secretary to release the full unedited tape of the deadly strikes on the alleged drug boat.
In his ninth cabinet meeting since returning to office, Trump also said that the national guard will soon deploy to New Orleans. He added that the Republican governor (and staunch ally of the president) of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, had called him and asked for help. “We’re going there in a couple of weeks,” Trump said.
The president noted early on in the meeting that he would be announcing his selection for the next chair of the Federal Reserve early next year. He repeated that he talked to treasury secretary Scott Bessent about taking over the Fed but Bessent didn’t want the job.

This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but we will be back at it on Wednesday. Here are the latest developments:

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US defense secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that he was not present when a special operations commander decided to launch a second strike on suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean on 2 September in order to kill two survivors. Hegseth, who boasted of having watched the attack “live” the day after it took place, said at a televised cabinet meeting that he did not “stick around” for the second strike.

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Donald Trump, who struggled to keep his eyes open during his cabinet meeting, ended it with a racist attack on Somali Americans in Minnesota, calling the entire community “garbage” and again singled out Ilhan Omar, the Somali-born congresswoman, for vitriol.

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Elected officials in Minnesota voiced outrage over Trump’s comments, and the reported plan to deploy federal immigration offices to target Somalis in the state. “Everyone knows that our president is racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic – and we are going to fight that,” Somali American Minneapolis city council member Jamal Osman said. “America has a history of fighting and stopping those kinds of individuals.”

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Trump once again claimed in a social media post on Tuesday that he has canceled “all Documents, Proclamations, Executive Orders, Memorandums, or Contracts” signed by his predecessor, Joe Biden, with an “autopen” – a mechanical device that uses a robotic arm with a pen attached to replicate a person’s signature.

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Republican Matt Van Epps won a special election in Tennessee for a seat in the US House, but by a single-digit margin in a district Donald Trump won by 22 percentage points last year.

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Republican Matt Van Epps has won a nationally watched special election in Tennessee for a seat in the US House, maintaining his party’s grip on the district Donald Trump won by 22 percentage points last year.

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A military veteran and former state general services commissioner from Nashville, Van Epps defeated Democratic state lawmaker Aftyn Behn to represent the seventh congressional district.

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Epps was leading by about 7.5% with about 98% of the vote counted.

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Van Epps benefited from more than $1m in spending from Maga Inc. It was the first time the Trump-supporting Super Pac spent money on a campaign since last year’s presidential race, a reflection of the special election’s outsize importance.

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Republican state lawmakers redrew the seventh district and two others in 2022 to help prevent liberal-voting Nashville from electing another Democrat to Congress. Only about one in five voters in the district, which spans 14 counties, are in the city.

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Republican former representative Mark Green, who retired this summer, opening the vacancy, was re-elected by 21 percentage points in 2024, when Trump won by a similar margin.

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Donald Trump dismissed concerns about his decision to pardon the former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in federal court of drug trafficking by telling reporters on Tuesday the prosecution was “a Biden-inspired witch-hunt”.

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One obvious flaw in Trump’s logic is that the investigation into Hernández began with the prosecution of his brother, Tony Hernández, in 2019, when Trump himself was president. That investigation was led by a federal prosecutor, Emil Bove, who later served as Trump’s personal lawyer and was recently appointed by Trump to the federal bench.

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At the trial of Tony Hernández, Bove described a massive criminal scheme of “state-sponsored drug trafficking”. In his summation, Bove said:

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Beginning in 2010 the defendant worked on massive cocaine shipments sent to the United States on a monthly basis. The president of Honduras deployed the military to the border with Guatemala to protect the defendant’s drug turf. The defendant used the National Police to murder one of his drug rivals. And the ring leader in that murder was later promoted to become the chief of the entire police force. Chapo Guzmán came to Honduras in 2013. Twice. You remember that defense counsel referred to Chapo as the most wanted man in the world at the time. He was still able to get to Honduras safely for those meetings with the defendant. And during the second meeting he handed the defendant a million dollars in cash, drug money, to help the defendant’s brother, Juan Orlando, get elected president so he could keep protecting them. …

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in 2005 the defendant’s National Party lost the presidential election and they vowed to never let that happen again. To increase his own power and the power of his family, the defendant helped funnel millions of dollars in drug money into National Party campaigns. They did that for elections in 2009, 2013, and 2017. These weren’t campaign contributions. We’re not talking about donations. These were bribes and it came with strings. The traffickers who gave that money expected protection, protection from arrest, protection from investigation, protection from extradition, protection so that they could continue to work with the defendant to make millions of dollars distributing cocaine toward the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, this plan worked for a while. The defendant’s coconspirators, they won those elections. They infiltrated the Honduran government and they controlled it. They turned the government against its people. And they used the government for state-sponsored drug trafficking.

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Elected officials in Minnesota spoke out in defense of the state’s large Somali American community on Tuesday, hours after a racist tirade against them by the president of the United States, Donald Trump.

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“Minneapolis is proud to be home to the largest Somali community in the entire country,” the Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, said. “They are our neighbors, our friends, and our family – and they are welcome in our city. Nothing Donald Trump does will ever change that.”

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At a news conference with other elected officials, Frey also addressed the Somali community briefly in their own language, as he did during his last election campaign, leading to a wave of outrage in the rightwing media.

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“We in St Paul celebrate our large Somali community,” the mayor of St Paul, Melvin Carter, said at the news conference.

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“The Twin Cities is not a place that tolerates or embraces hate,” Carter added. “The hateful and damaging rhetoric that we’re hearing from Washington DC right now is reprehensible.”

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Carter was followed by the Minneapolis city council member Jamal Osman. “I am proud to say I’m a Somali American. This country welcomed me and my family 26 years ago,” Osman said. “We came here and we are thankful.”

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“I know many families are fearful tonight, they are, but I want you to know that the city of Minneapolis stands behind you,” Osman said. “Our community has lived through fear in the past.”

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“Obviously, everyone knows that our president is racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic – and we are going to fight that,” Osman added. “America has a history of fighting and stopping those kinds of individuals.”

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Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota congresswoman who came to the US as a refugee from Somalia, responded to video of Trump attacking her, again, as he has obsessively for years, with the comment: “His obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he desperately needs.”

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“Somali Americans are a valued part of our community,” Betty McCollum, a Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota wrote on social media. “President Trump calling fellow human beings ‘garbage’ is not only beneath the office but calls into question his capacity to serve all Americans. His ugly attacks on the Somali community do not reflect the views of our state, nor the reality of the contributions Somalis make every day. They are elected officials at the federal, state and local levels. They are business leaders, teachers, nurses, ride share drivers, neighbors, and friends. We will not be divided. We are One Minnesota.”

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Donald Trump once again claimed in a social media post on Tuesday that he has canceled “all Documents, Proclamations, Executive Orders, Memorandums, or Contracts” signed by his predecessor, Joe Biden, with an “autopen” – a mechanical device that uses a robotic arm with a pen attached to replicate a person’s signature.

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Trump has been making this claim, that he has the power to declare all such documents signed by Biden using the device “null, void, and of no further force or effect”, for months, in a series of social media posts laced with legalistic language, despite the fact that the president does not have authority to overturn his predecessor’s pardons, and there is no evidence that Biden did not approve the affixing of his signature to the documents, which does have the force of law, and has been standard practice for decades in administrations including Trump’s own.

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Trump appears to be aware of the fact that his declarations on social media do not have the force of law, since he first claimed to have overturned Biden’s orders in March, when he wrote, on his social media platform:

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n

The “Pardons” that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!

n

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In June, Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing “an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Biden’s purported execution of the numerous executive actions during his final years in office, examining policy documents signed with an autopen, who authorized its use, and the validity of the resulting Presidential policy decisions”.

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But in an interview with the New York Times in July, Biden insisted that he “made every single one” of the decisions to grant pardons and commutations in his name. “The autopen is, you know, is legal,” Biden added. “As you know, other presidents used it, including Trump.”

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Last week, Trump declared again that every document signed by Biden “is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect”.

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“I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally,” Trump wrote on his social media platform on Friday. “Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury.”

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In his latest post, Trump asserted that his own social media posts have the full force of law, while Biden’s presidential orders have none.

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“Anyone receiving ‘Pardons,’ ‘Commutations,’ or any other Legal Document so signed, please be advised that said Document has been fully and completely terminated, and is of no Legal effect,” the president wrote.

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The latest Trump post came one day after he posted dozens of false accusations about Democrats on his social media platform.

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In a cabinet meeting that lasted for more than two hours, defense secretary Pete Hegseth gave more details about the decision to re-strike an alleged drug trafficking boat off the coast of Venezuela on 2 September. He said that he “watched that first strike” but ultimately did not “stick around for the hour or two hours” after. “So I moved on to my next meeting,” the defense secretary said. “A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the which he had the complete authority to do.” Hegseth went on to say that decorated US Navy admiral Frank Bradley made the “right call” as he described the unfolding events to reporters.

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For his part, Donald Trump said that countries manufacturing and selling drugs to the US are “subject to attack”, adding that strikes wouldn’t be limited to Venezuela. The president also said that the administration is “going to start doing those strikes on land,” after defending his crackdown on alleged narcotics smugglers, which has largely been contained to the sea.

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Democrats have come out swinging against the administration over the much-scrutinized second boat strike. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called Hegseth “spineless” and “a national embarrassment” and called for the defense secretary to release the full unedited tape of the deadly strikes on the alleged drug boat.

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In his ninth cabinet meeting since returning to office, Trump also said that the national guard will soon deploy to New Orleans. He added that the Republican governor (and staunch ally of the president) of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, had called him and asked for help. “We’re going there in a couple of weeks,” Trump said.

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The president noted early on in the meeting that he would be announcing his selection for the next chair of the Federal Reserve early next year. He repeated that he talked to treasury secretary Scott Bessent about taking over the Fed but Bessent didn’t want the job.

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As he ended a cabinet meeting that lasted for more than two hours, the president launched into a xenophobic rant against the Somali community in the US.

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A reminder that he recently ended Temporary Protected Status from Somali nationals living in Minnesota, and has frequently disparaged Ilhan Omar – the Democratic representative who was born in Somalia but has been a US citizen since 2000, after arriving in the country as a refugee. He continued these kinds of vitriolic remarks today. Calling the Minnesota congresswoman “garbage”.

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“I don’t want them in our country,” Trump said of Somali people living in the US. “Somebody said, ‘oh that’s not politically correct’, I don’t care. I don’t want them in our country. Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks, and we don’t want them in our country.”

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As the president continued denigrating the Somali community, members of his cabinet appeared to bang the table in agreement. “These are people that do nothing but complain,” Trump said. “When they come from hell, and they complain and do nothing but bitch. We don’t want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it.”

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The president announced the so-called “Trump accounts” program today. These are tax-deferred savings accounts for American children.

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“Trump accounts will be the first, I guess, you could say, real trust funds for every American child,” the president said, adding that the federal government will also automatically be making a one time seed contribution of $1,000 into accounts for “every newborn US citizen”.

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Earlier, I reported that billionaires Michael and Susan Dell are contributing about $6.25bn dollars to the program– amounting to $250 per account for children under 10 years old, who live in zip codes where the median household income is $150,000 or less.

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During his cabinet meeting today, Donald Trump said that countries manufacturing and selling drugs to the US are “subject to attack”, adding that strikes wouldn’t be limited to Venezuela.

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Trump also said that the administration is “going to start doing those strikes on land,” after defending his crackdown on alleged narcotics smugglers, which has largely been contained to the sea.

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“You know, the land is much easier, much easier. And we know the routes they take. We know everything about them. We know where they live. We know where the bad ones live, and we’re going to start that very soon too,” the president said. “When we start that, we’re going to drive those numbers down so low.”

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In today’s cabinet meeting, Pete Hegseth gave more details about the decision to re-strike an alleged drug trafficking boat off the coast of Venezuela on 2 September.

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He said that he “watched that first strike” but ultimately did not “stick around for the hour or two hours” after.

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“So I moved on to my next meeting,” the defense secretary said. “A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the [decision], which he had the complete authority to do.”

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Hegseth went on to back Adm Frank Bradley’s call as he described the unfolding events to reporters. “[Bradley] sunk the boat, sunk the boat and eliminated the threat. And it was the right call. We have his back, and the American people are safer, because Narco terrorists know you can’t bring drugs through the water and eventually on land,” Hegseth added.

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His retelling today appears at odds with the version of events that he described to his former colleagues at Fox News, a day after the much-scrutinized second strike on 2 September. As my colleague, Robert Mackey, reported, on 3 September the defense secretary said that he watched the operation in real time.

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“I can tell you that was definitely not artificial intelligence: I watched it live,” Hegseth said in an interview.

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Taking questions from reporters at his cabinet meeting today, Donald Trump defended his Pentagon chief about reports that Pete Hegseth ordered an US Navy admiral to re-strike an alleged drug boat with two survivors.

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“Pete didn’t know about second attack having to do with two people,” Trump said. “I can say this. I want those boats taken out.”

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Rounding out comments today, secretary of state Marco Rubio said that Donald Trump is the “only leader in the world” that can help end the war in Ukraine as he praised the president’s foreign policy efforts.

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“Even as we speak to you now, Steve Witkoff is in Moscow trying to find a way to end this war,” Rubio added, referring to the ongoing summit between Putin and the US delegation that’s been going on for more than two hours.

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“More people are dying a week in that war than have died in the entirety of the US is involvement in Afghanistan or Iraq,” Rubio said.

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Brooke Rollins, the president’s agriculture secretary, said that her agency will “begin to stop moving federal funds” to the 21 states who have refused to share data about Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) recipients.

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She added that the USDA will withhold funds until these states “comply” and tell the USDA and allow the department “to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer”.

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Despite undocumented immigrants remaining ineligible to receive Snap benefits, Rollins said earlier this week that USDA is reviewing “all programs” to ensure “only legal citizens are receiving benefits”.

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Transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, reiterated his call for passengers to “bring their better selves” when flying in an effort to “bring civility back to travel”.

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“If you have a someone’s pregnant on your flight and you’re as strong as Pete is,” Duffy said, looking and joking with the defense secretary during Trump’s cabinet meeting. “Well pick up the bag and help her, put it in the overhead bin. Let’s be nice to each other.”

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The secretary reiterated his calls for passengers to “maybe not wear pajamas or slippers on the airplane”.

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“We always have the backs of our commanders,” Hegseth said, insisting that “they’ve done the right things” in making judgement calls in difficult situations.

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He’s alluding to Admiral Frank M Bradley, the military commander whom Hegseth has been insisting since yesterday gave the order for the second strike on the alleged drug boat on 2 September. The White House has also been backing this narrative, leading some some officials in Congress and the Pentagon, as well as Democrats, to now fear that Bradley is being made a scapegoat for the potentially illegal order.

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“We’re going to New Orleans soon” with the national guard, Trump said, adding that the Republican governor (and staunch ally of the president) of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, had called him and asked for help.

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“We’re going there in a couple of weeks,” Trump said.

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Also earlier, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called Hegseth “spineless” and “a national embarrassment” and called for the defense secretary to release the full unedited tape of the deadly strikes on the alleged drug boat off the coast of Venezuela on 2 September.

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Schumer pointed to a recent appearance on Fox News where Hegseth “bragged that he was present at every moment of the operation” but is now claiming Admiral Bradley made the decision about the second strike.

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“The minute trouble arises, Hegseth says someone else was making the decision,” Schumer said.

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As well as releasing the tape, Schumer said the defense secretary must testify publicly on the matter, as well as briefing the Senate in a classified setting.

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Meanwhile, at the Democrats press conference earlier, representative Ted Lieu of California called on Pete Hegseth to resign, saying the defense secretary lied about the second strike on the suspected drug-smuggling boat and “and threw Admiral Bradley under the bus”.

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“Killing shipwreck survivors is a war crime,” said Lieu, a former lawyer with the US Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He said there was no statute of limitation on war crimes and the justice department should conduct an investigation and hold everyone accountable.

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Hegseth “engaged in dishonorable conduct”, Lieu said, adding: “He is a coward, he must resign, you deserve better.”

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Fellow California representative Pete Aguilar reiterated that they feel Hegseth should resign but added that Republicans would never go with impeachment.

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“Members of the military need to tell the truth,” he said. “We need a full accounting of what happened on that day with that strike”.

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At a briefing today, Department of Defense press secretary Kingsley Wilson said that the “decision to re-strike the narco terrorist vessel was made by Adm Bradley”.

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Wilson added that Bradley was operating under “clear and longstanding authorities to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States was eliminated”.

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She re-affirmed that defense secretary Pete Hegseth stands behind Bradley. “Adm Bradley made the right call, and unlike the previous administration, we have our war fighters back at this department,” Wilson said.

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While answering questions from reporters today, Mike Johnson said he doesn’t know how much of the video recording of the second strike on alleged drug-trafficking boat, which reportedly killed two survivors, should be released.

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“I’m not sure how much is sensitive with regard to national security,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance to review it, so I’m not going to prejudge it.”

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Johnson reiterated that US Navy admiral Frank Bradley made the decision to launch the second strike. “He’s a highly decorated, highly respected admiral in the Navy, and he made that call, and so, you know, we’re going to have to look at that,” Johnson said.

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House speaker Mike Johnson quickly plugged the Matt Van Epps, the Republican candidate in the special election for Tennessee’s seventh congressional district.

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Ballots are being cast today, in a race that’s become more competitive in a seat that’s been a conservative stronghold in elections past. A reminder, Trump won the district by 22 points in 2024.

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“He’s a combat veteran. He flew combat missions, deployed eight times over to the Middle East and dodge missiles and bullets for his country. He worked in Tennessee State Government, and is a highly capable, competent, calm, common sense conservative,” Johnson said of Van Epps.

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A recent poll from Emerson College and the Hill had Van Epps leading his Democratic challenger, Aftyn Behn, by just two points.

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Today, Johnson reiterated that “anything can happen” in a special election.

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“When you’re in a deep red district, sometimes people assume that the Republican, the conservative, will win. You cannot assume that,” Johnson said.

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The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, has called for a sweeping and vague “full travel ban” on “every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies”.

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Following last week’s shooting in Washington DC, that killed one member of the West Virginia national guard, and left another critically wounded, the Trump administration paused all asylum decisions. The suspect is a 29-year-old Afghan national, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who entered the country through a Biden-era resettlement program after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. His asylum claim was ultimately approved after Trump returned to office.

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The White House has, however, blamed the previous administration for the “original sin” that allowed Lakanwal to move to the US in the first place.

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In a Monday post on X, Noem said that she had spoken with the president, but was not clear about which countries should be included in a travel ban.

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“Our forefathers built this nation on blood, sweat, and the unyielding love of freedom,” she wrote. “Not for foreign invaders to slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS. WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.”

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Today, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to meet with Vladimir Putin in Moscow. He’ll be joined by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

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The meeting comes after a US delegation – which included secretary of state Marco Rubio – held “productive” talks with Ukrainian negotiators in Florida over the weekend. On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration “feels very optimistic” about the prospect of peace.

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My colleague, Jakub Krupa, is covering the latest, including Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s trip to Dublin, where the Ukrainian leader is holding a press conference with Ireland’s prime minister Micheál Martin.

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Today, Zelenskyy said “now, more than ever, there is a chance to end this war”. He added that the latest peace plan draft has 20 points, that have been worked on in Geneva and Florida.

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But “some things still need to be worked out,” he said.

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Follow along here:

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Joseph Gedeon is a politics breaking news reporter based in Washington

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The FBI director, Kash Patel, is “in over his head” and leading a “chronically under-performing” agency paralyzed by fear and plummeting morale, according to a scathing 115-page report compiled by a national alliance of retired and active-duty FBI special agents and analysts.

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The leaked assessment, obtained by the New York Post and prepared for both congressional Senate and House judiciary committees, is based on confidential accounts from 24 FBI sources.

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They accuse Patel of lacking the experience to lead the FBI and that managers will not take initiative without explicit direction for fear of being fired.

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Patel served as a House intelligence committee staffer and later held roles in the Trump administration’s first term.”,”caption”:”Kash Patel served as a House intelligence committee staffer and later held roles in the Trump administration’s first term.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Lenin Nolly/SIPA/Shutterstock”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Patel’s first six months have produced a “troubling picture” of an organization described by insiders as a “rudderless ship”, with two sources independently characterizing the director as being “in over his head”.

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One stated he “lacks the requisite knowledge or deep understanding of all the FBI’s unique and complex investigative and intelligence programs”.

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One key accusation is that the FBI has become “internally paralyzed by fear”. Managers are “afraid of losing their jobs”, and “waiting on directions from the FBI director” rather than taking initiative, according to multiple sources.

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You can read the full story here:

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A congressional special election in Tennessee has become the latest battleground for Democrats and Republicans as the contest is seen as a critical bellwether heading into the all important midterms next November.

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Historically, Tennessee’s seventh congressional district is reliably conservative, with Republicans having controlled it for four decades. Donald Trump won there by 22 percentage points in last year’s presidential election but this special election looks like it is going to be much tighter with a strong Democratic candidate in the race.

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With Republicans clinging to a wafer thin House majority, even a historically solid Republican district like this has attracted outsized media attention.

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Tennessee voters on Tuesday will vote to replace Mark Green, a Republican who resigned from Congress in July. As my colleague Chris Stein notes in this story, in normal times, the GOP nominee, Matt Van Epps, would be considered a shoo-in.

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But after Democrats stormed to victory in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere earlier this month – bringing with it evidence that voters who had backed the president were changing their minds – the party and its allies have poured money into the campaign of state representative Aftyn Behn, hoping to pull off what would amount to a coup.

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The revelation that Trinidad and Tobago has approved the installation of a US military radar installation has stoked fears that the Caribbean could be drawn into the escalating crisis between the US and Venezuela.

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Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, had attempted to allay concerns about a US C-17 aircraft that had landed in the country, claiming it was carrying marines to assist with a road construction project.

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She also claimed she was told that no marines remained in the country. But images and videos later emerged of US marines at a Tobago hotel and of a radar installation on the island.

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Persad-Bissessar, Trinidad and Tobago prime minister, at the state department in Washington in September 2025.”,”caption”:”Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Trinidad and Tobago prime minister, at the state department in Washington in September 2025.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AP”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

After being pressed by reporters, Persad-Bissessar admitted on Friday that at least 100 marines were in the country, along with a military-grade radar, believed to be a long-range, high-performance AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR, which US Northrop Grumman defence company said is used for air surveillance, defense and counter-fire.

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You can read the full story, by my colleagues Natricia Duncan and Kejan Haynes, here:

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Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of US politics. A top US Navy commander ordered a second round of strikes on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat on 2 September, not defense secretary Pete Hegseth, the White House has said.

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The Washington Post had reported that a second strike was ordered to take out two survivors from the initial strike and to comply with an order by Hegseth that everyone be killed.

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Amid accusations that the defense secretary had ordered a war crime, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said yesterday that Hegseth authorised the strikes but did not give an order to “kill everybody”, as the report said.

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Hegseth has declared recent reporting that he may have illegally ordered all people to be killed in a military strike in the Caribbean as “fake news”.”,”caption”:”Pete Hegseth has declared recent reporting that he may have illegally ordered all people to be killed in a military strike in the Caribbean as “fake news”.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg/Getty Images”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Leavitt said:

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n

Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated.

n

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When asked by a journalist to explain how the strike was not an example of a war crime, Leavitt again defended the actions, saying it was “conducted in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict”.

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US Navy vice admiral Frank Bradley, who was commander of Joint Special Operations Command at the time of the attack, will provide a classified briefing to lawmakers on Thursday.

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Navy vice admiral Frank ‘Mitch’ Bradley will provide a classified briefing to lawmakers on Thursday.”,”caption”:”US Navy vice admiral Frank ‘Mitch’ Bradley will provide a classified briefing to lawmakers on Thursday.”,”credit”:”Photograph: US Special Operations Command/Reuters”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”

Hegseth pledged his support for Bradley in a social media post which cast the decision as one made by the commander, not him.

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“Let’s make one thing crystal clear: Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made – on the September 2 mission and all others since. America is fortunate to have such men protecting us,” Hegseth wrote.

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Both the Senate and House armed services committee chairs have announced probes into the allegations, with few details currently disclosed on who or what was on board the vessel.

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Since September, US airstrikes have targeted alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing at least 83 people.

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Trump’s administration has offered no concrete evidence to back up the allegations behind its deadly conduct, and numerous experts have questioned the legality of the operations.

“,”elementId”:”a4b43627-8b8b-44df-b85f-6287293c1179″}],”attributes”:{“pinned”:false,”keyEvent”:true,”summary”:false},”blockCreatedOn”:1764670226000,”blockCreatedOnDisplay”:”05.10 EST”,”blockLastUpdated”:1764670072000,”blockLastUpdatedDisplay”:”05.07 EST”,”blockFirstPublished”:1764670226000,”blockFirstPublishedDisplay”:”05.10 EST”,”blockFirstPublishedDisplayNoTimezone”:”05.10″,”title”:”White House distances defense secretary from second strike on alleged drug boat”,”contributors”:[],”primaryDateLine”:”Tue 2 Dec 2025 22.07 EST”,”secondaryDateLine”:”First published on Tue 2 Dec 2025 05.10 EST”}],”filterKeyEvents”:false,”id”:”key-events-carousel-mobile”,”renderingTarget”:”Web”,”serverTime”:1764777838286}”>

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Closing summary

This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but we will be back at it on Wednesday. Here are the latest developments:

US defense secretary Pete Hegseth claimed that he was not present when a special operations commander decided to launch a second strike on suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean on 2 September in order to kill two survivors. Hegseth, who boasted of having watched the attack “live” the day after it took place, said at a televised cabinet meeting that he did not “stick around” for the second strike.
Donald Trumpwho struggled to keep his eyes open during his cabinet meeting, ended it with a racist attack on Somali Americans in Minnesota, calling the entire community “garbage” and again singled out Ilhan Omarthe Somali-born congresswoman, for vitriol.
Elected officials in Minnesota voiced outrage over Trump’s comments, and the reported plan to deploy federal immigration offices to target Somalis in the state. “Everyone knows that our president is racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic – and we are going to fight that,” Somali American Minneapolis city council member Jamal Osman said. “America has a history of fighting and stopping those kinds of individuals.”
Trump once again claimed in a social media post on Tuesday that he has canceled “all Documents, Proclamations, Executive Orders, Memorandums, or Contracts” signed by his predecessor, Joe Bidenwith an “autopen” – a mechanical device that uses a robotic arm with a pen attached to replicate a person’s signature.
Republican Matt Van Epps won a special election in Tennessee for a seat in the US House, but by a single-digit margin in a district Donald Trump won by 22 percentage points last year.

Republican Matt Van Epps wins Tennessee special election, but by far narrower margin than predecessor

A military veteran and former state general services commissioner from Nashville, Van Epps defeated Democratic state lawmaker Aftyn Behn to represent the seventh congressional district.

Epps was leading by about 7.5% with about 98% of the vote counted.

Republican former representative Mark Green, who retired this summer, opening the vacancy, was re-elected by 21 percentage points in 2024, when Trump won by a similar margin.

Investigation of former Honduran president Trump pardoned was started by lawyer who later defended Trump

Donald Trump dismissed concerns about his decision to pardon the former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandezwho was convicted in federal court of drug trafficking by telling reporters on Tuesday the prosecution was “a Biden-inspired witch-hunt”.

One obvious flaw in Trump’s logic is that the investigation into Hernández began with the prosecution of his brother, Tony Hernandezin 2019, when Trump himself was president. That investigation was led by a federal prosecutor, Emil Bovewho later served as Trump’s personal lawyer and was recently appointed by Trump to the federal bench.

At the trial of Tony Hernández, Bove described a massive criminal scheme of “state-sponsored drug trafficking”. In his summation, Bove said:

Beginning in 2010 the defendant worked on massive cocaine shipments sent to the United States on a monthly basis. The president of Honduras deployed the military to the border with Guatemala to protect the defendant’s drug turf. The defendant used the National Police to murder one of his drug rivals. And the ring leader in that murder was later promoted to become the chief of the entire police force. Chapo Guzmán came to Honduras in 2013. Twice. You remember that defense counsel referred to Chapo as the most wanted man in the world at the time. He was still able to get to Honduras safely for those meetings with the defendant. And during the second meeting he handed the defendant a million dollars in cash, drug money, to help the defendant’s brother, Juan Orlando, get elected president so he could keep protecting them. …

in 2005 the defendant’s National Party lost the presidential election and they vowed to never let that happen again. To increase his own power and the power of his family, the defendant helped funnel millions of dollars in drug money into National Party campaigns. They did that for elections in 2009, 2013, and 2017. These weren’t campaign contributions. We’re not talking about donations. These were bribes and it came with strings. The traffickers who gave that money expected protection, protection from arrest, protection from investigation, protection from extradition, protection so that they could continue to work with the defendant to make millions of dollars distributing cocaine toward the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, this plan worked for a while. The defendant’s coconspirators, they won those elections. They infiltrated the Honduran government and they controlled it. They turned the government against its people. And they used the government for state-sponsored drug trafficking.

Elected officials in Minnesota stand up for Somali community in face of Trump’s racist attacks

“We in St Paul celebrate our large Somali community,” the mayor of St Paul, Melvin Carter, said at the news conference.

“The Twin Cities is not a place that tolerates or embraces hate,” Carter added. “The hateful and damaging rhetoric that we’re hearing from Washington DC right now is reprehensible.”

Three men — Jamal Osman, a Somali American Minneapolis city council member, spoke on Tuesday at news conference about Donald Trump’s targeting of Somali immigrants. He was flanked by Melvin Carter, the mayor of St Paul, left, and Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis. Photograph: Tim Evans/Reuters

“I know many families are fearful tonight, they are, but I want you to know that the city of Minneapolis stands behind you,” Osman said. “Our community has lived through fear in the past.”

Ilhan Omarthe Minnesota congresswoman who came to the US as a refugee from Somalia, responded to video of Trump attacking her, again, as he has obsessively for years, with the comment: “His obsession with me is creepy. I hope he gets the help he desperately needs.”

“Somali Americans are a valued part of our community,” Betty McColluma Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota wrote on social media. “President Trump calling fellow human beings ‘garbage’ is not only beneath the office but calls into question his capacity to serve all Americans. His ugly attacks on the Somali community do not reflect the views of our state, nor the reality of the contributions Somalis make every day. They are elected officials at the federal, state and local levels. They are business leaders, teachers, nurses, ride share drivers, neighbors, and friends. We will not be divided. We are One Minnesota.”

Trump claims, once again, to have ‘terminated’ orders and pardons signed by Biden using autopen

Donald Trump once again claimed in a social media post on Tuesday that he has canceled “all Documents, Proclamations, Executive Orders, Memorandums, or Contracts” signed by his predecessor, Joe Bidenwith an “autopen” – a mechanical device that uses a robotic arm with a pen attached to replicate a person’s signature.

The “Pardons” that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!

Last week, Trump declared again that every document signed by Biden “is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect”.

In his latest post, Trump asserted that his own social media posts have the full force of law, while Biden’s presidential orders have none.

The latest Trump post came one day after he posted dozens of false accusations about Democrats on his social media platform.

The US defense department on Tuesday held its first press briefing since implementing restrictive new policies that prompted dozens of reporters to turn over their press badges in October.

In attendance were members of what the Pentagon has described as the “next generation of the Pentagon press corps” including dozens of journalists from ultra-conservative outlets as well as the former representative Matt Gaetz and the Trump ally and self-described “white advocate” Laura Loomer.

The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon’s press secretary heavily criticized legacy media outlets and called the newspaper the “epitome of fake news” in response to a report that defense secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the military to “kill everybody” during a boat strike in the Caribbean.

The investigation into Pete Hegseth’s use of messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive information about military operations in Yemen has come to a close, NBC News reported on Tuesday.

The inspector general of the Department of Defense began its investigation in April after intelligence on upcoming US airstrikes were shared in a group chat on the app that included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic.

The inquiry intended to “determine the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business”, according to a memo from the acting Pentagon inspector general. The defense secretary has said he did not share classified information.

Hegseth received a copy of the investigation’s findings, NBC News reported, and the report was expected to be made public as soon as this week. The sources cited by the outlet did not provide information about the conclusions of the investigation, according to NBC News.

The Trump administration has threatened to withhold Snap food assistance funds to several Democratic-led states if they don’t provide data on recipients to the federal government.

Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, said the information, which includes details about immigration status and social security numbers, would “root out” fraud and “make sure that those who really need food stamps are getting them, but also to ensure that the American taxpayer is protected”.

Democratic senators have said the administration’s effort to build a database on federal food aid recipients is an “unlawful privacy violation”.

More on this development from the Guardian’s Maya Yang:

The Associated Press is also reporting that US immigration officials are preparing for a targeted enforcement operation in Minnesota focused on Somali immigrants as Donald Trump becomes increasingly hostile toward the community.

The president on Tuesday called immigrants from the east African country “garbage” and said they “contribute nothing.”

The New York Times reported that the Minneapolis-St Paul metro area, which has a large Somali immigrant population, would see increased deportation efforts. A source told the AP that the operation could start in the coming days and that immigration agents would spread across the region, primarily targeting people with final orders of deportation.

The Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, said Trump’s rhetoric “violates the moral fabric of what we stand by in this country as Americans”, and that Somali immigrants have started businesses and created jobs and added to the city’s “cultural fabric”.

City police officers will not work with federal agents overseeing immigration enforcement, Frey said.

“Targeting Somali people means that due process will be violated, mistakes will be made, and let’s be clear, it means that American citizens will be detained for no other reason than the fact that they look like they are Somali,” he said.

Here’s a recap of the day so far

In a cabinet meeting that lasted for more than two hours, defense secretary Pete Hegseth gave more details about the decision to re-strike an alleged drug trafficking boat off the coast of Venezuela on 2 September. He said that he “watched that first strike” but ultimately did not “stick around for the hour or two hours” after. “So I moved on to my next meeting,” the defense secretary said. “A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the which he had the complete authority to do.” Hegseth went on to say that decorated US Navy admiral Frank Bradley made the “right call” as he described the unfolding events to reporters.
For his part, Donald Trump said that countries manufacturing and selling drugs to the US are “subject to attack”, adding that strikes wouldn’t be limited to Venezuela. The president also said that the administration is “going to start doing those strikes on land,” after defending his crackdown on alleged narcotics smugglers, which has largely been contained to the sea.
Democrats have come out swinging against the administration over the much-scrutinized second boat strike. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called Hegseth “spineless” and “a national embarrassment” and called for the defense secretary to release the full unedited tape of the deadly strikes on the alleged drug boat.
In his ninth cabinet meeting since returning to office, Trump also said that the national guard will soon deploy to New Orleans. He added that the Republican governor (and staunch ally of the president) of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, had called him and asked for help. “We’re going there in a couple of weeks,” Trump said.
The president noted early on in the meeting that he would be announcing his selection for the next chair of the Federal Reserve early next year. He repeated that he talked to treasury secretary Scott Bessent about taking over the Fed but Bessent didn’t want the job.

‘I don’t want them in our country’: Trump ends cabinet meeting with xenophobic rant on Somalis in US

As he ended a cabinet meeting that lasted for more than two hours, the president launched into a xenophobic rant against the Somali community in the US.

‘Real trust funds for every American child’: Trump announces new investment accounts for children

The president announced the so-called “Trump accounts” program today. These are tax-deferred savings accounts for American children.

A reminder that this is the video of the first strike on 2 September that defense secretary Pete Hegseth posted to social media.

However, this footage doesn’t show the second strike (which reportedly killed two survivors) or has been cut to only show the first.

pic.twitter.com/5Ka5KjDYYt

— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) September 2, 2025nn”}}”>

‘We know the routes they take’: Trump threatens land strikes to combat drug cartels

During his cabinet meeting today, Donald Trump said that countries manufacturing and selling drugs to the US are “subject to attack”, adding that strikes wouldn’t be limited to Venezuela.

“You know, the land is much easier, much easier. And we know the routes they take. We know everything about them. We know where they live. We know where the bad ones liveand we’re going to start that very soon too,” the president said. “When we start that, we’re going to drive those numbers down so low.”

Hegseth says that he watched first strike but ‘didn’t stick around’ for the hours following, as he defends admiral’s decision to re-strike alleged drug trafficking boat

In today’s cabinet meeting, Pete Hegseth gave more details about the decision to re-strike an alleged drug trafficking boat off the coast of Venezuela on 2 September.

He said that he “watched that first strike” but ultimately did not “stick around for the hour or two hours” after.

“So I moved on to my next meeting,” the defense secretary said. “A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the [decision]which he had the complete authority to do.”

“I can tell you that was definitely not artificial intelligence: I watched it live,” Hegseth said in an interview.

Trump says Hegseth ‘didn’t know’ about ‘second attack having to do with two people’

“Pete didn’t know about second attack having to do with two people,” Trump said. “I can say this. I want those boats taken out.”

Rubio heaps praise on Trump’s foreign policy moves, says he is ‘only leader’ who can help end war in Ukraine

“More people are dying a week in that war than have died in the entirety of the US is involvement in Afghanistan or Iraq,” Rubio said.

My colleague, Joseph Gideonreports that a DC national guard spokesperson confirmed that members supporting Donald Trump’s operation in the nation’s capital “have been armed with their assigned duty weapons since August 2025, in support of civil authorities and at the request of the lead federal agency”.

The spokesperson added that “every service member is trained and qualified on their assigned weapon in accordance with Department of War standards”.

This is Trump’s ninth cabinet meeting since he returned to office earlier this year. It’s been going on for over an hour and a half. In many ways, it’s similar to roundtables past. Most cabinet secretaries and agency heads have heaped praise on the administration’s policies and thanked their colleagues.

Shout Out!!!

Pete Hegseth says he ‘didn’t stick around’ to watch second strike on alleged drug boat as Democrats slam administration over attacks – as it happened

Here’s a recap of the day so far

Closing summary

Republican Matt Van Epps wins Tennessee special election, but by far narrower margin than predecessor

Investigation of former Honduran president Trump pardoned was started by lawyer who later defended Trump

Elected officials in Minnesota stand up for Somali community in face of Trump’s racist attacks

Trump claims, once again, to have ‘terminated’ orders and pardons signed by Biden using autopen

Here’s a recap of the day so far

‘I don’t want them in our country’: Trump ends cabinet meeting with xenophobic rant on Somalis in US

‘Real trust funds for every American child’: Trump announces new investment accounts for children

‘We know the routes they take’: Trump threatens land strikes to combat drug cartels

Hegseth says that he watched first strike but ‘didn’t stick around’ for the hours following, as he defends admiral’s decision to re-strike alleged drug trafficking boat

Trump says Hegseth ‘didn’t know’ about ‘second attack having to do with two people’

Rubio heaps praise on Trump’s foreign policy moves, says he is ‘only leader’ who can help end war in Ukraine

BBC Breakfast star announces heartbreaking news just minutes into show

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