Top Senate Republican says White House will have ‘something to say’ about Ingrassia nomination
Addressing reporters after lunch in the Rose Garden, Senate majority leader John Thune took a question about the White House’s updated stance on Paul Ingrassia’s nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel, which now remains in question after Politico reported text messages in which Ingrassia allegedly described himself as having “a Nazi streak” and suggested Martin Luther King Jr Day should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell”.
“They’ll have something official to say about that. But you know what we’ve said,” Thune said, after he told reporters on Monday that Ingrassia’s nomination is “not going to pass”.
Key events
Johnson says that discharge petition will go to House floor once Grijalva is sworn in
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill today, House speaker Mike Johnson said a vote to release the full tranche of Epstein files will hit the House floor, after representative-elect Adelita Grijalva is sworn in.
Grijalva will be the 218th signature needed on a discharge petition that would force a vote in the House. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have accused Johnson of delaying the formal swearing in of the Arizona representative and staving off a vote.
“If you get the signatures, it goes to a vote,” Johnson said today. However, at a press conference earlier he said the bipartisan effort would be redundant as the House oversight committee continues its investigation into the handling of the Epstein case.
Democratic congressman Ro Khanna said that Johnson saying he would not block the vote is ultimately “a big deal”.
“I appreciate Speaker Johnson making it clear we will get a vote on Rep. Thomas Massie and my bill to release the Epstein files. The advocacy of the survivors is working. Now let’s get Adelita Grijalva sworn in and Congress back to work,” Khanna added in a statement.
In his gaggle, Thune noted that the next vote in the Senate, on the House-passed stopgap funding bill to reopen the government, will take place tomorrow. He said he’s confident that he’ll get enough Democrats on board to cross the 60-vote threshold.
Top Senate Republican says White House will have ‘something to say’ about Ingrassia nomination
Addressing reporters after lunch in the Rose Garden, Senate majority leader John Thune took a question about the White House’s updated stance on Paul Ingrassia’s nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel, which now remains in question after Politico reported text messages in which Ingrassia allegedly described himself as having “a Nazi streak” and suggested Martin Luther King Jr Day should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell”.
“They’ll have something official to say about that. But you know what we’ve said,” Thune said, after he told reporters on Monday that Ingrassia’s nomination is “not going to pass”.
Trump demands justice department pay him $230m in compensation for federal investigations into him – report
The New York Times reports that the president is demanding the justice department pay him about $230m in compensation for the federal investigations into him. They cite anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
The sources tell the Times that Trump is seeking damages for “a number of purported violations of his rights”, including the FBI and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and possible connections to the 2016 Trump campaign.
They add that the president has made these complaints through and administrative claims process, that have yet to be made public. Another complaint allegedly says that the FBI violated Trump’s rights when his Mar-a-Lago estate was searched in 2022 for classified documents.
The report has raised significant concerns from legal experts about the ethics of these unprecedented demands – which would essentially require a department, that the president now oversees, to pay him out for their work investigating him.
Gloria Oladipo
Attorneys for Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and legal US resident who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) following his pro-Palestinian activism, have filed appeals to prevent the Trump administration from detaining him again.
Lawyers representing Khalil argued to the federal third circuit court of appeals in Philadelphia that his release from Ice detention by a lower court should be affirmed and that the US government should be barred from detaining or deporting Khalil in the future.
“The Trump administration is still trying to bring me back to detention and block the federal court in New Jersey from reviewing my case, the same court that ordered my release and ruled that their actions against me were unlawful,” said Khalil of his case in a press release. “Their intention couldn’t be more clear: they want to make an example of me to intimidate those speaking out for Palestine across the country.”
Khalil was released from Ice detention in June after spending more than 100 days in the LaSalle detention center, an immigration jail in Jena, Louisiana. Michael E Farbiarz, a US district judge in New Jersey, ordered Khalil’s release and blocked the Trump administration from deporting him for foreign policy reasons.
But in September, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that Khalil should be deported to Syria or Algeria for not reporting certain information on his green card application.
The ruling from the judge, Jamee Comans, came amid a previous order from Farbiarz which bars Khalil’s deportation as the federal case proceeds in New Jersey. Khalil’s lawyers said they planned to appeal the latest deportation order and that Farbiarz’s mandates prevent Khalil’s removal.
Former US national security officials urge Congress to examine ‘Interagency Weaponization Working Group’
A group consisting of several hundred former US national security officials have issued a letter to Congress, urging its leaders to examine the existence of an “Interagency Weaponization Working Group.”
The Steady State, a group of over former officials committed to their oath to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” wrote the letter Tuesday in response to reports of the IWWG, which is “apparently tasked with pursuing retributive actions against individuals perceived as political opponents of the president.”
Citing a recent Reuters investigation, the letter said:
If accurate, these reports describe a profound and dangerous subversion of the apolitical foundation of the Intelligence Community… The activities described in the Reuters report echo the worst examples of intelligence politicization and misuse of ‘security services’ in our history, and would represent a direct violation of the statutory and ethical boundaries designed to separate intelligence functions from domestic political operations.
The letter went on to call leaders from the Senate and House intelligence, judiciary and armed services committees to:
1. Hold immediate closed hearings with the Director of National Intelligence, the Attorney General, and relevant agency heads to determine the existence, authority, and scope of any such interagency group;
2. Request all documents, communications, and membership lists related to the IWWG and similar “weaponization” initiatives, including taskings and technical-collection authorizations;
3. Assess potential violations of the National Security Act, Executive Order 12333, and statutory prohibitions on domestic intelligence activities; and
4. Affirm publicly—in a bipartisan statement—that the Intelligence Community must never be employed for political or personal retribution.
Interim Summary
It is nearly 2pm ET in Washington DC. Here’s a look at where things currently stand across US politics:
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There are no plans for Donald Trump to meet with Vladmir Putin “in the immediate future”, a White House official told the Guardian. The official added that the recent call between secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was “productive”, and therefore an additional-in-person meeting between the envoys is “not necessary”.
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Hosting several Republican lawmakers at the White House for lunch, Trump spent most of his opening remarks heralding the success of his sweeping tariffs. “We’re a wealthy nation again, and we’re a nation that can be secure. We’re a nation that can start paying down our debt, and with tariffs, we’re the wealthiest nation ever in the history of the world,” he said.
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Earlier today, Trump said on Truth Social that several Middle East allies told him they would “welcome the opportunity” at Trump’s request to go into Gaza “with a heavy force” and “straighten our Hamas” if they “continue to behave badly”. This comes after the 11-day ceasefire in Gaza was seriously undermined on Sunday when Israel launched waves of deadly airstrikes and said it would cut off aid into the territory “until further notice” after a reported attack by Hamas, which the militant group denied being involved in.
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Meanwhile, JD Vance, who is currently on a visit to Israel, said that he would not “put an explicit deadline” on Hamas to comply with the key points of the Gaze ceasefire deal. “If Hamas doesn’t comply with the deal, very bad things are going to happen,” Vance said, reiterating Donald Trump’s threats earlier today on social media.
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New York state police announced recently that a pardoned rioter at the January 6 insurrection was arrested last weekend for allegedly threatening to kill Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader. House Republican speaker Mike Johnson noted that “anybody who threatens political violence against elected officials or anyone else should be have the full weight and measure of the Department of Justice on their head.”
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Johnson also said that lawmakers on the House oversight committee are “working around the clock” to ensure “maximum transparency” in the ongoing investigation into the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. He added that the committee’s work is “already accomplishing” what the bipartisan discharge petition, which would force a vote on the House floor to release the full tranche of Epstein records, seeks to do achieve.
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Some Republican senators have said they don’t support Paul Ingrassia’s nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel, ahead of his confirmation hearing on Thursday. Politico reported on Monday that Ingrassia told other Republicans he “has a Nazi streak” and said holidays commemorating Black people should be “eviscerated”, in a private group chat.
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The CIA is providing the bulk of the intelligence used to carry out the controversial lethal air strikes by the Trump administration against boats in the Caribbean Sea suspected of carrying drugs from Venezuela, according to three sources familiar with the operations. Experts say the agency’s central role means much of the evidence used to select which alleged smugglers to kill on the open sea will almost certainly remain secret.
Senate majority leader Thune tells Democrats to ‘get wise’
The Senate’s top Republican, John Thune, closed out the lunch in the Rose Garden by urging his colleagues across the aisle to “get wise” and “vote to reopen the government”.
“Everybody here has voted now 11 different times to open up the government, and we are going to keep voting to open up the government, and eventually, the Democrats, hopefully, sooner or later, are going to come around,” Thune said.
Trump is running through what he sees are the greatest hits of his first nine months back at the White House. “We don’t need to pass any more bills. We got everything in that bill,” the president said, referring to his sweeping domestic policy agenda that he signed into law in July.
Here are a few pictures of some of the senators and officials in the Rose Garden today.
The president is explaining a new piece of immigration enforcement legislation, called “Kate’s law”.
“Very simply, it says that if you’re an illegal alien and you come in and you get thrown out, if you come back and get caught, you have to spend 10 years in jail,” Trump said.
The president urged the senators to pass the bill making its way through the House. The legislation is named after Kate Steinhle, who was shot in the head in 2015 by a man who entered the country illegally and had previously been deported. Different iterations of the bill have failed in Congress over the last several years.
Trump chides senator Rand Paul, without mentioning his name
As he welcomes the Republican senators, and thanks them for his help, Trump notes – without naming him – that senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has routinely voted against the stopgap funding bill to reopen the federal government, did not turn up.
“We’re just missing one person. You’ll never guess who that is,” Trump said. “He automatically votes no. He thinks it’s good politics. It’s really not good politics.”
The president has spent most of his opening remarks heralding the success of his sweeping tariffs.
“We’re a wealthy nation again, and we’re a nation that can be secure. We’re a nation that can start paying down our debt, and with tariffs, we’re the wealthiest nation ever in the history of the world,” he said.
This comes as he reignites a trade war with China, threatening an additional 100% levy after Beijing tightened exports of rare earth minerals.
Trump hosts GOP senators for Rose Garden lunch
Hosting several Republican lawmakers at the White House, Trump says that “this is supposed to be sort of a private event, and there is no such thing in politics as a private event”.
White House says no plans for Trump-Putin meeting in the immediate future
There are no plans for Donald Trump to meet with Vladmir Putin “in the immediate future”, a White House official told the Guardian.
The official added that the recent call between secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was “productive”, and therefore an additional-in-person meeting between the envoys is “not necessary”.
This comes after Trump announced a yet-to-be determined bilateral summit with Putin in Budapest, Hungary, after his conversation with the Kremlin Leader last week.
The vice-president also reaffirmed that there will be no US boots on the ground in the region, but said that America’s role will be to “provide some useful coordination” between Israel, Gulf Arab states, Indonesia and Turkey.
“The only real mediators are the United States of America, and so that’s the role that we’re going to play. I think the American people should be proud of them,” Vance added.
Vance says that future governance of Gaza should be left to Palestinians and Israelis
The vice-president said he doesn’t know the answer to the question about the ultimate authority in Gaza.
“We need to reconstruct Gaza. We need to make sure that both the Palestinians living in Gaza, but also the Israelis, are able to live in some measure of security and stability. We’re doing all those things simultaneously,” he said.
“Let’s focus on security, rebuilding, giving people some food and medicine. If we get to the point where we’re arguing exactly what the governance structure in Gaza is long term, then we should pat ourselves on the back. That’s a very good problem to have.”
The vice-president said that his visit to Israel had “nothing to do with events in the past 48 hours” and that he had been trying to plan this visit “months ago” but thought “this would be a good time to do it”.
Vance refuses to put “explicit deadline” for Hamas to comply with disarmament
The vice-president said that he would not “put an explicit deadline” on Hamas to comply with the key points of the Gaze ceasefire deal.
“If Hamas doesn’t comply with the deal, very bad things are going to happen,” Vance said, reiterating Donald Trump’s threats earlier today on social media.
“I don’t think it’s actually advisable for us to say this has to be done in a week, because a lot of this work is very hard. It’s never been done before, and in order for us to give it a chance to succeed, we’ve got to be a little bit flexible,” the vice-president added.
A note about the civilian military coordination center (CMCC). It will serve as a “hub” for the delivery of “everything that goes into Gaza” according to officials speaking today.
We also just heard from Donald Trump’s top envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who were two of the key brokers for the US in mediating the current ceasefire deal.
Kushner said that “almost half” of the deceased Israeli hostages have been released.
