Senator Kelly says he’s ‘not backing down’, amid Pentagon investigation
Senator Mark Kelly said that he’s “not backing down” amid a Pentagon investigation that claims the former navy captain broke military law by appearing in a video that tells service members to “refuse illegal orders”.
While appearing on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talkshow on Tuesday, the Arizona Democrat slammed defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s plans. “He’s going to prosecute me under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for reciting the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” Kelly said. “It is so ridiculous. It’s almost like you can’t make this shit up.”
Kelly also called out the president for accusing Kelly, and the other five Democratic members of Congress who appear in the video posted to social media, of sedition, and saying their behavior is “punishable by death”.
“When [Trump] says these things, there are consequences,” Kelly added. “Isn’t this the guy two months ago that said, ‘we’ve got to stop this, like political violence issue’. He didn’t even make it to Thanksgiving.”
Key events
George Chidi
A reminder that a grand jury in Atlanta indicted Trump and 18 others in August 2023, using the state’s anti-racketeering law to accuse them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 loss to Joe Biden in Georgia.
The case remained the only criminal prosecution of Trump, but Fani Willis’ disqualification by the Georgia supreme court doomed the effort. The court ruled that her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, revealed in dramatic court filings in January 2024, created an impermissible appearance of a conflict of interest.
Skandalakis also asserted that “it is not illegal to question or challenge election results”, and concluded that the inquiry undertaken by Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by the DOJ under Joe Biden, was the more appropriate venue for an investigation of Donald Trump’s attempts to stay in power after the 2020 election.
Pete Skandalakis noted in his filing that the US supreme court’s ruling last year, which granted presidents “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for acts within their constitutional authority, meant that it would take “months, if not years” to litigate immunity issues in the Georgia courts.
“Bringing this case before a jury in 2029, 2030 or even 2031 would be nothing short of a remarkable feat,” he wrote, adding that “the citizens of Georgia are not served by pursuing this case in full for another five to ten years”.
He said the decision was “not guided by a desire to advance an agenda but is based on my beliefs and understanding of the law”.
Judge dismisses final criminal case against Trump
Shortly after Skandalakis moved to drop the charges against Trump and his allies, Georgia superior court judge Scott McAfee dismissed the final criminal case against the president.
A reminder that Skandalakis appointed himself to replace Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, after she was removed from the case by the Georgia supreme court.
Georgia prosecutor moves to drop charges against Trump in final criminal case
Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the prosecuting attorneys’ council of Georgia, wrote in a 22-page memo today that he would not be pursuing charges against Donald Trump, or the Republican electors who were accused of taking part in a conspiracy to illegally overturn Trump’s narrow 2020 loss to Joe Biden in the Peach state.
“There is no realistic prospect that a sitting President will be compelled to appear in Georgia to stand trial on the allegations in this indictment. Donald J. Trump’s current term as President of the United States of America does not expire until January 20, 2029; by that point, eight years will have elapsed since the phone call at issue,” Skandalakis wrote, referring to the now-infamous phone call that the president made to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes”.
We’ll bring you more details as they come in.
Senator Kelly says he’s ‘not backing down’, amid Pentagon investigation
Senator Mark Kelly said that he’s “not backing down” amid a Pentagon investigation that claims the former navy captain broke military law by appearing in a video that tells service members to “refuse illegal orders”.
While appearing on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talkshow on Tuesday, the Arizona Democrat slammed defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s plans. “He’s going to prosecute me under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for reciting the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” Kelly said. “It is so ridiculous. It’s almost like you can’t make this shit up.”
Kelly also called out the president for accusing Kelly, and the other five Democratic members of Congress who appear in the video posted to social media, of sedition, and saying their behavior is “punishable by death”.
“When [Trump] says these things, there are consequences,” Kelly added. “Isn’t this the guy two months ago that said, ‘we’ve got to stop this, like political violence issue’. He didn’t even make it to Thanksgiving.”
Shaun Walker
Bloomberg’s scoop showing how Trump aide Steve Witkoff coached the Kremlin on the best way to get into Trump’s good graces is extraordinary for what it tells us about Witkoff’s dubious loyalties, and the Kremlin’s potential influence over US negotiation efforts. But equally interesting is the leaked material itself and where it may have come from.
The story covers two intercepted phone calls: one between Witkoff and top Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, and another between Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriev, who has been deeply involved in negotiations with the Trump White House.
Bloomberg’s story was published without any byline or dateline, presumably because noting where the story was written or who wrote it could give clues as to the identity of the source. Bloomberg says only that it has “reviewed and transcribed audio” of the two phone calls, without giving any hint as to the sourcing or any checks done to verify authenticity.
Ushakov, who was on both of the calls, appeared to confirm the authenticity of the recordings on Wednesday: although he claimed some of it was “fake”, he said he would not comment on the rest because the calls were confidential, and said leaking such discussions is “of course unacceptable”.
In an interview with the newspaper Kommersant, Ushakov said some of his conversations were conducted on encrypted government channels, but suggested the calls with Dmitriev and Witkoff may have been made over WhatsApp. “There are certain conversations on WhatsApp that, generally speaking, someone might somehow be able to listen to,” he said.
The content of the calls provides proof of what many already suspected about Witkoff’s closeness to the Russian position in negotiations. The question of who took the highly unusual step of leaking such sensitive audio to a news agency is more complicated.
“It’s really hard to speculate. It could be 100m different things, including somebody on the Russian side trying to hurt Witkoff’s reputation,” said Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA Moscow station chief.
Read more of Shaun’s analysis about the leaked transcript below.
As Donald Trump heads to his golf course in Palm Beach – his 29th day on this particular green since he returned to office – he has also been firing off posts on Truth Social.
“There is a new word for a TRUMP REPUBLICAN, which is almost everyone (GREAT POLICY IS THE KEY!),” he wrote. “It is, TEPUBLICAN??? Or, TPUBLICAN???”
A reminder, that my colleague Jakub Krupa is covering the latest out of Europe. Earlier, he noted that the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said it is important that member countries continue to support Ukraine and pressure Russia. That is what we are working on”. She added that EU foreign ministers today “welcomed the US’s push for the war to end”.
‘He should be fired’: Some House Republicans slam Witkoff after leaked transcript of call with senior Kremlin official
Certain Republicans are moving to criticize Steve Witkoff and his relationship with Moscow, after Bloomberg published the transcript of a call between Trump’s envoy and a senior Kremlin official yesterday.
“It is clear that Witkoff fully favors the Russians. He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations. Would a Russian paid agent do less than he? He should be fired,” said outgoing Republican congressman Don Bacon, of Nebraska.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania representative Brian Fitzpatrick said the published details of Witkoff’s conversation were a “major problem”.
The GOP House member added that it was “one of the many reasons why these ridiculous side shows and secret meetings need to stop”. He encouraged the administration to allow secretary of state Marco Rubio to “do his job in a fair and objective manner”.
Trump remains vague about future healthcare proposal, says he’d ‘rather not’ extend Obamacare tax credits
Donald Trump has no public events scheduled today. On Tuesday he left Washington to spend the Thanksgiving break at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
On Air Force One yesterday, he spoke with reporters briefly about a number of issues, including reports that the president would reveal a new healthcare proposal soon.
“I like my plan the best. Don’t give any money to the insurance companies, give it to the people directly. Let them buy their own health care plan,” Trump said.
When asked if the president planned to extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, which are set to lapse at the end of this year, Trump said he would “rather not”.
“Somebody said I want to extend them for two years. I don’t want to extend them for two years. I’d rather not extend them at all,” he reiterated, pushing back against reporting earlier this week. “Some kind of extension may be necessary to get something else done because the unaffordable care act has been a disaster. The premiums are going up, and it’s the Democrats’ fault. But, you know, they are negotiating with me. It’s very interesting.”
Mother of Karoline Leavitt’s nephew arrested by ICE- reports
CNN is reporting that the mother of Karoline Leavitt’s 11-year-old nephew is in ICE custody after having been arrested earlier this month.
Bruna Caroline Ferreira, a Brazilian native, was arrested near Boston on 12 November as she was on her way to pick up her son, her attorney, Todd Pomerleau, told CNN.
The Department of Homeland Security has told CNN that Ferreira had been in the US illegally since 1999 after overstaying a tourist visa.
She hasn’t had any significant contact with the White House press secretary for several years, but shares joint custody of her son with her former fiancee Michael Leavitt, Karoline’s brother.
Ferreira had been driving to New Hampshire to pick her son up when she was detained. Michael told a local station that his son had not been able to speak to his mother since she was taken into detention.
Trump slams ‘purposely negative’ New York Times report on his health
Trump’s first social media missive of the day has just gone out – and he’s blasting the New York Times for their lead story on his age-related struggles in office.
The report details signs of the 79-year-old president’s growing fatigue in office and his shorter days.
Trump called it a “hit piece” from a “cheap rag”, which he says is “purposely negative” about him. There was a lot more vitriol in the Truth Social post which included a personal attack on the report’s author. But I’ll highlight his response on the health claims:
“[They] did a hit piece on me that I am perhaps losing my Energy, despite facts that show the exact opposite.
“There will be a day when I run low on Energy, it happens to everyone, but with a PERFECT PHYSICAL EXAM AND A COMPREHENSIVE COGNITIVE TEST (“That was aced”) JUST RECENTLY TAKEN, it certainly is not now!”
Trump defends report of Witkoff coaching Putin aide
The Kremlin this morning has confirmed that Witkoff is due in Moscow again next week – expected given the progress reported on a peace deal between Ukrainian and US negotiators earlier this week.
But hanging over that is a report that has emerged of a leaked recording of Witkoff advising Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, last month on how he should pitch to Trump on the peace plan.
At the time, Trump was appearing to lose patience with Putin.
“Just reiterate that you congratulate the president [Trump] on this achievement… that you respect that he is a man of peace and you’re just, you’re really glad to have seen it happen,” Witkoff is quoted as saying in the Bloomberg report. “I think from that it’s going to be a really good call.”
Following this, a Trump-Putin call did eventuate, right before Ukrainian leader Zelenskyy arrived at the White House for a meeting. And since then, the US has unveiled its peace plan, which appears to offer far more concessions to the Russian side, setting off rounds of furious negotiations.
Last night when asked by reporters about the leaked recording, Trump said he hadn’t heard it but defended Witkoff, saying the reported approach to the Russians was just “standard negotiating procedure”.
“He’s got to sell this to Ukraine. He’s got to sell Ukraine to Russia,” he said. “That’s what a dealmaker does.”
The deal as it stands appears to have been revised more in line with Ukrainian and European demands following US-Ukraine talks in Geneva this past weekend.
Zelenskyy has said a revised version could be “workable” but there are still several outstanding key issues. Zelenskyy is hoping to meet with Trump in coming days.
Kevin McCarthy says Marjorie Taylor Greene a ‘canary in the coal mine’ for Republicans
Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy has said Majorie Taylor Greene’s abrupt resignation is a sign of broader trouble for the GOP next year, given several House Republicans are leaving.
“She’s almost like the canary in the coal mine,” McCarthy told Fox News on Tuesday.
“And this is something inside Congress, they’d better wake up, because they are going to get a lot of people retiring, and they’ve got to focus.”
The GOP still has a slender House majority, and even with Greene’s departure has two votes to spare, but already, 22 House Republicans have said they will retire or forgo re-election next year. This is an above-average number analysts say.
Greene – a three-term representative from Georgia – resigned last Friday following weeks of an escalating public spat with president Donald Trump, over several issues including the release of the Epstein files.
Welcome to the US politics live blog
Hello and welcome to our US Politics blog for today. I’m Frances Mao and I’ll take you through the next few hours as lawmakers begin to head off for the Thanksgiving weekend.
The fall-out from President Trump’s attack on six Democrats who released a video urging US troops to defy “illegal orders” continues, after first the Pentagon and then the FBI reportedly launched investigations into the matter.
The two inquiries mark an extraordinary escalation in Trump’s use of federal institutions to go after political opponents, and sitting members of Congress. One of the Democrats who says she’s received questioning from the FBI called it a “scare tactic”.
Meanwhile, GOP veterans continue to weigh in on MAGA loyalist turned rebel Marjorie Taylor Greene’s departure – warning that the party’s facing several retirements next year that could leave it vulnerable ahead of the midterms.
And Russian officials have just confirmed that Steve Witkoff will return to Moscow next week to pursue a Ukraine deal – but it comes after a report showing Witkoff coaching a Russian official on how to appeal to the US president. Trump has defended his envoy. More on this shortly.
