Top Navy admiral briefs lawmakers on ‘double-tap’ strike on suspected drug boats
Adm Frank “Mitch” Bradley arrived on Capitol Hill earlier today to discuss the “double-tap” boat strike on suspected drug boats off the coast of Venezuela with the House and Sentate armed services committees. The top Navy official spoke to lawmakers alongside the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Cain.
Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, gaggled with reporters after Bradley’s classified briefing.
“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” he said, according to CNN’s Manu Raju.
Himes added that Bradley did confirm “there had not been a ‘kill them all’ order, and that there was not an order to grant no quarter”.
Key events
Here’s the outside of the freshly unveiled Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in Washington DC, formerly known as the US Institute of Peace, the congressionally funded nonprofit his administration has been working to dismantle since February.
The state department said on Wednesday it renamed the organization to “reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history”.
The renaming comes despite an ongoing fight over the institute’s control. The Trump administration seized the independent entity and ousted its board before actually affixing his name to the building. A seesaw court battle is ongoing.
Melody Schreiber
Only testing mothers for hepatitis B can be problematic for several reasons.
Testing occurs in the first trimester, and infection could happen later in the pregnancy or after birth, and the tests have a 5% false negative rate, which means one in 20 people who have hepatitis B will still test negative. Because of unequal access to prenatal care, some 500,000 people are not tested during pregnancy each year.
In addition, mothers are not the only people who give birth, and they are not the only family members in close contact with babies – other parents, children, extended family members, and friends could also pass on the virus.
Some 50% of people who are infected with hepatitis B don’t know where they acquired the virus, according to the CDC. The Hepatitis B Foundation puts that figure higher, around 68%. Exposures can happen at daycare, while playing sports, even while sharing nail clippers.
Further, the ACIP meeting is today voting on whether to restrict access to the vaccine and make it “shared clinical decision-making” at the hospital.
Shared clinical decision-making is a process that has only been applied to five vaccines in the past – usually when vaccines don’t warrant full recommendation. When the recommendation for Covid vaccines switched to this framework, families and providers were confused and uncertain about the change. Insurers don’t always cover vaccines in this category.
Even short delays in giving children the hepatitis B vaccine have immense health and financial repercussions, according to a new model.
Delaying the shot from birth to two months would lead to at least 1,400 infections, 300 cases of liver cancer, and 480 deaths every year – all preventable by vaccination, the researchers wrote. It would also result in more than $222 million in additional health care costs every year.
A new review from the Vaccine Integrity Project of more than 400 studies over four decades found no evidence that delaying the vaccine would improve safety or effectiveness, and it found that vaccination at birth has no short- or long-term serious adverse events or deaths.
Melody Schreiber
The hepatitis B vaccine is extremely safe and offers for most people lifelong protection against the virus, which can cause liver cancer and other serious health outcomes.
Children who become infected within the first year of life are most at risk of developing severe illness.
Recommending hep B vaccination at birth has nearly eliminated transmission from birth parents and dramatically reduced cases of the illness in childhood. Infant immunization has been directly linked to a 99% decline in acute hepatitis B cases in children, adolescents and young adults since 1990 and 2019.
Kennedy advisers weigh dropping hepatitis B vaccine recommendation for most US children
For more than 30 years it has been routine to give all newborn babies in the United States the hepatitis B vaccine within the first 24 hours of life, a practice which has resulted in a dramatic drop in hep B infections.
There has also long been a carefully constructed timetable used by pediatricians to administer more than 30 doses to protect against more than a dozen diseases in early childhood.
But that could be set for a major and controversial change. Robert F Kennedy Jr’s handpicked vaccine advisers are convening today and tomorrow to discuss whether to abandon the current recommendation for vaccinating babies against hepatitis B, and to rethink fundamental elements of the established childhood vaccination schedule that has protected children against dangerous diseases for decades.
A vote is planned for around 2.30pm ET.
Per my colleague Melody Schreiber:
The vote contains several parts. First, the advisers plan to vote on recommending the vaccine at birth if an infant’s mother tests positive for hepatitis B. For babies whose mothers test negative or whose mothers don’t know their status, the shot could become shared clinical decision-making – an opaque term not typically applied to routine vaccines. If the shot is not chosen at birth, advisers will consider limiting it to be offered at two months or later – which would mean parents who aren’t able or ready to get it at birth may have to wait eight weeks or more.
A second vote would recommend that providers draw blood from infants to check for hepatitis B before giving the vaccine, and would require insurance companies to cover the blood test. Both of these rules would exceed the authority of the committee, which makes recommendations on vaccines.
A review of more than 400 studies and reports by independent vaccine experts released on Tuesday found that the current US policy of giving the hepatitis B vaccine to newborns has cut infections in children by more than 95%.
The advisers are also set to discuss how pediatricians inoculate children against more than a dozen other infectious diseases, including measles, mumps, whooping cough and polio.
Should the changes get voted through, which is likely, it would be the most significant shift in US vaccination policy yet under Trump’s polarizing, vaccine-sceptic health secretary. Per NPR, for public health experts “the meeting underscores grave concerns … [that] it will further erode childhood vaccinations, leading to a resurgence of preventable infectious diseases”.
We’ll bring you all the key developments here.
Top Navy admiral briefs lawmakers on ‘double-tap’ strike on suspected drug boats
Adm Frank “Mitch” Bradley arrived on Capitol Hill earlier today to discuss the “double-tap” boat strike on suspected drug boats off the coast of Venezuela with the House and Sentate armed services committees. The top Navy official spoke to lawmakers alongside the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Cain.
Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, gaggled with reporters after Bradley’s classified briefing.
“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” he said, according to CNN’s Manu Raju.
Himes added that Bradley did confirm “there had not been a ‘kill them all’ order, and that there was not an order to grant no quarter”.
Slotkin says watchdog’s Signalgate report shows that Hegseth put ‘lives of our service members at risk’
Senator Elissa Slotkin said that after reading the Pentagon inspector general’s Signalgate report, it “reinforced what was already publicly known”.
Today, we can expect to see the unclassified version of the watchdog’s report to be released, which concludes that the defense secretary violated departmental policies when he shared sensitive strike information in a Signal messaging chat in March.
“That kind of sensitive information, on a hackable personal cell phone and DoD-prohibited app, put the lives of our service members at risk,” said Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat who serves on the both the armed services and homeland security committees in the Senate.
Eric Berger
Among the beneficiaries of Donald Trump’s pardons and commutations, there is a group that legal experts and political scientists see as some of the clearest evidence of how such actions undermine the rule of law: those who were released from prison and again arrested for different alleged crimes.
During his first term, Trump issued 237 acts of clemency – including to someone who was a predatory lender and drug smuggler and to another who ran a Ponzi scheme. Since taking office again, Trump has issued more than 1,600, most for people involved in the January 6 attack on Congress.
At least a dozen of the people Trump has granted clemency to since 2016 were arrested for separate crimes after January 6.
That should come as no surprise, experts say, because Trump did not follow the usual review process for considering such pardons, making it more likely that those people had already committed other crimes or took the clemency as an indication that they did not do anything wrong.
“What else would you expect?” Susan Benesch, a human rights lawyer and director of the Dangerous Speech Project, said of the recidivism. “People have been pardoned in the past after they expressed remorse or served a lot of time or credibly expressed that they were sorry and wish they hadn’t committed the crime – or both.”
New poll shows almost half of Americans say cost of living is ‘worst it’s ever been’
A new poll by Politico shows that 46% of Americans surveyed say that the cost of living is the “worst they can remember it being”. What’s more, 37% of Trump voters share that view.
Similarly, almost half of Americans say that the cost-of-living crisis is the Trump administration’s responsibility.
For his part, the president said this week that the issue of affordability for Americans is a “fake narrative” conjured by Democrats.
“They just say the word. It doesn’t mean anything to anybody, they just say it,” Trump said.
FBI arrests suspect in January 6 pipe bomb case – reports
The FBI has arrested a person accused of planting pipe bombs outside the Democratic National Committee (DNC) building and near the Republican headquarters on the night before the January 6 insurrection, according to multiple reports.
The years-long search included the FBI releasing surveillance footage of the suspect placing a bomb at the DNC, and offering a $500,000 reward.
The bombs, which police deactivated and prevented from exploding, were discovered on the same day supporters of Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.
My colleague Jakub Krupa is following the latest developments out of Europe in our dedicated live blog.
Earlier, he reported that the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has warned European leaders that “there is a chance that the US will betray Ukraine on territory without clarity on security guarantees”, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported, quoting a leaked note from a recent call between the European leaders.
The magazine claimed that Macron talked about the tense moment in the talks to be “a big danger” for the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, adding that the Ukrainian leader – also on the call – needed to be “very careful”.
“They are playing games with both you and us,” Merz was reported as saying, which the magazine concluded was a reference to Steve Witkoff’s recent mission to Moscow.
Donald Trump will welcome the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, as well as the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, to the White House today.
After a trilateral meeting (which is currently closed to the press), the three leaders to will head to the Donald J Trump Institute of Peace – recently renamed in the US president’s honor – to sign a peace deal that aims to mitigate conflict in eastern Congo.
Later, Trump and the first lady will take part in the national Christmas tree lighting on the Ellipse in Washington DC.
A new Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics survey takes a look into the crowded race for California governorship, in which more than 95 candidates have so far submitted paperwork indicating their intention to run.
The poll found that Republican Chad Bianco, Republican Steve Hilton, Democrat Eric Swalwell (12%) and Democrat Katie Porter are currently leading the June 2026 primary. Of those polled, 13% said they were voting for Bianco, 12% for Hilton, 12% for Swalwell and 11% for Porter. In all, 31% of voters are undecided.
Votes were split on the influence of Gavin Newsom and his endorsement: 33% said Newsom’s endorsement would make them more likely to vote for a candidate, 33% said his endorsement would make them less likely to support a candidate, and 35% said it would make no difference.
Newsom currently holds a 47% job approval rating, while 39% disapprove of the job he is doing as governor, according to polling.
A law has come into effect in Texas that will allow individuals in the state to sue abortion pill providers in other states. Proponents say it is a way to enforce abortion restrictions in Texas. Opponents worry about the methods complainants might use to find their evidence.
In this special episode of Politics Weekly America, the Guardian US reproductive health and justice reporter, Carter Sherman, speaks to people who are using, providing and protecting abortion pills, and those fighting against them in Texas.
With the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, already in the hot seat over the 2 September boat strike and the inspector-general report on his use of the Signal messaging app in March, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Hegseth had asked Adml Alvin Holsey to step down after he had expressed concerns over the legality of the attacks in the Caribbean.
Hegseth had announced in October that Holsey would be stepping down as head of the US military’s southern command less than a year after he took over the post. The posting, which oversees operations in Central America, South America and the Caribbean, typically lasts three years.
The discord between Hegseth and Holsey began just days after Donald Trump was sworn into the office, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing former officials. But it intensified after Holsey expressed concern over the “murky legal authority for the boat strike campaign”.
The Trump administration has insisted the strikes are legal under the rules of war and that the US is engaged in armed conflict with traffickers – an argument that has been widely rejected by most legal experts. The Pentagon’s own Law of War manual states that it is prohibited to attack anyone who is “wounded, sick, or shipwrecked”, thus the controversy over the second follow-up strike on 2 September that killed survivors after the initial strike failed to kill everybody onboard.
To read more on the legal arguments around the 2 September strike, click on the story below:
New York Times sues Pentagon over new reporting restrictions
The New York Times filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon on Thursday, accusing the defense department of infringing on the constitutional rights of its journalists with its new reporting restrictions.
The restrictions, which went into effect in October, require reporters to sign a pledge that they will not obtain unauthorized material and restricts access to certain areas unless accompanied by an official – a stark departure from previous guidelines. In a summary of the filing, the New York Times called this policy “exactly the type of speech- and press-restrictive scheme that the Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit have recognized violates the First Amendment”.
The Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, CNN, Reuters, the Associated Press, NPR, HuffPost and trade publication Breaking Defense are among the US outlets that refused to sign the agreement.
In the lawsuit, the New York Times is asking the US district court in Washington to issue an order stopping the Pentagon from enforcing the press policy. The New York Times “intends to vigorously defend against the violation of these rights, just as we have long done throughout administrations opposed to scrutiny and accountability”, the company said in a statement.
Hegseth under scrutiny over drug boat strikes and Signalgate
Hello and thank you for joining us on the US politics live blog. I’m Vivian Ho and I will be bringing you the latest news over the next few hours.
Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the US navy admiral who reportedly issued orders to fire upon survivors of an attack on an alleged drug boat, is expected on Capitol Hill on Thursday to provide a classified briefing to congressional lawmakers overseeing national security.
Trump administration officials have defended carrying out the 2 September follow-up strike by arguing that the objective was to ensure the complete destruction of the boat – essentially mirroring the language in a secret justice department office of legal counsel (OLC) memo that purportedly said it was permissible for the US to use lethal force against unflagged vessels carrying cocaine since the cartels use the proceeds to fund violence.
Still, questions continue to mount over the legality of the attack, particularly around the reasoning of the second strike and what orders the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, gave.
“This is an incredibly serious matter. This is about the safety of our troops. This is an incident that could expose members of our armed services to legal consequences,” the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said in a floor speech on Wednesday. “And yet the American public and the Congress are still not hearing basic facts.”
Hegseth, who is in hot water after a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general concluded that he had violated departmental policies when he shared secret information in a Signal messaging chat in March, has sought to downplay his own involvement in the strike. Democratic senator Mark Warner has called for his resignation and Republican senator Lisa Murkowski said that Hegseth does not have her support.
The briefing comes as The New York Times filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon, accusing the defense department of violating the first amendment with its new reporting restrictions.
In other developments:
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The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown continues as federal agents descended upon New Orleans on Wednesday, sending fear through the region’s Latino community and prompting businesses to close. Gregory Bovino, the border patrol chief who has become the face of the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, was spotted leading a group of masked agents through the historic French quarter as one woman heckled the agents.
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The operation in New Orleans came as Donald Trump continued his xenophobic attacks on Somali immigrants, telling reporters on Wednesday that “those Somalians should be out of here. They’ve destroyed our country” and that congresswoman Ilhan Omar should be “thrown the hell out”.
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In more immigration news, an Amnesty International report published on Thursday found that detainees at the Florida immigration detention facility, “Alligator Alcatraz”, face “harrowing human right violations”.
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The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is also in the process of creating a new internal database of non-US citizens who are “employed or affiliated” with the government department, a sensitive memo leaked to the Guardian has revealed.
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Trump also announced on Wednesday that he is repealing Biden-era federal fuel economy standards.
