Hegseth orders US Navy secretary to investigate Arizona senator Mark Kelly for ‘potentially unlawful comments’ in video
Donald Trump’s defense secretary, the former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, escalated his attack on Arizona senator Mark Kelly on Tuesday by ordering the secretary of the US Navy, former Trump donor John Phelan, to investigate “potentially unlawful comments” made by Kelly in a social media video.
In the video, Kelly, a retired Navy captain and astronaut, joined five other Democratic lawmakers with military and intelligence backgrounds in reminding serving soldiers and intelligence officers that they have the right to refuse unlawful orders.
The video, posted on 18 November, came as many Democrats have questioned the legality of US military strikes on suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean and Trump’s ongoing effort to deploy soldiers in support of immigration sweeps in states run by Democrats.
Hegseth’s order came in the form of a memorandum to Phelan, the founder of private investment firm with no prior military experience, posted on a Pentagon social media channel.
The memo asks Phelan to review Kelly’s comments in the video posted online last week and brief Hegseth on the outcome of his review no later than 10 December.
Hegseth’s memo comes after conservative media, including his former employer, stirred Republican outrage over the video message from the Democrats, who all served in the military or intelligence services.
The Democrats’ video was posted online the same day that the Senate passed the Epstein Transparency Act, requiring the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who socialized with Donald Trump for more than 15 years. Rather than focus on the uproar over Epstein, Fox and other rightwing outlets devoted more attention to the video.
The media uproar resulted in enraged social media messages from the president, an obsessive Fox viewer, including two calling for the execution of the Democratic lawmakers for simply reminding troops that they are not required to follow unlawful orders.
Key events
Some Republicans join Democrats to defend Mark Kelly from Trump and Hegseth’s attacks
Democratic lawmakers have rallied in defense of senator Mark Kelly, the retired Navy pilot and astronaut who has been threatened with arrest by Donald Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, for taking part in a social media video reminding active-duty service members that they do not have to obey unlawful orders.
They have been joined by a small number of Republicans.
Lisa Murkowski, a senator from Alaska who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial in 2021, and was reelected in 2022 by defeating a Trump-backed rival, voiced her support for Kelly in a social media post on Tuesday.
“Senator Kelly valiantly served our country as an aviator in the U.S. Navy before later completing four space shuttle missions as a NASA astronaut,” Murkowski wrote. “To accuse him and other lawmakers of treason and sedition for rightfully pointing out that servicemembers can refuse illegal orders is reckless and flat-out wrong. The Department of Defense and FBI surely have more important priorities than this frivolous investigation.”
John Curtis, a senator from Utah who appeared with Kelly last week at a “Modeling Civility’” event on the campus of Utah Valley University, where the Republican activist Charlie Kirk was killed, praised Kelly in a post that made no reference to the trumped-up charges against him.
“As a colleague, I respect Mark Kelly and value his friendship,” Curtis wrote. “I know him as someone whose career has been defined by service. His record as a combat naval aviator and NASA astronaut reflects his example of the discipline and dedication that are important for success.”
One day earlier, Don Bacon, a Republican congressman from Omaha, Nebraska , and a retired Air Force general, responded to the defense department’s threat to bring Kelly back into active service and court martial him, by writing: “Amateur hour once again at the Department of Dense.”
Bacon added that he thought the video Kelly took part in was “foolish” but, he added, “the threats of sedition charges and courts martial in response are also crazy. Let’s show some common sense and restraint.”
Jeff Flake, a former Republican senator from Arizona who served as the US ambassador to Turkey during the Biden administration, also spoke up for Kelly, who entered politics after his wife, Gabby Giffords, was shot in the head while serving in Congress.
“Mark Kelly is a good man who has served his country honorably in the past and continues to serve honorably in the U.S.Senate,” Flake wrote. “What he and his wife Gabby have sacrificed for this country is immeasurable. I’m proud to call him my Senator.”
Hugo Lowell
The Trump administration is framing its boat strikes against drug cartels in the Caribbean in part as a collective self-defense effort on behalf of US allies in the region, according to three people directly familiar with the administration’s internal legal argument.
The legal analysis rests on a premise – for which there is no immediate public evidence – that the cartels are waging armed violence against the security forces of allies like Mexico, and that the violence is financed by cocaine shipments.
As a result, according to the legal analysis, the strikes are targeting the cocaine, and the deaths of anyone on board should be treated as an enemy casualty or collateral damage if any civilians are killed, rather than murder.
That line of reasoning, which forms the backbone of a classified justice department office of legal counsel (OLC) opinion, provides the clearest explanation to date how the US satisfied the conditions to use lethal force.
But it marks a sharp departure from Donald Trump’s narrative to the public every time he has discussed the 21 strikes that have killed more than 80 people, which he has portrayed as an effort to stop overdose deaths.
A White House official responded that Trump has not been making a legal argument. Still, Trump’s remarks remain the only public reason for why the US is firing missiles – when the legal justification is in fact very different.
And it would also be the first time the US has claimed – dubiously, and contrary to the widely held understanding – that the cartels are using cocaine proceeds to wage wars, rather than to make money.
‘We haven’t had a murder in six months’, Trump boasts, ignoring two dozen murders in Washington DC since his federal takeover
During his remarks before the ceremonial pardoning of turkeys at the White House on Tuesday, Donald Trump repeated a lie that he has been telling since his federal takeover of policing in Washington DC in August.
“This was one of our most unsafe places anywhere in the United States; it is now considered a totally safe city,” Trump said. “I won’t tell you about murders, we were having murders, like a lot of murders, on a weekly basis. We haven’t had a murder in six months.”
In fact, there have been at least 61 murders in Washington in the past six months, including six this month, according to Metropolitan Police Department statistics.
Two dozen of those killings have taken place since Trump deployed the national guard to the streets of the nation’s capital and seized control of the city’s police force on 11 August. The first of those murders took place on the first night of federal control.
The names of the victims are not included in the statistical rundowns, but here, from the local police website, are the names of 21 of the people killed since then, whose deaths Trump ignores every time he repeats his lie that no one has been murdered in Washington DC on his watch.
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Tymark Wells, fatally shot, 1200 block of 12th Street NW, 11 August;
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Mignon Brown-Massey, fatally shot, 3300 block of 15th Street NE, 13 August;
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Franck Foute Mohdjiom, fatally shot, 300 block of Anacostia Road SE, 26 August;
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Francois Adkins, fatally shot, 2300 block of 14th Street NE, 1 September;
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Najii Mercer, fatally shot, 2600 block of Birney Place SE, 7 September;
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Jermaine Foster Jr, fatally stabbed, 2000 block of 14th Street NW, 13 September;
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Devell Wade, fatally stabbed, 200 block of Carroll Street NW, 15 September;
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Pamela Botts, fatally stabbed, 2100 block of 32nd Place SE, 21 September;
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Jermaine Durbin, fatally shot, 2300 block of Washington Place NE, 3 October;
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Jerome Myles, fatally shot, 1400 block of Clifton Street NW, 4 October;
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Maurisha Singletary, fatally shot, 4000 block of Minnesota Avenue NE, 5 October;
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Simon Getachew, fatally shot, 3800 block of 9th Street SE, 12 October;
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Timothy Sistrunk, fatally stabbed, 1600 block of Benning Road NE, 16 October;
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Eric Jones, fatally shot, 3200 block of 15th Place SE, 18 October;
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Jermaine McGee-Holmes,fatally shot, 3200 block of Hiatt Place NW, 25 October;
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Richard Walker, fatally shot, 3000 block of P Street SE, 2 November;
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Lowell Trueheart, fatally shot, 3500 block of Minnesota Avenue SE, 4 November;
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Tristan Johnson, fatally shot, 1900 block of C Street SE, 8 November;
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Jayla Vaden, fatally shot, 3300 block of 14th Place SE, 8 November;
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Contee Cross, fatally stabbed, 1300 block of Morris Road SE, 8 November;
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Tyrone Kearney, fatally shot, 1200 block of Valley Avenue SE, 19 November.
Hugo Lowell
Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff told a senior Kremlin official last month that achieving peace in Ukraine would require Russia gaining control of Donetsk and potentially a separate territorial exchange, according to a recording of their conversation obtained by Bloomberg.
In the 14 October phone call with Yuri Ushakov, the top foreign policy aide to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Witkoff said he believed the land concessions were necessary all while advising Ushakov to congratulate Trump and frame discussions more optimistically.
“Now, me to you, I know what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere,” Witkoff told Ushakov during the five-minute conversation, according to Bloomberg’s transcript. “But I’m saying instead of talking like that, let’s talk more hopefully because I think we’re going to get to a deal here.”
Eric Swalwell sues ‘Little Trump’, Bill Pulte, for abusing his office to drum up mortgage fraud charges against Democrats
Eric Swalwell, a Democratic congressman from California who is running for governor largely on his record as an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, filed a civil lawsuit on Tuesday claiming that Trump’s Federal Housing Finance Agency director, Bill Pulte, abused his power to retaliate against the president’s political opponents, including Swalwell.
The suit alleges:
Pulte has abused his position by scouring databases at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—two government-sponsored enterprises—for the private mortgage records of several prominent Democrats. He then used those records to concoct fanciful allegations of mortgage fraud, which he referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution. The target of his most recent criminal referral is Plaintiff Eric Swalwell—one of the President’s most vocal and visible critics in Congress.
“Director Pulte has combed through private records of political opponents. To silence them,” Swalwell said in a statement. “There’s a reason the First Amendment — the freedom of speech — comes before all others. As George Orwell said, ‘If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’”
Pulte, who is reportedly known to those around the president as “Little Trump”, recently accused Swalwell of mortgage fraud and made a criminal referral to the justice department. Swalwell denies the allegation.
As Swalwell’s suit notes, Pulte has made similar allegations this year against New York’s attorney general, Letitia James; a Democratic senator from California, Adam Schiff; and Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor appointed by the former Democratic president Joe Biden. All of the officials have denied wrongdoing.
Hegseth orders US Navy secretary to investigate Arizona senator Mark Kelly for ‘potentially unlawful comments’ in video
Donald Trump’s defense secretary, the former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, escalated his attack on Arizona senator Mark Kelly on Tuesday by ordering the secretary of the US Navy, former Trump donor John Phelan, to investigate “potentially unlawful comments” made by Kelly in a social media video.
In the video, Kelly, a retired Navy captain and astronaut, joined five other Democratic lawmakers with military and intelligence backgrounds in reminding serving soldiers and intelligence officers that they have the right to refuse unlawful orders.
The video, posted on 18 November, came as many Democrats have questioned the legality of US military strikes on suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean and Trump’s ongoing effort to deploy soldiers in support of immigration sweeps in states run by Democrats.
Hegseth’s order came in the form of a memorandum to Phelan, the founder of private investment firm with no prior military experience, posted on a Pentagon social media channel.
The memo asks Phelan to review Kelly’s comments in the video posted online last week and brief Hegseth on the outcome of his review no later than 10 December.
Hegseth’s memo comes after conservative media, including his former employer, stirred Republican outrage over the video message from the Democrats, who all served in the military or intelligence services.
The Democrats’ video was posted online the same day that the Senate passed the Epstein Transparency Act, requiring the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who socialized with Donald Trump for more than 15 years. Rather than focus on the uproar over Epstein, Fox and other rightwing outlets devoted more attention to the video.
The media uproar resulted in enraged social media messages from the president, an obsessive Fox viewer, including two calling for the execution of the Democratic lawmakers for simply reminding troops that they are not required to follow unlawful orders.
Wisconsin supreme court orders review of state’s congressional maps before 2026 midterms
Wisconsin’s elected supreme court issued two orders on Tuesday appointing a pair of three-judge panels to hear two lawsuits that argue the battleground state’s congressional maps must be redrawn before the 2026 elections because they unconstitutionally favor Republicans.
The two lawsuits, filed in July by liberal law firms, come after failed attempts to redraw the state’s congressional districts, which are currently skewed in favor of Republicans, so that the closely divided state is currently represented in Congress by six Republicans and just two Democrats.
The court’s minority conservative justices criticized the creation of the three-judge panels as a partisan ploy designed to benefit Democrats. It is unclear whether new districts could be ordered in time for the 2026 midterms as some Democrats want.
Both of the pending redistricting cases in Wisconsin argue that the state’s congressional maps, first adopted in 2011, are an unconstitutional gerrymander favoring Republicans.
Law firms that brought the pending cases in Wisconsin had argued over objections from Republicans that the cases should be heard by three-judge panels as required under a 2011 law passed by a Republican-controlled legislature and signed by a Republican governor, Scott Walker.
Any decisions by those panels can be appealed to the Wisconsin supreme court, which is now controlled 4-3 by justices elected with the support of Democrats.
In a lengthy social media post, Donald Trump wrote on Thuesday that his attempt to hold on to the House through gerrymandering ahead of the 2026 midterms is not yet done.
“It looks like the Indiana Senate Republicans will be coming back in two weeks to take up Redistricting,” Trump reported.
He went on to threaten any state lawmakers who fail not support the effort to tilt the electoral map in Indiana more in favor of Republicans with primary challenges.
“I am glad to hear the Indiana House is stepping up to do the right thing, and I hope the Senate finds the Votes. If they do, I will make sure that all of those people supporting me win their Primaries, and go on to Greatness but, if they don’t, I will partner with the incredibly powerful MAGA Grassroots Republicans to elect STRONG Republicans,” the president wrote on his social media platform.
Interior secretary announces new $250 annual fee for international tourists to visit US national parks
Interior secretary Doug Burgum announced today the new cost of an annual national parks pass for international tourists.
For US residents, the cost of a yearly pass (which grants access to 63 of America’s national parks) will stay at $80. But for those visiting, they’ll have to fork out $250.
When visiting any of the 11 most visited parks, non-residents will also pay a new $100 per person fee (in addition to the usual entry fee). There will also be five extra “fee free days” for US residents.
DC mayor, Muriel Bowser, announces she won’t seek re-election
Washington DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, said today she would not seek re-election. Instead, she will finish out the remainder of her third term and leave office in January 2027.
Bowser, once a vocal critic of Donald Trump, found herself complying when he returned to the White House in January, launched a federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department, and deployed national guard troops to the district earlier this year. While critics blamed Bowser for acquiescing to the administration, supporters felt she exercised tactical soft-power given the legal limitations of leading the nation’s capital.
In a video posted to social media, Bowser noted that her administration “brought our city back from the ravages of a global pandemic, and summoned our collective strength to stand tall against police who threaten our very autonomy while preserving home rule that is our North Star.”
Bowser added that she’s “cherished the opportunity” to serve her hometown for 10 years, and has “happily given all my passion and energy to the job that I love”. Notably, she did not say which candidate she would endorse to succeed her.
In September, I reported on how Bowser had to navigate her political summer stand-off with Trump.
Sam Levine
Donald Trump may have inadvertently pardoned any citizen who committed voter fraud in 2020 when he granted a pardon to Rudy Giuliani and other allies for their efforts to overturn the election, legal experts say.
The pardons of Giuliani and others who participated in the fake elector scheme earlier this month were largely symbolic since the federal government dismissed its criminal cases once Trump was elected. Many of those pardoned have faced criminal charges at the state level.
But, the federal pardon could wind up having a big effect on people like Matthew Alan Laiss, who is accused of voting in both Pennsylvania and Florida in the 2020 election. According to a federal indictment handed down in September, Laiss moved from Pennsylvania to Florida in August of 2020 and voted first with a mail-in ballot in Pennsylvania and then in person in Florida on election day. Both votes were for Trump, Laiss’ lawyers wrote in court documents. He has pleaded not guilty.
The case is still in its early stages. Last week, Laiss’ lawyers, public defenders Katrina Young and Elizabeth Toplin, argued that the charges should be thrown out because Trump had pardoned him.
They argued that Trump’s 7 November pardon was sweeping. It applies to any US citizen for conduct relating to the advice, creation, organization, execution, submission, support, voting, activities, participation in, or advocacy for or of any slate or proposed slate of presidential electors, whether or not recognized by any state or state official, in connection with the 2020 presidential election.” And while it lists a number of people the pardon specifically applies to, it also says the pardon is not limited to those named.
That language is so broad, lawyers for Laiss wrote, it also applies to their client.
Elissa Slotkin, one of the two Democratic senators in the video to troops, said today she was aware that the FBI’s counterterrorism division “appeared to open an inquiry” into her.
She wrote:
The President directing the FBI to target us is exactly why we made this video in the first place. He believes in weaponizing the federal government against his perceived enemies and does not believe laws apply to him or his Cabinet. He uses legal harassment as an intimidation tactic to scare people out of speaking up.
A reminder that after the video was published online, Donald Trump accused the lawmakers of “seditious behavior, punishable by death” in a post on Truth Social. He also re-shared several comments from other users calling for the arrest, trial and execution of the Democratic members of Congress.
For her part, Slotkin remained resolute today. “This isn’t just about a video,” she said in her statement. “This is not the America I know, and I’m not going to let this next step from the FBI stop me from speaking up for my country and our Constitution.”
‘We will not be bullied’: House Democrats confirm FBI requests for interviews over video to troops
Four Democratic members of the US House, who appeared in a video telling service members to “refuse illegal orders”, confirmed that the FBI has requested interviews with them. All of the lawmakers in the video are former members of the military or intelligence community.
Today, the representatives issued statements, saying that Donald Trump is using the FBI “as a tool to intimidate and harass” them.
“We swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it. We will not be bullied. We will never give up the ship,” representatives Maggie Goodlander, Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, and Chris Deluzio wrote.
Senior congressional Republican critiques possible peace plan to end war in Ukraine
Mitch McConnell, the Republican senator from Kentucky and former majority leader, has critiqued a possible US co-authored peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, which might require land concessions.
“The most basic reality on the ground is that the price of peace matters. A deal that rewards aggression wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on,” he lawmaker wrote in a post on X. “America isn’t a neutral arbiter, and we shouldn’t act like one.”
Last week, McConnell said that Vladimir Putin has “spent the entire year trying to play President Trump for a fool”. He added that the president “ought to find new advisors” if administration officials are “more concerned with appeasing Putin than securing real peace”. In response, vice-president JD Vance said that every criticism of the peace deal “either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground”.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
It’s almost 1:30pm in Washington, and here’s were things stand today.
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As he prepared to pardon two lucky turkeys, Waddle and Gobble, the president said he thought a peace deal on Russia’s war in Ukraine was getting very close but gave no other details. “We’re going to get there,” Donald Trump said. Earlier, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “tremendous progress” had been made towards a deal. In a post on X, she added that “a few delicate, but not insurmountable” details remain and “will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States”.
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The FBI has requested interviews with the six Democratic members of Congress who took part in a video where they told members of the military to “refuse illegal orders”, according to Reuters. Citing an unnamed justice department official, Reuters reports that the FBI is asking for interviews with senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, as well as House representatives Maggie Goodlander, Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, and Chris Deluzio. The FBI declined to comment when the Guardian reached out about the latest report.
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For his part, senator Kelly called the Pentagon’s announcement that it is investigating the him for possible breaches of military law for taking part in the video as an act of “intimidation”. In an interview with Rachel Maddow on MS NOW, Kelly added: “I don’t think there’s anything more patriotic than standing up for the constitution. And right here, right now, this week, the president clearly is not doing that.”
Trump says getting ‘very close’ to deal on Ukraine
In his remarks before the pardoning just then, Trump also said he thought a deal on Russia’s war in Ukraine was getting “very close” but gave no other details. “We’re going to get there,” he said.
“I think we’re getting very close to a deal, we’ll find out … I think we’re making progress,” he added.
My colleagues over on the Europe blog report that a short while ago Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv was ready to move forward with a US-backed peace deal, and that he was prepared to discuss its sensitive points with Trump in talks he said should include European allies.
In a speech to the ‘coalition of the willing’, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, the Ukrainian president urged European leaders to hash out a framework for deploying a “reassurance force” to Ukraine and to continue supporting Kyiv for as long as Moscow shows no willingness to end its war.
Gobble is officially pardoned. Along with Waddle, he’ll live out the rest of his days in North Carolina.
