Closing summary
Our live coverage is ending for the day. Thanks for reading along with us. Here is a summary of the key developments from today:
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The US supreme court appeared poised to back the Trump administration’s argument that the president should be able to fire independent board members that for almost a century have been protected from presidential interference. The court heard arguments concerning the legality of Donald Trump’s firing of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) member and appeared to be split down partisan lines in favor of a historic expansion of executive power, with the conservatives – including the sometimes swing vote of Justice Amy Coney Barrett – seeming to side with the administration. More here.
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Israeli operatives are conducting widespread surveillance of US forces and allies stationed at a new US base in the country’s south, according to sources briefed on disputes about open and covert recordings of meetings and discussions. The scale of intelligence gathering at the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) prompted the US commander of the base, Lt Gen Patrick Frank, to summon an Israeli counterpart for a meeting to tell him that “recording has to stop here”. More here.
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Donald Trump announced $12bn in economic assistance to farmers, which he said would be drawn from tariff revenue. “This relief will provide much-needed certainty to farmers as they get this year’s harvest to market and look ahead to next year’s crops, and it’ll help them continue their efforts to lower food prices for American families,” Trump said during a roundtable discussion of American agriculture. More here.
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Donald Trump’s former lawyer Alina Habba announced on social media she is resigning as top federal prosecutor in New Jersey. Habba’s resignation came after district and appellate court rulings found that she was unlawfully serving in the role, a powerful post charged with enforcing federal criminal and civil law. More here.
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The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, stated repeatedly in 2016 on Fox News that US service members should refuse “unlawful” orders from a potential president Trump – exactly the position he called “despicable” when Democratic lawmakers said it last month. The debate about whether US soldiers should refuse illegal orders is now at the center of a fiery political dispute over the US killings of alleged drug traffickers in boats off the coast of Venezuela and Colombia. More here.
Key events
Anna Betts
Immigration agents appeared on Sunday at the Texas home of the family of Any Lucia López Belloza, the 19-year-old college student who was recently deported to Honduras while on her way to visit them for Thanksgiving, her family reportedly said.
López Belloza, who attended Babson College in Massachusetts, was detained on 20 November at Boston airport while she was on her way to surprise her family in Austin, Texas, for the holiday. Within 48 hours she was deported to Honduras, a country she left at age seven when her family came to the US.
Her father and the family’s lawyer told the New York Times that on Sunday immigration agents appeared at their family home in Austin. Her father, Francis López, said immigration agents arrived in three unmarked vehicles. One agent, wearing a green vest marked “ERO” (Enforcement and Removal Operations), reportedly rushed toward him as he washed his car.
López said he ran into his backyard and closed a gate, but the agent forced it open and entered the yard. López said he then went inside his house and locked the back door. After about two hours, the agents left, without ever knocking on the door or attempting to communicate with the family, he said.
Read the full story here:
Twelve FBI agents who were fired earlier this year for kneeling during racial justice protests in 2020 are suing the bureau and its director, Kash Patel, alleging unlawful retaliation.
Agents were assigned to patrol Washington DC during a period of civil unrest prompted by George Floyd’s death, the lawsuit says. The agents, who lacked protective gear and extensive training in crowd control, became outnumbered by aggressive crowds they encountered and decided to kneel to the ground in an effort to defuse the tension, according to the lawsuit.
The tactic worked, and the crowds dispersed; no shots were fired, and the agents “saved American lives” that day, reads the suit.
The agents said their decision, days after Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police, has been misinterpreted as a political expression.
Edward Helmore
The Brazilian-born mother of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s nephew – who was recently detained by US immigration authorities – has rejected the Trump administration’s characterizations of her as an absentee parent.
Bruna Ferreira, who was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in November during a traffic stop in Massachusetts and was being held at a Louisiana detention center, said in an interview with the Washington Post that the White House’s statements that she had never lived with her son or spoken with Leavitt “in many years” were incorrect.
Ferreira, 33, had a relationship with Leavitt’s brother, 35-year-old Michael Leavitt. They had a son, Michael Leavitt Jr, now aged 11.
She said she was offended by the White House’s characterizations, calling them “disgusting”. She said she takes her son to Dave & Buster’s, a food and video games chain; ferries him to school, cheers at sports games; and fills his bedroom with “everything a young boy needs”.
Read the full story here:
The creator of the ICEBlock app, Joshua Aaron, is suing the Trump administration, alleging it abused government power and infringed on his free speech by asking Apple to remove ICEBlock from the App Store.
Aaron said that ICEBlock, which uses crowdsourcing to flag sightings of US immigration agents, represents constitutionally protected speech.
Aaron “believes that speech about publicly observed law and immigration enforcement activity – the expression enabled by ICEBlock – lies at the heart of the interests the first amendment was intended to protect”, according to the complaint.
The app, first launched in April, allows users to alert others when they see ICE agents within a 5-mile radius of their current location. In June, Kristi Noem, the US homeland security secretary, said the app and its founder were “obstructing justice”.
ICEBlock had more than 1 million users at the time of its removal, according to the complaint.
The South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace condemned House Republican leadership in an opinion piece published in the New York Times on Monday.
“I came to Congress five years ago believing I could make a difference for my constituents, for South Carolina and for a country I love deeply. I was the first woman to graduate from the Citadel’s Corps of Cadets. I don’t scare easily,” Mace said.
She added: “But I’ve learned that the system in the House promotes control by party leaders over accountability and achievement. No one can be held responsible for inaction, so far too little gets done. The obstacles to achieving almost anything are enough to make any member who came to Washington with noble intentions ask: Why am I even here?”
Mace, who represents the state’s first congressional district, is running for governor.
Jeremy Barr
David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance is not giving up in its aggressive campaign to acquire Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), launching a hostile bid for the entertainment company despite the announcement on Friday that Netflix had agreed to buy its studio and streaming operation.
Netflix’s bid for WBD’s storied Hollywood movie studio, as well as its premier HBO cable network, valued the company at $82.7bn. But it did not agree to acquire WBD’s traditional television assets, including the news network CNN and the Discovery channel.
Paramount’s all-cash tender offer sent directly to shareholders on Monday morning would be for the entire company, and puts a total enterprise value of $108.4bn on WBD, a major premium to its stock price.
In making its case to shareholders, Paramount claimed its acquisition of the company provides significantly better value for shareholders, and would be much likelier to survive regulatory scrutiny. WBD said it would “carefully review and consider” the bid, and advise its shareholders on how to respond within two weeks.
David Ellison and his father, the billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison, whose family is financially backing the offer, are both friendly with the Trump administration, which had previously indicated that it supported a Paramount purchase of WBD. Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, had even had early conversations with a senior Trump aide about what changes he might want to see at CNN.
Read the full story:
In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump threatened to add an extra 5% tariff on Mexico, alleging the country violated a water-sharing treaty.
“The U.S needs Mexico to release 200,000 acre-feet of water before December 31st, and the rest must come soon after. As of now, Mexico is not responding, and it is very unfair to our U.S. Farmers who deserve this much needed water,” Trump said on Monday.
He added: “That is why I have authorized documentation to impose a 5% Tariff on Mexico if this water isn’t released, IMMEDIATELY. The longer Mexico takes to release the water, the more our Farmers are hurt. Mexico has an obligation to FIX THIS NOW.”
Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, was asked to clarify the funding source for the $12bn farm aid package announced earlier today, to which she replied that the money will be coming from Commodity Credit Corporation funds.
“We are using CCC funds, so we have set aside 12bn,” Rollins told reporters on Monday. “We had to, kind of, you know, move some things around, but we’ve got that 12bn set aside. 11bn announced today, 1bn we’re holding back for specialty crops, but as the president said today, he’s open to more.”
Her remarks come after the administration announced one-time payments directed toward crop farmers in bridge payments.
Monday’s statement on the aid reads: “The $12bn in farmer bridge payments, including those provided through the FBA Program, are authorized under the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) Charter Act and will be administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA).”
Trump says the US will allow Nvidia H200 chip shipments to China
President Donald Trump will allow the chipmaker Nvidia to sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips to China, according to a post on Truth Social.
“I have informed President Xi, of China, that the United States will allow NVIDIA to ship its H200 products to approved customers in China, and other Countries, under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security,” Trump wrote on Monday. “President Xi responded positively!”
Trump said the commerce department was finalizing details of the arrangement and the same approach would apply to other AI chip firms such as Advanced Micro Devices and Intel.
“We will protect National Security, create American Jobs, and keep America’s lead in AI,” Trump wrote. “NVIDIA’s U.S. Customers are already moving forward with their incredible, highly advanced Blackwell chips, and soon, Rubin, neither of which are part of this deal.”
Transportation secretary announces $1bn in grants for airports to improve experiences for families
Transportation secretary Sean Duffy said earlier today that he wants airlines and airports to offer travelers healthier food options, exercise equipment and family-friendly features like playspaces and nursing facilities.
To do so, he announced“$1bn in funding for grant programs to make the experience better in airports”.
Duffy said that he had reached out to a majority of major US airline CEOs asking them what they could do to improve the experience.
“I’m looking forward to hearing back from airlines on what they have in their future plans to improve the experience when we get on their airplanes and fly safely through the national airspace,” Duffy said at Reagan National airport in Washington DC.
Last month, Duffy asked airlines to add healthier options and remove salty pretzels and calorie-laden cookies. Duffy also urged airports to add more dedicated spaces for young children and exercise equipment and to boost places for mothers to nurse their children.
Lawmakers could withhold a quarter of defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget unless he provides unedited videos of military strikes on boats in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific, Politico reports.
The demand was subtly tucked into the final draft of the annual defense policy bill, which calls for “unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command” to the House and Senate armed services committees.
Members of Congress have been demanding more information for weeks about the administration’s plans for Venezuela.
Donald Trump has said he has no problem releasing the video. But, despite the president’s statement, Hegseth did not commit to doing so over the weekend.
Since August, the Trump administration has put a $50m bounty on the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s head, launched the biggest naval deployment in the Caribbean Sea since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, and carried out a series of deadly airstrikes on alleged drug boats that have killed more than 80 people.
Shrai Popat
I’ve been speaking with Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, about today’s supreme court arguments. He notes that while the court may side with the administration in Slaughter’s case, they “might not do that in a sweeping way, and take each independent agency as it comes to them”.
Tobias added that the justices seemed to acknowledge that the Federal Reserve “deserves unique treatment”, which is relevant in the case of governor Lisa Cook – who the president sought to fire this year. The supreme court said that Cook could remain on the Fed board while they prepare to hear her case in January.
Slaughter’s removal, and today’s arguments, ultimately “undermines” Congress as a co-equal branch of government, according to Tobias. “I don’t think we’re having a wholesale end of the modern administrative state, but each one of these is hopefully going to be taken up on its own merits,” he added.
As reported earlier, Crockett entered the Senate race in Texas after former Democratic representative Colin Allred announced he was dropping out.
Here’s what the former Dallas congressman said in a statement:
“In the past few days, I’ve come to believe that a bruising Senate Democratic primary and runoff would prevent the Democratic party from going into this critical election unified against the danger posed to our communities and our constitution by Donald Trump and one of his Republican bootlickers Paxton, Cornyn, or Hunt. That’s why I’ve made the difficult decision to end my campaign for the US Senate.”
Allred also expressed that he is “nowhere near done serving my community and our state” and that he is running in the new 33rd District, a Democratic seat that was redrawn by a Republican-led redistricting effort.
“The 33rd district was racially gerrymandered by Trump in an effort to further rig our democracy but it’s also the community where I grew up attending public schools and watching my mom struggle to pay for our groceries … It’s the community where I was raised, and where Aly and I are now raising our two boys. It is my home,” Allred said.
Lucy Campbell
Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas filed to run for US Senate, a move expected to shake up the race after rising to fame amid her fierce clashes with Republicans, especially during Texas’ controversial mid-decade redistricting effort.
Crockett, one of Congress’ most outspoken Democrats, entered the race on the final day of qualifying in Texas. The 44-year-old is running for the Senate seat held by Republican John Cornyn, who is seeking reelection in the GOP-dominated state.
Crockett’s announcement came hours after former representative Colin Allred ended his own campaign for the Democratic nomination in favor of attempting a House comeback bid.
She faces a 3 March primary against Democratic state representative James Talarico, a former teacher with a rising national profile fueled by viral social media posts challenging Republican policies such as private school vouchers and requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms.
Read the full story here:
In another back and forth with Scott – this time on the topic of Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of this year – the president was forthright that he wants to “pay the people”.
“I want the money to be paid to the people to go out and buy their own healthcare instead of paying to the you know, the insurance companies,” he said.
If the tax credits do lapse, it will mean that premium payments would more than double, according to an analysis from KFF.
