Hegseth seems to distance himself from admiral who ordered strike to kill survivors of suspected drug boat
Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, seemed to distance himself on Monday from the commander who ordered a second strike on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean in September in order to kill survivors of a first strike.
Hegseth, who ordered a lethal strike on the boat, pledged his support for the commander in a social media post which cast the decision as one made by the commander, not him.
“Let’s make one thing crystal clear: Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since. America is fortunate to have such men protecting us,” Hegseth wrote on the social media platform X.
When the Department of War “says we have the back of our warriors — we mean it,” Hegseth added, even as he appeared to put all the responsibility on the special operations commander.
As Ryan Goodman, a former defense department lawyer, explains, if an order was issued to kill survivors of a shipwreck, that is a textbook violation of the laws of war, as established in 1945 when a Nazi U-boat commander was found guilty and sentenced to death by a British military court in occupied postwar Germany.
Key events
Senate plans confirmation vote for Jared Isaacman, Trump’s off-again, on-again nominee to lead NASA
The US Senate plans to vote next week on the on-again, off-again, on-again nomination of Jared Isaacman, a private astronaut and ally of Elon Musk, for the post of Nasa administrator.
Ted Cruz, the chairman of the Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation announced on Monday that the confirmation vote is now scheduled for next Monday, 8 December.
Isaacman’s nomination was previously pulled by Donald Trump in May, just days after Musk’s official departure from the White House, where the SpaceX CEO had burned bridges during his term as a “special government employee” overseeing the wholesale destruction of government agencies.
Without explanation, Trump reversed course last month and renominated Isaacman, after letting Nasa languish for months with Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, serving in a dual role as acting Nasa administrator.
Hegseth seems to distance himself from admiral who ordered strike to kill survivors of suspected drug boat
Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, seemed to distance himself on Monday from the commander who ordered a second strike on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean in September in order to kill survivors of a first strike.
Hegseth, who ordered a lethal strike on the boat, pledged his support for the commander in a social media post which cast the decision as one made by the commander, not him.
“Let’s make one thing crystal clear: Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since. America is fortunate to have such men protecting us,” Hegseth wrote on the social media platform X.
When the Department of War “says we have the back of our warriors — we mean it,” Hegseth added, even as he appeared to put all the responsibility on the special operations commander.
As Ryan Goodman, a former defense department lawyer, explains, if an order was issued to kill survivors of a shipwreck, that is a textbook violation of the laws of war, as established in 1945 when a Nazi U-boat commander was found guilty and sentenced to death by a British military court in occupied postwar Germany.
Mark Kelly blames Trump for new wave of threats to his wife, Gabby Giffords, victim of 2011 attack
Speaking at a news conference in Washington on Monday, Mark Kelly, the Democratic senator from Arizona, said that Donald Trump’s accusation that he is guilty of Seditious behavior, punishable by death”, for reminding soldiers in a social media video that they can refuse illegal orders, has led to a new wave of threats against him and his wife, Gabby Giffords, a former congresswoman who survived an assassination attempt in 2011.
“My family knows the cost of political violence. My wife Gabby was shot in the head and nearly died while speaking with her constituents. The president should understand this too; he has been the target of political violence himself”, Kelly said.
“Gabby and I are no strangers to political violence. We get a lot of threats already,” Kelly added. “She gets threats on her life, more so today because of what Donald Trump said about me 10 days ago: that I should be hanged, that I should be executed,” Kelly said.
Kelly told reporters that “threatening calls that we get into our office have skyrocketed, and they were very graphic”.
The senator added that the president “thinks he can shut me up,” but the intimidation would not work. “I have First Amendment rights, I’m a US senator, I’m doing my job,” Kelly said. “He ain’t gonna shut me up. I mean, he intimidates other people. I’m not intimidated by Donald Trump or Pete Hegseth or anyone else.”
“We’ve become so accustomed to Donald Trump’s behavior that it is worth emphasizing: The president of the United States said that two US senators and four members of the House should be arrested, hanged, and executed for something that is true,” Kelly also said, referring to Trump’s call for all six Democrats with service backgrounds who took part in the video reminding active-duty troops and intelligence officers that they can refuse unlawful orders.
The video was recorded after lawmakers were made aware that at least one strike on suspected drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean had been carried out to kill survivors, which is a textbook violation of the laws of war.
In his prepared remarks, Kelly contrasted his own biography with that of the president, saying:
In 1991, when Donald Trump was driving the Taj Mahal casino into bankruptcy, I was getting shot at over Iraq and Kuwait. In 2001, after Donald Trump said that the collapse of the Twin Towers now meant he now owned the tallest skyscraper in Manhattan, I was carrying flags honoring 9/11 victims into space on a rocket ship.
In 2003, when Donald Trump was writing birthday greetings to the monster, Jeffrey Epstein, I was the first on the scene to recover the bodies of my fellow astronauts who died when Space Shuttle Columbia exploded during re-entry.
In 2011, when Trump was hosting a reality show, and peddling conspiracy theories against president Barack Obama, I was sitting next to my wife’s hospital bed as she recovered from a gunshot wound to the head.
I’ve been through a lot worse in service to my country; the president and Pete Hegseth are not going to silence me.
“If Donald Trump continues his actions against Venezuela, we will immediately file a War Powers Resolution to block the deployment of U.S. forces to Venezuela,” the senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer wrote on social media on Monday. “The power to declare war lies solely in the hands of Congress—not Donald Trump.”
Trump holds talks with advisers on Venezuela – report
Donald Trump held talks on Monday with top advisers to discuss the pressure campaign on Venezuela, among other topics, a senior US official told Reuters.
The official said the Oval Office meeting included senior members of Trump’s national security team. No details of the talks were immediately available.
The session came as Trump ratchets up pressure on Venezuela over what the US says are drug shipments emanating from that country that threaten the lives of Americans.
While the Trump administration has accused Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, of being a “narco-terrorist” kingpin, the president has pledged to pardon a former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced last year to 45 years in US federal prison for allegedly creating “a cocaine superhighway to the United States”.
Despite those mixed messages, the Trump administration has been weighing Venezuela-related options to combat what it has portrayed as Maduro’s role in supplying illegal drugs that have killed Americans. Maduro has denied having any links to the illegal drug trade and accused the US of plotting to steal Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
On Saturday, Trump said the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela should be considered “closed in its entirety,” but gave no further details, stirring anxiety and confusion in Caracas.
Trump confirmed on Sunday that he had spoken to Maduro, whom the US considers an illegitimate leader after an election the opposition called fraudulent, but Trump declined to provide details of the conversation when asked about it on Air Force One on Sunday.
US forces in the region have been described as focused on counter-narcotics operations, even though the assembled firepower far outweighs what is necessary for them. The US military has carried out at least 21 strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific since September, killing at least 83 people.
Reports of looming action have proliferated in recent weeks as the US military has deployed forces to the Caribbean amid worsening relations with Venezuela.
Roger Wicker, the Mississippi Republican who leads the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN on Monday that he intends to get all of the video and audio recorded by the Pentagon during strikes on a suspected drug smuggling boat off Venezuela in September to determine if a second strike was carried out to kill survivors, as the Washington Post reported on Friday.
“I’ve spoken to the secretary of defense and we’ll be speaking to the admiral that was in charge of the operation,” Wicker said. “The secretary did indicate, which has now been in the news media, that there was a second attack.”
Asked if there were survivors of the first strike, Wicker responded: “I don’t have that information… but I do think we’ll get that information. And we’re certainly going to have available to us all of the audio and all of the video”.
Treasury secretary announces investigation of rightwing activist’s allegation that federal funds were diverted to Somali militants
The US treasury department is investigating allegations from a rightwing activist that federal funds were fraudulently diverted from Minnesota to benefit al-Shabaab, an Islamist militant group in Somalia.
The investigation was announced on social media by Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, in response to an investigation by the activist and writer Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who previously devised the campaign against critical race theory.
Bessent announced the investigation in a deeply partisan message that thanked Donald Trump, who has asserted without evidence that Somali Americans were “ripping us off”, and blamed the possible fraud on what the secretary called “the feckless mismanagement of the Biden Administration and Governor Tim Walz”.
Former US ambassador to Russia asks why Jared Kushner is going to Moscow for talks with Putin but not Marco Rubio
A Wall Street Journal report that Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who holds no government role, is flying to Moscow with the president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, for talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, instead of the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, left a former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, puzzled.
“Can someone explain to me why Special Envoy Witkoff and the presidents son-in-law participate in negotiations with both the Ukrainians and Russians, but our Secretary of State only talks to the Ukrainians and is not leading the delegation to talk to Putin?” McFaul, who was as Barack Obama’s ambassador in Moscow from 2012 to 2014, asked on social media. “I don’t get it.”
As McFaul pointed out, Rubio, who is both Trump’s secretary of state and national security adviser, was at the literal center of talks with Ukraine’s negotiators in Florida on Sunday, seated between Witkoff and Kushner.
While the apparent sidelining of Rubio in this diplomatic effort mirrors the central role played by Witkoff and Kushner in brokering a ceasefire in Gaza, there is one practical consideration that could explain the absence of the secretary of state from the flight to Moscow. Rubio has been banned from entering Russian territory since last year when his name, and that of his wife, was added to a list of US citizens subject to personal sanctions by the Russian government, apparently over his support for Ukraine after the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.
“The ban applies to those involved in conceiving, carrying out and justifying the anti-Russia policy adopted by the current administration of the United States, as well as those directly involved in anti-Russia undertakings,” the Kremlin explained in 2024 when an earlier slate of Americans was “permanently banned” from entering Russia. “The decision is part of retaliatory measures in response to the massive and constantly expanding list of sanctions imposed by the American government on Russian citizens for supporting the Kremlin and the special military operation.”
McFaul is also on the list of Americans barred from Russia, as are more than 2,000 journalists, actors, officials and lawmakers, including then senator JD Vance and the late John McCain, who was just one of several US officials whose right to visit Russia was taken away after they were already dead.
In a number of places, the list of Americans banned from Russia by the Kremlin overlaps with Donald Trump’s personal enemies list. Those barred from ever visiting Russia include: Barack Obama, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Elizabeth Warren, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Rachel Maddow, John Bolton, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mark Kelly, Janet Mills and even the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who famously refused Trump’s plea to “find” him the exact number of votes he needed to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the state’s 2020 election.
‘We have a little more than three years left’, Trump says at White House Christmas party
In remarks at a White House Christmas party on Monday, Donald Trump acknowledged a reality some of his supporters have tried to deny: that he will not be president in just over three years.
“We have a little more than three years left”, the president said, in remarks captured on video and shared on social media by the White House. “Three years for Trump is an eternity,” he added, “that’s a long period of time.”
Trump also praised the national guard troops who were shot in Washington DC last week. “I want to just pay my respects to the National Guard, and those two incredible people. One is no longer with us,” the president said, “and we have another one who is fighting for his life.”
“Both of them were the best, everything,” he added.
Trump then claimed that because of the deployment of the national guard troops he ordered, “we have a safe city again.”
West Virginia governor says that there is ‘positive news’ about national guard member who was severely wounded in DC shooting
West Virginia governor Patrick Morrisey said today that he received “positive news” from US air force staff Sgt Andrew Wolfe – who is critically injured in hospital after being shot in downtown DC last week.
At a press conference today Morrisey said that Wolfe gave a “thumbs up” when asked by a nurse if he could hear her question.
“We were told that he also wiggled his toes. So we take that as a positive sign,” Morrisey added, before saying he was not going to “speculate”.
World Aids Day not commemorated by US government for first time in almost 30 years
Today is World Aids Day – the international commemoration of the lives lost to HIV/Aids, highlight efforts to contain the epidemic, and to raise awareness among the general public.
However, this is the first year since 1988 where the US government will not formally recognize World Aids Day, according to various reports, citing emails from the state department.
As my colleague, Lucy Campbell, reports, since Trump returned to the White House, he has cancelled foreign aid programs that combat HIV and Aids, scrapped research and prevention resources, and restricted funding under the two-decade-old President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, or Pepfar, the government’s global HIV program established under the Republican president George W Bush, which is estimated to have prevented 25m early deaths.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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In response to questions from reporters today, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the second strike on a suspected drug-trafficking vessel on 2 September this year. She said today that strike was conducted in “self-defence to protect Americans in vital United States interests”. She also noted that the strike was conducted “in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict”. A reminder that that the defense secretary reportedly told officials to “kill everybody” after two survivors were identified after an initial military strike. Experts and former officials warn that the strike may be unlawful.
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The White House also confirmed today that Donald Trump will meet with top national security advisers on the matter of Venezuela today. The press secretary also noted that the president will host his ninth cabinet meeting of the year on Tuesday. And on Thursday, the president will host the President of the Republic of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to sign a peace and economic agreement.
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Throughout the first press briefing post Thanksgiving, Leavitt also blamed Joe Biden for last week’s shooting in DC that killed one national guard member and left another in critical condition. “I would just point out one more time that the Biden administration was responsible for the original sin that led to this tragic killing last week, the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan” she said, referring to the 29-year-old suspect and Afghan national, Rahmanullah Lakanwal.
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A federal appeals court ruled today that Trump’s personal lawyer, Alina Habba, is serving unlawfully as the US attorney for the district of New Jersey. The third circuit rejected a challenge from the justice department to keep Habba in her position, upholding a lower court’s decision that she was disqualified from serving in the role.
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Donald Trump’s top envoy, Steve Witkoff, is set to meet with Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday. He’ll be joined by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Today, the White House said that the administration “feels very optimistic” that a deal to end the war in Ukraine will be reached. “I will let the negotiators negotiate, but we do feel quite good, and we’re hopeful that this war can finally come to an end,” Leavitt said today.
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Over the weekend, the president threw his weight behind Matt Van Epps, the Republican candidate in the special election in Tennessee’s seventh congressional district. Van Epps is running against Aftyn Behn – a Democratic state representative – to replace former GOP congressman Mark Green. A reminder, that Trump carried the district by 22 points in 2024, but after the success of November’s elections for Democrats across the country, the party is hoping to flip the Maga stronghold.
Administration is ‘very optimistic’ on agreement to end war in Ukraine, White House says
Ahead of special envoy Steve Witkoff’s meeting with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the administration “feels very optimistic” that a deal to end the war in Ukraine will be reached.
On Sunday, Witkoff and secretary of state Marco Rubio had a “productive” meeting with Ukrainian negotiators in Florida, ahead of tomorrow’s Moscow summit.
“This is sort of the shuttle diplomacy that you’ve seen from this administration play out, where we speak equally with both sides,” Leavitt said today. “We put points on paper. Those points have been very much refined. But as for the details, I will let the negotiators negotiate, but we do feel quite good, and we’re hopeful that this war can finally come to an end.”
During today’s White House briefing, the press secretary gave a results readout of the president’s most recent MRI scans. She noted that the imaging was performed “because men in his age group benefit from a thorough evaluation of cardiovascular and abdominal health”. Leavitt added that it was carried out preventively.
“President Trump’s cardiovascular imaging was perfectly normal, no evidence of arterial narrowing, impairing blood flow or abnormalities in the heart or major vessels,” she said today. “Overall, his cardiovascular system shows excellent health. His abdominal imaging is also perfectly normal.”
“In summary, this level of detailed assessment is standard for an executive physical at President Trump’s age, and confirms that he remains in excellent overall health.”
Leavitt also confirmed that Donald Trump will meet with his national security team on Venezuela later today. This comes after his phone call with president Nicolás Maduro, where Trump reportedly gave the Venezuelan leader an ultimatum to step down.
The press secretary said that she would not say whether the administration would support the release of video footage of the 2 September strike, deferring to the Pentagon.
White House says that second strike on vessel was legal and conducted in ‘self-defence’
In response to questions from reporters today, Karoline Leavitt defended the second strike on a suspected drug-trafficking vessel on 2 September this year.
“President Trump and secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated Narco terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting in accordance with the laws of war,” Leavitt said of the targeted attack, in which the defense secretary reportedly told officials to “kill everybody” after two survivors were identified after an initial strike.
“Adm Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated. And I would just add one more point to remind the American public why these lethal strikes are taking place, because this administration has designated these Narco terrorists as foreign terrorist organizations,” the press secretary added.
Leavitt said today that strike was conducted in “self-defence to protect Americans in vital United States interests”. She also noted that the strike was conducted “in international waters and in accordance with the law of armed conflict”.
To date, the strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean have killed more than 80 people, and targeted at least 22 more boats. According to the Washington Post, who first broke the story, some current and former US officials and experts have said that the Trump administration’s missile strikes in the Caribbean may be unlawful. Historically, the US government has intercepted drug-trafficking boats in the water and prosecuted the alleged smugglers. For his part, Hegseth has refuted claims that the strikes were illegal.
White House blames Biden administration for national guard shooter’s entry to US
Addressing reporters today, press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated that the president has “permanently paused migration of foreign nationals from third world countries that pose a very high risk” to the US. This includes special interest visas – a legal pathway for Afghan nationals who were employed by or worked alongside the US government.
“The terrorist who gunned down American soldiers, blocks away from the White House in an ambush, was an Afghan national who was flown into our country by Joe Biden’s administration in September 2021 in the chaotic wake of their botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, one of the most embarrassing moments in the history of our great country,” Leavitt said of 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal. “Joe Biden’s historic failure in Afghanistan continues to haunt this country and our men and women in uniform.”
Leavitt begins White House briefing
Karoline Leavitt has started the White House briefing, and outlines a busy week for Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, the president will host his ninth cabinet meeting of the year. On Tuesday afternoon, Trump will make an announcement in the Oval Office on his initiative to create Trump accounts. On Thursday, the president will host the President of the Republic of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to sign a peace and economic agreement. That evening Trump and the first lady will take part in the lighting of the national Christmas tree on the Ellipse. And on Friday, the president will attend the Fifa World Cup final draw at the Kennedy Center.
