Hegseth orders US Navy secretary to research Arizona senator Mark Kelly for ‘probably illegal feedback’ in video
Donald Trump’s protection secretary, the previous Fox Information host Pete Hegseth, escalated his assault on Arizona senator Mark Kelly on Tuesday by ordering the secretary of the US Navy, former Trump donor John Phelan, to research “probably illegal feedback” made by Kelly in a social media video.
Within the video, Kelly, a retired Navy captain and astronaut, joined 5 different Democratic lawmakers with army and intelligence backgrounds in reminding serving troopers and intelligence officers that they’ve the suitable to refuse illegal orders.
The video, posted on 18 November, got here as many Democrats have questioned the legality of US army strikes on suspected drug smugglers within the Caribbean and Trump’s ongoing effort to deploy troopers in help of immigration sweeps in states run by Democrats.
Hegseth’s order got here within the type of a memorandum to Phelan, the founder of personal funding agency with no prior army expertise, posted on a Pentagon social media channel.
The memo asks Phelan to evaluate Kelly’s feedback within the video posted on-line final week and transient Hegseth on the end result of his evaluate no later than 10 December.
Hegseth’s memo comes after conservative media, together with his former employer, stirred Republican outrage over the video message from the Democrats, who all served within the army or intelligence providers.
The Democrats’ video was posted on-line the identical day that the Senate handed the Epstein Transparency Act, requiring the discharge of recordsdata associated to Jeffrey Epstein, the late intercourse offender who socialized with Donald Trump for greater than 15 years. Reasonably than give attention to the uproar over Epstein, Fox and different rightwing shops devoted more attention to the video.
The media uproar resulted in enraged social media messages from the president, an obsessive Fox viewer, together with two calling for the execution of the Democratic lawmakers for merely reminding troops that they aren’t required to comply with illegal orders.
Key occasions
Wisconsin supreme courtroom orders evaluate of state’s congressional maps earlier than 2026 midterms
Wisconsin’s elected supreme courtroom issued two orders on Tuesday appointing a pair of three-judge panels to listen to two lawsuits that argue the battleground state’s congressional maps should be redrawn earlier than the 2026 elections as a result of they unconstitutionally favor Republicans.
The 2 lawsuits, filed in July by liberal legislation companies, come after failed makes an attempt to redraw the state’s congressional districts, that are at the moment skewed in favor of Republicans, in order that the intently divided state is at the moment represented in Congress by six Republicans and simply two Democrats.
The courtroom’s minority conservative justices criticized the creation of the three-judge panels as a partisan ploy designed to learn Democrats. It’s unclear whether or not new districts may very well be ordered in time for the 2026 midterms as some Democrats need.
Each of the pending redistricting circumstances in Wisconsin argue that the state’s congressional maps, first adopted in 2011, are an unconstitutional gerrymander favoring Republicans.
Regulation companies that introduced the pending circumstances in Wisconsin had argued over objections from Republicans that the circumstances ought to be heard by three-judge panels as required below a 2011 legislation handed by a Republican-controlled legislature and signed by a Republican governor, Scott Walker.
Any choices by these panels could be appealed to the Wisconsin supreme courtroom, which is now managed 4-3 by justices elected with the help of Democrats.
In a prolonged social media publish, Donald Trump wrote on Thuesday that his try to carry on to the Home by means of gerrymandering forward of the 2026 midterms shouldn’t be but performed.
“It appears to be like just like the Indiana Senate Republicans will likely be coming again in two weeks to take up Redistricting,” Trump reported.
He went on to threaten any state lawmakers who fail not help the trouble to tilt the electoral map in Indiana extra in favor of Republicans with major challenges.
“I’m glad to listen to the Indiana Home is stepping as much as do the suitable factor, and I hope the Senate finds the Votes. In the event that they do, I’ll make it possible for all of these folks supporting me win their Primaries, and go on to Greatness however, in the event that they don’t, I’ll associate with the extremely highly effective MAGA Grassroots Republicans to elect STRONG Republicans,” the president wrote on his social media platform.
Inside secretary declares new $250 annual payment for worldwide vacationers to go to US nationwide parks
Inside secretary Doug Burgum announced today the new value of an annual nationwide parks cross for worldwide vacationers.
For US residents, the price of a yearly cross (which grants entry to 63 of America’s nationwide parks) will keep at $80. However for these visiting, they’ll must fork out $250.
When visiting any of the 11 most visited parks, non-residents may also pay a brand new $100 per particular person payment (along with the same old entry payment). There may also be 5 further “payment free days” for US residents.
DC mayor, Muriel Bowser, declares she will not search re-election
Washington DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, stated immediately she wouldn’t search re-election. As an alternative, she is going to end out the rest of her third time period and go away workplace in January 2027.
Bowser, as soon as a vocal critic of Donald Trump, discovered herself complying when he returned to the White Home in January, launched a federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Division, and deployed nationwide guard troops to the district earlier this 12 months. Whereas critics blamed Bowser for acquiescing to the administration, supporters felt she exercised tactical soft-power given the authorized limitations of main the nation’s capital.
In a video posted to social media, Bowser famous that her administration “introduced our metropolis again from the ravages of a world pandemic, and summoned our collective power to face tall in opposition to police who threaten our very autonomy whereas preserving residence rule that’s our North Star.”
Bowser added that she’s “cherished the chance” to serve her hometown for 10 years, and has “fortunately given all my ardour and vitality to the job that I like”. Notably, she didn’t say which candidate she would endorse to succeed her.
In September, I reported on how Bowser needed to navigate her political summer season stand-off with Trump.
Sam Levine
Donald Trump might have inadvertently pardoned any citizen who dedicated voter fraud in 2020 when he granted a pardon to Rudy Giuliani and different allies for his or her efforts to overturn the election, authorized consultants say.
The pardons of Giuliani and others who participated within the faux elector scheme earlier this month have been largely symbolic because the federal authorities dismissed its felony circumstances as soon as Trump was elected. A lot of these pardoned have confronted felony expenses on the state stage.
However, the federal pardon might wind up having a giant impact on folks like Matthew Alan Laiss, who is accused of voting in each Pennsylvania and Florida within the 2020 election. In response 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 poll in Pennsylvania after which in particular person in Florida on election day. Each votes have been for Trump, Laiss’ legal professionals wrote in courtroom paperwork. He has pleaded not responsible.
The case remains to be in its early phases. Final week, Laiss’ legal professionals, public defenders Katrina Younger and Elizabeth Toplin, argued that the costs ought to be thrown out as a result of Trump had pardoned him.
They argued that Trump’s 7 November pardon was sweeping. It applies to any US citizen for conduct regarding the recommendation, creation, group, execution, submission, help, voting, actions, participation in, or advocacy for or of any slate or proposed slate of presidential electors, whether or not or not acknowledged by any state or state official, in reference to the 2020 presidential election.” And whereas it lists numerous folks the pardon particularly applies to, it additionally says the pardon shouldn’t be restricted to these named.
That language is so broad, legal professionals for Laiss wrote, it additionally applies to their shopper.
Elissa Slotkin, one of many two Democratic senators within the video to troops, stated immediately she was conscious that the FBI’s counterterrorism division “appeared to open an inquiry” into her.
She wrote:
The President directing the FBI to focus on us is precisely why we made this video within the first place. He believes in weaponizing the federal authorities in opposition to his perceived enemies and doesn’t imagine legal guidelines apply to him or his Cupboard. He makes use of authorized harassment as an intimidation tactic to scare folks out of talking up.
A reminder that after the video was printed on-line, Donald Trump accused the lawmakers of “seditious habits, punishable by loss of life” in a publish on Reality Social. He additionally re-shared a number of feedback from different customers calling for the arrest, trial and execution of the Democratic members of Congress.
For her half, Slotkin remained resolute immediately. “This isn’t nearly a video,” she stated in her assertion. “This isn’t the America I do know, and I’m not going to let this subsequent step from the FBI cease me from talking up for my nation and our Structure.”
‘We won’t be bullied’: Home Democrats affirm FBI requests for interviews over video to troops
4 Democratic members of the US Home, who appeared in a video telling service members to “refuse unlawful orders”, confirmed that the FBI has requested interviews with them. All the lawmakers within the video are former members of the army or intelligence group.
At this time, the representatives issued statements, saying that Donald Trump is utilizing the FBI “as a device to intimidate and harass” them.
“We swore an oath to help and defend the Structure of the US. That oath lasts a lifetime, and we intend to maintain it. We won’t be bullied. We’ll by no means quit the ship,” representatives Maggie Goodlander, Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, and Chris Deluzio wrote.
Senior congressional Republican critiques doable peace plan to finish warfare in Ukraine
Mitch McConnell, the Republican senator from Kentucky and former majority chief, has critiqued a doable US co-authored peace plan to finish the warfare in Ukraine, which could require land concessions.
“Probably the most primary actuality on the bottom is that the worth of peace issues. A deal that rewards aggression wouldn’t be definitely worth the paper it’s written on,” he lawmaker wrote in a post on X. “America isn’t a impartial arbiter, and we shouldn’t act like one.”
Final week, McConnell stated that Vladimir Putin has “spent your entire 12 months making an attempt to play President Trump for a idiot”. He added that the president “ought to search out new advisors” if administration officers are “extra involved with appeasing Putin than securing actual peace”. In response, vice-president JD Vance said that each criticism of the peace deal “both misunderstands the framework or misstates some vital actuality on the bottom”.
This is a recap of the day up to now
It’s virtually 1:30pm in Washington, and right here’s have been issues stand immediately.
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As he ready to pardon two fortunate turkeys, Waddle and Gobble, the president stated he thought a peace deal on Russia’s warfare in Ukraine was getting very shut however gave no different particulars. “We’re going to get there,” Donald Trump stated. Earlier, White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that “great progress” had been made in direction of a deal. In a post on X, she added that “a number of delicate, however not insurmountable” particulars stay and “would require additional talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the US”.
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The FBI has requested interviews with the six Democratic members of Congress who took half in a video the place they advised members of the army to “refuse unlawful orders”, in line with Reuters. Citing an unnamed justice division official, Reuters reviews that the FBI is asking for interviews with senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, in addition to Home representatives Maggie Goodlander, Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, and Chris Deluzio. The FBI declined to remark when the Guardian reached out concerning the newest report.
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For his half, senator Kelly known as the Pentagon’s announcement that it’s investigating the him for doable breaches of army legislation for collaborating within the video as an act of “intimidation”. In an interview with Rachel Maddow on MS NOW, Kelly added: “I don’t suppose there’s something extra patriotic than standing up for the structure. And proper right here, proper now, this week, the president clearly shouldn’t be doing that.”
Trump says getting ‘very shut’ to deal on Ukraine
In his remarks earlier than the pardoning simply then, Trump additionally stated he thought a deal on Russia’s warfare in Ukraine was getting “very shut” however gave no different particulars. “We’re going to get there,” he stated.
“I believe we’re getting very near a deal, we’ll discover out … I believe we’re making progress,” he added.
My colleagues over on the Europe weblog report that a short time in the past Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated Kyiv was prepared to maneuver ahead with a US-backed peace deal, and that he was ready to debate its delicate factors with Trump in talks he stated ought to embrace European allies.
In a speech to the ‘coalition of the keen’, a duplicate of which was seen by Reuters, the Ukrainian president urged European leaders to hash out a framework for deploying a “reassurance pressure” to Ukraine and to proceed supporting Kyiv for so long as Moscow reveals no willingness to finish its warfare.
Gobble is formally pardoned. Together with Waddle, he’ll reside out the remainder of his days in North Carolina.
