The mayor-elect said he sees the White House meeting as an opportunity to "make the case" for New Yorkers to Trump, who has threatened to withhold funding from the city.
Trump downplayed Mamdani’s past criticism of him during an interview, hours before the two politicians were set to meet at the Oval Office.
Telling Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade that he “give[s] him a lot of credit for the run, a successful run,” he said that he expects to “get along fine” with Mamdani when they speak despite their “very different philosophy.”
Pressed repeatedly with clips and quotes of Mamdani’s past criticism of Trump, the president largely didn’t take the bait and evoked his own negative comments about the Democrat.
“I was hitting him a little hard, too, in all fairness. It’s hard to be totally friendly toward the opponent,” Trump said. “But he ran a good race.”
The 28 points, published by Axios and confirmed to NBC News as accurate by a source familiar with the matter who has seen different drafts of the plan, suggest that Russia would be granted even more Ukrainian territory than it already holds and that Ukraine would have to limit the size of its army and agree to never join NATO.
The White House insists that the plan is fair and that it was drafted in consultation with both sides.
Read the full story here.
Rep. Jason Crow’s office has formally requested that the United States Capitol Police investigate Trump’s recent posts attacking the Democratic congressman, referring to the posts as “intimidating, threatening, and concerning,” according to a copy of the email reviewed by NBC News.
“I write to report threats made by the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, against Congressman Jason Crow,” Crow’s office said.
The email then lists Trump’s Truth Social posts attacking a group of Democrats, including Crow, for making a video urging service members to defy unlawful orders. Trump called the lawmakers “traitors,” accused them of “seditious behavior” and suggested their actions are “punishable by death.”
“All of these posts by the president of the United States are intimidating, threatening, and concerning,” the email says. “After these messages by the President, our congressional offices have seen a significant uptick in calls and emails with violent rhetoric and additional threats.”
Axios was first to report the letter. The USCP does not typically comment on potential investigations, but requesting a probe into the sitting president is a long shot.
Crow’s office, though, is making clear it sees Trump’s comments as no different than if any other individual made similar threatening remarks about the congressman.
“We will continue to report those individually to U.S. Capitol Police and ask that they be investigated immediately,” the email concludes.
The White House has disputed the notion that Trump was threatening the lawmakers with his remarks.
Trump was asked on Brian Kilmeade’s radio show about his Truth Social posts yesterday, where he accused Democrats of “seditious behavior, punishable by death.”
Given an opportunity to clarify what he meant, Trump just shared his reaction to the comments by Democrats and said, “In the old days, if you said a thing like that, that was punishable by death.”
Kilmeade asked the president to confirm that he was not threatening Democrats.
“I’m not threatening them, but I think they’re in serious trouble,” Trump said. “I would say they’re in serious trouble. I’m not threatening death, but I think they’re in serious trouble. In the old days, it was death.”
He later claimed they broke the law and said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was looking into it.
Trump said in an interview this morning on the “Brian Kilmeade Show” that he believes the Thanksgiving deadline is “appropriate” and that he won’t lift the sanctions on Russia.
Earlier this week, Trump approved of a 28-point plan for peace between Russia and Ukraine. The White House hopes Kyiv will sign off on it by next Thursday, according to three U.S. officials. Trump did not describe the goal as a strict deadline and said the deadline could be extended if “things are going well.”
Despite keeping the sanctions, Trump said Russia is “not looking for more war.”
“He’s taken punishment,” Trump said.
The main super PAC backing House Democrats is jumping into the upcoming special election in Tennessee with TV ads supporting the Democratic candidate there.
House Majority PAC is putting more than $1 million into TV and digital ad reservations, the group said, seeking to boost Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn in the deep-red 7th Congressional District.
Trump carried the district by 22 points in 2024, but national Democrats, including Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin and former Vice President Kamala Harris, have been campaigning with Behn in the district.
Likewise, national Republicans including Trump and the super PAC MAGA Inc. have backed Behn’s opponent, former state official Matt Van Epps, in the Dec. 2 special general election.
This is the first special election of Trump’s second term in which House Majority PAC is getting involved. The group’s spending will bring the ad totals on the Democratic side of the ad war more than $1 million.
The White House wants Kyiv to sign off on a “framework” to end the war in Ukraine based upon the U.S.-crafted 28-point peace plan by Thanksgiving, according to three U.S. officials.
The desire for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet that target by next Thursday has been communicated to the Ukrainian government, though the officials stressed this was more of a goal than a firm deadline.
Negotiations to end the conflict are expected to be quite complex and will take more than a week to hash out, the officials acknowledged.
Rep. Eric Swalwell announced yesterday that he will run for California governor, the latest Democrat to join the crowded race to succeed outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Swalwell, who has served in Congress since 2013, will face a list of high-profile Democrats that includes former Rep. Katie Porter, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and activist billionaire Tom Steyer, who entered the race to lead the deep-blue state Wednesday.
Swalwell announced his gubernatorial run on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” On his new campaign website, the California Democrat focused on the need to tackle high costs and affordability as the reason he’s running for statewide office.
“I’m running for Governor because prices are too high and people are scared. California’s next governor has two jobs. One, keep the worst president in history out of our homes, out of our streets, and out of our lives,” he said.
Read the full story here.
House Oversight Chairman James Comer told a lawyer for former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that “further delays are unacceptable” in scheduling their in-person depositions as part of the committee’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
The committee subpoenaed the Clintons in July and has been working with their lawyers to find a time to bring them in.
Comer says that the former president’s deposition is scheduled for Dec. 17 and the former secretary of state’s deposition is scheduled for Dec. 18.
The State Department’s next human rights report will move away from calling out the persecution of marginalized groups such as women, ethnic and racial minorities, people with disabilities and the LGBTQ+ community and instead focus on the “natural rights” of the individual, a senior official said yesterday.
“We believe that every individual has these rights, no matter their group identity,” the senior State Department official said in a briefing to reporters.
The official spoke on behalf of the State Department on the condition of anonymity. “It’s not because of their group identity, it’s because they have had a right taken away from them, whether it’s freedom of speech, freedom religion, you name the right, we are here to protect them and to hold governments accountable.”
New guidance was sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates yesterday, mandating U.S. diplomats also note other infringements on human rights in foreign countries, according to a second senior State Department official.
Read the full story here.
Former Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, has decided against a run for governor, sparing Democrats a costly and combative primary in a state that has turned deep red in the Trump era.
“After careful consideration, much prayer and reflection, and after long conversations with my family, my closest friends and advisors, I’ve made the decision not to run for governor in 2026,” Ryan said in a statement shared with NBC News.
His announcement clears the Democratic primary field for physician Amy Acton, who became a household name in Ohio as the state’s health director during the early days of the Covid pandemic.
Acton is likely to face Vivek Ramaswamy, a Trump-endorsed billionaire who made his money in biotechnology and has consolidated Republican support around his bid. Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, is prohibited from seeking a third consecutive term.
Ryan had been wrestling with a relatively late entry to the race for months, having blown past a self-imposed September deadline to decide. Signs in recent weeks had pointed to an imminent launch, with Ryan reactivating old email lists and his advisers working behind the scenes to prepare for a campaign.
But Acton has locked down support from key Democratic leaders and activists, including former Gov. Dick Celeste, who served from 1983 until 1991 and is the last Democrat to win two terms as governor in Ohio.
The only other Democrat to serve as governor since then, Ted Strickland, has long been close with Ryan but said in an October interview with WWGH radio he was “very excited about [Acton’s] candidacy.” Strickland also said then that he didn’t think Ryan would run.
Trump and Mamdani will sit down today in a highly anticipated meeting between the upstart 34-year-old mayor-elect of New York City and a president who sought to kneecap him during the campaign.
The White House and Mamdani’s team worked behind the scenes to secure a session between the two men, who will speak face-to-face for the first time. Trump announced the get-together Wednesday on social media, saying Mamdani, whom he again called a “communist,” would be coming to the Oval Office.
Trump frequently refers to Mamdani as a communist; Mamdani — a self-described democratic socialist — has rejected the label.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Mamdani said he will “be ready for whatever happens” in his Oval Office meeting.
“I’m not concerned about this meeting. I view this meeting as an opportunity to make my case,” he said, adding, “It behooves me to leave no stone unturned in making the city more affordable.
Read the full story here.
Matt Payan, who co-owns and operates a rare Hispanic-owned brewery in Nevada, said it was a “very slow, scary summer” for the economy in this city.
“As the summer is slowly fading, business is slowly picking up, though, but not as much as we were anticipating compared to last year’s numbers,” he said.
Payan said his business avoids politics in the taproom of his North 5th Street Brewing Co. But he said it feels the financial strain of Trump’s tariffs, which have forced the company to scale back canning its own beers, making it harder to distribute the product.
“The canning prices went up so high, we can’t keep up with that cost. So, unfortunately, we can’t can as much as we really should to keep up with demand,” Payan said, while hoping the tariffs can be reversed to make the finances more manageable.
“The cost of living has been a real toll on all of us, including our employees as well. As demand and cost gets higher, our employees need to make more money in order to just survive,” he added. “Also, the average patron that comes in is now dealing with higher cost of living, which mean our regulars tend to shy away, because now they have to save and use their resources for other important needs.”
Read the full story here.
NBC News