Trump told NBC News in a phone interview yesterday that he is leaving the possibility of a war with Venezuela on the table.
President Donald Trump said yesterday that he would not rule out war with Venezuela amid his administration's efforts to stem the alleged flow of illicit drugs.. Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images
The Trump administration is ringing in the holiday season by repurposing holiday movies, songs and sayings to promote their platform of mass deportation on social media.
“Tis the Season for mass deportations,” reads a post from the Department of Homeland Security’s X account, which has also added Christmas lights and Santa hats to images of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and promoted their “Worst of the Worst” list as “Santa’s Naughty List.”
The White House TikTok account has posted multiple holiday-themed video compilations of migrant arrests — one set to the song “Jingle Bells”; another to promote “Cuffing Season”; and one that sets video of a deportation flight to sounds from “The Polar Express” movie. The caption reads, “All aboard the Deportation Express! Next stop: Back to where you came from.” And “The Polar Express” is not the only holiday movie the administration has used in these posts.
Recreating a scene from “Home Alone,” they replaced the image of Buzz’s girlfriend with a crying migrant — to which Buzz’s younger brother Kevin, played by actor Macaulay Culkin, reacts with a “Woof!” A Department of Homeland Security video used the line “This is my house; I have to defend it” from the movie to apply to the “homeland.”
The newly-created TikTok account for the Cabinet has also leaned in — with the third video ever posted by the account being an old-school style TV commercial for Customs and Border Protection’s CBP Home app disguised as a holiday deal to “go home for the holidays.”
The posts have received some backlash, including from R&B artist SZA, whose song was used in the “Cuffing Season” video. “White House rage baiting artists for free promo is PEAK DARK ..inhumanity +shock and aw tactics ..Evil n Boring,” she wrote on X.
The trolling tone is not new for the White House’s social media accounts, but it remains notable that they are leaning in around the holiday season.
Trump said yesterday that he is leaving the possibility of war with Venezuela on the table. “I don’t rule it out, no,” he told NBC News’ Kristen Welker in a phone interview. The president’s comments come after he ordered a “blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers coming and going from Venezuela.
Trump’s hand-picked board at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has voted to rename the iconic institution the Trump-Kennedy Center. The move is raising serious legal questions and intense backlash from members of the Kennedy family. NBC’s Garrett Haake reports for “TODAY.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin told NBC News’ Keir Simmons that “the ball is entirely in the court” of Ukraine and the West in peace talks as he praised Trump’s “serious” and “sincere” efforts to end the war.
Simmons asked Putin during a news conference in Moscow today whether, given that Kyiv has agreed to enormous compromises, he would be responsible for the deaths of Russians and Ukrainians next year if there is no deal.
The Russian leader said no. “We do not consider ourselves responsible for the loss of life, because it was not us who started this war,” he said.
“At the meeting with President Trump in Anchorage, we coordinated our positions and almost agreed with President Trump’s proposals,” Putin said, referring to the duo’s summit in Alaska.
“Therefore, to say that we are rejecting anything is absolutely incorrect and has no basis whatsoever. At the preliminary meetings in Moscow, proposals were made to us and we were asked to agree to certain compromises. When I arrived in Anchorage, I said that these would not be easy decisions for us, but that we agree to the compromises being proposed. Therefore, to claim that we are rejecting something is completely incorrect and has no grounds,” Putin said.
He added: “The issue lies entirely on the other side, the ball is entirely in the court of our so-called Western adversaries, first and foremost the leaders of the Kyiv regime and, in this case especially, their European sponsors. We are ready for negotiations and to settle the conflict by peaceful means.”
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said this morning that the Justice Department plans to release documents today from the government’s files on Epstein, but added they won’t all come out at once.
“I expect that we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today, and those documents will come in all different forms — photographs and other materials associated with all of the investigations into, into Mr. Epstein,” he said on Fox News.
Blanche said that the DOJ has been “working tirelessly” since Trump signed the law requiring the release of the files “to make sure that we get every single document that we have within the Department of Justice, review it and get it to the American public.”
“I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks,” he said. “So today, several hundred thousand, and then, over the next couple of weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more.”
Trump suspended the green card lottery program yesterday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she was ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead last evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Read the full story here.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released 68 photos yesterday from the estate, including photos of Epstein with high-profile people. The release and another one last week by Oversight Democrats include dozens of photos of Epstein posing with Trump, his top ally Steve Bannon, former President Bill Clinton, former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, movie director Woody Allen and others. All have denied any wrongdoing, and none have been charged related to Epstein’s crimes.
The U.S. military said yesterday that it had conducted two more strikes against boats it said were smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing five people.
U.S. Southern Command posted on social media, “Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” though it did not provide evidence. It posted videos of each boat speeding through water before being struck by an explosion.
The military said three people in one vessel and two in the other were killed.
Read the full story here.
A jury found a Wisconsin judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant dodge federal authorities guilty of obstruction yesterday, marking a victory for Trump as he continues his sweeping immigration crackdown across the country.
Federal prosecutors charged Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan with obstruction, a felony, and concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor, in April. The jury acquitted her on the concealment count, but she still faces up to five years in prison on the obstruction count.
The jury returned the verdicts after deliberating for six hours.
Read the full story here.
Trump said yesterday that he is leaving the possibility of a war with Venezuela on the table.
“I don’t rule it out, no,” he told NBC News in a phone interview.
Trump on Tuesday ordered a “blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers coming and going from Venezuela, increasing pressure on the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. recently seized an oil tanker captured near Venezuela, as well.
The administration’s campaign has already resulted in 28 boat strikes that have killed more than 100 people, including a “double tap” strike facing congressional scrutiny.
In his phone interview, Trump said “I don’t discuss it” when he is asked whether he rules out the possibility that such actions could lead to war.
But when he was pressed, he confirmed it was a possibility and said there will be additional seizures of oil tankers. Asked for a timeline, Trump replied: “It depends. If they’re foolish enough to be sailing along, they’ll be sailing along back into one of our harbors.”
Read the full story here.
NBC News