Rubio Offers Robust Defense Of Trump's War On Iran, Drawing Contrast With Vance
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that President Donald Trump launched the war against Iran even if it was not “necessarily popular” to safeguard the world from the country’s nuclear ambitions.
He would not comment directly about the Republican wipeout in Tuesday’s elections, which delivered a resounding rebuke to Trump. The unpopularity of the Iran war and its impact on gasoline prices and other parts of the economy helped Democrats seize control of Congress.
Read more from The AP:
Europe Aims To Have Presence At U.S.-Mediated Talks Between Ukraine And Russia This Week
European leaders plan to send representatives to U.S.-brokered peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi this week, according to French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.
“France will be there and will ensure that Europe’s voice is heard,” Barrot said Sunday to French radio RTL.
The discussion, which will take place Tuesday and Wednesday, will be the first U.S.-mediated talks since February as the war between Russia and Ukraine drags on.
European officials haven’t yet announced who would represent them, though they had raised concerns about being sidelined from talks with serious ramifications for their security.
Read more from NPR:
Deportation Flight Of Iranians From US Scuttled At Last Minute, Attorney Says
A U.S. deportation flight of Iranian nationals bound for Iran by way of Pakistan was abruptly canceled Sunday morning, according to an attorney who spoke to some of the detainees slated for repatriation.
At least eight Iranians were loaded onto a plane Sunday morning in Mesa, Arizona, for a deportation flight headed to the country of Georgia, then on to Pakistan, according to Ali Rahnama, an attorney with the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund who filed emergency motions on behalf of some of the Iranian detainees. The flight was canceled without explanation, he said.
Read more from The AP:
Kansas Senator-Elect Adam Hamilton Voices Concerns About Schumer As Majority Leader
Kansas senator-elect Adam Hamilton on Sunday reiterated concerns he’s previously raised about backing Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for majority leader in 2027.
Last September, Hamilton told CNN that he wasn’t supporting Schumer for the job. On Sunday, he explained why.
“I mean no disrespect for Chuck Schumer. I just really don’t, and I’ve told him that as well. But I think, at least where I live in Kansas, he’s kind of a polarizing figure,” Hamilton said in an interview on “Meet the Press.”
“What I’d be looking for is a leader who can lead from the center,” Hamilton added. “Somebody who can bring Republicans and Democrats together, somebody who can bring the various factions in the Democratic Party together. Somebody with fresh ideas.”
Other incoming senators, including Maine’s Troy Jackson, Minnesota’s Peggy Flanagan and Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, have also signaled that they’re open to new leadership.
No clear challenger to Schumer has emerged, though Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said in a Crooked Con panel on Saturday that she hasn’t ruled out making a bid for the position.
Last Wednesday, Schumer predicted that he’d be reelected to the role but noted that “the issue is not me,” and that “the issue is focusing on the American people and what they want.”
Trump Claims He Wants To Work With Democrats On Immigration
President Donald Trump claimed in a “60 Minutes” interview that he’s interested in working with Democrats on immigration, though he offered few specifics about what that would entail.
“Well, the deal would be we would work something out,” Trump said. “And I think it’s something-- I think that’s something that’s actually doable.”
Trump also said his deportation policies may have been “too tough,” but it wasn’t clear whether they were poised to change, given his selection of Stephen Miller as his new chief of staff. Miller is a longtime White House adviser and the architect of the administration’s hardline immigration enforcement policies.
Trump Attempts To Defend His Endorsements Of Losing Candidates
President Donald Trump put forth an unconvincing defense of his decision to endorse Republican candidates who wound up losing longtime GOP strongholds in the midterms.
In both Texas and South Carolina, Trump went out of his way to back Attorney General Ken Paxton and Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.), both widely seen as the weaker candidates in their races.
“[Sen. John] Cornyn would have lost also,” Trump claimed during a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday. “Darline, I did that in honor of a man named Lindsey, who was a friend of mine. And she fought hard. She fought hard. She really did.”
‘You Should’ve Had Stock’: Trump Gives Telling Retort When Asked About Gains In His Net Worth
President Donald Trump had a telling retort for a “60 Minutes” reporter when asked about the significant gains he saw in his net worth during his second term.
“There’s a Forbes story that said that your net worth, maybe it’s changed for the stock market recently, but your net worth went up by $3 billion since you returned–,” “60 Minutes” correspondent Ross Douthat said.
“Well, so did everyone–,” Trump claimed.
“...Everyone’s-- my net worth did not go up by $3 billion for the record,” Douthat said.
“Well, you should’ve had stock,” Trump said.
“I devote almost no time to my net worth. I don’t care. I make-- I have a lotta money, and far more than I ever thought I’d have. And I guess it’s gone up. I don’t even know,” Trump added. “I have a son who’s a very straight, good guy. He watches over money. I don’t even talk to him about it.”
He went on to claim he knew “nothing about” World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency company he co-founded, and stock purchases being made on his behalf.
Senate Democrats Could Have 4 Identical Twins If This One Candidate Wins
While Mississippi waits to see if Scott Colom will become the state’s first Black senator since Reconstruction, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) pointed out another bit of trivia.
“When Scott Colom becomes the next Senator for Mississippi (and he will) there will be FOUR identical twins in the Senate Democratic Caucus,” the Minnesota governor-elect posted Sunday on X. The other three senators are Patty Murray (Washington), Brian Schatz (Hawaii) and Mark Kelly (Arizona).
One of Colom’s political ads parodied “Sinners,” the blockbuster movie whose main characters were twins named Smoke and Stack. Colom and his brother Andrew dressed as the twins for the Halloween-themed ad.
“I feel like he took generations of our family, the Colom name,” Andrew Colom recently told the Detroit Free Press. “I think he took that name and he cemented the honor on it that was always appropriate to be there.”
The race between Colom and incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith is still too close to call, as local officials continue to receive and examine absentee and provisional ballots. Colom has said the ballots tallied since Tuesday’s election lean in his favor.
Joe Biden Gives Health Update: 'Some Days Are Better Than Others'
Former President Joe Biden gave an update on his cancer diagnosis, saying he won’t be able to fully promote his upcoming book.
“Some days are better than others,” Biden wrote Sunday on Instagram regarding his illness. “It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down. What that means is, unfortunately, I won’t be able to do as many conversations about my book as I’d hoped. However, I’m hopeful the words on the page speak for themselves.”
In 2025, Biden’s office announced he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, and in September, he said that radiation had “worked as intended.”
His presidential memoir “Promise Me, America” will be released Nov. 17.
Florida Republican Says He Won't Back Vance For President In 2028
Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) appeared to be the first Republican since the midterm wipeout to say he “definitively” would not support JD Vance in the 2028 presidential race, citing the vice president’s X post last week in which he publicly broke with President Donald Trump and said the GOP lost partly because of the ongoing war in Iran and support for Israel.
“I thought his message that he put out the day after the election was abhorrent and, frankly, smacked of the kind of thing you would read in 1932 Germany. So, he’s out in my book,” Fine, a staunchly pro-Israel lawmaker, told Fox’s LiveNOW on Sunday.
“He said we lost because of the war in Iran. It’s his fault the war in Iran did not end, because he gave in to this fantasy that you could negotiate with lunatics,” Fine added. “It’s not that we started it; it’s that we didn’t end it.”
Vance’s lengthy post was seen as a startlingly public rebuke of the president’s unpopular war, and a sign that the vice president may be distancing himself from Trump’s agenda as he prepares to potentially run in 2028.
“I also thought it was a betrayal of President Trump, which is unforgivable,” Fine said, adding that he prefers Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) as possible 2028 candidates. “You have to be loyal to those people who brought you to the dance.”
Oh, Baby! Ex-White House Adviser Reveals Exactly How Staffers Treat Trump
Calley Means, an ex-Donald Trump White House adviser, declared that staffers are treating the president less like an 80-year-old and more like an infant.
“I think he had severe poor advice from people, I think, who treated him like a baby in many respects,” Means told CBS’ Margaret Brennan on Sunday’s “Face the Nation.”
“The president’s staff treated him like a baby?” Brennan asked.
“Of course!” Means responded. “They would block access to — and information to him all the time.”
Read more:
Russia's Secret War Death Data Exposed In Hack — And The Numbers Are Staggering
Russia has recorded close to 400,000 deaths on its side of the war with Ukraine, according to previously undisclosed data from the country’s statistics agency, Rosstat.
The Kremlin’s closely-guarded numbers were obtained in a pair of cyber attacks by Belarusian pro-opposition group Cyber Partisans and Ukrainian hackers Silent Crow on Oct. 29 and Nov. 2. First made public on Saturday, the figures shatter years of President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to conceal the human toll of the conflict, which has been at full-scale since early 2022.
The 23 terabyte hack included 392,700 death certificates explicitly linked to the war dated from Feb. 24, 2022, to late August 2026, almost certainly making the figures an underestimate that excludes unidentified bodies, those recorded missing and people who died of injuries off the battlefield.
Officials from Russia, Ukraine, the United States and Europe are scheduled to discuss a potential ceasefire in Abu Dhabi this coming week.
Read more here:
The Other Dana White Weighs In On Press Secretary Confusion
Dana W. White, a former assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, said she is not up to be the new White House press secretary.
“To everyone texting me congratulations: thank you, but you have the wrong Dana White,” White wrote Saturday on Linkedin. “I’ve stood at a podium and taken questions from the Pentagon press corps. I have never stood in an octagon. I’d like to keep it that way. It is nice for once that, that Dana White is being confused with this Dana White.”
Dana W. White’s post comes after it was reported that President Donald Trump reached out to UFC CEO Dana White to be the next press secretary, and critics wondered if Trump got the two mixed up and was supposed to reach out to another Dana White.
Todd Blanche Suggests He'd Investigate Democrats On Trump's Orders
Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested Sunday he would launch investigations into Democrats on President Donald Trump’s orders, leaving the door open to trying to imprison them depending “on what the crime is and what they’ve done.”
The attorney general’s comments on CNN’s “State of the Union” came one day after Trump said he’d order the Justice Department to look into Democrats’ threats of impeachment “and many other forms of punishment” against certain members of his administration, companies and donors to his ballroom project. It’s unclear what crime they would be investigated for.
“Over the last several days, we’ve seen the rhetoric even rise up, to the point where before they’re even in power, they’re already talking about investigations and impeachments with no basis, no facts,” Blanche said, specifically citing incoming House Oversight Chair Robert Garcia (D-Calif.).
Democrats have already talked about potential impeachment proceedings for Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, and floated that incoming chief of staff Stephen Miller could be part of any oversight investigations into the Trump administration due to his role overseeing the president’s immigration agenda.
Blanche said his job as attorney general is “to defend the administration,” and that the Justice Department would “of course” defend Miller if the Oversight Committee tries to investigate him for “whatever Garcia thinks he’s gonna do.”
“I would be very worried if I was a member on that committee,” Blanche said.
Hakeem Jeffries 'Hard Yes' On Hegseth Impeachment
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is all-in on efforts to oust Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Asked about Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s plans to reintroduce an impeachment resolution against the secretary during a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” Jeffries said, “I’m a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution.”
“The so-called secretary of defense has abused his power, undermined our national security, and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has skyrocketed prices on the American people and made the country less safe,” he told host Jonathan Karl. “Pete Hegseth has got to go.”
Weeks before Democrats’ midterm blowout, Jeffries promised to run Hegseth “out of town” if his party gained the majority.
Following Republicans’ resounding election rout, calls for Hegseth to exit have turned bipartisan. Last week, however, President Donald Trump told reporters he has “every intention” of keeping the former Fox News host.
Watch Jeffries on ABC here:
El-Sayed Calls New White House Chief Of Staff Stephen Miller A 'Broken Man'
Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-Mich.) joined the chorus of Democrats voicing concern over President Donald Trump’s decision to replace chief of staff Susie Wiles with Stephen Miller, a proud racist notorious for his role as the architect of the president’s violent immigration agenda.
Trump “decides to hire the most broken man to continue to run the most dysfunctional White House that we’ve seen,” the incoming senator said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “I don’t know what Stephen Miller has actually contributed to our culture, our society, in any real way, except to make us more angry, to stoke the worst kind of fear and vitriol, to weaponize ICE in our streets, to take American lives.”
Miller ascending to Trump’s top aide was announced Friday, bringing into question recent comments the president made about wanting to work on a bipartisan basis now that Democrats have retaken Congress. An extremist who has promoted white nationalist ideologies, neither Miller nor Democrats likely plan to try and work with each other.
“The real question is, why appoint this man White House chief of staff if you want to have a productive relationship with a Congress that actually intends to deliver on the mandate that the American public has just given us?” he continued. “We’ll wait to see.”
UFC's Dana White Says He Will Meet With Trump Monday Over Offer To Be White House Press Secretary
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he has offered the job of White House press secretary to his friend and UFC boss Dana White, an announcement unconventional even for the norm-busting president. White said Saturday that he plans to meet with Trump on Monday at the White House.
Trump, while he was at his golf club in Florida, posted on social media that he made the offer to “the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior” to become the Republican president’s chief spokesperson.
Read more here:
Republican Party Donors Are Not Clamoring For A Vance 2028 Run: WSJ
After getting clobbered in the midterms, Republican donors are telling fundraisers they can’t support Vice President JD Vance as their party’s 2028 nominee for president, The Wall Street Journal reported.
According to The Journal, donors have privately expressed concerns that Vance is too tied to unpopular President Donald Trump to mount a successful campaign. One fundraiser was reportedly frustrated that the vice president couldn’t lift Republicans to victory in his home state of Ohio.
Allies have also come to the vice president with alternate plans, the report says. Those paths include a run for governor or a return to his old Senate seat in Ohio. Vance has so far rejected the proposals, The Journal reported, citing two people close to the vice president.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal: