2h ago / 6:31 PM EST
Speaker Mike Johnson confirms House will vote on Epstein files tomorrow afternoon
House Speaker Mike Johnson this evening confirmed that the vote on compelling the Justice Department to release its files on Epstein will occur “tomorrow afternoon” but did not provide a specific time.
Johnson, R-La., declined to say whether he would vote for the measure.
“You’ll know tomorrow,” he told NBC News when he was asked how he’d vote.
Asked whether Trump should release the files himself, Johnson said: “He’s for maximum transparency and full release. I’m not sure what else he could say on the subject.”
2h ago / 6:25 PM EST
GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville to support Epstein resolution: ‘Let’s just shut them up’
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., says he will support the resolution to release the Epstein files if it makes it to the Senate.
“Sure, I’d vote for it,” he told NBC News. “You know, we need, it needs to be released. The president obviously has been doing a lot of other things, and the Democrats have been yelling about it. Let’s just shut them up.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has not yet said what he will do if the measure passes the House and is sent to the Senate, but Tuberville’s support for the bill may indicate support for holding a vote, potentially quickly, once it’s in the Senate’s hands.
Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., who presided over the Senate’s secondslong pro forma session today, told reporters: “I don’t have any problems with data coming out, so lots of people ran on this issue in the last election. So I don’t have any problems with us voting on it.”
While consideration of legislation in the Senate can take days to finish, if all 100 senators agree to move quickly, they could pass the bill as soon as this week, potentially without a roll call vote because they agree to unanimously pass the bill.
3h ago / 4:49 PM EST
Trump says U.S. will sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia
Trump told reporters this afternoon, ahead of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the White House tomorrow, that the United States will sell F-35s to Saudi Arabia.
Trump was asked in the Oval Office whether he planned to sell the fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia.
“Yeah, we will be doing that,” he responded.
Trump said Friday that he was “looking at that” when he was asked about selling the fighter jets, saying Saudi Arabia wanted to “buy a lot” of F-35s.
Trump visited Saudi Arabia in May during his first major trip abroad of his second term.
3h ago / 4:42 PM EST
Trump, FIFA head threaten to pull World Cup games from Democratic-led cities
Trump said he would ask FIFA head Gianni Infantino to move World Cup matches from Democratic-led cities such as Seattle at “any sign of trouble.”
“If we think there’s going to be the sign of any trouble, I would ask Gianni to move that to a different city,” Trump said.
Trump threatened to move World Cup matches, as well as the Olympics, from Democratic-led cities last month, focusing on Boston and Los Angeles. But today he zeroed in on Seattle, calling Mayor-elect Katie Wilson “a very, very liberal/communist mayor.”
“If we think there’s going to be a problem,” Trump added, “we’re going to move the event to someplace where it’s going to be appreciated and safe.”
FIFA President Gianni Infantino, left, during a meeting of the White House Task Force on the 2026 World Cup in the Oval Office today. Win McNamee / Getty Images
4h ago / 4:09 PM EST
Trump says he would be open to striking Mexico to target drug traffickers
Trump said this afternoon he would be open to launching strikes in Mexico as part of his administration’s efforts to target drug cartels.
Asked by a reporter in the Oval Office whether he would launch strikes or put American boots on the ground, Trump said, “OK with me, whatever we have to do to stop drugs.”
“We know exactly how they get their things here, how they get the drugs here, fentanyl, cocaine,” he said. “Colombia has cocaine factories where they make cocaine. Would I knock out those factories? I would be proud to do it. Personally. I didn’t say I’m doing it, but I would be proud to do it, because we’re going to save millions of lives by doing it.”
NBC News reported this month that the Trump administration had begun detailed planning for a mission to target such cartels in Mexico.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has repeatedly said she opposes U.S. strikes in the region.
5h ago / 3:28 PM EST
‘Sure I would’: Trump says he would sign bill to release Epstein files if it passes Congress
Trump said he would sign legislation to force the Justice Department to release the files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein if it passes Congress.
“We have nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do — all of his friends were Democrats,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when he was asked whether he would sign the bill if it passes the House and the Senate.
The House is expected to vote tomorrow.
Trump said he wants the public to “recognize a great job that I’ve done on pricing, on affordability, because we brought prices way down, but they’re going way lower on energy, on ending eight wars and another one coming pretty soon.”
“You know, we’ve already given 50,000 pages,” Trump said of his administration’s releasing Epstein-related files. “It’s just a Russia, Russia, Russia hoax as it pertains to the Republicans. Now, I believe that many of the people that we, some of the people that we mentioned are being looked at very seriously for their relationship to Jeffrey Epstein, but they were with him all the time. I wasn’t. I wasn’t at all, and we’ll see what happens.”
Trump said he doesn’t want Epstein to “detract” from the Republican Party’s “success,” including that “Democrats are totally blamed for the shutdown.”
“Sure, I would,” Trump eventually said, responding to the question about signing the bill. “Let the Senate look at it. Let anybody look at it, but don’t talk about it too much, because, honestly, I don’t want to take it away from us. It’s really a Democrat problem. The Democrats were Epstein’s friends, all of them, and it’s a hoax.”
5h ago / 3:06 PM EST
Jaime Harrison launches 7-figure push to boost Democrats in rural areas in 2026 races
Former Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison is launching what he calls a seven-figure campaign aimed at “expanding the map” for Democrats in rural areas and small towns that tend to be friendly to Republicans.
Harrison told NBC News he believes the 2026 election carries parallels to 2006, when Democrats won in many conservative areas. Harrison, who ran an unsuccessful 2020 campaign for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina and chaired the DNC from 2021 to February, has proven to be an adept fundraiser and is using his PAC, Dirt Road Dems, to push the new campaign.
“Dirt Road Dems is unique because most PACs focus on major metros and battlegrounds. They are skating to where the puck is, and we are focused on where the puck is going and should be. We are treating rural communities as winnable and not write-offs,” Harrison said. “We are building for longevity and not just one cycle.
“We are focused on the types of districts that we won in 2006 that were not on the DCCC’s radar,” he added, referring to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “These are the types of districts that tend to be surprises in wave elections.”
Early targets include House races such as those in South Carolina’s 1st District, North Carolina’s 11th District, Tennessee’s 5th District and Arkansas’s 2nd District, according to a summary provided by Harrison’s team. It includes governor’s races in South Carolina and Alabama and Senate races in Mississippi and Iowa.
And Harrison may turn heads with an early digital ad buy targeting Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who is running for governor, as “unhinged” and “childish,” citing some of her recent controversies and inflammatory remarks. The Democratic intervention could — perhaps intentionally — boost Mace in her competitive GOP primary.
5h ago / 2:49 PM EST
NYC council member prepares Democratic primary challenge against Hakeem Jeffries
Chi Ossé, a member of the New York City Council, has filed paperwork to launch a primary challenge against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
The campaign filing, first reported by Axios and filed last night with the Federal Election Commission, says Ossé is running as a Democrat in New York’s Brooklyn-based 8th District, which Jeffries has represented since 2013.
5h ago / 2:36 PM EST
Johnson says it’s ‘not surprising’ that Trump is attacking Marjorie Taylor Greene
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Trump “has nothing, he’s never had anything to hide” regarding Jeffrey Epstein.
“He and I had the same concern that we wanted to ensure that victims of these heinous crimes are completely protected from disclosure, those who don’t want their names to be out there” Johnson, R-La., said as he walked to his office in the Capitol. “And I’m not sure the discharge does that, and that’s part of the problem.”
Asked whether Trump should stop calling Greene a traitor, Johnson said, “It’s not surprising that the president was frustrated because of some of the criticisms that Marjorie had been out stating to the media.”
Johnson said he is focused on “unity in the party, and my encouragement of everybody is to get together.”
6h ago / 1:54 PM EST
U.S. carrier arrives in Caribbean in military buildup near Venezuela
The USS Gerald Ford, the nation’s largest and most advanced aircraft carrier, has arrived in the Caribbean amid an intensifying show of force in Latin America. The ship arrived after the Trump administration announced it blew up another alleged drug trafficking boat, raising questions about whether Trump will try to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez reports for “TODAY.”
7h ago / 1:04 PM EST
Judge says ‘missteps’ in James Comey case could result in the charges against him being dismissed
A federal judge in Virginia today ordered prosecutors to turn over grand jury materials in the criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey after he found the government’s handling of the case raises “genuine issues of misconduct” that could result in dismissal of the charges.
Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick said in his ruling that the type of relief Comey’s lawyers are seeking is “rarely granted” but that “the record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding.” The ruling directs the government to turn over the material to Comey’s team by the end of the day.
Among the missteps Fitzpatrick said he found reviewing the grand jury proceedings were statements to the panel by acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, a former personal lawyer to Trump who had no prosecutorial experience.
7h ago / 12:53 PM EST
FBI Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend has protective detail because of threats, spokesperson confirms
FBI Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, has a protective detail because she has received death threats, an FBI spokesperson said.
“Ms. Wilkins is receiving a protective detail because she has faced hundreds of credible death threats related to her relationship with Director Patel, whom she has been dating for three years,” the spokesperson told NBC News. “Out of respect for her safety, we will not be providing additional details.”
MS NOW first reported that Wilkins was being protected by an FBI security detail.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., shared the MS NOW story this morning and accused Patel of not adequately protecting Swalwell’s family despite death threats against them.
“I don’t want anything to happen to @FBIDirectorKash or his girlfriend,” Swalwell said in a post. “Protect her if she’s threatened.”
“It’s just F’d up that he REFUSES to protect me and my kids from MULTIPLE specific death threats,” Swalwell continued. “Same for other Dem colleagues. Can only conclude he wants us dead.”
8h ago / 12:28 PM EST
Supreme Court will hear arguments on asylum claim question
The Supreme Court said this morning that it will hear a case this term about whether an individual stopped on the Mexican side of the U.S.–Mexico border “arrives in the United States” within the meaning of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
That law says someone who “arrives in the United States” can apply for asylum and must be inspected by an immigration officer. The question asked in the case is at what point someone seeking asylum “arrives” in the United States.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that asylum-seekers “arrive” when they present themselves “to an official at the border,” even though that interaction happened in Mexico, not the U.S.
8h ago / 11:47 AM EST
Indiana governor says he spoke with Trump about redistricting
Gov. Mike Braun, R-Ind., said in a post to X that he had “a great call” with Trump, where the governor said he conveyed that he was “committed to standing with him on the critical issue of passing fair maps in Indiana to ensure the MAGA agenda is successful in Congress.”
The call comes one day after Trump slammed Indiana Republicans for not pursuing redistricting efforts. The president had also called out Braun, saying that he “perhaps, is not working the way he should to get the necessary Votes.”
Braun accused the Republican-led state Senate of “hiding behind closed doors” after the GOP state Senate leader announced late last week that there wasn’t enough support to pursue redistricting efforts. The governor urged state lawmakers to take a public vote on redrawing maps.
“Hoosiers deserve to know where their legislators stand and expect them to show up for work, not walk out and hide in the dark,” Braun said.
He framed the redistricting push as a response to gerrymandering in California and Illinois. This year’s redistricting fight was set off by Republicans in Texas redrawing the map to favor their party, prompting other states to respond with pushes to redraw their maps as well.
8h ago / 11:46 AM EST
Trump says he will endorse against Indiana state lawmakers who do not support his redistricting push
Trump said in a post to Truth Social that he would be “strongly” endorsing against any Indiana state lawmakers who do not support redistricting efforts.
His comments came after the state’s Senate Republican leader said there was not enough support to pursue redistricting efforts. On Sunday, Trump criticized a few Indiana Republicans by name. One was later the victim of a swatting incident.
“We must keep the Majority at all costs,” Trump said in today’s post. “Republicans must fight back!”
8h ago / 11:41 AM EST
Poll: Majorities across parties say ‘extreme political rhetoric’ was a contributor to Charlie Kirk’s killing
More than 6 in 10 registered voters said they think “extreme political rhetoric” was an important contributor to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this year — including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents, according to the latest NBC News poll.
The findings represent a grim milestone in America’s reckoning with growing political violence and its root causes. The survey marks the first time, across questions about five different violent incidents over 15 years of NBC News polling, that there has been cross-partisan agreement that rhetoric played an important role in an attack, as opposed to the incident having been more about the actions of a single disturbed person.
9h ago / 10:59 AM EST
Epstein files measure to go to the House floor tomorrow
House Republican leaders aim to put on the floor tomorrow a resolution to order the Justice Department to release Epstein-related case files, a Republican source familiar with the plan said.
A conservative House ally of Trump, meanwhile, said Republicans have been widely frustrated with the White House’s dismissive handling of the Epstein saga and have privately encouraged them to shift strategy, including as recently as Friday — just days before Trump wound up pivoting and supporting the House vote. The White House was also warned that there would likely be Republican defections on the floor, as NBC News previously reported.
10h ago / 10:29 AM EST
Bernie Sanders endorses Randy Villegas, wading into a Democratic fight in a key House battleground
Sen. Bernie Sanders today endorsed Democrat Randy Villegas, a 31-year-old school board trustee and auto shop owner, in a hotly contested battle in California to take on one of the GOP’s most vulnerable House members.
Villegas and Jasmeet Bains, a doctor and moderate member of the California state Assembly, are both competing in the all-party primary for Republican Rep. David Valadao’s seat. Villegas has centered his campaign around economic populism and is affiliated with the progressive Working Families Party.
10h ago / 9:59 AM EST
Marjorie Taylor Greene blasts Trump for ‘vicious’ attacks after saying her company received a pipe bomb threat
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., blasted Trump last night for his attacks against her in recent weeks, suggesting his rhetoric could be responsible for a recent pipe-bomb threat at her construction company as well as hoax pizza deliveries.
“President Trump’s unwarranted and vicious attacks against me were a dog whistle to dangerous radicals that could lead to serious attacks on me and my family,” Greene wrote in a post on X.
Greene warned that Trump and other conservatives calling her a “traitor” to the Republican Party “puts blood in the water and creates a feeding frenzy. And it could ultimately lead to a harmful or even deadly outcome.”
11h ago / 9:18 AM EST
Indiana lawmaker is the victim of swatting after Trump criticized him over redistricting
An Indiana state senator was the victim of a swatting incident Sunday just hours after Trump criticized him and other Republican lawmakers for not redrawing the state’s congressional map, according to the lawmaker and the local sheriff.
Vigo County Sheriff Derek Fell said in a post on his office’s Facebook account that an email was sent to a police department “advising harm had been done to persons inside a home,” which was Goode’s address.
12h ago / 8:23 AM EST
Trump defends Tucker Carlson after interview with activist known for his antisemitic views
Trump yesterday brushed aside concerns about conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with a far-right activist known for his antisemitic views, which has caused a schism within the Republican Party.
Trump defended Carlson, saying the former Fox News host has “said good things about me over the years.” He said if Carlson wants to interview Nick Fuentes, whose followers see themselves as working to preserve America’s white, Christian identity, then “people have to decide.” Trump did not criticize Carlson or Fuentes.
Fuentes appeared to appreciate Trump’s sentiment, posting “Thank you Mr. President!” along with video of his interaction with reporters.
13h ago / 7:21 AM EST
Trump considers talks with Venezuela’s Maduro even as U.S. ramps up military pressure
Trump said yesterday that he may hold talks with Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, even as the United States intensified its military pressure with the latest strike on an alleged drug boat and the arrival of its most advanced aircraft carrier.
The suggestion of a possible diplomatic path to defuse the mounting tensions with the South American country came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the U.S. would designate the Cartel de los Soles, a group Washington alleges is run by Maduro, as a foreign terrorist organization.
13h ago / 7:21 AM EST
FAA will lift emergency flight reductions today
The Federal Aviation Administration will end its flight reduction emergency order today, meaning flights will resume operations as normal, officials announced yesterday.
The emergency order will officially lift Monday at 6 a.m. ET, ending the reductions that caused mass cancellations and delays at airports. The cuts, which started with a 4% reduction in flights at 40 major airports on Nov. 7, were designed to address fatigue and staffing issues among air traffic controllers amid the record-long government shutdown.
13h ago / 7:21 AM EST
Trump says House Republicans should vote to release Epstein files: ‘We have nothing to hide’
Trump yesterday called on House Republicans to support the release of files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, dramatically changing course on a flashpoint issue he has long opposed.
“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Just last week, Trump had called the efforts to release the files a “hoax,” saying Democrats were bringing them up to “deflect how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown.”
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