Hegseth Ramps Up Navy Fleet in Latin America After “Drug Boat” Strike

The Department of Defense is sending even more troops to the Caribbean and Latin America to combat “illicit actors.”

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced on X Friday that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford, an aircraft carrier, and its strike group to deploy to the U.S. Southern Command from the Mediterranean Sea “to bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere.”

The move adds to the many U.S. ships and fighter jets already deployed to the area, and comes just hours after the Trump administration announced a tenth strike on a ship it claims was being used for drug trafficking. Even Fox News’s chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin noted Friday afternoon that the move looks like a “major military buildup for what many fear is an undeclared war.”

Griffin said that the aircraft carrier’s new deployment would mark the first time the U.S. wouldn’t have an aircraft carrier in the Middle East, and that 14 percent of the U.S. Navy’s fleet would now be in the Caribbean Sea.

President Trump’s strikes have attracted criticism and controversy, with one military leader even likely resigning because of the bombings. The strikes have expanded to the Pacific Ocean and are taking place extrajudicially, with no proof that the people killed in the strikes are even connected to drug trafficking. Some of them have been identified as fishermen.

The administration is responding to criticism of its bombings, which is even coming from other Republicans, by increasing its military buildup and making crass jokes. They are ignoring the fact that the strikes are likely illegal, and seem to be ratcheting up the possibility of war, breaking the president’s campaign promise to end endless wars.

President Trump’s Department of Justice is sending election monitors to “protect the votes of eligible American citizens” in six different blue districts this November.

The poll monitors will focus on California, which is set to vote on a ballot measure known as Proposition 50 that would redraw the state’s congressional districts to help Democrats, and New Jersey, where Republicans have a real shot at winning the governorship.

“Transparency at the polls translates into faith in the electoral process, and this Department of Justice is committed to upholding the highest standards of election integrity,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi Friday. “We will commit the resources necessary to ensure the American people get the fair, free, and transparent elections they deserve.”

The effort will be coordinated by the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. The districts that will be surveilled are Passaic County, New Jersey, Kern County, California, Riverside County, California, Fresno County, California, Orange County, California, and Los Angeles County, California.

The DOJ is also taking open requests and complaints at a tip line: VEM@usdoj.gov.

“The Department of Justice will do everything necessary to protect the votes of eligible American citizens, ensuring our elections are safe and secure,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division. “Transparent election processes and election monitoring are critical tools for safeguarding our elections and ensuring public trust in the integrity of our elections.”

Further details are sparse at the moment, and poll monitors are nothing new, but in this current climate one can imagine that this decision may lead to intimidation, draconian surveillance, and arrests of anyone suspected to be an immigrant at polling places in deep blue areas in November.

This faux concern about “election integrity” is rich coming from a president who can’t even admit that he lost an election fairly, and who has openly mused about breaking the law to run for a third term.

The Department of Justice has come up with yet another African nation with a dismal human rights record to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man wrongfully deported to El Salvador.

In a brief filing Friday, prosecutors described Liberia as a “a thriving democracy and one of the United States’s closest partners on the African continent,” arguing that the country’s constitution “provides robust protections for human rights.”

The government claimed that because Abrego Garcia had not included Liberia on a list of 20 countries to which he feared deportation, he was free to be removed there.

But the U.S. State Department had a vastly different description of the African nation just last year, reporting “significant” human rights issues, including “arbitrary or unlawful killings” and “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”

This is the latest effort by the Trump administration to ship off Abrego Garcia to an African nation.

In August, immigration officials initially offered Abrego Garcia a plea deal: if he admitted he was guilty of charges related to human smuggling, he could be removed to Costa Rica. When he rejected the offer, the Trump administration threatened to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, or Ghana. But U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland forbade his immediate removal and said that federal law may require him to be removed to a country of his choice. In any case, all three countries refused to take him.

Earlier this month, independent journalist Adam Klasfield reported that Xinis ordered the government to provide testimony on efforts to remove Garcia to Costa Rica, which he had ultimately selected as the country of his choice—but the government’s witness didn’t know anything.

“You come today with a witness that knows nothing about Costa Rica,” Xinis said, referring to Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign.

Ensign claimed that Abrego Garcia had told an immigration judge he was afraid to be deported to Costa Rica, but Xinis found that the exact opposite was true.

“That’s very troubling to me,” Xinis told Ensign.

Costa Rican officials had put in writing that they had no intention to remove Abrego Garcia back to El Salvador once he was in their custody. Klasfield noted on X Friday that the government’s latest filing included no assurances that Abrego Garcia would not be removed from Liberia back to CECOT, the notorious megaprison in El Salvador where he was initially sent.

Even the president’s biggest supporters can’t get behind his most recent pardon.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump wiped the criminal record of crypto billionaire and Binance exchange founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who was sentenced to four months in prison last year on charges related to money laundering. Trump claimed that the Chinese-born Canadian founder was a victim of political prosecution by the Biden administration.

But the news was not well received in MAGA world. One of Trump’s wealthiest supporters, Texas-based venture capitalist and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, wrote on X that the pardons suggested “massive fraud.”

“I love President Trump; this is possibly the greatest admin of my lifetime—except for these pardons,” Lonsdale posted Thursday. “If I’m calling balls and strikes, these are hit-by-pitches!! POTUS has been terribly advised on this; it makes it look like massive fraud is happening around him in this area.”

In separate posts, Lonsdale explained that his comment was an attempt to “influence future policy in a positive direction,” and that he also disagreed with Trump’s decision to pardon another white-collar criminal, Nikola CEO Trevor Milton.

Zhao and Trump’s family are financially tied. The presidential family’s main crypto company, World Liberty Financial, has generated some $4.5 billion since the 2024 election, thanks in large part to a partnership with PancakeSwap, an online exchange platform administered by Zhao’s Binance, The Wall Street Journal reported in August.

But either Trump must think Americans are terrifically stupid to not see the connection, or he’s suffering from serious mental lapses. During a press conference on Thursday, the president played dumb about Zhao, claiming he couldn’t recall the name of the person he had pardoned the day before.

“I don’t know, he was recommended by a lot of people, a lot of people say—are you talking about the crypto person?” Trump told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “A lot of people say he wasn’t guilty of anything.… You don’t know much about crypto. You know nothing about nothing. You’re fake news.

“I don’t know him, I don’t believe I ever met him, but I’ve been told—a lot of support, he had a lot of support,” Trump said.

While President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to gut essential nutrition assistance for Americans, the Department of Homeland Security has managed to scrounge up a whopping $10 billion to build immigration detention facilities—and they’re using the U.S. Navy to do it. 

CNN reported Friday that the DHS had launched a new contracting program with the Department of Defense that would make use of the Navy’s Supply Systems Command for construction and maintenance. 

Multiple sources familiar with the program told CNN that the new internment camps would likely be soft-sided tent facilities, similar to the recently revived Alligator Alcatraz, where detainees said they were treated worse than animals, and hundreds of people are still considered missing. 

One source said that the new facilities would be built to house as many as 10,000 detainees each. For comparison, Camp East Montana, the country’s largest immigration detention camp recently built on Fort Bliss, has a capacity of 5,000 beds. Within the first 50 days of its operation, the sprawling camp had already racked up 60 federal code violations, according to a September inspection.

The process of organizing contractors to build the apparatus for the Trump administration’s gargantuan deportation efforts hasn’t been easy. The company behind Camp East Montana had no experience in detention. Sources told CNN that by going through the DOD, the government hopes to accelerate the contracting process. 

In order to take on the government’s load, the Navy quietly amended an existing contracting solicitation mechanism that was previously used to support operations abroad. The Worldwide Expeditionary Multiple Award Contract was expanded to address the “Territorial Integrity of the United States,” or TITUS. 

A contract notice posted Friday listed several contractors that would receive money through the TITUS program, including Virginia-based 701C, Florida-based KDP Global Enterprises, and Texas-based firms Anovaeon, SGK Global Services, Guardian 6 Solutions, and Worldwide Employee Housing Solutions. The notice said that the total estimated contract maximum for each contractor could be up to $20 trillion, and cites the Defense Support of Civil Authorities support, which authorizes the use of military personnel to assist civil authorities during disasters. 

The new TITUS agreement states that building and staffing contractors for the DOD “may be required to provide infrastructure, staffing, services, and/or supplies necessary to provide safe and secure confinement for aliens in the administrative custody” of DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  

According to CNN, DOD contractors are not permitted to refuse work for ICE. 

This isn’t the first time the Trump administration has tapped the U.S. Navy for support in its immigration crackdown. The government previously asked the U.S. naval base outside of Chicago to house DHS and ICE agents as part of Operation Midway Blitz.

Donald Trump is planning to prosecute another one of his adversaries: Representative Nancy Pelosi.

Attorney General Pam Bondi told Jesse Watters on Fox News Thursday that the Justice Department sent the former House speaker a letter after she suggested that local police could arrest federal agents who violate California law during immigration raids.

“Pelosi got a letter today from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche,” Bondi said, adding that the DOJ told Pelosi and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins to “preserve your emails, preserve everything you have on this topic, because if you are telling people to arrest our ICE officers, our federal agents, you cannot do that, you are impeding an investigation.”

“We will charge them if they are violating the law. We will protect our federal agents,” Bondi added. “These people are out there working to keep Californians safe, yet you’ve got Pelosi out there saying to obstruct their investigation. You can’t do it, and we’re going to investigate her now as well as that DA.”

The threats against Pelosi follow federal indictments against former FBI Director James Comey over allegations of lying to Congress and New York state Attorney General Letitia James for alleged bank fraud, both of which Trump has all but admitted were at his direction.

If Pelosi is charged as a result of a DOJ investigation, Trump would be emboldened to target more of his critics, including other elected officials. Right now, all that stands in the way of his revenge prosecutions are that the cases are shoddy, lack merit, and are led by inexperienced attorneys.

President Trump pulling out of trade talks with Canada has inspired its leaders to continue to rally around the flag rather than capitulate.

“CANADA CHEATED AND GOT CAUGHT!!! They fraudulently took a big buy ad saying that Ronald Reagan did not like Tariffs, when actually he LOVED TARIFFS FOR OUR COUNTRY, AND ITS NATIONAL SECURITY,” Trump wrote Friday morning on Truth Social, after announcing a suspension in talks the night before. “Canada has long cheated on Tariffs, charging our farmers as much as 400%. Now they, and other countries, can’t take advantage of the U.S. any longer. Thank you to the Ronald Reagan Foundation for exposing this FRAUD. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Trump’s rampage was sparked by an ad paid for by the government of Ontario that featured a voiceover of former President Ronald Reagan warning about the dangers of tariffs.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded calmly Friday morning on the tarmac in Ottawa.

“We can’t control the trade policy of the United States. We recognize that that policy has fundamentally changed from the policy in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, and it’s a situation where the United States has tariffs against every one of their trading partners,” he told reporters. “What we can control, absolutely, is how we build here at home.… What we can also control, or at least heavily influence, is developing new partnerships and opportunities, including with the economic giants of Asia, which is the focus of this trip.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford also chimed in, posting Reagan’s full speech that inspired the ad, in which the former president openly bemoans having to use tariffs against Japan. “Imposing such tariffs or trade barriers, or restrictions of any kind, are steps that I am loath to take.”

It isn’t hard to read between the lines here. Canada will be moving forward with its own plans and policies with or without the United States, no matter how much Trump posts.

Whether or not a state receives federal disaster aid under the Trump administration appears to boil down to their vote in the 2024 presidential election.

Donald Trump unlocked Federal Emergency Management Agency aid for several states this week, including Alaska, Nebraska, and North Dakota, but he denied it to others seemingly along party lines.

In multiple posts to Truth Social over the course of the week announcing the aid, Trump boasted that he had “won BIG” in Alaska and was honored to extend federal financial assistance to the “incredible Patriots” of Missouri.

Meanwhile, three states that recently voted blue received nothing: Vermont, Illinois, and Maryland.

Trump pledged $25 million to Alaska to deal with the aftermath of Typhoon Halong, which ravaged the state’s western coast, displaced some 2,000 residents, and killed at least one person. Severe flooding in the wake of the storm lifted houses off their foundations and obliterated some coastal villages.

“It is my Honor to deliver for the Great State of Alaska, which I won BIG in 2016, 2020, and 2024—ALASKA, I WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday.

North Dakota and Nebraska received aid approval to deal with fallout from multiple storms and tornadoes in August. Trump said Thursday he granted North Dakota $3 million, emphasizing on social media that he “won THREE times in 2016, 2020, and 2024.”

Trump also granted FEMA aid to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota, which is still dealing with thousands of felled trees on tribal lands from a June storm, reported the Associated Press.

The president denied four requests for federal disaster relief. That included Maryland’s appeal for reconsideration to deal with massive flooding that affected the state’s western region in May, despite damages that nearly tripled the qualifying threshold for assistance.

In a statement, Maryland Governor Wes Moore said that Trump’s denial was “deeply frustrating,” leaving residents to deal with the wreckage on their own.

“President Trump and his Administration have politicized disaster relief, and our communities are the ones who will pay the price,” said Moore.

Vermont officials similarly underscored that damages caused by July storms far exceeded what locals could afford to fix on their own.

“It’s well over the annual budget or two years’ budget (of some towns), to fix those roads,” Eric Forand, Vermont’s emergency management director, told the Associated Press.

Far-right commentator and former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon says the president will serve a third term despite being barred by the Constitution. 

In a video interview with The Economist published Thursday, Bannon said, “Well, he’s gonna get a third term.” 

“Trump is gonna be president in ’28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that,” Bannon said, brushing off concerns about the Twenty-Eigth Amendment. 

“There’s many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is, but there’s a plan and President Trump will be the president in ’28,” Bannon added. 

Bannon’s odious remarks echo several threats and “jokes” made by Trump associates and administration officials, as well as the president himself. It’s not even the first time Bannon has mentioned plans to keep Trump in office longer—he mentioned “many different alternatives” for Trump’s presidency to continue in a NewsNation interview earlier this month. 

One of Trump’s lawyers was also exploring the possibility of Trump violating the Constitution’s term limits back in 2023, and Trump encouraged calls for a third term at a Michigan rally in April. The response from other conservatives, such as Senator Lindsey Graham and even Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, has not been reassuring.  

While Trump has claimed to be “joking,” he still is selling “Trump 2028” merchandise, and should be taken seriously. The question is whether Democrats have a plan to stop him by the time the presidential elections roll around in three years. Judging by their efforts against the president’s agenda this year, work needs to begin immediately.  

Watch the full interview with Bannon on YouTube (third-term chatter begins at 6:15).