Trump Ignored Top Military Lawyer on Illegal Boat Strikes

Even the top military lawyer for the command overseeing President Donald Trump’s strikes on alleged “drug boats” thought they were illegal—but the Pentagon ignored him.

Senior government officials reportedly dismissed legal concerns raised by the senior judge advocate general at the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, who warned against the Trump administration’s plan to bomb foreign vessels the government claims are transporting drugs. He warned that the strikes could be considered extrajudicial killings, according to two senior U.S. officials, two senior congressional aides, and two former senior U.S. officials who spoke with NBC News.

Among those senior officials were members of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the six sources said.

Three people familiar with the matter identified the senior judge advocate general as Marine Col. Paul Meagher, who is the top lawyer overseeing command for military operations in the Caribbean.

In a statement to NBC News, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell denied that anyone had “raised concerns to any attorneys in the chain of command regarding the legality of the strikes conducted thus far.”

Historically, the U.S. would use intelligence to stop vessels that could be involved in drug trafficking, and then board and search them. But starting in September, Trump has opted to just blow them up, killing dozens of crew members, violating international law, and costing the U.S. valuable intelligence allies.

The Trump administration has claimed that its military strikes on these foreign vessels have targeted “unlawful combatants” engaged in an “armed conflict.” But a closer look at some of the men killed in these strikes revealed that they were not so-called “narco-terrorists” or members of criminal gangs or cartels. Crucially, they weren’t all smuggling drugs. Those that were were smuggling cocaine, not synthetic opioids responsible for killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is meeting with President Trump at the White House on Friday, where he plans to discuss how New Yorkers are struggling to afford to live in their city.

Mamdani spoke to MS NOW’s Chris Hayes Wednesday night, saying that his office reached out to the president “because of a commitment that I made to New Yorkers that I would be willing to meet with anyone and everyone so long as it was to the benefit of eight and a half million people who call the city home and their struggle to afford the most expensive city in the United States.”

“I want to just speak plainly to the president about what it means to actually stand up for New Yorkers and the way in which New Yorkers are struggling to afford this city,” Mamdani added. “Frankly, cost of living is something that I heard time and time again from New Yorkers about why they voted for Donald Trump.”

A few days after Trump won the presidential election in 2024, Mamdani, then a New York state assemblyman, took to New York’s streets to ask people why they voted for Trump. What he found was that they were upset with politics, angry about Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and feeling squeezed by the city’s high cost of living.

One year later, Mamdani defeated a well-funded opponent, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, to be elected mayor, despite facing multiple attacks on his agenda of affordability and policy items such as free city buses and childcare. Right-wing figures, including Cuomo, made bigoted remarks about Mamdani’s Muslim faith and support for Palestine.

Trump was no exception, urging New Yorkers to vote for Cuomo and continuously calling Mamdani a Communist, even in his announcement on Truth Social of Friday’s meeting. What happens in that meeting will preview how Mamdani will handle a president who has already sent the National Guard into cities he doesn’t like and threatened to revoke all federal funding to New York.

Donald Trump was reportedly still in contact with Jeffrey Epstein as he ascended to public office.

Trump has claimed he cut off contact with Epstein after the financier was convicted in 2009 for soliciting underage prostitutes, referring to Epstein as a “creep.” But he rang his old “pal” in 2016, shortly after he won the presidential election, according to one of the sex trafficker’s closest confidants.

“After the election—you know I used to speak to Jeffrey regularly—and one of the calls we spoke, Jeffrey told me that Trump, it was after the election that Trump called him,” Epstein’s brother Mark told CNN Wednesday.

“And it was sort of like, can you believe this? Because nobody believed Trump was going to win. Trump was very surprised himself that he won, so Jeffrey said he called him like, ‘Can you believe this?’” Epstein continued, specifying that Trump had called his brother and not the other way around.

Trump and Epstein were friends for decades before their relationship reportedly dissolved over a real estate dispute in Palm Beach, Florida. Prior to his death, the child rapist described himself as one of Trump’s “closest friends.” The socialites were named and photographed together on several occasions and were caught partying with underage girls in New Jersey casinos. Epstein was invited to attend Trump’s wedding to Marla Maples in 1993, and in 2002, Trump told New York magazine that Epstein was a “terrific guy.”

“He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Trump told the magazine at the time.

But the pair weren’t always simpatico, especially in the years leading up to Epstein’s death. In the same interview with CNN, Mark Epstein recalled a documented conversation between his brother and former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon, in which the New York financier said he “stopped hanging out with Trump when he realized Trump was a crook.”

“That’s a direct quote from Jeffrey,” Epstein told the network.

Bannon assisted Epstein in navigating the political and legal quagmire that was the last year of his life. As part of that, Bannon conducted a series of interviews with Epstein between 2018 and early 2019, totaling about 15 hours of unseen footage.

“Crook” wasn’t the only bad word that Epstein shared about his longtime friend. In a 2017 exchange with Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary and president of Harvard University, Epstein said that Trump was “dangerous” and was one of the worst people he’d ever met. “Not one decent cell in his body,” Epstein wrote to Summers.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wants to investigate a group of Democratic lawmakers who made a video warning members of the military and intelligence community about the Trump administration, but he doesn’t even know what they were trying to instruct them to do.

In a video released Tuesday titled “Don’t Give Up the Ship,” a group of Democratic lawmakers with backgrounds in the armed forces and intelligence warned that the Trump administration was “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens.” They reminded government officers that they swore an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. 

The participating lawmakers were Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst; Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and naval officer; as well as Representatives Chrissy Houlahan, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, and Jason Crow.

“Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear, you can refuse illegal orders,” the lawmakers said. “You must refuse illegal orders.”

During an appearance on Fox News’s Hannity Wednesday night, Blanche was pressed on how he might investigate the video, which has riled Trump officials and the president himself. Blanche fumed that the lawmakers hadn’t actually specified which “court orders” ought to be violated. “You cannot do that in this country, especially if you’re a leader,” he said.  

Of course, the lawmakers hadn’t said anything about defying court orders, rather the orders they were given by the administration that defied the Constitution or federal law.

“I think they should be held to account,” Blanche continued. “I think that those congressmen should be required to answer questions about why they did what they did. And the American people deserve that, and so does President Trump.”

Despite lawmakers making only a vague reference to unconstitutional orders, Trump accused the lawmakers Thursday of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

In a series of posts on social media, Trump flew into a fury. “Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand—We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET,” he wrote on Truth Social.

“This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country,” he wrote in another post. “Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???”

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller claimed Tuesday that “Democrat lawmakers are now openly calling for insurrection,” while in fact, they were calling for the opposite.

On Tuesday, multiple congressional Democrats made a video reminding the members of the military and intelligence community of their duty to the Constitution, not to President Trump. On Thursday, Trump called them “TRAITORS” and shared a post calling for them to be executed. 

The fairly milquetoast video that drew Trump’s outrage featured Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, and Representatives Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, and Chrissy Houlahan—all former military or intelligence veterans. 

“This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home,” the Democrats said. “Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders.”

The clip set Trump and MAGA off. 

“This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP??? President DJT.” 

“HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!” read another post retruthed by Trump.

The person who posted that had a “deus vult” profile picture, a symbol commonly associated with the neo-Nazi movement.

“Get these people out of office!!  They aren’t doing their jobs, they are looking for ways to be rebels, and take others with them.  They need to go!!!” yet another said.

“Why aren’t they under arrest for sedition......thrown out of their offices...ENOUGH IS ENOUGH…” read another.

It’s rich to hear the January 6 crowd who wanted to hang Mike Pence now whine about sedition, treason, and conspiracy. Trump absolutely has pitted the military against normal American citizens. From releasing them into the streets of American cities, to the possibility of sending them to polling stations in blue districts to “monitor” elections, there is a clear attempt from Trump here to make the military his personal army rather than a body beholden to the rules of the Constitution he has so much disdain for. 

This story has been updated.

The public is on the verge of accessing the Epstein files, and Donald Trump is not happy about it.

After fighting for months to keep the files under lock and key, Trump expediently signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act Wednesday evening, hours after the Senate advanced it to his desk. Then, he went on a sprawling rant on social media in an apparent effort to twist his public image away from the longtime cozy relationship he maintained with the child sex trafficker and refocus on Democrats in the scandal that he has long branded as a “hoax.”

“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!” Trump posted after accusing a slew of high-profile Democrats of financially benefiting from their own relationships with the deceased financier.

“As everyone knows, I asked Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, to pass this Bill in the House and Senate, respectively,” Trump said, referring to a missive he gave to Congress mere days ago.

At the time, that directive seemed to be little more than an effort to save face. House Republicans were lining up alongside Democrats to release the files, despite private meetings with Trump in which the president (unsuccessfully) begged his congressional allies to change their minds.

“At my direction, the Department of Justice has already turned over close to fifty thousand pages of documents to Congress. Do not forget—The Biden Administration did not turn over a SINGLE file or page related to Democrat Epstein, nor did they ever even speak about him,” Trump continued.

“Democrats have used the ‘Epstein’ issue, which affects them far more than the Republican Party, in order to try and distract from our AMAZING Victories, including THE GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL TAX CUT BILL, Strong Borders, No Men in Women’s Sports or Transgender for Everyone, ending DEI, stopping Biden’s Record Setting Inflation, lowering Prices, Biggest Tax and Regulation Cuts in History, ending EIGHT Wars, rebuilding our Military, knocking out Iran’s Nuclear capability, getting Trillions of Dollars INVESTED in the U.S.A., creating the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World, and even delivering a HUGE DEFEAT to the Democrats on the recent Shutdown Disaster.”

Epstein, a New York socialite who orchestrated an international child sex trafficking ring to service the sick desires of the ultra wealthy, is believed to have abused hundreds of young girls.

The Trump administration first bungled the release of the files in July, when the Justice Department issued a memo that contradicted Attorney General Pam Bondi on the alleged existence of Epstein’s so-called “client list.” Since then, Trump has attempted to brush off the scandal, repeatedly referring to it as a Democrat-invented “hoax.”

“For years our Great Nation has had to endure RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, IMPEACHMENT HOAX #1, IMPEACHMENT HOAX #2, and many other Democrat created Witch Hunts and Scams, all of which have been so terrible and divisive for our Country, and have been done to confuse, deflect, and distract from the GREAT JOB that Republicans, and the Trump Administration, are doing,” Trump concluded. “This latest Hoax will backfire on the Democrats just as all of the rest have! Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Trump has claimed he cut off contact with Epstein after the financier was convicted in 2009 for soliciting underage prostitutes, referring to Epstein as a “creep.” But recent releases from the Epstein estate indicate that Epstein was still hypervigilant of his old pal even as Trump ascended to the White House.

The House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 emails last week that they had obtained from Epstein’s estate. The documents included multiple mentions of Trump, such as in a 2011 email, when Epstein expressed he was grateful Trump had stayed quiet about details of Epstein’s life. The “dog that hasn’t barked is Trump,” Epstein wrote, despite the fact that Trump had spent hours at one of Epstein’s properties with a known victim.

In a 2017 exchange with former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Epstein said that Trump was the worst individual he knew.

“I have met some very bad people, none as bad as Trump,” he wrote. “Not one decent cell in his body.”

When queried by Trump biographer Michael Wolff in 2019 about the extent of the president’s knowledge of abductions of young girls, Epstein remarked: “Of course he knew about the girls he asked Ghislaine to stop.”

President Trump and Larry Ellison—the conservative billionaire behind Oracle who wants to “retrain” the TikTok algorithm to be more pro-Israel—met to discuss which CNN hosts to fire if Ellison acquired the media company in a Paramount Warner Bros. Discovery deal, according to a Guardian report.

The two discussed firing Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar (both of whom Trump has issues with) and putting CBS’s 60 Minutes—now controlled by another Zionist, Bari Weiss—on CNN. While Paramount is run by Ellion’s son David, the senior Ellison owns the biggest share of the company.

This casual conversation shows that billionaires with agendas and a direct line to Trump have the power to change what Americans are seeing in the entire media landscape—from their TikTok for You page to their television. But FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who made news earlier this fall for his active muzzling of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, doesn’t foresee any antitrust or corruption problems.

“I’d be very surprised if there was an FCC role at all in that type of transaction,” Carr previously told The Guardian, also mentioning that he was “not focused on the rumor mills around those transactions.”

Paramount’s initial bid for Warner Bros. is due Thursday, November 20.

A former congressional aide to a Republican congressman staged a fake anti-Trump attack against her over the summer and is now facing federal charges.

Natalie Greene, who used to work for Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, allegedly paid a body modification artist $500 to physically wound her, tie her up with zip ties, and write “Trump Whore” on her stomach and “Van Drew is a racist” on her back, the New Jersey Globe reports.

All of this took place in July, with Greene’s friend calling 911 claiming the two had been ambushed by three men on a hiking trail in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. When police arrived, they found Greene with her shirt pulled over her head, bound with black zip ties, and the words written on her body. She also said the attackers threatened her with a gun.

According to federal prosecutors, Greene, a Rutgers law student, was lying about nearly everything. She drove to Pennsylvania to hire the modification artist, providing a pattern she had already made. Greene had matching zip ties in her car, and according to cellphone records, and her friend had searched for “zip ties near me” two days before the supposed attack.

Days after the incident, while Greene was getting treated for her wounds, FBI investigators interviewed her and her friend, and their stories did not match. She has been charged with one count of conspiracy to convey false statements and hoaxes and one count of making false statements to federal law enforcement.

In a statement, Drew’s congressional office said they were “deeply saddened by today’s news,” adding, “While Natalie is no longer associated with the congressman’s government office, our thoughts and prayers are with her and hope she’s getting the care she needs.”

Donald Trump’s major electoral setback in Texas is thanks, in no small part, to Ted Cruz.

A three-judge panel ruled against the Lone Star State’s gerrymandering effort Tuesday, ordering Texas to return to its 2021 maps for the upcoming midterm elections. The decision was written by Judge Jeffrey V. Brown, whom Cruz recommended to the bench in 2019.

That realization has enraged some members of Trump’s base, who have questioned how the Houston native could have recommended someone who would rule against the president’s agenda.

“Brown was a clear miss by Ted Cruz,” argued conservative political strategist Mike Davis in a Fox News op-ed Wednesday.

Brown wrote in the Tuesday ruling that “substantial evidence” proved Texas had “racially gerrymandered” its latest districts.

Trump suggested in July that Texas could give Republicans five more House seats by flipping a handful of blue districts next year via “a very simple redrawing.” The Justice Department then threatened to take legal action on the matter, asserting that at least four Texas congressional districts were “unconstitutional” since the presence of multiple racial groups had made white people the regional electoral minority.

Redistricting is perfectly legal—so long as it complies with federal law. Trump’s directive for Texas forced the state to focus on race rather than politics, in defiance of national nondiscrimination laws. Brown noted in the legal opinion that if the effort had intended to thwart Democratic strongholds in the state, it would have also targeted majority white Democrat districts,” but those were “conspicuously absent.”

Brown determined that reverting to the 2021 map was a more adequate solution than providing Texas with the opportunity to draw up another plan, since not only was the 2021 iteration developed by the state legislature (as opposed to the state judiciary) but it has successfully been used in two previous congressional elections, as well as an ongoing special election. The judicial ruling effectively crushed Trump’s dream to reshape Texas to help Republicans in Washington.

Meanwhile, Cruz is laying the groundwork to run for president in 2028, though it’s unclear who in the MAGA movement will rally to his side.

The White House is so desperate to scrape together some “good news” that it’s trying to tout a decline in the number of new international students enrolling at American universities. That would actually be really bad—if it were the whole story, that is.

The number of new international students enrolling at American universities has decreased 17 percent since last year, according to the White House’s Wednesday “good news” roundup, which cited a recent survey from the Institute of International Education. The Trump administration celebrated the dip, claiming it was “reclaiming spots for American students on college campuses.”

But there’s more to this number than meets the eye. In fall 2025, 29 percent of institutions reported an increase in the number of new international students enrolling, 14 percent said the number was stable, and 57 percent said there was a decrease, according to the IIE study. However, the total number of international students only declined by 1 percent, and the number of international undergraduates actually increased by 2 percent. So it doesn’t look like too many spots were actually “reclaimed.”

The high percentage drop of enrollment can be explained by a significant drop in the number of students signed up for Optional Practical Training programs, which allow students to remain in the United States after they have completed their studies—a program that the State Department is planning to gut. It seems that international students are still studying in the United States; they’re simply taking their newfound knowledge with them after they finish school to make their home countries great instead of ours.

An enrollment dip is still not good news, however. International students paying full tuition and higher fees can help to cross-subsidize lower in-state tuition for American citizens. Outside of the financial incentive, involving international students in U.S. higher education has had tremendous positive outcomes for American society and higher education.

This study comes after the Trump administration revoked more than 6,000 student visas in August and arrested multiple foreign-born students and faculty over their speech or political affiliation, making clear that international students are not safe to remain in the United States. Ninety-six percent of institutions said that the dip was the result of concerns about visa applications, and 68 percent said it was due to travel restrictions, according to the study.

At the same time, the Trump administration has moved to increase the cost of an H-1B temporary visa by a factor of more than 10,000 percent, creating a sky-high financial barrier to those wishing to come to the United States for work.