Today in Politics, Bulletin 259. 11/28/25

… Now we know why Pete Hegseth freaked out and threatened to court martial Sen. Mark Kelly after his video with 5 other Democratic lawmakers urged members of the military not to follow illegal orders. It is because he has been giving illegal orders to murder people while serving as Secretary of Defense.

… WaPo on one of the missile strikes that killed 11 people: “Hegseth gave a spoken directive, ‘The order was to kill everybody.’ As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Ops commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions. The two men were blown apart in the water.”

… “Some current and former US officials have said that the Pentagon’s lethal campaign — which has killed more than 80 people to date — is unlawful and may expose those most directly involved to future prosecution. The alleged traffickers pose no imminent threat of attack against the US and are not, as the Trump admin has tried to argue, in an ‘armed conflict’ with the US. Because there is no legitimate war between the two sides, killing any of the men in the boats ‘amounts to murder,’ said Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who advised Special Ops forces at the height of the US counterterrorism campaign.”

… “Even if the US were at war with the traffickers, an order to kill all the boat’s occupants if they were no longer able to fight ‘would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,’ said Huntley, now director of the national security law program at Georgetown Law. The elite counterterror group SEAL Team 6 led the attack.”

… Army combat vet and congressional candidate Fred Wellman: “This is insanely illegal. When you ask what the Democrats were talking in their video about the kind of orders that are illegal…this is it. It’s against the law to kill wounded prisoners. Period. This is monstrous.”

… The Atlantic’s Russell Berman: “I spoke with a Republican member of Indiana’s legislature who opposes Trump’s push for the state to redraw its congressional map to gain two GOP seats and help the party hold its House majority in next year’s midterm elections. Trump, with support from IN’s Gov. Mike Braun, has vowed to back primary challengers against members of the GOP who are, for now, blocking the redistricting plan.”

… “The lawmaker I spoke with asked that I not publish his name. He isn’t worried about Trump’s political wrath; he doesn’t plan to run for reelection. His fear of speaking out is much more personal. He told me: ‘I’d rather my house not get firebombed.’”

… But IN State Sen. Michael Bohacek announced he will block it after Trump called Tim Walz a “retard” in his Thanksgiving post: “I have been an unapologetic advocate for people with intellectual disabilities since the birth of my 2nd daughter. Those of you who may not know me might not know that my daughter has Downs Syndrome. This is not the first time the president has uses those insulting and derogatory references and his choices of words have consequences. I will be voting NO in redistricting. Maybe he can convince voters that his policies and behavior deserve a congressional majority.”

… Trump held a press gaggle at Mar-a-Lago after golfing. The subject of it was supposed to be about thanking US service members on Thanksgiving. Instead, it turned into this: “I’ve won 38 golf championships and I don’t get to practice very much. I beat a 27-year-old kid. I’ve won 38 of them, every one of them legitimately. It has to be legitimate because you have a lot of people following you with club championships.”

… S.V. Date, WH correspondent for HuffPost: “‘I don’t get to practice very much’.
He has now spent 83 days on one of the golf courses he owns since returning to office. That’s 27% of the days in his second term.”

… He was asked if he planned to attend National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom’s funeral after she was shot and killed in DC: “I haven’t thought about it yet, but it’s certainly something I can conceive of. I love West Virginia. You know, I won West Virginia by one of the biggest margins of any president anywhere.”

… Of course, the first time he was asked about this subject he made it about himself.

… With Trump and Republicans blaming Joe Biden for the shooting because he was an Afghan who came into the US in 2021, a reporter challenged him on it: Q - “Officials say the suspect in the DC shooting was vetted and it came up clean. Trump: He went cuckoo. He went nuts. There was no vetting. Q - Actually, your DOJ IG just reported that there was thorough vetting of Afghans who were brought into the US. So why do you blame Biden? Trump exploded: Are you stupid!?! Are you a stupid person? You’re just asking questions because you’re a stupid person.”

… I probably don’t even have to tell you the reporter was a woman.

… S.V. Date: “Trump’s attacks against female reporters continue. One of the reporters in the pool tonight asked him about the vetting of the Afghan who was granted asylum under Trump’s admin. Trump calls her a ‘stupid person.’ Recently, Trump told a women reporter who was asking him about Jeffrey Epstein, ‘Quiet piggy.’ Yesterday, enraged by a NYT story about his lagging energy level, he called the female reporter ‘ugly’ but had no such comment about her male co-author.

… “Notably, the press pool this Thanksgiving trip has no ‘MAGA media’ - suck-ups who ask questions like ‘Mr. President why are you wonderful, how do you even stand it.’ This is because those folks want the access but don’t want to do the work - like working holidays.”

… Q: “You just detailed that this suspect was flown in under the Biden admin. But was he granted asylum under your admin? Trump: Uh, when it comes to asylum, when they’re flown in, it’s very hard to get them out no matter how you want to do it. But we’re gonna be getting them all out now!” He then slammed the table with his tiny hand for emphasis.

… Trump: “If you look at Somalia, they are taking over Minnesota. Reporter: What do the Somalians have to do with this Afghan guy who shot the National Guard members?
Trump: Ah, nothing. But Somalians have caused a lot of trouble. They’re ripping us off.”

… David Bier with the conservative Cato Institute: “Afghans have been coming to the US for decades now, and none had killed anyone in an act of terrorism and are less likely to commit serious crimes in the USA. Immigrants are more likely to be victims than vice versa, so they reduce the crime rate for us.”

… Immigration attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick on MAGA’s attempt to claim it was an immigration judge who granted asylum and not the Trump admin: “The federal judiciary has zero role in approving asylum applications at all; USCIS adjudicators are federal bureaucrats and immigration judges are technically senior attorneys for DOJ.
The only role Article III courts play is hearing appeals.”

… Fox national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin: “Alleged shooter Rahmanullah Lakanwal worked for the CIA in Afghanistan out of Kandahar base, according to CIA director John Ratcliffe. Multiple sources tell me he was vetted before working with the CIA by the NCTC and the CIA. I am told that Lakanwal was with the Task Force in Kandahar.”

… “During the Afghan withdrawal, the CIA airlifted with the help of the US military many Afghan allies who had worked with the US govt and took special care of those who were badged and worked with the agency. They were taken to bases in Qatar and Europe and then onward to military bases in the US where further vetting was supposed to take place. Having a CIA ID would have put him in the ‘vetted’ category.”

… “I am told there was nothing in his background when he arrived in the US on Sept 8, 2021 that suggested links to terrorism. He applied for asylum last year and reportedly received asylum in April under the Trump admin. He had an active SIV application underway and had received Chief of Mission approval but had not yet been granted lawful permanent residence.”

… “He applied for asylum during the Biden admin, but his asylum was approved under the Trump admin. Both his Chief of Mission application and his asylum application required review and vetting by the US govt, including the CIA.

… FBI Director Kash Patel was asked at a news conference if he could be specific on exactly when the suspect was granted asylum. Patel refused to answer: “I believe Kristi Noem put that out, and that’s a DHS matter and I’ll refer it to them.”

… James Surowiecki, columnist for The Atlantic: “No vetting process can guarantee that you’ll catch all bad actors (or that someone won’t flip out in the future). The shooter worked with a CIA-backed unit in Afghanistan, fighting against the Taliban. He’d lived in the US for 4 years with no trouble. He had 5 kids (which you normally would think would keep him from destroying his life in a pointless attack). It was not surprising, or irresponsible, that he was admitted in 2021, or that the Trump admin formally granted him asylum this year.”

… The Atlantic: “Before an Afghan refugee shot two National Guard members who had been deployed by Trump to DC, military commanders had warned that their deployment represented an easy ‘target of opportunity’ for grievance-based violence. The troops, deployed in an effort to reduce crime, are untrained in law enforcement; their days are spent cleaning up trash and walking the streets in uniform. Commanders, in a memo that was included in litigation challenging the high-visibility mission in DC, argued that this could put them in danger.”

… “DOJ countered that the risk was merely ‘speculative.’ It wasn’t. There are costs to performatively deploying members of the military - one of which is the risk of endangering them. The National Guard is stranded somewhere on this battlefield of partisan politics. They are not ready for this arena, and we should never have asked them to be. Politics is not a military mission.”

… DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro was asked whether Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in cities put them at risk and made them a target: “Don’t you dare blame shooting of 2 national guardsmen on anyone other than the shooter!”

… But that’s exactly what her boss and every Republican has been doing with Biden and Democrats.

… Pirro also insisted that Lakanwal was never vetted before coming to the US, but didn’t offer any proof of her claim other than: “Look, there was no vetting. If you think there was vetting I have a bridge to sell you.”

… Trump continued his press conference which was supposed to thank members of the military on a national holiday: “Over the next couple of years I think we will be substantially cutting income tax. We could be almost completely cutting it because the money we will be taking in will be so large.”

… With our national debt breaking new records monthly at an accelerating rate, Trump is now talking about eliminating income taxes while claiming we will fund the govt entirely with tariff revenue.

… ZeroHedge: “The US Treasury posted a $284.4 billion deficit in Oct, the worst opening month to any fiscal year in history. This exceeds the previous record of $284.1 billion in Oct 2020, during the historic pandemic response. Govt spending jumped +18% YoY, to $688.7 billion, bringing the 6-month moving average up to $590 billion. To put this differently, US govt expenditures averaged $22.5 BILLION per day last month. The deficit spiral is accelerating at a record pace.”

… Trump eventually talked a little bit about the military: “We’re ordered a lot of Coast Guard cutters. Brand new, beautiful, the best machines in the world. I’m a looks person. I wanted the hull to be perfect. You know, I sort of redesigned the hull a little bit. The hulls. But we ordered a lot.”

… The deranged madman also posted this today: “I am hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally. Joe Biden was not involved in the Autopen process and, if he says he was, he will be brought up on charges of perjury.”

… You can only charge someone for perjury if they make a false statement under oath. Besides that, president’s now have immunity thanks to Trump’s appeal to the Supreme Court.

… Trump played golf on Thanksgiving and posted no message to the nation about the national holiday. He finally did at 11:27 PM: “A very Happy Thanksgiving salutation to all of our Great American Citizens and Patriots who have been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at, along with certain other foolish countries throughout the World, for being ‘Politically Correct,’ and just plain STUPID, when it comes to Immigration.”

… “Hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of MN. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey’ as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone. The seriously retarded Gov of MN, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both, while the worst ‘Congressman/woman’ in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the USA illegally in that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how ‘badly’ she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation, which is essentially not even a country for lack of Government, Military, Police, schools, etc…”

… Tim Walz responded: “Release the MRI results.”

… Daily Beast: “A top doctor has warned that there’s ‘reason to be worried’ about Trump’s declining health. His comments follow a NYT report revealing that Trump had dramatically reduced his work schedule compared to his first term in office, carrying out 1,029 engagements against 1,688 in the first 10 months, a drop of 39%. Now, a leading public health physician, Dr. Vin Gupta, has claimed that Trump is visibly slowing down, saying ‘clearly something is happening’ to his mental capability.

… “Clearly they’re not getting MRIs just because that’s just the moment that we live in,” Gupata said during an appearance on The MeidasTouch Podcast. “There’s a reason, and they’re worried. Frankly, piecing this all together, there’s a reason to be worried based on his public performance.” Gupta, who previously served as chief medical officer at Amazon, annihilated Trump’s claims that he didn’t know which part of his body he had an MRI scan on during a check-up in Oct, calling it “utter nonsense.”

… Gupta: “It is clear there is age-related cognitive decline, that’s obvious. His response to somebody fainting in the Oval Office conveyed that, he didn’t show any signs of concern, he didn’t really do anything, he was slow to respond—and that slowness and fatigue you’re seeing more and more in his public events. He’s confused a lot, and sometimes mumbles incoherent nonsense when he’s asked a question in the press pool, in the Oval Office.”

Reminder there is no Bulletin tomorrow because I am off on Saturdays. Several towns in Maine are having Christmas tree lighting ceremonies on their town squares and we are going to a couple of them as well as their Christmas markets where local artisans and crafters selling the things they made this year.

I will be back Sunday night with the Weekend Bulletin. It seems like everyone has a podcast and a Substack page these days! Thank you for choosing to read and watch my work and subscribing to our page - you are the engine that drives our train.

… The Telegraph: “On the banks of the Mississippi, a sulfurous stench hits the back of the throat near Elon Musk’s Colossus, the largest AI supercomputer in the world. Housed in a warehouse guarded by CCTV cameras and an imposing fence, with a row of Tesla cybertrucks parked outside, Colossus is named after a 1970 dystopian film about a computer that seizes control of the US nuclear codes and enslaves humanity.”

… “Inside, hundreds of thousands of processing units, the systems used to power AI, are whirring away on neatly stacked shelves to produce Grok, a chatbot which Musk hopes will soon overtake ChatGPT as the most advanced large language model. When completed, Colossus will require 1.1 gigawatts of power, about 40% of the