What to know today...
- CANNABIS CATEGORIZATION: President Donald Trump signed an order to reclassify cannabis. The move would allow the Food and Drug Administration to study it for medical purposes, but it wouldn’t make cannabis legal at the federal level.
- KENNEDY CENTER: The board of the Kennedy Center in Washington voted to rename the performance venue as the Trump-Kennedy Center. Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center could run into legal hurdles, experts told NBC News in July.
- GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE: The Trump administration announced that it would begin to take steps aimed at ending transition-related care — or what the Department of Health and Human Services has termed “sex-rejecting procedures” — for minors nationwide.
Zohran Mamdani appointee resigns after old antisemitic posts resurface
An appointee tapped to lead New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s recruitment efforts resigned today after antisemitic social media posts resurfaced.
Catherine Almonte Da Costa resigned a day after Mamdani named her director of appointments, with responsibilities to strategize recruitment in his administration.
“I spoke with the Mayor-elect this afternoon, apologized, and expressed my deep regret for my past statements. These statements are not indicative of who I am,” Da Costa said in a statement through Mamdani’s transition team.
“As the mother of Jewish children, I feel a profound sense of sadness and remorse at the harm these words have caused. As this has become a distraction from the work at hand, I have offered my resignation,” she added.
U.S. military says 2 strikes on alleged drug boats kill 5 in eastern Pacific
The U.S. military said tonight that it had conducted two more strikes against boats it said were smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing five people.
U.S. Southern Command posted on social media, “Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” though it did not provide evidence. It posted videos of each boat speeding through the water before they were struck by an explosion.
The military said three people in one vessel and two in the other were killed.
The attacks brought the total number of known boat strikes to 28, while at least 104 people have been killed, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration. Trump has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S. and asserted the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.
Jury finds a Wisconsin judge guilty of obstruction for helping an immigrant evade federal agents
A jury found a Wisconsin judge accused of helping a Mexican immigrant dodge federal authorities guilty of obstruction today, marking a victory for Trump as he continues his sweeping immigration crackdown across the country.
Federal prosecutors charged Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan with obstruction, a felony, and concealing an individual to prevent arrest, a misdemeanor, in April. The jury acquitted her on the concealment count, but she still faces up to five years in prison on the obstruction count.
The jury returned the verdicts after having deliberated for six hours.
Dugan and her attorneys left the courtroom, ducked into a side conference room and closed the door without speaking to reporters.
A few House members dispute a colleague’s endorsement claim in a tough Senate race
Rep. Andy Barr, locked in an already contentious 2026 Republican Senate primary in Kentucky, projected strength this week by announcing endorsements from more than 100 of his House colleagues.
But when they were reached today by NBC News, spokespeople for two of those members said they were declining to endorse in the race. Another member on the list said he wasn’t, at that moment, endorsing Barr — though he changed his tune hours later, offering his backing.
Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, is focused solely on his campaign for governor and “is not endorsing in the Kentucky Senate race,” a spokesperson told NBC News. Rep. Tony Wied, R-Wis., hasn’t endorsed Barr, said an adviser, who also noted that the Barr campaign initially misspelled Wied’s last name in the news release proclaiming his support.
And Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said in an interview this afternoon that his endorsements are typically accompanied by formal letters — one of which, he emphasized, he hadn’t yet written for Barr.
TikTok owner ByteDance signs binding deal to create U.S. joint venture
TikTok CEO Shou Chew told employees of the social media app today that its owner, China’s ByteDance, has signed binding agreements to create a joint venture for the app in the United States, as agreed to in a deal with the Trump administration.
That deal means the U.S. version of TikTok will become majority-owned by American investors, according to a memo obtained by NBC News.
The investors include American tech giant Oracle, the California-based private equity fund Silver Lake and the United Arab Emirates investment firm MGX.
Silver Lake and MGX did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Spokespeople for the White House and the Treasury Department likewise did not reply to requests for comment on the deal.
Senate votes on party lines to confirm 97 Trump nominees all at once
The Senate tonight voted along party lines, 53-43, to confirm a third batch of Trump nominees all at one time using a new procedural tool it unlocked by nuking the Senate rules so it can confirm nominees en bloc instead of one by one.
Tonight's batch consisted of 97 nominees, including former Rep. Anthony D'Esposito of New York to be inspector general of the Labor Department and Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell III to be U.S. ambassador to South Africa.
Erika Kirk endorses JD Vance for president in 2028
Erika Kirk, widow of assassinated Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk, endorsed Vice President JD Vance for the 2028 presidential election in a speech opening the group’s America Fest annual conference tonight.
“We are going to get my husband’s friend JD Vance elected” in 2028, she told thousands of activists at the Phoenix Convention Center. The end of Kirk’s statement was drowned out by cheers for the endorsement.
The backing of Turning Point USA, one of the most influential conservative organizations — particularly among young activists and MAGA voters — could provide a major boost to Vance if he seeks the presidency in three years.
Kirk, who took over as head of her late husband’s organization, had previously said a Turning Point USA endorsement of Vance was “in the works.” Tonight, she put a fine point on her support for Vance and for helping Republicans try to hold their majorities in the House and the Senate in next year’s midterm elections.
Democrats release more Epstein photos with a promise of more to come
Jeffrey Epstein’s estate has turned over roughly 95,000 photographs to the House Oversight Committee. So far, the public has seen only a tiny fraction of that trove of files.
Today, Democrats on that committee released 68 photos from the Epstein estate, including photos of the convicted sex offender with high-profile people. The release and another one last week by Oversight Democrats include dozens of photos of Epstein posing with Trump, his top ally Steve Bannon, former President Bill Clinton, former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, movie director Woody Allen and others. All have denied any wrongdoing, and none have been charged related to Epstein’s crimes.
The latest batch of photos comes just one day before tomorrow's deadline when the Justice Department will be required, under a new law, to release all of the government’s Epstein files with very limited exceptions.
Trump signs National Defense Authorization Act
Trump has signed the annual National Defense Authorization Act, a sweeping defense policy bill.
The signing, initially scheduled as a press event, comes after the Senate approved the bill yesterday.
The measure includes a provision that would limit Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget if he doesn’t release video of recent military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific.
DNC won't release its report on what went wrong for Democrats in 2024
The Democratic National Committee won’t release its completed postmortem of the 2024 election, a DNC official confirmed to NBC News.
DNC Chair Ken Martin ordered an autopsy shortly after he took over as the national party chairman this year, stressing that the report should be released to help the party learn from its mistakes. But Martin said in a statement today that his top priority is to not distract from helping the party “win.”
“We completed a comprehensive review of what happened in 2024 and are already putting our learnings into motion. And we’re winning again — even in places that haven’t gone blue in decades,” he said.
“In our conversations with stakeholders from across the Democratic ecosystem, we are aligned on what’s important, and that’s learning from the past and winning the future. Here’s our North Star: does this help us win? If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission,” Martin’s statement continues.
