Trump touts planned farm aid at White House roundtable; Rep. Jasmine Crockett files to run for Senate in Texas

Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, announced his candidacy today for Tarrant County judge, saying in a statement on X that he would no longer seek re-election in the House next year.

County chief executives are called county judges in Texas.

Veasey said he made the decision after "reflection, prayer, and long conversations" with his family.

“Let me be clear: I'm not stepping back from the fight. I’m stepping into a new one," Veasey said. "This decision is about where I can best serve the people of Tarrant County. It’s about strengthening our party, opening the door for new leadership. and ensuring that our community continues to thrive."

"The path to our state’s future runs straight through Tarrant County—where our diversity, grit, and our determination set the course for the entire state," he added.

The Supreme Court this month ruled to allow Texas Republicans to use a redrawn congressional map aimed at boosting their party in next year's midterm elections.

Navy Adm. Alvin Holsey, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, will brief the top four lawmakers on the House and Senate Armed Services committees tomorrow virtually, according to two sources familiar with briefing.

The briefing will be for Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., and House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and ranking member Adam Smith, D-Wash. 

A new version of the annual defense policy bill could limit Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel plans next year if he doesn’t release video of recent military strikes.

Congress is set this week to consider the bill, which includes a provision that would restrict Hegseth’s travel budget for fiscal year 2026 until he provides the video of military strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

Language included in the revised bill text would cut those funds to “not more than” 75% until Hegseth “provides to the Committees on Armed Services of the House of Representatives and the Senate unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations in the area of responsibility of the United States Southern Command.”

Read the full story here.

As Senate Democrats prepare to vote on their clean three-year extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits this week, rank-and-file Republicans are circulating their own health care proposals, though Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has yet to show public support for any individual plan or guarantee he will bring even one to the floor for a vote. 

Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, unveiled the full text of their plan this evening to replace ACA tax credits and instead put money directly into health savings accounts.

A committee of Indiana state lawmakers today advanced a Republican-drawn congressional map, sending it to the floor of the state Senate, where its outcome remains uncertain.

After more than six hours of testimony, the map passed out of the committee on a 6-3 vote, with one Republican, Sen. Greg Walker, joining two Democrats in opposition. Half of the Republicans who voted “yes” suggested they did so to ensure a full vetting of the legislation on the Senate floor and hinted that their votes may change after further debate.

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee has voted to advance Jared Isaacman's nomination to be NASA administrator to the full Senate for a vote.

The full Senate vote will occur later, which Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said could be as soon as this month.

Isaacman is the CEO and founder of Shift4 — a payment processing firm — and has not worked for NASA or in the federal government previously. He has, however, traveled to space twice on commercial SpaceX trips.

Trump had pulled Isaacman's initial nomination, citing "a thorough review of prior associations," but he renominated him last month.

A California teacher who was suspended for posting on her private Facebook page that Charlie Kirk was a “propaganda-spewing racist misogynist” who “got what he deserved” a day after the right-wing activist was assassinated has filed a federal lawsuit charging the Los Angeles-area school district and board of trustees with violating her free speech rights.

Rachel McKagan, who has taught English in the Las Virgenes Unified School District for over a decade, alleges in the lawsuit that school officials endangered her by “massively amplifying” a post that she herself deleted at the urging of a school principal four hours after it was posted.

McKagan said in the lawsuit that a district official warned her that there would be a “media frenzy” before the district posted a statement condemning her remarks as “vile and completely inappropriate,” adding that the district was moving to fire her.

Read the full story here.

Trump said today on Truth Social that he has informed Chinese President Xi Jinping that “the United States will allow NVIDIA to ship its H200 products to approved customers in China.”

Nvidia’s H200 is a generation behind its latest Blackwell chip, which is considered among the most advanced and high-powered AI chips available anywhere.

Trump said the Blackwell chip would not be part of the deal.

Still, the move could be worth billions of dollars for Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company. Nvidia says it has more than $500 billion worth of orders for its best AI chips to fulfill this year and next — and that’s before it factors in any buyers in China.

Read the full story here.

Zelenskyy today reiterated that Ukraine would not cede land to Russia, a day after Trump appeared to criticize him amid pressure for Kyiv to accept painful concessions to end the war.

“Are we considering giving up any territory? We have no legal right — under Ukrainian law, under our constitution, under international law — and honestly, we have no moral right, either,” Zelenskyy said, according to audio released by his office.

In rejecting a long-standing Russian demand to end a war that started when President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of its much smaller neighbor, Zelenskyy has cited not only international law, his country’s interests and sovereignty, but also Ukraine’s constitution.

Read the full story here.

The creator of ICEBlock, an app that tracked immigration enforcement officials’ activities, is suing the Trump administration two months after his app was removed from the Apple App Store following criticism from officials.

After ICEBlock soared in popularity this year, the Trump administration accused the app, which allowed users to share real-time sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their areas, of putting agents at risk. In October, Apple announced that it had removed ICEBlock and other apps like it from its App Store, citing information it had “received from law enforcement about the safety risks associated with ICEBlock.”

Joshua Aaron, ICEBlock’s Texas-based developer, sued several Trump administration officials today alleging they successfully pressured Apple to remove the app.

Read the full story here.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, filed paperwork today to run for the Senate, shaking up the Democratic primary just before the state’s filing deadline.

Crockett's name appeared on the Texas Democratic Party’s list of candidates this afternoon, and a source familiar with the filing confirmed it was accurate.

Crockett, who is in her second term, joins the race to take on GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who faces multiple primary challengers himself. Her decision also comes as her Dallas-based House seat has been redrawn in a GOP-led redistricting effort.

Read the full story here.

Trump blamed the Senate blue slip process for Habba's resignation as acting New Jersey U.S. attorney and said others of his picks could meet the same fate unless Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley changes the rules.

Asked to comment on Habba's disqualification, which preceded her resignation, Trump said: "She’s not disqualified. You’ve got a blue slip thing that’s horrible. It’s a horrible thing."

The long-standing Senate tradition allows lawmakers to block certain nominees they deem unacceptable for positions in their home states. Habba has complained that New Jersey's two Democratic senators would not even meet with her.

Trump again floated the idea of paying Americans directly for health care costs when he was asked about his plan for the expiring subsidies from the Affordable Care Act during a roundtable this afternoon.

"I want the money to be paid to the people to go out and buy their own health care," Trump told reporters.

"Obamacare is a setup to make insurance companies rich, and I want to pay the people, and I want the people to go out and buy their own health care. And that’s what we want to do, and that’s what the Republicans want to do, because Obamacare is a disaster," he added.

Trump has ruled out extending the tax credits, which that are set to expire at the end of the year.

Trump urged Republicans last month not to “waste” time on the expiring subsidies, saying he’d back only “sending the money directly back to the people.”

Trump this afternoon denied comments he made last week that he had "no problem" releasing any video tied to the second strike on an alleged drug vessel on Sept. 2.

"I didn't say that —that's — you said that, I didn't say that. This is ABC fake news," Trump told reporters when he was asked about his past comments that he would "certainly release" the video.

Pressed about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's saying the video is under review, Trump said, "Whatever he decides is OK with me."

Asked about releasing any video from the strike last Wednesday, Trump had told reporters: “I don’t know what they have, but whatever they have, we’d certainly release, no problem. You know, we stopped every boat."

During the agriculture-focused roundtable, Trump took aim at the reporter who posed the question about his past remark.

"You are an obnoxious, a terrible, actually, a terrible reporter. And it’s always the same thing with you. I told you, whatever Pete says he wants to do is OK with me," Trump said.

Why Trump's reversal on video release of alleged drug vessel strike matters

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Asked about bolstering domestic fertilizer production, Trump said that "a lot of it does come in from Canada, and so we’ll end up putting very severe tariffs on that, if we have to, because that’s the way you want to bolster here."

"And we can do it here. We can all do that here," Trump said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at the roundtable event that Trump "scored a massive victory for America's farmers" when he secured an arrangement with Xi Jinping to reopen China's markets to U.S. agricultural exports.

Bessent said that applied, in particular, to "soybeans, sorghum and other commodities."

"Under this framework, China committed to purchase at least, at least 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans this growing season, followed by a minimum of 25 million tons annually for the next three years," he said. "And it's not just China. At the president's direction, Treasury, USTR and the Department of Commerce have secured supplemental purchases of U.S. agricultural goods and major trade agreements across the world to open new markets to America's farmers."

USTR is the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Trump said he told Xi that "our soybeans are more nutritious than competitors. Somebody said, is that a Trump statement, or is that real? In fact, you know who asked me that question? President Xi. He said, 'Really, I had never heard of it,' and he was a food purchaser for a long time."

Trump announced this afternoon that the federal government has put together a $12 billion aid package for U.S. farmers, relief that comes his tariff policies.

The aid package will include up to $11 billion in one-time payments under a new program administered by the Agriculture Department.

"As the president said, we are very pleased to announce that today we are going to be effectuating an $11 billion trade by not trade but bridge payment to our farmers," Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said at a White House roundtable event with Trump. "The money will move by Feb. 28, 2026, but by the end of this month, so just in the next couple of weeks, every farmer that is able to apply for it will know exactly what that number looks like."

Rollins added that $1 billion would be held back temporarily to provide to those farmers whose financial situations the administration was still assessing.

Several immigrants ready to take their citizenship oaths at Boston’s Faneuil Hall this week were told they could not proceed because of their countries of origin.

The same situation is playing out across the country.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has instructed its employees to halt immigration pathways to people from 19 countries deemed high risk, including Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Somalia.

The naturalization ceremony is the final step to becoming a U.S. citizen, a process that takes years to complete.

Read the full story here.

The Supreme Court today appeared poised to side with Trump and allow him to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission without cause, a provocative move aimed at upending the long-standing concept of independent federal agencies.

In a significant case on the structure of the federal government, the conservative-majority court heard oral arguments on whether Trump had the authority to fire Rebecca Kelly Slaughter notwithstanding a law enacted by Congress to insulate the agency from political pressures.

The 1914 law that set up the FTC says members can be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has already signaled, with strong opposition from the three liberal justices, that Trump is likely to win the case by allowing Slaughter, a Democrat, to be removed from office while the litigation continues.

Read the full story here.

A strong field operation — which includes volunteers knocking on doors and talking to voters in their homes — can tip the scales in a close election. But Zohran Mamdani and his aides say their high-intensity canvassing effort was a difference-maker in both beating Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary and then preventing the former governor from mounting a comeback in the New York City mayoral general election last month, which Mamdani won by about 9 points.

Mamdani’s field operation embraced risk and de-emphasized scripts in its strategy to reach voters directly, said eight campaign officials, volunteers and political observers, offering a potential road map for Democratic canvassing efforts in the midterm elections and beyond.

Read the full story here.

Several immigrants ready to take their citizenship oaths at Boston’s Faneuil Hall this week were told they could not proceed because of their countries of origin.

The same situation is playing out across the country.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has instructed its employees to halt immigration pathways to people from 19 countries deemed high risk, including Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Somalia.

The naturalization ceremony is the final step to becoming a U.S. citizen, a process that takes years to complete.

Read the full story here.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer delivered a brief rebuttal before the court adjourned.

He rejected the idea that the administration's position would "change the structure of our government" and warned, on the contrary, that a certain interpretation of the independence of some federal agencies could result in the conversion of others into "multimember agency commissions outside the government’s control."

If the justices construe the president's powers narrowly, Sauer said, "then we have a situation where Congress could erect virtual, reconstruct, virtually the entire executive branch outside the president’s control. And that is not even a republican form of government. But that is the logic of the position that’s being advanced here. That is the parade of horrible as the court ought to consider."

At the end of his rebuttal, Sauer urged the Supreme Court to "restore the separation of powers to our government."

Supreme Court arguments this morning in Rebecca Slaughter's challenge to her firing by Trump from the Federal Trade Commission could lead to a dramatic change to long-held Supreme Court precedent and give the executive branch significantly greater authority over federal agencies.

This has been, as we call it in the business, a “hot bench”: Every justice asked several questions of both sides, and the justices were at times stepping over one another in trying to get their questions in. (Lots of “Go ahead." “Please.” “No, go ahead.”)

The three ideologically liberal justices provided perhaps the strongest commentary of the day during questioning.

“You’re asking us to destroy the structure of government and to take away from Congress its ability to protect its idea that the government is better structured with some agencies that are independent,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

“Once you’re down this road, it’s a little bit hard to see how you stop,” Justice Elena Kagan added.

“Having a president come in and fire all the scientists and the doctors and the economists and the Ph.D.s and replacing them with loyalists and people who don’t know anything is actually not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said.

Amit Agarwal, the lawyer representing fired Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter, argued that the administration's argument to allow the president to fire members of independent agencies would upend precedent.

"Petitioners are asking you to abandon precedent after precedent after precedent," Agarwal said. "A lot of precedents would go south if their constitutional theory is correct, and a whole lot of history, and dozens of institutions that have been around for a long time that have withstood the test of time, that embody a distillation of human wisdom and experience, all of those would go south."

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pressed Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who is arguing on behalf of the administration, on the ramifications of independent federal agencies reporting to the president rather than Congress.

"Congress established them and can eliminate them," she said. "Congress funds them and can stop, so to the extent that we're concerned that there's some sort of entity that is out of control and has no control, I guess I don't understand that argument."

The president plans to announce a $12 billion aid package for American farmers today, a White House official said.

The announcement is scheduled to be unveiled during an afternoon roundtable event at the White House where Trump, alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, will hold a discussion with farmers.

The aid package will include up to $11 billion in one-time payments under a new program administered by the Agriculture Department.

Read the full story here.

The Trump administration is doubling down on its campaign against alleged drug smugglers in various countries while also facing calls from lawmakers to publicly release video of the controversial "double tap" strike in early September. NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez reports for "TODAY."

Trump signals he may target alleged drug smugglers by land

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Trump lashed out at Paramount, which owns CBS News, over a "60 Minutes" interview with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, reigniting an old beef with the show and potentially complicating Paramount's already messy fight to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.

"My real problem with the show" wasn't Green, R-Ga., the president posted on Truth Social, "it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air. THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME! Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE! Oh well, far worse things can happen."

The president's post came while Paramount CEO David Ellison, whose father is major Trump donor Larry Ellison, was being interviewed on CNBC to defend his company's hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount lost a bidding war for the company to Netflix, which agreed to buy Warner Bros.' studios and HBO streaming assets, but Ellison isn't deterred.

Trump's dissatisfaction with Paramount could upend the regulatory process. Paramount and many critics within Hollywood have said a Netflix takeover of Warner Bros. would be anti-competitive. Trump himself said he could see an issue with Netflix gaining so much market share. But he also praised Netflix and co-CEO Ted Sarandos, who has reportedly cultivated a relationship with the president.

Washington, D.C., Police Chief Pamela Smith is stepping down after two years, she and Mayor Muriel Bowser announced this morning.

Smith was appointed in 2023 and is the first Black woman to serve as chief of the D.C. police department.

“I am deeply humbled, grateful, and deeply appreciative of my time with the District of Columbia,” Smith said in a statement. “Serving as Chief of Police has been the greatest honor of my career, and I want to extend my sincere thanks to Mayor Muriel Bowser for appointment me to this position and to the DC Council for their steadfast support throughout my tenure.”

Smith and Bowser’s statements didn’t say why she will leave the role or who might replace her. Her last day will be Dec. 31, the statement said.

Read the full story here.

Trump said this morning that he will sign an artificial intelligence executive order this week aimed at superseding state efforts to regulate the technology.

On Truth Social, the president posted: "We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won’t last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS."

"I will be doing a ONE RULE Executive Order this week," Trump added.

NBC News reported in mid-November that the administration had drafted an order that would challenge states' ability to regulate AI technology. The draft order would instruct the attorney general to create an AI task force to target state legislation, a person familiar with the matter said.

Former Democratic Rep. Colin Allred announced this morning that he is ending his Senate campaign in Texas and running for the House, shaking up the primary just hours before filing deadline.

Allred’s announcement that he is instead running for the redrawn 33rd Congressional District in North Texas comes as Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett has been openly weighing a Senate run. She is announcing her decision later this afternoon.

“In the past few days, I’ve come to believe that a bruising Senate Democratic primary and runoff would prevent the Democratic Party from going into this critical election unified against the danger posed to our communities and our Constitution by Donald Trump and one of his Republican bootlickers Paxton, Cornyn, or Hunt,” Allred said in a statement. “That’s why I’ve made the difficult decision to end my campaign for the U.S. Senate.”

Read the full story here.

Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., will face a primary challenge from progressive state Sen. Julie Gonzales, who announced her Senate bid today.

Gonzales is the first major primary challenger to try to unseat Hickenlooper.

In her announcement video, Gonzales framed Hickenlooper as a longtime politician and criticized the “establishment.”

“I know we’re not fooled by his so-called ‘common sense approach, 'cause there is no sense in voting for Donald Trump’s nominees or parading across the country to tell us we don’t want universal health care when millions of families are struggling to make ends meet every month,” she said in the video. “This ‘go along to get along’ politics is robbing us blind.”

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, is making a “special announcement” today, the state’s candidate filing deadline, as she has been openly weighing a run for the Senate.

The announcement will take place at 4:30 p.m. local time in Dallas, according to an invitation obtained by NBC News last week. Crockett’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Crockett has suggested she is leaning toward challenging GOP Sen. John Cornyn next year, telling MS NOW her campaign has conducted polling. “The data says that I can win,” she said, adding that she can build a coalition of “Black and brown” voters.

“I am closer to yes than I am no,” Crockett said.

Republicans in Texas have moved forward with a new congressional map that significantly redrew district boundaries in North Texas, where her district is based.

In a high-profile interview, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., bashed Trump, accusing her onetime political ally-turned-foe of inciting death threats against her and her son and failing to live up to his campaign pledge to focus on improving the lives of Americans.

“For an ‘America First’ president, the No. 1 focus should have been domestic policy, and it wasn’t. And so, of course, I was critical, because those were my campaign promises,” Greene said in an interview that aired last night on CBS News’ “60 Minutes.” “Once we fix everything here, then fine, we’ll talk to the rest of the world.”

Later, CBS News’ Lesley Stahl asked Greene: “Are you MAGA?”

“I am America First. ... MAGA is President Trump’s phrase. That’s his political policies,” Greene said, referring to Trump’s signature motto, “Make America Great Again.” “I call myself America First.”

Read the full story here.

Trump has said he is “disappointed” with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who he said had not read the latest plan to end Russia’s war.

Trump’s criticism adds to mounting U.S. pressure on Kyiv as Zelenskyy prepared to meet today with top European leaders, amid fears on the continent that Washington was pushing a deal that was favorable to Russia.

Trump’s team held talks with Ukrainian officials in Miami after flying to the Kremlin with a revised version of the peace proposal, but the push from Washington has so far failed to find a breakthrough. The Kremlin has not publicly supported a plan and has stuck to its hard-line demands.

Trump says Zelenskyy Isn’t Ready to Sign Peace Proposal

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Read the full story here.

The Supreme Court today weighs whether to drive the final nail into the coffin of the long-standing concept of independent federal agencies that operate at arm’s length from the president.

In a significant case on the structure of the federal government, the conservative-majority court is hearing arguments on whether Trump had the authority to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission regardless of a law enacted by Congress to insulate the agency from political pressures.

The court has already signaled, with strong opposition from the three liberal justices, that Trump is likely to win the case by allowing the Democratic-appointed commissioner, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, to be removed from office while the litigation continues.

Read the full story here.