Pete Hegseth always had fondness for lethality. He wrote a book about it.

“In just 10 months in office, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pinballed from one embarrassing scandal after another. In March, it was his use of the Signal messaging app, which a Pentagon inspector general’s report, scheduled to be released Thursday, concluded that Hegseth put military operations and service members at risk. 

Now, it’s more recent allegations that under his leadership, the U.S. military may have committed war crimes in its undeclared war against drug traffickers.

However, the only thing surprising about this latest black eye for Hegseth’s tenure is that it took this long for such atrocities to happen.

If there is a single defining element to Hegseth’s view of the military, it is that “might makes right” and that the laws of armed conflict, which have long guided how U.S. soldiers comport themselves on the battlefield, are for losers.

Hegseth’s 2024 book, “The War on Warriors,” is filled with evidence of his disdain for what he terms “academic rules of engagement which have been tying the hands of our warfighters for too long.”

American troops, Hegseth wrote, are too wedded to “rules written by dignified men in mahogany rooms eighty years ago.” And: “Modern war-fighters fight lawyers as much as we fight bad guys … Our enemies should get bullets, not attorneys.” 

After his unit received a briefing from military lawyers on the legal rules of engagement, which included a directive not to engage armed individuals unless they posed a threat, Hegseth wrote that he told his fellow soldiers, “I will not allow that nonsense to filter into your brains” and “if you see an enemy who you believe is a threat, you engage and destroy the threat.”

Even before becoming defense secretary, Hegseth signaled that he thinks Americans should be allowed to commit war crimes with impunity.

As a private citizen, he was a fierce advocate for soldiers charged or convicted of war crimes. For instance, in Trump’s first term, Hegseth lobbied the president to grant clemency to Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who had stabbed and killed an injured 17-year-old Iraqi. 

Hegseth publicly defended Matthew Golsteyn, a former Green Beret charged with murder, and First Lieutenant Clint Lorance, who ordered his unit to fire on unarmed civilians in Afghanistan.

In “War on Warriors,” he wrote, “America should fight by its own rules.” And he has brought his shoot-first, ask-questions-later approach to the Pentagon. 

The focus of the U.S. military, Hegseth repeatedly says, is “Lethality, lethality, lethality.” At an event rebranding the Department of Defense as the Department of War (another illustration of Hegseth’s obsessive focus on war-fighting and lethality), he declared, “Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct.”

It’s not just Hegseth’s rhetoric that has brought change to the Pentagon. After taking office, he cut funding for “nonlethal operations” and shut down department initiatives focused on limiting civilian deaths.

Operationally, he has deferred to commanders, granting them far more leeway in utilizing military force. That decision was felt most acutely in Yemen. 

Upon taking office, Hegseth approved a plan – rejected by the Biden administration – to conduct an aggressive military campaign that included targeted assassinations against Houthi rebels in Yemen. As Politico reported in June, “‘If the senior military guys come across as tough and warfighters, Hegseth is easily persuaded to their point of view.” The campaign resulted in more than 500 civilian casualties, including 158 deaths. By comparison, Yemen military operations under Biden resulted in only 85 civilian casualties.

Still, Hegseth’s martial rhetoric, his dismissal of long-standing norms regarding the use of deadly force, and his loosening of limitations on military commanders attracted little attention – until The Washington Post reported that military commanders had targeted wounded survivors of a U.S. attack in September.

According to the Post’s reporting, Hegseth ordered military commanders on the lookout for boats ferrying drugs to the U.S. “to kill everybody.” So when a missile struck a suspected drug boat but left two survivors clinging to the wreckage, military commanders fulfilled Hegseth’s directive and fired a second salvo. The Post reports, “The two men were blown apart in the water.”

By any interpretation of the laws of armed conflict, Hegseth’s order was patently illegal. The Defense Department’s own Law Manual states, it is “prohibited to conduct hostilities on the basis that there shall be no survivors.”

The egregiousness of the double-tap attack pushed even congressional Republicans out of their usual cowardly slumber when it comes to challenging the Trump administration. The Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have called for hearings on the attacks.

Of course, Hegseth’s toxic views were readily available before his confirmation – and Senate Republicans still chose to put him in charge of the Pentagon. For months, Republicans in both chambers have looked the other way as Hegseth has fetishized lethality and let military commanders take the gloves off, with predictable and deadly results. It’s difficult to ignore the likelihood that the command culture at the Pentagon and Hegseth’s obsession with lethality, and disregard for the laws of armed combat, led to the deadly attacks on suspected drug runners in the Caribbean and the very real possibility that war crimes have been committed. 

Although congressional hearings are a welcome development, there is really only one way for Congress to respond to Hegseth’s disastrous Pentagon tenure: demand that he resign. “

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Republican Anger Erupts at Johnson as Party Frets About Future

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“Republican dissatisfaction with Speaker Mike Johnson is growing, particularly among women in the party. Representative Elise Stefanik called him a habitual liar, while Representative Nancy Mace is considering early retirement due to frustration with his leadership. Concerns include his handling of redistricting, the government shutdown, and his perceived lack of engagement with female members.

​

A small group of G.O.P. women have been among the most vocal in raising what their colleagues say is a broader frustration with the speaker.

Dec. 3, 2025

Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

Representative Elise Stefanik of New York called Speaker Mike Johnson a habitual liar.

Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina has told people she is so frustrated with the Louisiana Republican and sick of the way he has run the House — particularly how women are treated there — that she is planning to huddle with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia next week to discuss following her lead and retiring early from Congress.

Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida has gone around Mr. Johnson in a bid to force a vote he has declined to schedule on a bill to ban members of Congress from stock trading.

Less than a year out from midterm elections in which Republicans’ vanishingly small majority is at stake, Mr. Johnson’s grasp on his gavel appears weaker than ever, as members from all corners of his conference openly complain about his leadership. Some predict that he may not last as the speaker for the rest of this term. 

Republican women, in particular, have been publicly challenging Mr. Johnson and taking issue with his priorities and his style. 

Their dissatisfaction is indicative of a broader splintering of a restive group of G.O.P. lawmakers who are perpetually unhappy with their leaders, but appear to be reaching a breaking point with the current man at the top.

“Rarely have things been completely harmonious in the conference, but it does seem like there is an unusually high level of discontent,” said Representative Kevin Kiley, a California Republican who has been at odds with Mr. Johnson over the redistricting battles that will likely put him out of a job next year. 

He added: “The overriding issue is the House has not been at the forefront of driving policymaking, or the agenda in Washington. That is naturally going to be frustrating to members who ran for Congress to make an impact on issues they care about.”

Representative Elise Stefanik at the Capitol this summer. Kenny Holston/The New York Times

The rifts have opened as Republicans preparing to face voters in next year’s elections are increasingly worried that they have squandered a year in which their party had total control of government. 

Many G.O.P. lawmakers are unhappy with the passive role the speaker has played in the redistricting arms race that has spread across the country and upended districts they know how to win. Even more are angry at his decision to send the House home for nearly eight weeks before and during the government shutdown, limiting what they have been able to accomplish. Members in competitive districts are desperate for a vote on extending expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies, which Mr. Johnson is resisting.

Ms. Stefanik told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that Mr. Johnson would not have the support to remain speaker if a vote were held tomorrow, adding that disaffection with him among Republicans was “that widespread.”

Ms. Stefanik declined to speak on the record for this article.

Mr. Johnson declined to comment, as well. But a senior Republican congressional aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of prolonging an intraparty feud, said that after Mr. Johnson had provided Ms. Stefanik with office space and a budget for what the aide described as “a fake job and a fake title,” he would have expected her to be more gracious. 

(After President Trump asked Ms. Stefanik earlier this year to withdraw as his nominee to serve as ambassador to the United Nations, Mr. Johnson created a new post for her called “chairwoman of House Republican Leadership,” although their relationship had collapsed.)

Representative Nancy Mace has told people she is so frustrated with Speaker Mike Johnson and the way he has run the House that she may retire from Congress before the end of her term. Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

But Ms. Stefanik is not alone among Republican women in feeling aggrieved by Mr. Johnson. Some of them said privately that the speaker had failed to listen to them or engage in direct conversations on major political and policy issues, suggesting that doing so was a cultural challenge for Mr. Johnson — an evangelical Christian who has often voiced firm views about the distinct roles men and women should play in society. 

In a recent podcast interview, for instance, he said that women were not able to compartmentalize their thoughts, and that the member whom he would trust most to cook him Thanksgiving dinner was Representative Lisa McClain of Michigan.

Ms. McClain, the No. 4 Republican, said that the notion of any gender divide in the conference was “an absurd suggestion” that reeked of Democratic bias. Mr. Johnson, she said, “has treated me with nothing less than respect. He values my opinion, not as a woman, but as a trusted colleague.” 

But some House Republican women are privately predicting that Mr. Johnson’s speakership will end this term, either as a result of Republicans losing their slim majority before Election Day, or because Mr. Johnson is ousted by his own members, like his predecessor.

“I stand with Elise,” Ms. Mace, who is running for governor in South Carolina, said in a text message on Wednesday morning, a day after Ms. Stefanik’s enmity boiled over into a public feud with Mr. Johnson over a provision she wanted included in the annual defense policy bill.

Ms. Stefanik announced on social media on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had intervened, and that she had prevailed. After a three-way phone call, she said, Mr. Johnson had agreed to include the measure she was demanding that would require disclosure when the F.B.I. opens investigations into political candidates.

That was after she had written on social media that she was receiving “just more lies from the Speaker,” and that Mr. Johnson often falsely claimed to know nothing about an issue. She called it “his preferred tactic to tell Members when he gets caught torpedoing the Republican agenda.”

Some Republicans said the flap was more a personal feud than an institutional problem with Mr. Johnson. 

“I’m disappointed that Elise chose this path,” Representative Claudia Tenney, Republican of New York, said in an interview. Ms. Tenney, a close ally of Mr. Johnson’s, said that taking public shots at the speaker was “very unprofessional, and would not be tolerated in any other professional setting.” She suggested that Ms. Stefanik was still bitter over the handling of her cabinet nomination.

Representative Kevin Kiley at the Capitol in October. Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

Still, the description sounded familiar to multiple Republican lawmakers who recounted a sense of resignation and defeatism in their ranks regarding the speaker. One of them, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about Mr. Johnson’s standing, summed up his members’ assessment as “eye rolls, and no better options.”

Mr. Johnson, who was thrust into his job two years ago with almost no experience in leadership, has struggled under the weight of running the Houseand campaigning for members to keep his tiny majority.

In a party that has lagged in female representation and had problems appealing to women, Republican speakers before him had made it a priority to promote women through fund-raising and recruiting, and by elevating them to leadership roles.

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that recruiting women had been key to his success in gaining seats through two cycles. 

“My formula for success was simple: recruit and add more women, minorities and veterans to the House Republican conference, so that our conference would look more like America,” he said.

Mr. Johnson, his critics said, has done less of that than his predecessors.

This year, there were only three women in the incoming Republican freshman class: Julie Fedorchak of North Dakota, Sheri Biggs of South Carolina and Kimberlyn King-Hinds of the Northern Mariana Islands. By comparison, there were seven Republican women in the incoming freshman class of the previous Congress.

There is currently just one woman chairing a House committee: Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, who leads the Rules Committee. She said that the insinuation that there was mounting ire from women directed at Mr. Johnson was “brainless as it is ignorant.” 

In the last Congress, three women chaired committees.  Before that, there were eight.

A spokesman for Mr. Johnson said in response that several female House Republicans were part of his joint fund-raising committee, and had received an average of nearly $400,000 so far this year. In next year’s midterm elections, the spokesman added, House Republicans have women running in 10 of the top districts they are eyeing. He also noted that Mr. Johnson had appointed three women to serve on the coveted House Intelligence Committee.

Still, some women in Congress said they were particularly frustrated by their treatment when they signed the discharge petition that ultimately forced a vote to compel the Justice Department to release files related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The pressure on them to remove their names from the petition, some of them said, was coming not only from Mr. Trump and the White House, but from Mr. Johnson.

Last month, Ms. Greene announced that she would resign from Congress in January. Her frustration had been simmering.

“When I talk about weak Republican men, I am pretty much talking oftentimes about the leadership in the House and Senate,” Ms. Greene said in an appearance on “The View” last month. “And they are just not getting our agenda done.”

 

The Furor Over Trump’s Boat Attacks and a Particular Follow-Up Strike, Explained

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“The House and Senate Armed Services Committees are investigating a September 2 attack on a speedboat in the Caribbean Sea, ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The attack, part of President Trump’s lethal campaign against suspected drug smugglers, killed 11 people, including a follow-up strike on two survivors. Legal experts argue the killings were unlawful, as the U.S. is not in an armed conflict with drug cartels, and the survivors were not “shipwrecked” as defined by the Pentagon’s law of war manual.

​

Bipartisan congressional oversight is underway, but for now is focusing on narrow details about one missile instead of broader legal issues.

Dec. 4, 2025

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orders regarding a lethal Sept. 2 attack on a boat in the Caribbean Sea are under scrutiny. Doug Mills/The New York Times

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orders regarding a lethal Sept. 2 attack on a boat in the Caribbean Sea are under scrutiny. Doug Mills/The New York Times

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees are scrutinizing a Sept. 2 attack by the U.S. military on a speedboat in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration has claimed was smuggling drugs — and especially whether a decision to fire a second missile at the vessel, which killed two survivors of the first blast, was a war crime.

The oversight effort is dissecting the specific orders of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Special Operations commander overseeing the attack, Adm. Frank M. Bradley. The admiral and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are scheduled to go to Capitol Hill on Thursday to answer questions about the strike.

A broad range of legal experts argue that the killings have been murders.

The Trump administration insists that its lethal campaign, including the second strike on Sept. 2, is lawful.

Here is a closer look.

What is the boat attacks operation?

President Trump has ordered the military to kill people on boats in international waters who are suspected of smuggling narcotics on behalf of drug cartels. Since Sept. 2, the administration has announced 21 such attacks in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean that have killed 83 people.

This is a change from the longstanding U.S. approach of having the Coast Guard intercept such vessels and, if suspicions prove accurate, seize illicit cargos and arrest the people on board. The legality of the new policy has been widely disputed.

What is the legal dispute?

The Trump administration says the operation is lawful because Mr. Trump “determined” that the United States is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels, even though Congress has not authorized one, and that people suspected of running drugs are “combatants.”

A Justice Department memo endorses Mr. Trump’s claims and, relying on the premise that this is an armed conflict, says the suspected drug cargos aboard the boats are lawful targets.

Legal experts have rejected the idea that there is any armed conflict with drug cartels. The military is not permitted to target civilians who do not pose an imminent threat of violence, even if they are suspected of committing crimes.

Why is the Sept. 2 attack now in focus?

Basic facts about the Sept. 2 attack — including that the boat had turned back before the attack — were reported that month.

But since then, the administration has announced its disputed theory that the United States is in an armed conflict with cartels, and a group of Democratic lawmakers recorded a video telling members of the armed service that they could refuse illegal orders, prompting a furious White House response.

Against that backdrop, on Nov. 28, The Washington Post published a more detailed account of the Sept. 2 attack. It said Admiral Bradley had ordered the second strike to fulfill a spoken directive from Mr. Hegseth to kill everyone, prompting bipartisan questions about war crimes. The administration has denied certain aspects and implications of that account.

What makes the follow-up strike different?

Even if one accepts Mr. Trump’s claim that the United States is in an armed conflict and the boat attacks are generally lawful, the Sept. 2 follow-up strike might still be a war crime. The Pentagon’s law of war manual says that “orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.”

And while the administration has defended the entire attack, which killed 11 people in all, Mr. Trump has distanced himself from the second strike. He told reporters on Nov. 30 that he thought the first strike was fine but that he “wouldn’t have wanted that, not a second strike.”

What seems clear?

It appears to not be in dispute that Mr. Hegseth was the “target engagement authority” who signed an execute order telling Special Operations forces to sink boats, destroy their suspected cargo and kill their crews. It also appears clear that he gave the go-ahead order to Admiral Bradley for the Sept. 2 attack.

Admiral Bradley was the commander in control of the mission, which was carried out by SEAL Team 6 operators. He gave them an order to strike the boat. After the smoke cleared, surveillance video showed the disabled vessel was still afloat and two people were still alive. He ordered follow-up strikes that killed them and sank the vessel.

Were the initial survivors ‘shipwrecked’?

Their boat was wrecked, but there is a complication.

The Pentagon’s law of war manual says that “to be considered ‘shipwrecked,’ persons must be in need of assistance and care, and they must refrain from any hostile act.” A naval commander handbook says combatants “qualify as shipwrecked persons only if they have ceased all active combat activity.”

Two U.S. officials have said the military intercepted radio communications from the survivors to suspected cartel members, raising the possibility that any drugs on the boat that had not burned up in the first blast could have been retrieved. The military, they said, interpreted the purported distress call as meaning the survivors were still “in the fight” and so were not shipwrecked.

What did Mr. Hegseth order?

Mr. Hegseth has denied that he ordered the killing of the two survivors, and officials have told The New York Times that he gave his orders before the attack commenced and did not communicate further ones to Admiral Bradley when there turned out to be survivors.

The officials said that Mr. Hegseth’s execute order was explicit that the mission was a lethal one, but that it did not address what should happen if the first strike did not kill everybody.

They also said he did not give a spoken directive, in a meeting with Admiral Bradley about the order, that went beyond its written terms. It is not clear whether they spoke outside of that meeting.

However, the officials also said Mr. Hegseth had reviewed and approved contingency plans the military had developed that included scenarios in which there were survivors. They described those plans as saying the military would attempt to rescue survivors who appeared shipwrecked and out of the fight, but would try again to kill the survivors if they committed hostile acts.

What are the limits of this analysis?

The laws of war were written for fighting between organized armies and armed combatants trying to kill each other.

The rules do not fit attacks on small, unarmed boats suspected of smuggling cocaine, or address what counts as being in or out of “the fight,” when the crews on the boats were not actually fighting anyone in the first place.

“Focusing on the shipwrecked is a distraction insofar as it suggests everything else preceding and after that strike was all legitimate,” said Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor and former Pentagon lawyer. “Even under a law of armed conflict, they were all civilians, and we are not actually in armed conflict. Either way, it was all murder.”

Julian E. Barnes contributed reporting.

Charlie Savage writes about national security and legal policy for The Times.”

 

New York Times Sues Pentagon Over First Amendment Rights

The lawsuit said the Defense Department’s new set of rules for journalists “violates the Constitution’s guarantees of due process, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”

Dec. 4, 2025

A new set of press restrictions at the Pentagon took effect in October. Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

The New York Times accused the Pentagon in a lawsuit on Thursday of infringing on the constitutional rights of journalists by imposing a set of new restrictions on reporting about the military.

In the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, The Times argued that the Defense Department’s new policy violated the First Amendment and “seeks to restrict journalists’ ability to do what journalists have always done — ask questions of government employees and gather information to report stories that take the public beyond official pronouncements.”

The rules, which went into effect in October, are a stark departure from the previous ones, in both length and scope. They require reporters to sign a 21-page form that sets restrictions on journalistic activities, including requests for story tips and inquiries to Pentagon sources. Reporters who don’t comply could lose their press passes, and the Pentagon has accorded itself “unbridled discretion” to enforce the policy as it sees fit, according to the lawsuit.

The suit said that “reporting any information not approved by department officials” could lead to punishment, “regardless of whether such news gathering occurs on or off Pentagon grounds, and regardless of whether the information at issue is classified or unclassified.”

The complaint sought a court order halting enforcement of the rules and a declaration that the provisions “targeting the exercise of First Amendment rights” were unlawful. The Times has retained Theodore J. Boutrous, a First Amendment lawyer who has argued major media access cases in federal court. Julian Barnes, a Pentagon reporter for The Times, is listed as a plaintiff alongside the company.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The new rules are the latest step in a monthslong effort by Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, to curtail the access and privileges of the Pentagon press corps.

Mr. Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon in January after a bruising confirmation process that surfaced allegations of excessive drinking and sexual assault, which he said were untrue. Early in his tenure, Mr. Hegseth proposed evicting from the Pentagon a veteran reporter at NBC News who had contributed to some of the coverage.

The department later stripped several national news outlets of their workspaces in the Pentagon, offering them mostly to conservative outlets. Mr. Hegseth has also added limits on where reporters can roam in the complex.

A draft of the new restrictions first emerged in September, and was revised after pushback from lawyers representing news organizations. The final rules were released on Oct. 6, and more than a week later, dozens of credentialed journalists — including six from The Times — surrendered their badges instead of signing the document. The departing outlets have continued reporting on the military despite the access limits.

Many major news organizations released statements in October condemning the Pentagon policy as an incursion on the First Amendment. “The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections,” said a statement from ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Media and NBC News.

In a press briefing on Wednesday, a senior Times lawyer said that there had been discussions with other news organizations about joining the suit but that the newspaper had decided to proceed alone.

The suit took issue with multiple provisions of the new policy, including one that empowered the Pentagon to deem a journalist “a security or safety risk.” Such a determination could hinge on whether the journalist engaged in unauthorized disclosure of classified information or certain unclassified information, among other considerations.

The policy’s wording on “solicitation” has been a particular worry of media lawyers. It asserts that the First Amendment does not protect reporters when they “solicit government employees to violate the law by providing confidential government information” and could apply to “calls for tips” that encourage Defense Department employees to share “nonpublic” agency information.

Providing channels for sources to send information, the suit said, was a “routine” practice for journalists.

Members of the Pentagon press corps leaving the Pentagon in October after turning in their credentials.Kevin Wolf/Associated Press

Legal clashes between journalists and the government over access to federal buildings have arisen repeatedly across President Trump’s two terms.

During his first administration, the White House pulled the press passes of two White House correspondents. The journalists regained those passes after litigation. This year, The Associated Press sued the government after being excluded from White House press pool events in cramped spaces such as the Oval Office; litigation challenging that move is ongoing.

In each of those cases, the government targeted one journalist or outlet for punishment. The Pentagon restrictions, on the other hand, seek to bind an entire press corps. And those restrictions, the suit argued, would suppress the work of news organizations “with perceived viewpoints the department disfavors.”

After the departure of the legacy press corps, the Pentagon announced that a new group of outlets had agreed to the restrictions and would work from the press space in the building. The new arrivals feature an array of pro-Trump outlets that have echoed administration talking points and show little inclination to investigate its actions.“

‘He must resign’: Maddow on Pete Hegseth shifting blame for Caribbean bo...

 

Top admiral steps down abruptly amid drug boat strikes

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“Admiral Alvin Holsey, head of U.S. Southern Command, announced his retirement amid increased U.S. military strikes against alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers in the Caribbean. His departure comes as President Trump considers expanding operations, including potential land strikes, against Venezuelan cartels. The strikes have heightened tensions with Venezuela and drawn bipartisan criticism in Congress.

​

Adm. Alvin Holsey oversees Southern Command, where US military strikes against alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers at sea have ramped up.

Adm. Alvin Holsey’s abrupt departure as head of U.S. Southern Command — which oversees U.S. military operations in Latin America — comes as President Donald Trump has conducted lethal strikes against alleged Venezuelan drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean Sea. U.S. forces have destroyed at least five boats since early September, killing more than two dozen people, and Trump this week floated the idea of conducting land strikes against Venezuelan cartels, though he offered no details.

In a statement issued by Southern Command, Holsey said he’ll retire Dec. 12, but didn’t elaborate on the circumstances of his departure. But he praised Southern Command personnel for their “lasting contributions to the defense of our nation.”

The sudden change at Southern Command is the latest shake-up for the military’s senior ranks under the Trump administration. Then-Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown and Navy chief Adm. Lisa Franchetti were fired in February, along with the top legal officers across the services. In April, Cyber Command chief Gen. Timothy Haugh was dismissed.

And Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Allvin plans to retire in November, just halfway into his four-year term.

Meanwhile, the repeated strikes in the Caribbean have heightened tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela, where Nicolas Maduro’s government has responded by ordering military exercises, mobilizing civilian militias and denouncing U.S. actions as aggression.

And Trump’s use of lethal military force against purported drug runners — which the White House contends is within his legal authority to defend the U.S. — has sparked bipartisan blowback in Congress, and those objections could grow more strident if the president pursues expanded operations.

Trump on Wednesday said the administration was “looking at land” as it considers further strikes in the region. He also confirmed that he authorized covert operations by the CIA in Venezuela.

“I authorized for two reasons, really,” Trump said. “No. 1, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America,” he said. “And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.”

Some lawmakers have criticized Trump’s approach to Venezuela. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, said Wednesday that Trump had crossed the line, arguing his action “slides the United States closer to outright conflict with no transparency, oversight, or apparent guardrails.”

Holsey, who assumed command in November 2024, succeeded Army Gen. Laura Richardson. He is one of the few Black four-star officers in the military.

Underscoring the suddenness of Holsey’s exit, Southern Command announced this week that Holsey was visiting the Caribbean nations of Antigua, Barbuda and Grenada on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A native of Fort Valley, Georgia, Holsey commanded the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island, Carrier Strike Group One and a multinational naval task force formed to protect global shipping routes. He had served as Southern Command’s military deputy commander.“

 

Trump Administration Live Updates: President Calls Somalis ‘Garbage’ in Anti-Immigrant Tirade

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“President Trump called Somali immigrants “garbage” during a cabinet meeting, sparking outrage. The administration has also paused immigration applications from 19 countries and defended military strikes on narco-boats.

​

Updated 

Dec. 2, 2025, 9:05 p.m. 

President Trump in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on Tuesday.Doug Mills/The New York Times

Where Things Stand

• Somali immigrants: President Trump unleashed a xenophobic tirade against Somali immigrants during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, calling them “garbage” he does not want in the United States in an outburst that captured the raw nativism that has animated his approach to immigration. Even for Mr. Trump — who has a long history of insulting Black people, particularly those from African countries — his outburst was shocking in its unapologetic bigotry. And it came as he started a new ICE operation targeting Somalis in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region. Read more ›

• Military strikes: At the cabinet meeting, Mr. Trump heard his agency leaders speak in turn. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is under scrutiny over military strikes on boats in international waters, said, “We’ve only just begun striking narco-boats,” and maintained that he had not noticed two survivors of a Sept. 2 strike who were killed in a follow-up strike. Mr. Trump also defended the attacks and said his administration would “start doing strikes on land, too.” Read more ›

• Travel ban: The Trump administration has paused all immigration applications filed by people from 19 countries who were banned from traveling to the United States earlier this year. The action halts green card and citizenship processing for broad swaths of people, according to a spokesman from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.“