14 dead in more strikes against alleged drug boats, Hegseth says
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivers remarks as U.S. President Donald Trump delivers an announcement on his Homeland Security Task Force in the State Dining Room of the White House on October 23, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. has carried out strikes against four more alleged drug vessels in the Eastern Pacific, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday, killing 14 people.
“Yesterday, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out three lethal kinetic strikes on four vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations (DTO) trafficking narcotics in the Eastern Pacific,” Hegseth wrote on X, where he posted a video of the strikes.
The latest action brings the total number of people believed to have been killed to more than 50.
According to Hegseth, there was one survivor from Monday’s round of strikes.
“Regarding the survivor, USSOUTHCOM immediately initiated Search and Rescue (SAR) standard protocols; Mexican SAR authorities accepted the case and assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue,” he wrote on X.
The strikes are part of what the administration has called its “war” against drug cartels. The U.S. military has now hit 10 alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. The use of lethal force, however, has raised several legal questions.
In addition to the strikes, the U.S. last week ordered the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group and its accompanying aircraft to the waters around Central and South America — a move designed to ratchet up pressure against the Venezuelan government.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, October 7, 2025 in Washington. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) —President Donald Trump’s tightening grip over the Justice Department to target his political opponents and lawmakers’ increasing calls for the release of more files from federal investigations into deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein took center stage at a contentious Senate hearing Tuesday for Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee is the first time since July that Bondi has faced questions from lawmakers and follows a tumultuous summer for the department that included deployments of federal law enforcement to Democratic-run cities, a growing number of investigations announced into Trump’s political foes and the controversial indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley kicked off the hearing with extensive remarks seeking to highlight instances of what Republicans have labeled “weaponization” of the Justice Department under the Biden Administration, citing selective disclosures by FBI Director Kash Patel of the investigation into President Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss.
“These are indefensible acts,” Grassley said. “This was a political phishing expedition to get Trump at all costs.”
Specifically, Grassley singled out a timely disclosure by the FBI on Monday that showed former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigators at one point sought limited phone toll records of several Republican senators around the time of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
As part of his investigation, Smith extensively investigated Trump and his allies’ pressure campaign on lawmakers to block the certification of former President Joe Biden’s election win — including calls that were made to senators after the Capitol was breached by the pro-Trump mob.
There’s no indication that Republican senators were a target of Smith’s investigation, and the toll records sought by investigators would not include any information about the content of conversations they may have had.
“We’re pointing this all out because we can’t have this repeated in the United States,” Grassley said. “We want to end it right now, whether we have Republican or Democrat administrations.”
Grassley made no mention of recent directives from Trump to have the Justice Department act “now” to carry out prosecutions of his political foes, or other instances of alleged politicization during Bondi’s tenure that have led to scores of departures of longtime career officials who have sounded alarm about the department being used as a tool to enact political retribution.
Ranking Democratic member Dick Durbin said in his opening statement assailed the Trump administration for the conduct in Chicago, a city in which Durbin represents.
“As President Trump turns the full force of the federal government on Chicago and other American cities, the assault on the city I am proud to represent is just one example of how President Trump and Attorney General Bondi shut down justice at the Department of Justice, even before the president’s party controlling the white House, Senate and House of Representatives shut down the government,” Durbin said.
“The attorney general has systematically weaponized our nation’s leading law enforcement agency to protect President Trump and his allies and attack his opponents. And sadly, the American people. You have purged hundreds of senior career officials since you first appeared before us,” he added.
Durbin listed off the greatest hits for critics of Bondi’s Justice Department, not to include the closed investigation into Border Czar Tom Homan, the Eric Adams case being dropped, the hiring of a Jan. 6 defendant who attacked MPD officers, the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, and the case against James Comey.
“What has taken place since Jan. 20, 2025, would make even President Nixon recoil. This is your legacy,” Durbin said.
Bondi pushed back against her critics and Democrats during the hearing. In her opening statement, she framed her tenure as the “end” of weaponization of law enforcement, while reinforcing her extensive efforts to enact President Trump’s agenda.
“We will work to earn that back every single day. We are returning to our core mission of fighting real crime. While there is more work to do, I believe in eight short months we have made tremendous progress towards those ends,” she said.
She also railed against judges who have ruled against the administration in the months since Trump took office, while highlighting the Justice Department’s string of victories at the Supreme Court.
“My attorneys have done incredible work advancing President Trump’s agenda and protecting the Executive Branch from judicial overreach,” she said.
Bondi continued to hit back at Durbin, who questioned her about the federal deployment to Illinois.
The attorney general taunted the senator about Chicago’s crime rate. Bondi said that Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche were on their way to the city.
As ABC News first reported, the move to seek Comey’s indictment came over the objections of career prosecutors and followed Trump’s removal of his appointee to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, who expressed reservations about pursuing charges against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, sources told ABC News.
Trump eventually installed a White House aide and former personal attorney Lindsey Halligan to lead the office and move forward with the case against Comey, and a grand jury narrowly voted to indict him on two counts of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation — while declining to indict on a third false statements charge. Comey has denied wrongdoing and is set to appear Thursday in federal court for his arraignment.
While sources told ABC News that leadership at the DOJ expressed reservations about pursuing the case, Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel went on to publicly cheer news of Comey’s indictment in news interviews and social media posts.
The next week, the administration moved to fire a top national security prosecutor in the office, Michael Ben’Ary, over a misleading social media post that falsely suggested he was among the prosecutors who resisted charging Comey.
Ben’Ary was leading a major case against one of the alleged plotters of the Abbey Gate bombing during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. In a scathing departure letter, Ben’Ary set his sights squarely on the Justice Department’s leadership and labeled his removal as just one in a series of recent moves taken to root out career officials for political reasons at the expense of the nation’s security.
“This example highlights the most troubling aspect of the current operations of the Department of Justice: the leadership is more concerned with punishing the President’s perceived enemies than they are with protecting our national security,” Ben’Ary wrote. “Justice for Americans killed and injured by our enemies should not be contingent on what someone in the Department of Justice sees in their social media feed that day.”
The DOJ declined to comment when asked about Ben’Ary’s letter.
Those actions have caused unprecedented turmoil at the Eastern District, which oversees some of the nation’s most sensitive national security, terrorism and espionage investigations.
Current and former officials say that turmoil has reverberated further across the Justice Department’s workforce around the country, with attorneys concerned they’ll face professional repercussions if they resist taking part in politicized investigations or prosecutions.
On Monday, nearly 300 DOJ employees who left the department since Trump’s inauguration released a letter on the eve of Bondi’s hearing describing her leadership as “appalling” in its treatment of the career workforce and the elimination of longstanding norms of independence from the White House.
“We call on Congress to exercise its oversight responsibilities far more vigorously,” the former employees said. “Members in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle must provide a meaningful check on the abuses we’re witnessing. And we call on all Americans — whose safety, prosperity, and rights depend on a strong DOJ — to speak out against its destruction.”
The DOJ declined to comment on the letter.
Bondi will likely also face heavy scrutiny over conflicting statements out of the administration on the Epstein files, after the Justice Department and FBI said in a July letter that no further releases were warranted and that there was no evidence suggesting others participated or enabled Epstein’s abuse of minor girls.
Democrats have accused the administration of seeking to cover up any mentions of Trump or high-profile appointees who had past associations with Epstein, which the administration has denied.
Trump and Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking young girls and women, were friends in the 1990s but the president said the relationship soured after Epstein poached some employees from Trump’s Florida club after he explicitly warned him not to do so.
An effort underway in the House of Representatives to hold a vote on a measure that would demand the administration release the entirety of the files has been put on hold after Speaker Mike Johnson sent the House home amid the ongoing government shutdown.
The recent rise in acts of political violence will also likely be a central focus of questions for Bondi. Trump has recently ordered the department to ramp up investigations into so-called “radical left” organizations that he and other senior White House officials have alleged, without providing evidence, as helping to fund perpetrators who have attacked federal law enforcement officials dispatched around the country.
Just days after Trump’s comments, a senior official in the Justice Department ordered several U.S. Attorney’s offices around the country to prepare to open sweeping criminal investigations in to the Open Society Foundations founded by billionaire George Soros, naming criminal statutes ranging from robbery, material support for terrorism and racketeering, ABC News previously confirmed.
In a statement, the Open Society Foundations called the accusations “politically motivated attacks on civil society, meant to silence speech the administration disagrees with and undermine the First Amendment right to free speech.”
In her most recent appearances before the House and Senate in late June, Bondi sought to brush off pointed questions from Democrats by repeatedly deflecting to crimes committed by undocumented immigrants in their states and districts that were among the briefing materials she brought with her to the hearings.
She has also dismissed any characterization of the Justice Department appearing to work in lockstep with the White House as “politicization” of law enforcement. Bondi and other senior DOJ officials have instead argued that the two federal cases brought against Trump by a special counsel under the Biden Administration represented a far more egregious example of weaponization, echoing grievances leveled at the department by Trump.
“Whether you’re a former FBI director, whether you’re a former head of an intel community, whether you are a current state and local elected official, whether you are a billionaire funding organizations to try to keep Donald Trump out of office — everything is on the table,” Bondi said in a Fox News appearance last month. “We will investigate and will end the weaponization — no longer will there be a two-tier system of justice.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump appeared to acknowledge Wednesday that he cannot run for a third term, after previously declining to rule out the possibility.
“I have my highest poll numbers that I’ve ever had, and, you know, based on what I read, I guess I’m not allowed to run. So, we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Gyeongju, South Korea.
“I would say that if you read it, it’s pretty clear. I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad, but we have a lot of great people,” he added.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that he does not “see the path” for Trump to seek a third term.
“It’s been a great run, but I think the president knows, and he and I have talked about, the constrictions of the Constitution, as much as so many of the American people lament that,” Johnson said during a news conference on Capitol Hill.
Trump sidestepped questions about Johnson’s comments, instead touting his strong polling numbers.
“I don’t want to even talk about that because, you know, the sad thing is, I have my highest numbers that I’ve ever had,” Trump continued.
Trump has repeatedly raised the prospect of serving a third term, despite being barred from doing so by the Constitution. The 22nd Amendment explicitly states that no person shall be elected president more than twice.
On Monday, Trump said he would “love to do it” when asked about a potential 2028 bid but Johnson, on Tuesday, said he doesn’t see a way forward when it comes to amending the Constitution.
“I don’t see a way to amend the Constitution because it takes about 10 years to do that,” Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, said. “As you all know, to allow all the states to ratify what two-thirds of the House and three-fourths of the states would approve. So I don’t, I don’t see the path for that, but I can tell you that we are not going to take our foot off the gas pedal.”
On Monday, Trump appeared to rule out the prospect of running on the 2028 Republican ticket as vice president.
“Yeah, I’d be allowed to do that,” Trump said. “I guess I think it’s too cute. Yeah, I would rule that out because it’s too cute. I think the people wouldn’t like that. It’s too cute. It’s not — it wouldn’t be right.”
(AUSTIN, Texas) — The redistricting battle in Texas continues to escalate as Republican Gov. Greg Abbott urged the state Supreme Court to remove state Rep. Gene Wu, the chairman of the Texas House Democratic caucus.
Abbott argued that Wu has “forfeited” his office by fleeing the state along with other Democratic lawmakers to prevent the quorum necessary for Texas House to vote on enacting the new GOP-proposed congressional map — with Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives potentially at stake.
Wu accused Abbott of “silencing my dissent” and said he’s undeterred in his mission to fight the Republican-led redistricting effort.
“Let me be unequivocal about my actions and my duty. When a governor conspires with a disgraced president to ram through a racist gerrymandered map, my constitutional duty is to not be a willing participant,” Wu said in a statement.
Abbott asked the Texas Supreme Court for a ruling by Thursday evening, before Texas Republicans try again Friday to convene the legislature and make a quorum.
Texas Republicans failed for the second time on Tuesday to move ahead with the redistricting effort — one backed by President Donald Trump, who has claimed the GOP is “entitled” to five more U.S. House seats in the state.
The faceoff has nationwide implications, with control of the U.S. potentially at stake. Democrats would need to only net three seats in next year’s midterm elections to win back the House.
Texas Democrats are set to continue speaking out against the redistricting effort across the country on Wednesday. Texas Senate Democrats are hosting a news conference in Massachusetts.
They were also expected to hold a news conference near Chicago, but Texas House Democrats and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker say that threats were made against the cohort of lawmakers staying in the state to deny a quorum in the Texas special session. Pritzker wrote on X that the threats will be investigated and that he has been in touch with state police.
“This morning, a threat was made against the safety of the members of the Texas House Democratic Caucus. We are safe, we are secure, and we are undeterred. We are grateful for Governor Pritzker, local, and state law enforcement for their quick action to ensure our safety,” a group of Texas House Democrats said in a statement, including state Rep. Wu.
Abbott’s emergency petition to the Texas Supreme Court comes as he and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, also a Republican, pursue legal options against Democrats who left the state — including civil arrest warrants and investigations of potential law violations including bribery for soliciting funds to support their effort.
“Representative Wu and the other Texas House Democrats have shown a willful refusal to return, and their absence for an indefinite period of time deprives the House of the quorum needed to meet and conduct business on behalf of Texans. Texas House Democrats abandoned their duty to Texans, and there must be consequences,” Abbott said in his filing to the Texas Supreme Court.
Paxton, though, said the governor does not have the authority to file the emergency petition.
“Texas is taking every available avenue to force runaway Democrats to return to Texas and hold them accountable for breaking quorum,” Paxton said in a statement released on Tuesday evening. “Under the Texas Constitution and Texas law, the Office of the Attorney General has the legal authority to bring these cases against the renegade House members. I have alerted the Texas Supreme Court that I will be making additional filings on Friday if the Democrats continue to abandon their legislative duties.”
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, requested the FBI work with Abbott and state law enforcement to help bring back and investigate Texas Democrats.
ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce asked President Trump on Tuesday afternoon if he wanted the FBI to get involved.
“Well, they may have to. They may have to,” Trump responded.
“No, I know they want them back. Not only the attorney general. The governor wants them back. If you look, I mean, the governor of Texas is demanding they come back. So a lot of people have demanded they come back. You can’t just sit it out. You have to go back. You have to fight it out. That’s what elections are all about,” the president added.
ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
