by David Rohde | Nov 7, 2026 | News, White House, World
Stephen Miller is widely known as the architect of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration deportation operations that have sent masked federal agents into neighborhoods, resulting in deadly confrontations.
But it has also been widely reported that the president’s newly minted chief of staff was a driving force behind Trump’s deadly strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.
Miller steered the drafting of a classified directive signed by Trump that authorized the U.S. military to use lethal force against two dozen foreign criminal groups the president had designated “foreign terrorist organizations,” a former U.S. official told The Washington Post. Legal experts say that declaring criminal groups terrorist organizations has no basis in law, but the administration argued that the groups used narcotics as a weapon to kill Americans.
Miller also initially proposed having the CIA conduct lethal strikes, but lawyers in the agency and other parts of the government questioned its legality, The Washington Post reported last year. Policymakers eventually decided to have the Pentagon carry out the strikes instead.
Strikes that started as part of an operation to pressure then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — who was captured by the U.S. in January — have continued for over a year with 236 people killed in 71 strikes, according to U.S. military figures. In recent months, the U.S. has been collaborating with countries like Ecuador to interdict suspected narco-terrorist vessels.
Legal groups say the boat strikes are illegal and condemned Miller’s promotion to White House chief of staff.
Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit group that has filed a lawsuit to make public the administration’s legal memo justifying the
by Clarissa-Jan Lim | Nov 7, 2026 | culture, News, White House
President Donald Trump said Saturday that he has offered Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the role of White House press secretary.
“I am pleased to announce that the Great Dana White, a violent Fighter and Warrior, has been offered the job of Press Secretary of the United States,” Trump announced on Truth Social.
The surreal announcement was met by an equally uncanny response, with the longtime Trump ally appearing to accept the offer.
White posted a picture of himself in front of the briefing podium on his Instagram story that read, “On to the next chapter.“
In a second story, White shared a screenshot of the president’s Truth Social post offering him the job.
Trump said he asked White to bring on several mixed martial artists as assistants — two of whom are Russian nationals — and added, “We need these people to defend us against the Lunatic Left.” Trump then implored White to “please take the job!”
White, a millionaire who has been a vocal supporter of the president, does not appear to have any professional experience that would qualify him for the role as the White House’s chief public communicator.
White did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment. The White House has not publicly confirmed that White will assume the position.
White’s first-of-its-kind UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House in June to mark Trump’s 80th birthday came under intense ethics scrutiny, costing an estimated $60 million.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
The post ‘Take the job!’: Trump offers UFC CEO Dana White press secretary role appeared first on MS NOW.
by Matthew Bartlett | Nov 7, 2026 | elections, Opinion, White House
This week’s midterm elections were a generational loss for the Republican party in more ways than one: the country has not seen a loss of this magnitude in generations, Republicans lost voters across all generations and it may take the GOP generations to recover.
Tuesday’s results were bad for the GOP, worse for President Donald Trump and the absolute worst for Vice President JD Vance, who is widely expected to run for the presidency in 2028. He is far more vulnerable in the Republican primary, and whoever wins that contest faces a general election made even more difficult for the GOP at large.
As Vance progresses, he will find that it is very hard to run for president with your feet in cement. He is largely untested as a candidate, certainly unpopular and tightly tied to a historically unpopular president. He will carry forward the baggage of the past two years, viewed as a co-conspirator and accomplice to the destruction that Trump has wrought here and abroad. And Trump’s appointment of Stephen Miller as White House chief of staff means that the baggage will only get heavier and more horrific over the next two years.
As a presidential candidate, Vance will have to answer questions from a public that demands results and accountability, things he is sorely lacking.
Instead of addressing the elections in an interview or press conference, Vance decided to publish a post-election post on X.
“The real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone,” he wrote. Voters wanted to “1) End the [Iran] war; 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation; 3) Put America First; 4) Change our relationship to Israel.”
Part anecdotes,
by Charles F. Coleman Jr. | Nov 7, 2026 | Civil Rights, Opinion, Politics, White House
It will be hard to fix what Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon broke as the head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. A conservative culture warrior who as a private attorney represented Donald Trump during the House committee’s Jan. 6 investigation, she quickly delivered on the administration’s goals to roll back civil rights protections and reversed many the hard-fought gains of Kristen Clarke, her predecessor at the Civil Rights Division.
Donald Trump, Stephen Miller and Heritage Foundation figures like Russell Vought, Brendan Carr and Kevin Roberts all connected MAGA culture war with efforts to roll back civil rights, making the leader of the DOJ’s civil rights unit of paramount importance. Dhillon delivered what MAGA wanted.
It will be hard to fix what Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon broke as the head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
Though the departure of a civil rights chief who fixated on imaginary discrimination against white men might seem like a step in the right direction, we won’t know that until we know who Trump will replace her with.
But in the meantime, we can point out just how bad Dhillon was for civil rights. Take, for example, allegations of discriminatory policing. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has historically investigated allegations of mistreatment of Black people and other marginalized groups by law enforcement officers. When police civil rights violations required federal intervention, the division led that effort and entered into consent decrees with law enforcement agencies to grant injunctive relief, often mandating additional training and accountability measures.
There were examples of such consent decrees in cities across the country before Trump became president in 2017,
by Joseph Zeballos-Roig | Nov 7, 2026 | Economy, Opinion, White House
President Donald Trump has long had a bone to pick with the Federal Reserve. Earlier this year, the Justice Department launched a criminal probe against then-Fed Chair Jerome Powell that was intended to force him out. Even after Powell was succeeded as chair by Kevin Warsh, the president has never let up in his quest to bludgeon the central bank into lowering interest rates.
“I’m a smart voice and should be listened to,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal late last year.
Warsh is about to enter the sixth month of his tenure helming the Fed. Both during and since his confirmation, he has faced scrutiny over his independence from the executive branch, but so far he has demonstrated he’s serious about fighting inflation. Now the Fed can count on new armor against Trump’s temper: A Democratic-controlled Senate.
GOP control of the Senate meant senators had to accede to Trump’s demands on nominees.
Though the inflation rate is well above the Fed’s 2% target, Trump has long argued the Fed should lower interest rates. As recently as September, after the Fed raised rates to a range of 3.75%-4.00%, the president said rates should be at 1% “or less.” With at least 54 seats after this week’s midterm elections, Senate Democrats are poised to deal a blow to the president’s goal.
Interest rates influence the cost of personal loans, auto loans and mortgages for American families. It also affects how much interest the U.S. government pays on its towering national debt. They are set by the Federal Open Market Committee — and of the FOMC’s 12 members, seven are also members of the Fed’s Board of
by David Rohde | Nov 7, 2026 | Iran, News, White House
The historic Republican losses in the midterm elections have left President Donald Trump with even fewer options for ending the war with Iran quickly, experts say.
Trump has said he would consider resuming strikes against Iran after the midterms. But U.S. airstrikes are unlikely to make the Iranian regime capitulate, and the country’s leaders are likely to stand by expansive demands they have made in negotiations.
“Iran has been very unwilling to have any reasonable discussions about peace,” said Leslie Shedd, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former senior aide to Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.
Trump could launch U.S. airstrikes against Iran but the government there has already absorbed thousands of such strikes.
In the unlikely scenario that Trump takes the extraordinary step of dropping a tactical nuclear weapon on a nuclear storage site beneath Pickaxe Mountain, it would not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, which is deeply buried and also spans the country, experts said. The first attack since Nagasaki with a nuclear weapon of any size would create long-lasting radioactive fallout and threaten to destabilize existing weapons agreements among nuclear powers.
With Democrats winning more seats in Congress and Republicans showing increasing skepticism in the Iran war, lawmakers returning to Washington next week could insist on a war powers resolution or cut funding.
Other options for Trump — a U.S. bombing campaign, a reduction in U.S. forces in the region and a unilateral declaration of victory — will not change the strategic reality.
Iran has shown that the U.S. cannot stop it from intermittently shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and driving up global energy prices.
“Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said
