Morning Report is The Hill’s a.m. newsletter. Subscribe here.
In today’s issue:
▪ Israel-Hamas peace plan under strain
▪ AWS outage takes websites offline
▪ Dems rip Trump’s ‘No Kings’ AI video
▪ Boat strike survivors to be repatriated
President Trump’s peace plan to bring a permanent end to fighting between Israel and Hamas is under intense strain.
The president told reporters Sunday evening that the ceasefire is “still in place” after both sides accused the other of violating it over the weekend.
Trump, speaking on Air Force One while returning to Washington from Palm Beach, said Hamas has been “quite rambunctious” but added he believes its leadership “isn’t involved in that.”
Last week’s exchange of the remaining living hostages being held in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israel went off smoothly, with both sides meeting the agreed-upon deadlines. Israel also promptly withdrew its soldiers from much of Gaza, and badly needed food, water, medicine and other forms of aid started flowing into the territory.
But tensions have only escalated since then.
Israel has demanded that Hamas immediately turn over the remaining bodies of deceased hostages still in Gaza. Hamas had warned ahead of last week’s deadline that it would take time to track down all the remaining bodies.
Hamas has turned over 12 of the 28 bodies left in the Gaza Strip. Israel has said the Rafah border crossing, which connects Gaza with Egypt and has been closed since May 2024, will remain closed “until further notice,” until all the remains are returned.
Hamas has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to keep the border closed a violation of the ceasefire terms.
But tensions escalated further on Sunday when Israel launched a series of airstrikes on southern Gaza after it said Hamas militants opened fire on its troops, violating the ceasefire. Israel later said two of its soldiers were killed.
The strikes were carried out on what Israel said were dozens of Hamas targets. Palestinian health officials, who don’t distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, said at least 29 Palestinians were killed across Gaza in the strikes.
After the strikes, an Israel security official said the transfer of all aid into Gaza was being halted “until further notice” because of Hamas’s action and all border crossings to Gaza were being closed. But Axios’s Barak Ravid reported that the Trump administration put pressure on Israel following this decision, and Netanyahu walked it back, allowing the crossings to reopen and aid delivery to resume Monday morning local time.
The U.S. has also warned Hamas against possible ceasefire violations as the militant group has seemed to take steps over the past week toward shoring up power in Gaza, despite Trump’s peace plan calling for Hamas to disarm and cede power. Hamas hasn’t fully agreed to those terms yet.
The State Department warned on Saturday that Hamas is planning an “imminent” attack on Palestinian civilians in Gaza, which it said would be a “direct and grave” violation of the ceasefire. It said if the attack goes forward, the U.S. will take measures to “protect the people of Gaza and preserve the integrity of the ceasefire.”
“The United States and the other guarantors remain resolute in our commitment to ensuring the safety of civilians, maintaining calm on the ground, and advancing peace and prosperity for the people of Gaza and the region as a whole,” the statement reads.
Hamas has carried out a wave of public executions as it tries to reassert control of the area and keep other competing militias in check.
Trump said last week at the White House that if Hamas doesn’t disarm itself, “we will disarm them.” He said on Thursday that U.S. forces wouldn’t go into Gaza to stop Hamas from killing civilians, but “somebody” else would go in “under our auspices.”
Implementing the next steps of the ceasefire deal was always likely to be more difficult than the first step, which had been part of the past two ceasefire deals. Negotiators focused the first phase on getting the hostages released and aid into Gaza as both Israel and Hamas didn’t seem ready for a fuller deal yet.
But the exchange of fire and accusations from both sides of violating the ceasefire show the difficulty that lies ahead.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced Sunday night local time that it “renewed the adherence to the ceasefire” after the “violation by Hamas.”
“The IDF will continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement and will respond firmly to any violation of it,” the IDF said in a statement on the social platform X.
▪ The Times of Israel: Hamas isn’t acting like a defeated force.
▪ The Guardian: “Palestinians in Gaza fear ceasefire ‘could collapse at any moment.’”
Smart Take with Blake Burman
Last week saw major developments in wars abroad, as Trump started the week by celebrating the release of the living Israeli hostages held by Hamas. He ended the week with a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, the weekend brought a continued focus onto what you could call his renewed war on drugs.
The commander-in-chief posted another video of the U.S. military striking a drug boat off the coast of Venezuela while announcing the “two surviving terrorists are being returned to their Countries of origin, Ecuador and Colombia, for detention and prosecution.” That Saturday post was followed up with a Sunday morning missive in which he called Colombia’s president “an illegal drug leader.”
We are watching a new phase of the president’s foreign policy agenda play out in real time in our own hemisphere, and it’s clear this president is willing to show military might close to home.
Burman hosts “The Hill” weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation.
3 Things to Know Today
1. Dozens of websites and platforms reported outages early Monday morning, apparently caused by issues with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The outages, which affected sites like Venmo, Snapchat and Coinbase, started to be resolved within an hour, though an additional lag may occur while systems catch up.
2. Trump brushed off the weekend’s “No Kings” protests as a “joke,” rejecting comparisons of him to a king. He told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday that he works “my ass off to make our country great.”
3. Former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) ruled out running for office again for at least the next decade after his release from prison. Trump commuted his seven-year prison sentence on Friday after he served just a few months for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Leading the Day
DEMS IN BIND FROM BASE: Democrats are in a tough spot amid the government shutdown after renewed “No Kings” protests on Saturday raised pressure to oppose the Trump administration.
The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports how Democratic senators are afraid of getting “hammered” by their base after the nationwide protests opposing Trump. Democrats have consistently indicated in polling that they want their leaders to focus on opposing the administration’s actions and standing up to the president.
“We would have enough votes” to reopen the government “if people were not terrified of getting the guillotine,” one person familiar with the dynamics within the Senate Democratic Caucus told Bolton.
Organizers said nearly 7 million people turned out for Saturday’s protests in more than 2,700 cities and towns, more than 2 million more people than the first No Kings protests held on June 14, which coincided with Trump’s birthday and a polarizing military parade.
“While the Republican-led government shutdown continues to wreak havoc, forcing hundreds of thousands of families to go without pay and cutting off critical services, the people they represent are stepping up to lead,” a release from the organizers states. “Across districts, neighbors are organizing, marching, and demanding a government that serves the many, not the powerful few.”
The shutdown is entering its third full calendar week and still has no end in sight, with no major negotiations seeming to happen between the White House and congressional Democratic leadership.
So far, only three members of the Senate Democratic Caucus have voted for the House GOP-passed continuing resolution (CR) to reopen the government — Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.) and Angus King (Maine), who is an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) plans to continue holding votes on the CR to try to increase pressure on centrist Democrats to fold. But that doesn’t seem likely to happen soon.
“Are there enough Democrats to join Republicans to reopen the government? Not in the near term. There is no bipartisan conversation that’s anything but bulls‑‑‑,” one Democratic senator told The Hill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has become the voice of the GOP’s shutdown strategy, refusing to negotiate with Democrats on extending ObamaCare subsidies until they agree, in his words, to stop holding the government “hostage.” He has kept the House out of session since the shutdown began at the start of October, saying the ball is in Senate Democrats’ court to pass the CR the House already approved.
Johnson’s frustration has increasingly come out in his latest public appearances, The Hill’s Emily Brooks reports.
“To get everybody together and build that consensus is not possible until we get the government operating again. We stop holding — I’m sorry, I get very upset about it,” Johnson said late last week, raising his voice before stopping himself. “We stop holding the American people hostage for these ridiculous political games.”
▪ The Hill: “Trump steamrolls GOP Congress during shutdown to implement agenda.”
▪ The Hill: “When could the shutdown end? 5 key dates to watch.”
▪ CNN: Millions at risk of losing food assistance next month amid shutdown.
TRUMP TURNS TO AI: Trump drew significant Democratic backlash over the weekend after using an artificial intelligence-generated video again to respond to the “No Kings” protests, posting a video showing him dumping what appears to be feces on protesters.
The post on Truth Social shows the president piloting a fighter jet emblazoned with “King Trump” while Kenny Loggins’s song “Danger Zone” plays in the background. He flies over Time Square in New York City and drops brown liquid on protesters.
“He’s definitely not mad that 7 million Americans came out to protest him yesterday….” 2016 presidential rival Hillary Clinton posted about the video.
“The President is disgusting and a disgrace. And he’s clearly rattled by yesterday’s turnout,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) posted on X. “Keep speaking out. The power belongs to the people.”
“But seriously why would the President post an image on the Internet of airdropping feces on American cities?” added Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).
Trump also shared another video, originally posted on Vice President Vance’s Bluesky account, showing him wearing a crown and a cape and unsheathing a sword.
The videos were aimed at jabbing protesters who have accused the president of trying to act like a monarch and undermining U.S. democracy through his expansion of federal power.
Trump has regularly used AI and deepfake videos to troll his opponents, recently posting another of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in a sombrero that Democrats denounced as racist.
▪ The Hill: Defiant Democrats embrace ‘No Kings’ rallies.
▪ The New York Times: “Scenes from a day of mass protests.”
BOAT STRIKE SURVIVORS: Two people who survived the Trump administration’s recent boat strike in the Caribbean are being sent back to their countries of origin.
The two are seemingly the first to survive from the administration’s more than half-dozen attacks on boats that it alleges were seeking to smuggle drugs into the U.S.
Trump said Saturday the two people would be repatriated back to Ecuador and Colombia, respectively, for “detention and prosecution.”
Whether the two countries will prosecute the alleged “narcoterrorists” is unclear.
The two individuals were detained Thursday after the strike and transferred to a Navy ship where they received medical treatment.
Trump said the vessel on which the two survivors and two others were traveling used a “well-known narcotrafficking transit route” and carried fentanyl and other drugs.
Another strike happened on Sunday, killing three passengers, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said. He said the strike happened in international waters and alleged the target was transporting “substantial amounts of narcotics.”
While the strikes are part of the administration’s actions in its “armed conflict” with alleged drug cartels, they have spurred concerns among critics, including some members of Trump’s own party.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the strikes “go against all our tradition,” saying individuals have been killed “without any evidence of a crime.”
The retirement of the four-star Navy admiral overseeing the strikes has also raised alarm bells about their validity and the administration’s longer-term plans in the region, The Hill’s Ellen Mitchell reports.
Hegseth announced on Thursday that U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) head Adm. Alvin Holsey would step down at the end of the year, two years ahead of schedule. Southcom oversees operations in Central and South America, and Hegseth and Holsey reportedly were at odds over the Caribbean strikes.
“Everything we’re seeing is setting off alarm bells,” a national security lawyer told Mitchell. “The military buildup in the Caribbean, these lawless strikes on vessels there … the administration talking about potential action in Venezuela. None of this is being undertaken with congressional authorization.”
▪ Fox News: “Trump releases video of drone strike on ‘drug-carrying sub.”
GOP DEMANDS SMITH INVESTIGATION: A group of Republican lawmakers on Friday requestedthe Department of Justice investigate former special counsel Jack Smith after it was revealed that the FBI analyzed the phone records of nine Republican members of Congress during its probes of Trump.
The letter came from GOP Sens. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.) and Dan Sullivan (Alaska) as well as Rep. Mike Kelly (Pa.).
The lawmakers alleged that Smith, who led investigations into Trump’s actions seeking to influence the results of the 2020 presidential election and alleged mishandling of classified and sensitive documents, took “concerted steps to spy on duly elected members of Congress.” They also accused Smith of “serious prosecutorial conduct.”
A document released last month by the Senate Judiciary Committee revealed the FBI analyzed the phone records of nine Republicans, including the five signers of the letter.
They accused Smith of going on a “fishing expedition” targeting Trump. They requested Smith be referred to the Office of Professional Conduct, a division within the Justice Department that investigates lawyers suspected of crimes or prosecutorial misconduct.
Where & When
The president will greet Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at 11 a.m. ahead of a bilateral meeting and lunch. He will participate in a visit with the LSU and LSU Shreveport national championship baseball teams at 4 p.m.
The Senate willmeet at 3 p.m.
The House is out.
Zoom In
DEMS’ NEW JERSEY CONCERNS: Democrats are expressing worries that Black and Hispanic voters may not turn out for Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) to the extent needed for her to win New Jersey’s gubernatorial race next month.
The Hill’s Caroline Vakil reports that some New Jersey Democrats and top state leaders have pointed to lingering apathy from last year’s election between former Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump and a lack of outreach from the two parties. Others say Sherrill, a four-term congresswoman and the Democratic nominee for governor, hasn’t been doing enough to court their votes.
“I believe that although our next governor has to represent the entire state — and we’re OK with that — but where [do] Black people land in the conversation? We should be at the top of the food chain, particularly from the Democratic Party side,” John Harmon, the founder, CEO and president of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, said last week.
Every vote could be critical as polls show a close race and Democrats worry about Republicans’ gains in the Garden State in recent years.
Sherrill has led in most polling of the race, but she only leads by just less than 5 points in the Decision Desk HQ average.
Outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy (D) led Jack Ciattarelli, the GOP nominee for governor in 2021 and this year, consistently throughout the race four years ago, but he only won reelection by 3 points.
Democrats have argued that Ciattarelli doesn’t care about appealing to Black and Hispanic communities, pointing to a moment on the campaign trail in which he responded to a question about the importance of these voters by saying “next question.”
But some Democrats think Sherrill needs to do more to appeal to Black and Hispanic voters, historically a key part of the Democratic base.
▪ The Hill: “New Jersey ‘best place’ for Trump to stop Democratic momentum: DNC chair.”
▪ The Hill: Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) tests age as campaign issue in challenging Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
▪ The Hill: “Democratic young guns come for old guard in post-Biden primaries.”
FIRST IN THE HILL: Democratic Virginia attorney general nominee Jay Jones released his first ad Monday since the texting scandal that rocked the down-ballot race earlier this month.
The ad is part of a six-figure, statewide buy and ties incumbent Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) to the president, calling him “Trump’s attorney.” It says Miyares is the only candidate this year in Virginia with Trump’s “complete and total endorsement.”
The ad’s release comes as Jones has been trying to get his campaign back on track after he was revealed to have sent a series of texts in 2022 calling for violence against then-state House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R). The texts amounted to an October surprise in the race, with Republicans calling on Jones to drop out and urging former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for governor, to call on him to exit the race.
Jones apologized for the texts after they came out and did so again during the attorney general debate last week.
How much the texts will affect the race remains to be seen, but polling has shown the race further tightening and Miyares even starting to take a lead since they came out.
DNC CHAIR DEFENDS PLATNER: Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin said Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s resurfaced comments are “not right” but don’t disqualify him from the race.
Platner last week apologized for the range of resurfaced social media comments, including some in which he called police officers “bastards” and rural white Americans racist and stupid.
Martin’s defense of Platner comes after Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) entered the primary last week, vying to take on Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Mills, a recruit of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), will face off against Platner, teeing up a proxy battle between different wings of the Democratic Party.
Elsewhere
ANDREW BACK IN SPOTLIGHT: The royal family’s Prince Andrew is officially giving up his royal title as the Duke of York as his ties with Jeffrey Epstein reemerge in the headlines.
The brother of King Charles III, Andrew already stepped away from his public duties in 2019 because of the revelations of his relationship with Epstein, though he’s denied any wrongdoing. Prince Andrew said in a statement released by Buckingham Palace that the “continued accusations about me distract” from the work of the king and the royal family.
“With His Majesty’s agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me,” Andrew said in his statement. “As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me.”
The news comes ahead of the release of the memoir of Virginia Giuffre, who alleged that Epstein trafficked her and that she had sex with Andrew when she was 17 years old. Giuffre died by suicide in April.
Andrew has said he doesn’t remember meeting her.
Andrew’s name has come up amongst others as part of documents released to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for its investigation into Epstein’s dealings. Being named in the documents is not considered an indication of wrongdoing on its own.
But the controversies around Andrew tried the patience of the royal family, forcing his distancing, The Associated Press reported.
▪ People: Sarah Ferguson will no longer use Duchess of York title after ex-husband’s surrender of his title.
▪ The Hill: House committee releases new round of Epstein documents.
Opinion
Why men are leaving the left — and not coming back, writes The Hill opinion contributor John Mac Ghlionn.
The Democrats’ main problem isn’t their message, writes MSNBC host Chris Hayes in The New York Times.
The Closer
And finally … Multiple jewels were stolen from the Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum, in a quick heist Sunday morning that officials have called a “major robbery.”
Culture Minister Rachida Dati called the heist a professional “four-minute operation.” Officials said several intruders forced a window open, cut panes and went for two glass display cases, smashing them.
The intruders entered the museum from the outside using a basket lift through the riverfront facade. They fled on motorbikes.
One of the objects — the emerald-set imperial crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugénie — was later found outside the museum, reportedly broken. It contains more than 1,300 diamonds. Eight objects were taken.
The robbery was particularly notable as it took place in the daytime, around 9:30 a.m. local time, and as visitors were already inside the Louvre. The museum closed for the rest of the day for an investigation to begin.
