Trump backtracks on Venezuela boat strike video release and says Hegseth will make final decision: Latest updates

A 30-year-old Florida man is facing up to a half-decade in federal prison after confessing to posting violent threats on social media that promised to decapitate Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, murder her children, then eat the kids “for protein,” according to plea agreement papers reviewed by The Independent.

Myles M McQuade, a Tampa resident, made the threats on X, the Elon Musk-owned social network formerly known as Twitter, one day after Omar criticized late right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk in an interview with a progressive news outlet.

Her remarks sparked Republican outrage, leading to GOP legislators insisting Omar be stripped of her committee assignments.

Justin Rohrlich has the story.

The president’s former personal attorney Alina Habba will “step down” from her role as U.S. Attorney for New Jersey after several judges determined she was unlawfully serving as the state’s top federal prosecutor.

Last week, a federal appeals court panel affirmed a lower-court order and disqualified her from office, ending yet another legal showdown between the Trump administration and federal judiciary.

Habba, who represented Trump during a blockbuster fraud case in New York and against defamation and sexual abuse claims from E Jean Carroll, said in a statement that she will now serve as a “senior advisor” to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

As a result of the appellate court ruling, “and to protect the stability and integrity of the office which I love, I have decided to step down,” she wrote Monday.

“But do not mistake compliance for surrender. This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me,” she said.

“Make no mistake, you can take the girl out of New Jersey, but you cannot take New Jersey out of the girl.”

Here’s the latest from the president on social media, who was up very late overnight to issue these two slightly hysterical proclamations about his tariffs, in which he warns of “dark and sinister forces” thwarting his signature economic policy:

“The biggest threat in history to United States National Security would be a negative decision on Tariffs by the U.S. Supreme Court. We would be financially defenseless. Now Europe is going to Tariffs against China, as they already do against others. We would not be allowed to do what others already do!”

“Because of Tariffs, easily and quickly applied, our National Security has been greatly enhanced, and we have become the financially strongest Country, by far, anywhere in the World. Only dark and sinister forces would want to see that end!!!”

The president yesterday announced a program that will see the Department of Agriculture dole out as much as $12 billion in taxpayer funds to bail out American farmers who have been hit hard by low crop prices and decreased demand for their products as a result of Trump’s own tariff policies.

The president unveiled the program during a roundtable event at the White House alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

He falsely claimed it would utilize a “small portion of the hundreds of billion dollars” his administration has collected from American importers and consumers through tariffs and called the bailout payments “economic assistance to farmers.”

Andrew Feinberg has more.

The top lawmakers on Capitol Hill, known as the “Gang of Eight,” will be brief behind closed doors Tuesday, by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will present their long-term national security strategy for the United States.

The Gang of Eight refers to the House and Senate minority and majority leaders and the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

The trio are expected to also be asked about the Donald Trump administration’s strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, particularly the first missile blasts on September 2 in which two survivors were killed in a second missile launch that has been the subject of controversy in recent weeks.

Separately, Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters Monday that he is this week planning to speak this week with Admiral Alvin Holsey, who stepped down as head of U.S Southern Command after less than a year on the job, and is believed to have expressed concern about the strikes to Hegseth before being forced out.

The president has said that the decision on whether or not to release footage of the deadly September 2 “double tap” missile strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean rests with his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“Whatever Hegseth wants to do is okay with me,” the president told reporters Monday, backtracking on his own comments last week that “whatever” video the Pentagon possesses “we’d certainly release, no problem,” which he now denies having said.

When asked to commit to the publication of the video by ABC News’s senior political correspondent Rachel Scott, who simply presented Trump with his own words, the president once again lashed out, calling her “the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let me just tell you: you are an obnoxious – actually a terrible – reporter and it’s always the same thing with you.”

Hello and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of the Donald Trump administration as the president’s top defense officials prepare to brief the top lawmakers on Capitol Hill about their long-term national security plans for the United States.