The Latest: Rubio will head to Qatar after meeting with Netanyahu in Israel

The U.S. State Department says Secretary of State Marco Rubio will head to Qatar after meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. The visit announced Monday comes as the region is still reeling from Israel’s strike targeting Hamas leaders in the Qatari capital, Doha. The U.S. has sought to ease tensions between Israel and Qatar, two close American allies.

Netanyahu and Rubio stood shoulder-to-shoulder in Jerusalem and downplayed the furor that had, at least for a short time, taken the Trump administration aback. There were no signs of U.S. frustration or annoyance with Israel’s latest moves, although President Donald Trump had made clear his displeasure with Israel’s unilateral strike on Hamas in Qatar.

While speaking at a summit over Israel’s attack last week, Qatar’s ruling emir accused Israel of not caring about its hostages held in the Gaza Strip and instead only working to “ensure Gaza is no longer livable.”

Here’s the latest:

U.S. Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Trump’s actions are also “a dangerous assault on our Constitution.”

“No president can secretly wage war or carry out unjustified killings – that is authoritarianism, not democracy,” Reed said in a statement. “These reckless, unauthorized operations not only put American lives at risk, they threaten to ignite a war with Venezuela that would drag our nation into a conflict we did not choose. The American people deserve to know what is being done in their name and why,” he said.

“Congress must demand answers, force transparency, and hold this administration accountable before it plunges us into another needless war.”

Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said he’s drafting a war powers resolution in response to the Trump administration’s strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela.

Trump announced on Monday that for the second time the U.S. military targeted a boat that was carrying drugs and killed three aboard.

Schiff said in a post on X that “I’m drafting a resolution and forcing a vote to reclaim Congress’s power to declare war.”

He said: “These lawless killings are just putting us at risk” and could prompt another country to target U.S. forces without proper justification.

The Senate has approved one of the president’s top economic advisers for a seat on the Federal Reserve’s governing board. The appointment gives the White House greater influence over the central bank just two days before it is expected to vote in favor of reducing its key interest rate.

The vote to confirm Stephen Miran was largely along party lines.

His nomination has sparked concerns about the Fed’s longtime independence from day-to-day politics after he said during a committee hearing earlier this month that he would keep his job as chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, though he would take unpaid leave.

An appeals court ruled Monday that Lisa Cook can remain a Federal Reserve governor for now, rebuffing President Donald Trump’s efforts to remove her just ahead of a key vote on interest rates.

The Trump administration is expected to quickly turn to the Supreme Court in a last-ditch bid to unseat Cook before the Fed meets. And Cook’s lawsuit seeking to permanently block her firing must still make its way through the courts.

Rep. Tom Emmer, the Republican Whip, lamented Kirk’s killing, calling it a “horrific scene that we’ve witnessed unfold too many too times before.”

Emmer, from Minnesota, also condemned the killing of Minnesota Democratic State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband by “another evil coward” who also shot a state senator in the same night.

He also recalled the shooting of Trump during a campaign rally last year and the 2017 shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise, the GOP majority leader.

“I firmly believe the Charlie’s death has providentially brought us to a turning point,” Emmer said. “We, as Americans, have to choose: Will we continue down this path of recklessness, vitriol and hate or will we carry out the legacy that Charlie Kirk left?”

The Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee says he intends to look into whether the the U.S. military’s strike on a boat from Venezuela is legal.

“I need more information,” Sen. Roger Wicker told reporters. “I’m going to drill down and see what I can find out before I comment on that.”

The fact that senators were looking for more information about the strikes underscored how the Trump administration has frequently left Congress in the dark on its actions.

The top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Jack Reed, said he was concerned international law could have been violated if the military did not follow protocols like warning the vessel, attempting to disable and board the vessel, and only engaging in self defense. He added that Congress was not getting enough information from the Pentagon on the strikes.

“We’re certainly not getting a definitive legal justification which would be necessary,” Reed said.

A few Democrats joined the vigil at the Capitol that was mostly fill with Republican lawmakers from the House.

Candles were left by a large photo of Kirk and his family.

Some people cried.

After the short service, Johnson closed in prayer, seeking encouragement for Americans to remember that “we are indeed one nation under God.”

“This has been a very difficult week in America,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said, opening the service.

Lawmakers have gathered in Statuary Hall, many holding electric candles, for the evening vigil.

“This has been a very difficult week in America,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said, opening the service.

Lawmakers have gathered in Statuary Hall, many holding electric candles, for the evening vigil.

The president said the U.S. military is seeing fewer vessels in the Caribbean since it carried out its first strike against what it describes as drug-carrying Venezuelan boat earlier this month.

But he said cartels are still smuggling drugs by land. He suggested he might look to expand operations following a second U.S. strike on Monday that he says killed three drug smugglers on a boat from Venezuela.

“We’re telling the cartels right now we’re going to be stopping them too,” Trump said. “When they come by land we’re going to stopping them the same way we stopped the boats. … But maybe by talking about it a little bit, it won’t happen. If it doesn’t happen, that’s good.”

Activists in Chicago’s well-connected immigrant rights network say there’s been a noticeable uptick in immigration enforcement agents in recent days.

It’s not the large-scale arrests or aggressive tactics used in other cities targeted by the Trump administration. But activists in the nation’s third-largest city report a spike in arrests in immigrant-heavy city neighborhoods and suburbs of Chicago.

Activists say immigration officers are focused on traffic stops, including on Monday in the suburb of West Chicago. Local leaders say there were more than 15 arrests, most of them connected to the traffic stop of a van.

Department of Homeland Security officials did not answer questions about recent arrests in Chicago.

Trump was asked why he ordered flags to be lowered to half-staff after Charlie Kirk’s killing, but not after the fatal shooting in June of a Minnesota state lawmaker.

He responded by misstating what occurred.

The president suggested to reporters in the Oval Office that he might have ordered flags lowered following the fatal shooting of state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband. But he said that Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz never asked him.

“Had the governor asked me to do that, I would have done that gladly,” Trump said.

Except that’s not what happened.

Trump actually said at the time that he didn’t want to speak to Walz, suggesting it would be a “waste of time,” and referring to the former Democratic vice presidential nominee as “whacked out” and “a mess.”

The president said the stadium in Arizona for Charlie Kirk’s funeral will be packed and he’s guessing that he’ll speak at the service on Sunday.

“I guess I’ll say a few words, I don’t know, but I guess I will,” Trump told reporters.

Kirk was assassinated last week in an event that shocked Trump’s political movement and raised concerns about the increase in political violence in U.S. society.

Asked by reporters in the Oval Office if China will continue to have an ownership stake in TikTok’s parent company, Trump was noncommittal.

“Well, we haven’t decided that,” the president said.

He went on to praise his campaign’s presence on the app last year and said it helped his support with young voters in the 2024 election. Trump added that TikTok, “Can maybe even bring us closer to China.”

The president told reporters that Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has shown him a clip of a U.S. military strike carried out earlier on Monday that he says targeted a drug-carrying vessel from Venezuela.

Asked what proof the U.S. has that the vessel was carrying drugs, Trump replied, “We have proof. All you have to do is look at the cargo that was spattered all over the ocean–big bags of cocaine and and fentanyl all over the place.”

“No, he didn’t,” when asked if he had advance warning of the strike. He told reporters that he found out about it the “same way you did.”

The president said Monday that he would favor labeling antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.

“I would do that, 100 percent,” Trump said during a question-and-answer session with reporters in the Oval Office. He added: “Antifa is terrible.”

Antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” is an umbrella term for far-left militant groups.

Trump’s previous FBI director, Christopher Wray, said in testimony in 2020 that antifa is an ideology, not an organization, lacking the hierarchical structure that would usually allow it to be designated as a terror group by the federal government.

During the Memphis announcement, Hegseth referred to the DOD before pausing and saying DOW.

Trump has recently tried to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War, but apparently it will still take some getting used to for the Pentagon leader.

“I’m glad you made that correction,” Trump joked.

Unlike Democrats, Republican Gov. Bill Lee has welcomed federal intervention in his state. Trump announced Monday he was sending the National Guard into Memphis.

“When we come together, we can make significant change,” he said. Lee added that “I want to say thank you.”

Trump told Lee that “this will be your proudest moment.”

As he announced that he was sending the National Guard and other federal authorities into Memphis, Trump said that “we’re going to be doing Chicago probably next.”

The president has targeted that city for weeks, but has faced deep opposition from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and local officials to the proposed federal intervention. Still, Trump did not seemed to be deterred.

“Chicago is a great city,” Trump said Monday afternoon. “We’re going to make it great again very soon.”

He also hinted that other cities, such as St. Louis, could be next.

“We want to save these places,” he said.

The president says he’s sending the National Guard into Memphis to combat crime.

Trump’s announcement Monday, which came during a visit to the Oval Office by Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, came three days after Trump suggested that “Memphis is deeply troubled” and that, “We’re going to fix that just like we did Washington.”

Trump deployed National Guard troops to Washington last month and federalized the city’s police force in a crackdown he has since argued reduced crime. He said previously that Lee and city officials welcome the federal support.

Speculation had centered on Chicago as Trump’s next city to send in the National Guard and other federal authorities. But the administration has faced fierce resistance from Illinois’ Democratic governor, JB Pritzker, and the city’s Democratic leaders.

Trump said Monday that the U.S. military again targeted a boat smuggling drugs out of Venezuela, and that three people were killed in the strike.

The president’s announcement on social media comes two weeks after another U.S. military strike on a boat that the Trump administration says was smuggling drugs out of Venezuela, which killed 11 people.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisory committee meets this week, with votes expected on whether to change recommendations on shots against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox.

It isn’t clear what questions the committee plans to vote on. Officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to questions.

But some public health experts say they are worried that the votes will raise unwarranted new questions in parents’ minds about vaccines.

The committee meets Thursday and Friday in Atlanta.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the team that held trade talks with Chinese officials was “very focused on TikTok and making sure it was a deal that is fair for the Chinese” but also “completely respects U.S. national security concerns.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two sides came up with a framework deal during talks Monday in Spain on ownership of popular social video platform.

Wang Jingtao, deputy director of China’s Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, told reporters that there was consensus on authorization of “the use of intellectual property rights such as (TikTok’s) algorithm” — a main sticking point in the deal.

The sides also agreed on entrusting a partner with handling U.S. user data and content security, he said.

Rubio says the drone incursions in Poland and Romania show that war escalates and is an example of why the Russia-Ukraine conflict needs to end.

Speaking to Fox News during a visit Monday to Jerusalem, Rubio said it takes both sides to agree to stop the fighting.

“And as you’ve said and as you’ve pointed out, we haven’t been able to get those kinds of results from the Russian side,” Rubio told Fox’s Gillian Turner.

He also gave no time frame for any further penalties that the Trump administration might impose on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We fully understand the sanctions that we have available to us, and at some point the president may decide to do that,” Rubio said.

“We can come together in this country. I believe we must. But unity, real unity, can only be found after climbing the mountain of truth,” he said.

Vance said “this is not a both sides problem.”

He did not reference any recent attacks on Democrats, such as the killing of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, nor did he mention the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“Something has gone very wrong with a lunatic fringe — a minority, but a growing and powerful minority on the far left,” he said.

Vance said “our government will be working hard” to “bring real unity” to our country.

The AP and others reported that a boat off Venezuela had turned around and was heading back to shore when it was struck by the U.S. military. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he doesn’t know if that’s accurate.

“What needs to start happening is some of these boats need to get blown up,” Rubio told Fox News on Monday. “We can’t live in a world where all of a sudden they do a U-turn and so we can’t touch them anymore.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that Trump will keep using the military to target drug cartels.

Speaking to Fox News during a visit to Jerusalem, Rubio reiterated that the U.S. doesn’t see Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as his country’s rightful leader but as the head of a drug cartel.

“We’re not going to have a cartel operating or masquerading as a government, operating in our own hemisphere,” Rubio said.

Following a military strike on a Venezuelan boat that the administration says was carrying drugs, the U.S.’s chief diplomat said Trump is “going to use the U.S. military and all the elements of American power to target cartels who are targeting America.”

Comey sued the U.S. government on Monday over her abrupt July dismissal, saying it came without cause or notice and was unconstitutional.

The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court, where Comey had earned praise for her handling of major complex prosecutions, particularly in sexual abuse cases.

Comey, whose father is former FBI Director James Comey, became a rising star in her office for her work on the case against financier Jeffrey Epstein and his onetime girlfriend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and the recent trial of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Comey’s firing came a day after her supervisors asked her to take the lead on a major public corruption case and three months after she received her latest “outstanding” review, according to the lawsuit.