WASHINGTON — Minutes before U.S. fighter jets took off to begin strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, Army Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, who leads U.S. Central Command, used a secure U.S. government system to send detailed information about the operation to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The material Kurilla sent included details about when U.S. fighters would take off and when they would hit their targets — details that could, if they fell into the wrong hands, put the pilots of those fighters in grave danger. But he was doing exactly what he was supposed to: providing Hegseth, his superior, with information he needed to know and using a system specifically designed to safely transmit sensitive and classified information.
But then Hegseth used his personal phone to send some of the same information Kurilla had given himto at least two group text chats on the Signal messaging app, three U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the exchanges told NBC News.
The sequence of events, which has not previously been reported, could raise new questions about Hegseth’s handling of the information, which he and the government have denied was classified. In all, according to the two sources, less than 10 minutes elapsed between Kurilla’s giving Hegseth the information and Hegseth’s sending it to the two group chats, one of which included other Cabinet-level officials and their designees — and, inadvertently, the editor of The Atlantic magazine. One of them was composed of Hegseth’s wife, brother and attorney and some of his aides.
Hegseth shared the information on Signal even though, NBC News has reported, an aide warned him in the days beforehand to be careful not to share sensitive information on an unsecure communications system before the Yemen strikes, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.
“No classified material was ever shared via Signal,” said Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, who called the allegations “an attempt to sabotage President Trump and Secretary Hegseth.”
President Donald Trump tapped Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, for a job for which Democrats and even some Republicans worried he was not qualified. Now, in the wake of the revelation of the second Signal chat that included his wife and his brother, which The New York Times first reported Sunday afternoon, he faces calls for his dismissal even as Trump stands behind him.
“Pete’s doing a great job; everybody’s happy with him,” Trump said Monday at the White House Easter Egg Roll. “There’s no dysfunction.”
Hegseth was also defiant at the event, dismissing the reports, though not specifically denying them. “This is what the media does,” he said. He added, “It’s not going to work with me, because we’re changing the Defense Department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of war fighters, and anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news doesn’t matter.”
At least one member of Trump’s own party sees it differently. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who is on the House Armed Services Committee, on Monday became the first sitting Republican member of Congress to publicly call on Hegseth to resign.
“I had concerns from the get-go because Pete Hegseth didn’t have a lot of experience,” said Bacon, a retired Air Force general. “I like him on Fox, but does he have the experience to lead one of the largest organizations in the world? That’s a concern.”
Two Trump advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity Monday, dismissed the idea that Hegseth will be fired.
“There is no talk right now of removing or replacing him. We have been through this before, and as of the moment, it’s just not something we are talking about,” one said.
The other said: “The idea something like this would force him out is not reality. The president still supports him.”
A former senior official in Trump’s first administration, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation, expressed bafflement at Hegseth’s decision to share the information about the Yemen strike with his wife and his brother.
“I can’t imagine a scenario where national security officials would see fit to share sensitive details about policy and planning with family members who don’t have a need to know,” the former official said. “To do it over an unclassified messaging app is even more egregious.”
Australian identical twin sisters Bridgette and Paula Powers have captured the internet’s attention after a video of them recounting a frightening experience with a carjacker went viral.
On April 21, 7News Queensland, a local news station in Australia, uploaded a clip to X about twin sisters who observed a car thief on Steve Irwin Way. When journalist Marlina Whop introduced the segment, she said the network interviewed two sisters who explained how their mother and another man interacted with the thief. But the Powers sisters’ retelling was far from what viewers were anticipating.
In the interview, Bridgette and Paula Powers spoke in unison while dressed in the same bunny-covered shirts. “One guy, he was up there with our mom. He went up there and he was coming back down toward us. And he goes, ‘Run, he’s got a gun!’” the sisters reenacted at the same time. “Oh, our hearts started to pound. I said, ‘Mom, where’s mom?’”
They then heard their mom approach the carjacker, who had blood on his face, and ask if he was OK. The two said the man threatened to shoot their mother.
“Mom distracted him to make him look the other way,” they continued, still talking as one. “Mom ran into the bush behind the fence and the guy goes to her, ‘I’ll find you and I’ll shoot you.’”
They said they were “blessed” that he didn’t harm their mother.
Bridgette and Paula Powers only differed at the end of their joint statement when one said they “ran for their life” and the other said they “ran for their safety.”
X users quickly reacted to the clip, which racked up over 1 million views in less than 24 hours.
“Nothing can prepare you for the witness interview 7 News decided to run with on this story,” one tweeted.
Another said, “This is the kind of scene you couldn’t script, characters you couldn’t invent. Watch it immediately with the sound on. Australia can’t be real.”
Although the interview is currently going viral, Bridgette and Paula Powers, also known as the Twinnies, have been local celebrities for years as wildlife rescuers.
In 2021, the sisters were interviewed by the Australian broadcasting network ABC News about their conservation efforts and their history working with the late Steve Irwin.
According to the news outlet, the sisters had to leave school in year 10 due to health issues. They then started focusing on their passion for taking care of animals and have been doing so ever since.
“We love all creatures great and small,” they told the Australian network.
One day, they met Irwin when they were helping a sick green sea turtle. He arrived to also save the sea turtle and was “quite taken with them,” according to their sister Liz Eather.
Following their meeting, Bridgette and Paula Powers began working at the Australia Zoo and launched a charity called Twinnies Pelican and Seabird Rescue, which they have operated for over 20 years, the Australian news outlet said.
Bridgette and Paula Powers also explained in the article why it is “natural” for them to speak in unison.
“Our brains must think alike at the same time,” they said. The two acknowledged that it is “weird” to some and revealed they tried to alter the way they speak in the past.
“We do annoy a lot of people,” they continued, before adding that changing “doesn’t feel right to us at all.”
They spoke about dressing the same, too. The sisters shared they weren’t fans of wearing different outfits. “We did try once but we still got stared at. So what the heck. We might as well wear the same clothes again,” they said.
They described the “special” bond between them as being “like a magnet.”
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday considers the latest dispute that pits religious rights against LGBTQ rights as the justices weigh parents’ objections over books made available in a school district’s elementary schools that feature stories about gay and transgender characters.
At issue are books included in the English language arts curriculum in Montgomery County, Maryland. The dispute arose in 2022 after the school board in Montgomery County, a large and diverse jurisdiction just outside Washington, decided it wanted more storybooks reflecting LGBTQ stories to better reflect the people who live there.
One book, “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” features a gay character who is getting married. Another, called “Born Ready,” is about a transgender child who wants to identify as a boy.
Some parents objected on religious grounds under the Constitution’s First Amendment, saying their children should be able to opt out of any exposure to the content.
The lead plaintiffs are Tamer Mahmoud and Enas Barakat — a Muslim couple who have a son in elementary school. Other plaintiffs are members of the Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox churches.
They are not challenging the curriculum itself, just the lack of an opt-out.
A federal judge and the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals both ruled in favor of the school board.
The Supreme Court will determine whether the school board policy burdens religious rights. The justices could then determine whether that burden violates the Constitution, or they could send the case back to lower courts to make that determination.
The parents, represented by the religious liberties group Becket, say that under Supreme Court precedent they have a right to opt out of any instruction that would interfere with their children’s religious development.
The school board is “compelling instruction designed to indoctrinate petitioners’ children against their religious beliefs,” the parents’ lawyers wrote.
The parents have the backing of the Trump administration.
Lawyers for the school board said in court papers that there is no attempt to coerce children and that there was an attempt to allow an opt-out “until doing so became unworkably disruptive.”
The lawyers wrote that the court record is “devoid of evidence that petitioners or their children are compelled or pressured to modify their religious beliefs or practice.”
The school board also asserts that although the books are in classrooms and available for children to pick up, teachers are not required to use them in class.
The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority that often backs religious rights, including in cases involving conflicting arguments made by LGBTQ rights advocates. In 2023, for example, the court ruled in favor of a Christian web designer who refused to work on same-sex weddings.
The court is hearing another major religious case next week when it considers whether to approve the country’s first public religious charter school.
In its next term, which starts in October, the court will consider a challenge to state laws that ban “conversion therapy” aimed at young people questioning their sexual orientations or gender identities.
Texas A&M defensive end Shemar Stewart is 6-foot-5 and 267 pounds. He ran the 40-yard dash at the NFL combine in February in 4.59 seconds to go along with a 40-inch vertical jump and a 10-foot, 11-inch broad jump.
But he also had just 4.5 sacks in 37 career games for the Aggies.
It’s a glaring stat to consider when a major part of a defensive end’s job is to get to the quarterback — Penn State edge Abdul Carter, a consensus top-five pick, had 12 sacks last year alone.
And it’s why NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah calls Stewart, a projected first-round pick in Thursday’s draft, “easily the most polarizing edge rusher.”
“He is the ultimate example of traits versus production,” Jeremiah said on a conference call this week. “He has got all kinds of twitch, he’s explosive, he’s disruptive. He just hasn’t been able to finish, to compile sacks.”
NFL front offices must decide in the coming days whether Stewart’s elite physical attributes are worth more than his questionable sack total. After all, selecting prospects is more than just looking back at college production. It’s about how a player could turn out long term under a professional coaching staff.
“It opens the door for a really interesting conversation about a guy that disrupts plays but doesn’t finish plays and has the size and athleticism that you want at the NFL level,” NBC Sports draft analyst Connor Rogers said. “How high do coaches and evaluators value that?”
Shemar Stewart warms up before a game against Florida, in Gainesville, Fla., on Sept. 14.Texas A&M Florida Football / AP file
Picking a high-ceiling, low-floor prospect is nothing new. There have been many players who dominated in the NFL combine — showing out in categories like the vertical jump, the broad jump, the bench press and 40-yard dash — without the college stats to back it all up. Some NFL evaluators pass on those types of guys, thinking the risk is not worth the reward, especially in the first round.
Others, though, are willing to take that chance.
A prime example is defensive end Odafe Oweh. At 6-foot-5 and 255 pounds, he was the prototypical edge rusher coming out of Penn State. Ahead of the draft, he blew scouts away with a 4.39 40-yard dash and an 11-foot-2 broad jump. They also did a double-take when they saw his seven sacks over three seasons, including zero in his final year as a Nittany Lion.
The Baltimore Ravens bet big on traits over production and have been heavily rewarded.
Oweh, who has since transitioned to linebacker, has 23 sacks in four years. Last year, he posted 10, the second-most on the team, and he has been a key disruptor for one of the NFL’s best defenses.
Travon Walker is another success story. The defensive end had 9.5 sacks over three seasons at Georgia but was selected No. 1 overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2022 for his high upside. He has now posted back-to-back double-digit sack totals.
But for every Oweh and Walker, there are players like former LSU linebacker K’Lavon Chaisson who don’t work out. Chaisson was a national champion and first-team All-SEC player, but he didn’t fill up the stat sheet in college. The Jaguars took him in the first round in 2020, and he has 10 sacks over five NFL seasons and is now on his fourth team in five seasons.
NBC Sports’ Chris Simms envisions Stewart in the former category, not the latter. Despite the lack of production at Texas A&M, he calls Stewart “one of the safest picks in the draft.”
“You’re not going to have to worry about him being physically overmatched,” Simms said on his podcast, “Chris Simms Unbuttoned.” “The ceiling has a chance to be one of the greatest players in the history of football — that’s the talent and physical makeup the guy has.”
Rogers said: “You don’t have to be a genius to tell that he’s got just a freakish build — size, length, athleticism. You’re not supposed to move like that with that kind of body.”
Stewart’s elite measurables allows him to routinely beat offensive lineman into the backfield. And while he may not get every sack or tackle behind the line of scrimmage, he’s constantly affecting the play. Quarterbacks are forced to quickly adjust with him inching closer. Running backs need to change the direction of their rushes.
Simms has a phrase for that.
“One of our favorite stats is ‘f— the play up.’ I believe disruption is production,” he said. “There are too many plays where this guy makes freaky plays, ruins it, and somebody else gets the tackle or the sack.”
But Stewart’s inconsistent finishing ability shouldn’t entirely be overlooked. According to Pro Football Focus, he has a 23.5% missed tackle rate. The figure ranks in the bottom 8% for his position in the country.
He also needs to improve his hands and develop another go-to move as a rusher, Rogers said.
“As a pass rusher, he’s kind of the guy that’s like ‘I’m the freakiest athlete on the field.’ But if somebody gets under his pads and gets him into trouble, he doesn’t really know how to counter off of it,” Rogers said. “So you’ve got to believe in your coaching staff if you take this guy in the top 15.”
Shemar Stewart runs through drills during practice for the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., on Jan. 29.Butch Dill / AP file
To his credit, Stewart knows he’s a work in progress. Asked about the area he most wants to improve heading into the league, he said finishing plays.
“Being more composed when I’m a step away from the quarterback,” he told Simms. “That’s something that I definitely want to work on.”
Stewart is projected anywhere from No. 10 to the end of the first round. Rogers pointed to the Bears, the Jets, the Lions, the Chargers and the Packers as possible landing spots.
Whoever selects him knows he has one (major) flaw to go along with exceptional physical attributes. It’s on them to decide if it’s worth it.
“The only thing we can talk about is ‘he should have had a few more sacks; he let the quarterback out of his hands a few times,’” Simms said on the podcast. “I’m not going to blow it out of proportion. I think there’s plenty of good to go around, and he’s got a superstar future in front of him.”
Walgreens has agreed to pay $300 million to settle U.S. prosecutors’ allegations that it illegally filled millions of invalid prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances, the U.S. Justice Department said on Monday.
The money, plus 4% interest annually, will be paid out over six years under the terms of the agreement. Walgreens will also owe the U.S. an additional $50 million if the company is sold, merged, or transferred prior to fiscal year 2032, the Justice Department said.
“We strongly disagree with the government’s legal theory and admit no liability,” Walgreens spokesperson Fraser Engerman said in a statement. “Our pharmacists are dedicated healthcare professionals who care deeply about patient safety and continue to play a critical role in providing education and resources to help combat opioid misuse and abuse across our country.”
The company said in a filing with U.S. regulators that it did not expect any major cases over opioids in the future.
The government’s January lawsuit alleged Walgreens ignored “red flags” that prescriptions were illegal and filled them anyway, violating the Controlled Substances Act. The government also alleged it violated the False Claims Act when it then sought reimbursement from federal health care programs, like Medicare, for the prescriptions.
Walgreens is among the drug manufacturers, distributors, pharmacy operators and others who have collectively in recent years agreed to pay about $50 billion to resolve lawsuits and investigations by states and local governments accusing them of helping fuel a deadly opioid addiction epidemic in the U.S.
Walgreens in 2022 agreed to pay up to $5.52 billion over 15 years to resolve thousands of lawsuits by state and local governments accusing the company of fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says nearly 727,000 opioid overdose deaths occurred from 1999 to 2022.
Who will be the next pope? Here are some of the contenders
Dust off the history books and there are papal conclaves with international intrigue, royal rigging and even riots, a checkered past that belies the air of sanctity and solemnity surrounding modern papal elections.
The word “conclave” comes from the Latin for “with key.” It is a church tradition that began in 1268 with a papal election that lasted almost three years, ending only when the townspeople of Viterbo locked up the cardinals, tore the roof off their palace, fed them nothing but bread and water and threatened them until a new pope was chosen.
While it is very unlikely the decision on Pope Francis’ successor will take quite as long or be quite as contentious, Vatican watchers agree that the winner is not a foregone conclusion.
“The great joy of the conclave is that nobody really knows and it’s such a unique electorate,” James Somerville-Meikle, the former deputy director of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, told NBC News before Francis’ death. “So many conclaves in the past have thrown up surprises.”
But in death, Francis will be following in many of John Paul’s footsteps.
The demise of the first Argentine to lead the Roman Catholic Church set into motion a series of rituals, some of which go back more than 2,000 years and have been used to bury more than 250 popes.
They are compiled in a more than 400-page tome called the “Ordo exsequiarum Romani pontificis,” which includes the liturgy, music and prayers used for papal funerals over the centuries.
“The Ordo covers the rituals that are followed from the moment a pope dies to the moment a pope is buried,” said the Rev. David Collins, an associate professor and the director of Catholic studies at Georgetown University.
Pope Francis leaves a legacy as a Catholic Church reformer
Kalhan Rosenblatt and Corky Siemaszko
From working as a bouncer at a Buenos Aires nightclub to presiding over the Vatican, the path Pope Francis forged as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church was as unlikely as it was unprecedented.
Francis, who died Monday at age 88, was keen to flex his muscles as supreme pontiff. He angered some Catholic Church traditionalists by reaching out to gay and marginalized people, demanding justice for the poor and the dispossessed and railing against unbridled capitalism and climate change.
As the first pope from the Americas, Francis was in many ways the ultimate Vatican outsider who charted a new and more liberal course as the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
“He embarked on a real reorganization of the church and a real reorientation of the church after four decades of conservative theologians’ leading the way,” said David Gibson, director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture.
Detectives investigating the death of a Washington state woman whose body was found buried under a shed discovered a letter at the suspect’s home that described a planned burglary and sexual assault, the Thurston County sheriff said Monday.
The injuries that killed Marcia Norman, 82, included trauma from a pneumatic nailer, Thurston County Coroner Gary Warnock said.
“Her onset from injury to death was not instant. It was hours,” Warnock said. He said the case was the worst he has seen in his career.
Marcia Norman.Thurston County Sheriff’s Office
Jeffrey Zizz, 47, a handyman who worked for Norman, was booked Sunday on charges of murder, kidnapping and unlawful disposal of human remains. He is expected to be formally charged by Wednesday, Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney Jon Tunheim.
Zizz had a preliminary court appearance Monday and has not yet entered a plea.
He was being held without bail Monday. Online court records did not show an attorney who could speak on his behalf Monday night.
Norman was found April 9 buried under a shed in a shallow grave with concrete poured overtop after cadaver dogs alerted on the property and following the use of ground-penetrating radar, the sheriff’s office said.
Zizz was the last person to see Norman on April 1, and investigators later learned he had dinner with her that night, Sheriff Derek Sanders said.
Norman’s family reported suspicious circumstances regarding a missing person April 4.
Searches the next day at Zizz’s house and room uncovered “a five-page letter which meticulously planned out a burglary and sexual assault of a woman who is referred to as his customer,” Sanders said.
The letter is part of the investigation. Sanders said “there are similarities” in what’s described in the letter and what evidence shows happened in the Norman case, he said.
“That part we’re still investigating,” Sanders said, adding that detectives have a lot of follow-up work to do. “The letter that they uncovered is extremely disturbing.”
There is no evidence of sexual assault, officials said.
A motive in the killing is not clear. “If I had to guess at this point in time, it’s because the suspect that we have in custody is a violent person,” Sanders said.
Officials said Zizz fled to Montana as detectives investigated Norman’s disappearance. Authorities in Thurston County obtained an arrest warrant for a probation violation from a previous child molestation case, officials said.
Zizz was arrested in Missoula, Montana, on April 7 and extradited to Washington on April 13, the sheriff’s office said.
Zizz had been initially interviewed in Norman’s disappearance and his answers seemed reasonable, Sanders said, but a license plate reader in Olympia contradicted his claim he was home the night she disappeared.
“That was the first step in which we were able to put him into a lie and then expand further,” Sanders said.
Read’s widely publicized first trial ended with a hung jury last summer.
The heart of the trial is set to begin Tuesday with opening statements.
Here are key dates in the case.
Jan. 29, 2022: John O’Keefe is found dead
John O’Keefe, a 16-year veteran of the Boston Police Department, was found unresponsive in the yard of a now-retired Boston police sergeant, Brian Albert. O’Keefe, 46, was pronounced dead shortly afterward, and a medical examiner attributed his death to hypothermia and blunt-force trauma to the head.
Boston Police Officer John O’Keefe.Boston Police Dept. via AP
The night before, the couple had been drinking with other law enforcement officers in Canton, just south of Boston, before they drove to an afterparty at Albert’s home.
What followed was not captured on video, and no witnesses have claimed to have seen what led to O’Keefe’s death. But lawyers for Read, an equity analyst who’d been together with O’Keefe for two years, later said she dropped him off at Albert’s home and watched him go inside.
Read’s defense team said that hours later, after she discovered that her boyfriend never came home, she went out looking for him and, eventually, discovered his body in the snow outside Albert’s home.
In court, Albert denied that O’Keefe ever entered his home. And after Read was arrested on charges of second-degree murder, motor vehicular manslaughter while driving under the influence and leaving the scene of a collision causing death, prosecutors painted a different picture of what investigators believe happened.
More on the Karen Read murder
April 2024: A widely watched first trial
When Read’s trial got underway last April, the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office described a relationship in shambles and a drunken defendant so furious with her partner that she backed into him with her Lexus SUV and left him for dead.
Adam Lally, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, pointed to vehicle data that captured Read reversing her Lexus for 60 feet at 24 mph outside Albert’s home and forensic testing that showed O’Keefe’s hair found on the vehicle’s bumper.
Also found on the vehicle’s bumper were the remnants of a drink — O’Keefe was seen leaving a bar that night with a cocktail in hand — and bits of a drinking glass, Lally said.
Read’s defense team was allowed to make a third-party culprit defense, permitting it to call witnesses and present evidence supporting an alternative theory of O’Keefe’s death.
According to that theory, O’Keefe was fatally beaten and bitten by a dog in Albert’s home. Her legal team alleged that Read was framed by Albert and another person who’d been at the party — an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who’d traded flirtatious texts with Read before, the defense said, she ghosted him. (Albert testified that O’Keefe never entered his home but that he would have been welcomed with “open arms” if he had.)
The defense also accused the lead investigator in the case, former Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Proctor, of manipulating evidence, failing to properly examine the case and leading a biased investigation. Among the evidence introduced were text messages that showed Proctor using derogatory language to describe Read to friends, family members and supervisors.
At one point, Proctor said he hoped Read would take her own life.
Proctor acknowledged making unprofessional comments about Read and sharing details of the investigation with his sister, who was close friends with Albert’s sister-in-law, but he said he provided only “newsworthy stuff,” and he denied that his conduct compromised the integrity of the investigation.
The Norfolk County district attorney vowed to retry the case and appointed Hank Brennan, a former prosecutor and longtime criminal defense lawyer who previously represented Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, to be lead prosecutor.
The defense sought to have the crimes dismissed, alleging “extraordinary governmental misconduct” and saying that retrying her for two of the charges, including murder, amounted to double jeopardy. The lawyers made the second claim after, they said, two jurors came forward after the trial and said the panel would have acquitted Read of those crimes.
Judges in superior and federal court denied both claims.
March 19: Lead investigator Michael Proctor is fired
The panel also found that he drank alcohol on duty and drove his cruiser afterward.
Proctor has not publicly commented on his termination. His family said they were “truly disappointed” with the board’s decision, which they said “unfairly exploits and scapegoats one of their own, a trooper with a 12-year unblemished record.”
“Despite the Massachusetts State Police’s dubious and relentless efforts to find more inculpatory evidence against Michael Proctor on his phones, computers and cruiser data, the messages on his personal phone — referring to the person who killed a fellow beloved Boston Police Officer — are all that they found,” the family said in a statement.
“The messages prove one thing, and that Michael is human — not corrupt, not incompetent in his role as a homicide detective, and certainly not unfit to continue to be a Massachusetts State Trooper,” the statement added.
It isn’t clear what role Proctor will play in the retrial, and legal experts told NBC News that his presence is likely to loom over the proceedings.
April 1: The second trial gets underway
Jury selection began in Read’s retrial in a Norfolk County courtroom, with prosecutors and defense lawyers questioning hundreds of potential jurors.
After three weeks of screening jurors, the panel was seated.
The 18 jurors include six alternates.
Opening statements are expected to start in the Massachusetts courtroom Tuesday.
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., defended tech billionaire Elon Musk at a town hall Monday night at which he was grilled about the Department of Government Efficiency‘s cost-cutting measures and the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate diversity initiatives and its approach to the Israel-Hamas war.
Donalds, a member of the House Oversight Committee, was pressed at one point about what the Republican-led panel was doing to ensure oversight of Musk and DOGE as the administration moves to dramatically reshape the federal government and slash spending.
“If you’re going to talk about what Oversight is doing, we actually have to let the DOGE committee, the DOGE department, actually finish its work,” Donalds said at the event in Estero, Florida.
He also defended the Trump administration’s efforts to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs, arguing it was a “false premise” that the absence of such initiatives in boardrooms and classrooms meant that “somehow minority kids cannot get ahead. It is a lie.”
“There’s no level playing field in life; it doesn’t exist,” said Donalds, one of the few Black Republicans in Congress.
After a man in the audience shouted that Donalds ought to read a particular book, Donalds fired back, telling the man not to “educate me about my life, sir.”
“I love how everybody is shouting at me, the Black guy with the microphone in his hand onstage,” Donalds said. “Don’t marginalize my life and what I’ve done. Don’t do that.”
Throughout the town hall, dozens of people left, many voicing frustration with answers from Donalds, who is running for governor of Florida in next year’s election.
Toward the end of the event, Donalds clashed with an audience member over his response to a question about the Israel-Hamas war.
“We should stand behind Israel 100%,” Donalds said. “I stand by our ally, which is Israel.”
When the audience member stood and loudly protested his pro-Israel stance, Donalds said she was disrespecting “everybody in this room” with her conduct.
“You think you’re being heard, and let’s be clear, you’re not,” Donalds said. “We laid the rules out. You are being rude and disrespectful. You are not the only person who has a point of view in this room.”
Shouts of “Free Palestine!” from a small number of audience members could be heard as the woman left the venue, followed by police.
There were no arrests.
Donalds is one of a handful of Republicans who have held town halls after Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, advised GOP lawmakers in a closed-door meeting last month against holding the events amid harsh criticism from angry attendees at town halls earlier this year.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., held a town hall last week at which some audience members were arrested and stunned by police, while others were removed from the event.
