Trump’s new immigration ban could expand to include 32 countries

Republican Senator Rand Paul has slammed Pete Hegseth as either “incompetent” or “lying” after the defense secretary denied that he gave an order to “kill everybody” during the United States’ first Venezuelan boat strike.

Since September, the U.S. has launched more than a dozen attacks against alleged drug-carrying vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, killing more than 80 people.

On September 2, the first of such attacks, Hegseth gave a verbal directive that there be no survivors, the Washington Post reported. After the first missile strike, when two survivors were seen clinging to the wreckage, the Special Operations commander overseeing the attack then ordered a second strike, to comply with Hegseth’s spoken order to “kill everybody,” the newspaper reported.

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Republican Matt Van Epps has won a special election in a race that turned out to be surprisingly closer than expected in a sign of the Republican Party’s increasing unpopularity going into next year’s midterm elections.

Van Epps, an Army veteran, defeated Aftyn Behn, a progressive state legislator, in the race for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional seat with 53.9 percent of the vote as of Tuesday evening with 99 percent of the vote count reported.

President Donald Trump was among the first to congratulate Van Epps, firing off several posts on Truth Social Tuesday evening after around 75 percent of the votes had been counted.

President Donald Trump claimed Tennessee’s election result was “a great night for the Republican Party” as he congratulated Matt Van Epps.

He said the Democrats “threw everything at him, including millions dollars.”

But the Republicans also spent big in this race.

Van Epps and his backers spent $3.5 million on ads, according to Punchbowl News, while Democrats dropped $2.4 million.

Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon warned his party not to ignore the results of the Tennessee special election, as well as recent Democratic victories in Virginia and New Jersey’s gubernatorial races.

“I’m glad we won. But the GOP should not ignore the Virginia, New Jersey and Tennessee elections,” he told Politico. “We must reach swing voters. America wants some normalcy.”

The Independent’s Washington, D.C. bureau chief, Eric Garcia, has weighed in on what Trump’s involvement, or lack thereof, in the Tennessee special election signals.

Trump said on the phone at a rally for Van Epps Monday, which was held up to a microphone by Speaker Mike Johnson, that he wanted to travel to Tennessee to be there in person, but claimed the Secret Service said “there wasn’t enough time,” according to The Hill.

A rather upbeat Aftyn Behn told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that she’d consider running again in the future following her loss to Matt Van Epps.

“We won an amazing race,” she said. “The deck was stacked against us.”

The election gives Republicans in the House of Representatives 220 seats, increasing their razor-thin majority. That number will drop in January when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) exits Congress after her resignation.

Van Epps’ race with Behn — which comes after incumbent Republican Mark Green resigned earlier this year — turned out to be far more competitive than political insiders previously predicted, given the district voted for Trump by 22 points just 13 months ago.

The closeness of the race signals how hard Republicans will have to work ahead of next year’s midterms, which typically see the president’s party lose seats in Congress.

A YouGov/Economist poll showed that 45 percent of voters would vote for a generic Democrat next year and 39 percent would prefer a generic Republican.

Democrats sought to portray Van Epp’s narrow victory as a worrying sign for the GOP.

“Behn’s overperformance in TN-07—a Trump +22 district—is a flashing warning sign for Republicans heading into the midterms,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin wrote in a statement. “Republicans had to spend MILLIONS just to barely hold onto this seat.”

“This is an unbelievable change over Trump’s 22 pt. victory a year ago,” Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, wrote on X. “Are my Republican colleagues ready to join us to vote to bring health care premiums down? You have my number.”

Republicans have spoken candidly about their concerns for the midterms following Tennessee’s special election, which was surprisingly close.

At one point, early polling had Democratic candidate Aftyn Behn just two points behind Matt Van Epps.

But he edged to victory Tuesday night by nine points.

Still, the drop to single digits from Donald Trump’s 22 points in 2024 has worried some Republicans.

“If our victory margin is single digits, the conference may come unhinged,” one House Republican told Politico before the polls closed Tuesday.

“Tonight is a sign that 2026 is going to be a b**** of an election cycle,” another anonymous House Republican told the outlet. Republicans can survive if we play team and the Trump administration officials play smart. Neither is certain.”

“It was dangerous,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told Fox News. “We could have lost this district because the people who showed up, many of them are the ones that are motivated by how much they dislike President Trump.”

• Republican candidate Matt Van Epps won Tennessee’s special election Tuesday, defeating the Democratic state lawmaker Aftyn Behn
• Van Epps, an Army veteran, defeated Behn, a progressive state legislator, in the race for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional seat by nine points
• The race was surprisingly close, with Behn polling just two points behind Van Epps a week before election day
• President Donald Trump celebrated the win on Truth Social and claimed it had been “a great night” for the Republicans, but others in the party are worried
• Behn appeared upbeat following the election defeat and said she would consider running again in the future
• In his victory speech, Van Epps acknowledged the significance of Trump when he said, “Running from Trump is how you lose. Running with Trump is how you win.”
• The result in Tennessee, following Democratic wins in Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and Georgia in November, has made some Republicans nervous ahead of the 2026 midterms