Taking a Closer Look at Trump’s Promised ‘Largest Deportation Program’

Happy Monday! Bitcoin is having a moment … which probably means we have to finally figure out what Bitcoin is. 

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Ukrainian officials on Friday accused Russian forces of executing Ukrainian prisoners of war last month near the eastern Ukrainian city of Vuhledar. Ukrainian prosecutors have opened a war crimes investigation, though the accusations have not been independently confirmed. Meanwhile, officials in Moscow claimed Friday that Ukraine and Russia had made a deal for the return of Russian civilians taken to Ukraine during the Ukrainian invasion of the Kursk region of Russia. Kyiv didn’t comment on the reported deal, and it’s not clear why the civilians were transported to Ukraine, if they were. Overnight Saturday, Ukraine and Russia exchanged drone attacks, officials said. Ukraine reportedly downed 50 of the more than 70 drones Russia launched, while Russian officials claimed that it shot down 36 Ukrainian drones.
• President-elect Donald Trump on Friday nominated Brooke Rollins—who served as the acting director of his Domestic Policy Council during his first term—to be his secretary of agriculture. She currently heads the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank. Trump also announced Scott Bessent, the billionaire founder of a hedge fund, as his choice for treasury secretary. If confirmed, Bessent would be the first openly gay person to lead the Treasury Department. Also on Friday, Trump named outgoing Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon as his nominee to lead the Department of Labor. The nomination is likely to be viewed favorably by organized labor, because Chavez-DeRemer while in Congress supported pro-labor legislation, including the PRO Act, a bill that would make it easier for workers at the federal level to unionize. 
• Trump also filled out several sub-Cabinet-level positions in a flurry of announcements on Friday. The president-elect said he intended to name Dr. Martin A. Makary, a surgeon at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and frequent Fox News contributor, to lead the Food and Drug Administration. Trump tapped former Rep. David Weldon of Florida—a physician who has claimed that vaccines cause autism—as his nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trump also nominated Dr. Janette Nesheiwat to be the next surgeon general. Nesheiwat is a medical director for a chain of urgent care clinics in the New York City area, a Fox News contributor, and the sister of Trump’s former homeland security adviser and sister-in-law to Rep. Mike Waltz, whom Trump tapped as his national security adviser. Trump also named Russell Vought, a contributor to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, as his nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget. 
• Trump on Friday also selected Sebastian Gorka, a longtime ally, to be the National Security Council’s senior director for counterterrorism—a role that doesn’t require Senate confirmation. Gorka—a close associate of Steve Bannon—is reportedly polarizing among those close to the president-elect. Trump also tapped Alex Wong, the former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, to be the deputy national security adviser. 
• An Israeli airstrike hit a Lebanese Armed Forces facility in Al-Amiriya—a town in southern Lebanon—on Sunday, killing one soldier and injuring at least 18 others, according to the Lebanese army. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released a statement apologizing for the strike and noting the incident took place in an active combat area where fighting is underway against Hezbollah. “The IDF regrets the incident and clarifies that it is fighting in a targeted manner against the Hezbollah terror organization, and not against the Lebanese Army,” the military said in a statement. On Sunday, the terror group launched the heaviest barrage of rockets into Israel in weeks, wounding at least seven people. Israeli strikes continued over the weekend including a strike in Beirut that reportedly targeted a senior Hezbollah commander and killed at least 29 people, according to local officials. 
• The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Sunday that Iranian officials will meet this week with French, German, and British representatives to discuss the country’s nuclear program. The talks come after the International Atomic Energy Agency censured Iran for failing to comply with the U.N. agency’s oversight and continuing to enrich uranium to near-weapons grade. Separately, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in an interview on Sunday that Iran is preparing to “respond” to last month’s Israeli strikes against Iran that severely damaged the country’s air defenses. The strikes followed a large-scale Iranian ballistic missile attack earlier in October. 
• An Israeli-Moldovan rabbi, Zvi Kogan, was found murdered in Abu Dhabi, authorities announced Sunday. Kogan, who worked in Abu Dhabi as part of the Jewish Chabad movement, had been missing since Thursday. The United Arab Emirates Ministry of the Interior said authorities had arrested “the three perpetrators involved in the murder.” Israel’s Prime Minister’s office labeled the killing “an abhorrent act of antisemitic terrorism.” 
• Three police officers were injured in a shooting near the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan, early on Sunday. Local officials said police shot and killed a gunman who opened fire on the police checkpoint in the area near the embassy in an incident that the Jordanian communications minister described as a terrorist attack. 
• Judge Juan Merchan indefinitely postponed sentencing in President-elect Donald Trump’s New York criminal case. Trump was convicted in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to an adult film star. It’s unclear whether the case will be simply put on hold while Trump is in office or dismissed altogether. Trump’s legal team now has until December 2 to file a motion to dismiss the case, and the New York District Attorney’s Office will have until December 9 to respond. 

The Coming Deportation Battle

“We’re going to defend all of our people regardless of where they come from, regardless of their immigration status,” then-Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City said in January 2017. He was responding to a short-lived executive order from the first Trump administration that had threatened to revoke federal grants to “sanctuary cities” if they didn’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement efforts. 

More than seven years later, New York City Mayor Eric Adams struck a different note when he called for reforms to the city’s sanctuary laws. “I want to go back to the standards of the previous mayors who I believe subscribe to my belief that people who are suspected of committing serious crimes in this city should be held accountable,” Adams said in February, arguing local police should cooperate with federal immigration enforcement when dealing with migrants suspected of major crimes. 

Four years after he left office, President-elect Donald Trump is nearing the start of his second term in a political environment much more attuned to concerns about border security and migrants who enter the country illegally. Many of the Democratic state and local officials who pushed back on some of the first Trump administration’s policies have softened—at least rhetorically—on the migrant crisis as new arrivals flooded into their cities.

But Trump’s winning campaign focused not just on border enforcement, but promised to carry out a sweeping deportation program—something that could involve unprecedented …

As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our 1,878-word item on Trump’s vow to carry out mass deportations is available in the members-only version of TMD.

Worth Your Time

• To mark George Will’s 50 years as an incisive columnist and important voice in American conservatism, David Von Drehle told Will’s story in the Washington Post. “Journalism careers are not quantified with the passion and precision of baseball seasons,” Von Drehle wrote. “No one knows who holds the column-writing record, or even how such a record might be defined in a world of gossip columns, advice columns, sports columns and opinion columns. What can be said with confidence is that Will is the Iron Man of America’s op-ed pages as surely as [Cal] Ripken was the Iron Man of baseball, and for many of the same reasons: native talent, self-discipline, devotion to craft, conscientious preparation and enthusiasm for the contest. Some people are born to do something and content to keep doing it. For Ripken, that was fielding and hitting a baseball; for Will, it is thinking and writing about things that matter.”
• Writing for Bloomberg, Erika Smith examined the future of sanctuary cities.“This last election, in which Republicans won the presidency as well as control of Congress, turned on the economy and border security,” Smith wrote. “Democrats vastly underestimated the anger of voters over the spike in illegal border crossings under President Joe Biden. Now these mayors and governors could face an uphill battle explaining the value of being a sanctuary—such as that it’s inefficient to use scarce local resources to help the federal government raid, say, meatpacking plants, and that entire communities suffer if undocumented immigrants are too afraid to report crimes or come forward as witnesses. Nationally, polls have shown a surprising number of Americans say they favor Trump-style mass deportations—56 percent of registered voters ‘strongly or somewhat’ do so, according to Pew Research Center. Are some voters too fed up to support sanctuary cities and states again?”

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NBC News: NBA Warns of Possible South American Theft Rings Targeting Players, NFL Urges Stars To Secure Homes

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New York Post: Ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz Teases Run for Florida Governor

Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz suggested Saturday that he might run for governor of the Sunshine State, days after he withdrew from consideration as President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general pick.

The 42-year-old Republican posted a GIF of the state flag waving on X, teasing he is open to running. He was responding to ex-Florida House Rep. Anthony Sabatini, who posted Gaetz “will be the next Governor of the State of Florida.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is term-limited from seeking re-election.

In the Zeitgeist

As we enter Thanksgiving week, we thought it would be appropriate to share this oldie-but-goodie—because we, like Adam Sandler, love to eat turkey. 

Toeing the Company Line

• In the newsletters: Jonah reflected on his journey through India, Nick explored (🔒) why so many of Trump’s nominees have sexual misconduct allegations in their backgrounds, Chris said (🔒) Tulsi Gabbard should expect to get a close look from the Senate, and Angela Lu Fulton examined how faith has propelled Hong Kong’s pro-democracy activists in Dispatch Faith. 
• On the podcasts: Jonah ruminated on India, yak products, and the next U.S. attorney general on the weekend Remnant, and Michael spoke to Angela Lu Fulton in The Skiff (🔒) about the religious faith behind the Hong Kong democracy movement.
• On the site over the weekend: Greg Fournier reviewed Peter Singer’s Consider the Turkeys, and Nicole Penn reflected on what Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd can tell us about friendships between men and women.
• On the site today: Razib Khan’s Monday Essay examines what’s behind a recent report speculating about Christopher Columbus’ roots, and Charles profiles Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz.