Letters from an American – November 29, 2025 – Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American, November 29, 2025
By Heather Cox Richardson, Nov 29, 2025
In the wake of yesterday’s report from Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered Special Operations to kill the survivors of a September 2 strike on a small boat off Venezuela, the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees have announced they intend to conduct “vigorous oversight” and “gather a full accounting” of the operation. The two committees referred to the Department of Defense by that name, rather than by the “Department of War” rebrand Hegseth and Trump have pushed.
Today former judge advocate generals (JAGs), military lawyers, in the Former JAGs Working Group issued a statement declaring that it unanimously “considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both,” and called for “anyone who issues or follows such orders [to] be prosecuted for war crimes, murder, or both.”
The Former JAGs Working Group organized in February 2025 after Hegseth purged JAGs from the Army and Air Force and systematically dismantled the military’s legal guardrails. “Had those guardrails been in place,” they wrote, “we are confident they would have prevented these crimes.”
Congress appears to be stepping up on this issue, and that willingness to cross Trump suggests members are recalculating Trump’s power relative to their own. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo noted: “This is genuinely big news…. Republicans are challenging Trump now because he seems weak. No one wants to back a weak horse.”
A Gallup poll released yesterday shows President Donald J. Trump’s job approval rating at 36% with disapproval at 60%. Since last month, Trump’s approval has plummeted 11 points. Republicans’ approval of Trump has fallen seven points to a second-term low, while approval among Independents has fallen eight points to its lowest point in either term. Only 3% of Democrats approve of his job performance. Although war conditions usually help a president’s popularity, Trump’s threat to attack Venezuela attracts the support of only 30% of Americans. Seventy percent oppose such military action.
There are signs that the MAGA coalition is fracturing. A Politico poll released yesterday shows that just 55% of those who voted for Trump in 2024 see themselves as MAGA. While the MAGA 55% remain largely loyal to Trump, 38% do not consider themselves as MAGA and are less enamored of him than are his MAGA loyalists.
Last week a new feature on X that permitted users to see where accounts originate revealed that a number of high-engagement MAGA accounts that claim to be those of patriotic Americans are in fact from Russia, Eastern Europe, India, Nigeria, Thailand, and Bangladesh. Since X pays certain content creators for tweets that drive engagement, posters from other countries have a financial incentive to post material that feeds the anger of American users and thus will get reposted.
The splintering of the MAGA coalition showed when Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) announced on November 21 she would not run for reelection in a public letter that attacked Trump and “Establishment Republicans.” She called out Trump’s threats to primary her, and said, “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better.”
Three days later, Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News said her letter “rang true to” many House Republicans. One senior House Republican wrote to Sherman: “This entire White House team has treated ALL members like garbage. ALL. And Mike Johnson has let it happen because he wanted it to happen. That is the sentiment of nearly all—appropriators, authorizers, hawks, doves, rank and file. The arrogance of this White House team is off putting to members who are run roughshod and threatened. They don’t even allow little wins like announcing small grants or even responding from agencies. Not even the high profile, the regular rank and file random members are more upset than ever. Members know they are going into the minority after the midterms.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: November 29, 2025 – by Heather Cox Richardson
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