| | | |  | | By Daniella Cheslow and Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing | | 
Russian President Vladimir Putin, third right, Russian Presidential foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, fourth right, and Russian Direct Investment Fund CEO Special Presidential Representative for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries Kirill Dmitriev, right, attend the talks with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, second left, and Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law, third, at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 2, 2025. | Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP | With help from Felicia Schwartz and Phelim Kine Subscribe here | Email Daniella | Email Gigi As White House special envoy STEVE WITKOFF and presidential son-in-law JARED KUSHNER met with Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN today, it wasn’t clear if the two Americans will extract terms that would be any closer to Kyiv’s positions than the 28-point plan that Ukraine and its allies saw as a nonstarter last month. We’re still waiting to hear the outcome of the talks, but Witkoff’s sixth Moscow visit (and walk around the Russian capital) is likely not the end of the diplomatic back-and-forth. As Witkoff and Kushner shared a large white table at the Kremlin with Putin and his advisers YURI USHAKOV and KIRILL DMITRIEV, a sense of caution percolated throughout Washington. “It’s interesting to see [Secretary of State MARCO] RUBIO’s not there again,” a diplomat from a European country told NatSec Daily, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. “We would need to see what they bring back.” Ahead of the meeting, Putin told an investment forum that Ukraine’s European allies were sabotaging the U.S.-led negotiation efforts to end the war that Russia started nearly four years ago by invading Ukraine. “They don’t have a peace agenda, they’re on the side of the war,” Putin said, according to The Associated Press. He said Europe had changed peace proposals with “demands that are absolutely unacceptable to Russia.” (The latest, 19-point plan was negotiated with Europe and Ukraine after they said the original leaked plan gave so much to Russia as to be unworkable.) Sen. MIKE ROUNDS (R-S.D.) told your anchor today, “I don’t think Mr. Putin has any interest in pursuing anything other than simply drawing us along,” adding, “but we still have to go through this exercise.” Sen. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-Conn.) told NatSec Daily, “Witkoff is on a fool’s errand.” Blumenthal’s effort alongside Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) to pass new sanctions on Russia is stalled in the Senate, leaving the Democrat to possibly wishful thinking. “Once this week is over we’ll see a different approach from [President] DONALD TRUMP,” Blumenthal said. “I’m hoping once this week is over, he will be truly angry that he has been played so often and so embarrassingly.” Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY wrote on X this afternoon, “Ukraine will be waiting for signals from the American delegation after its meetings in Russia. The U.S. delegation intends to brief us directly immediately after those meetings. The next steps will depend on those signals.” Putin is riding high off a mounting rout of Kyiv’s forces in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. Meanwhile Zelenskyy faces a widening corruption scandal that forced his chief of staff ANDRIY YERMAK out of office. Ahead of the Moscow meeting, European countries rushed to back Zelenskyy, who was visiting Ireland. French President EMMANUEL MACRON said any “territorial questions” would have to be finalized by the Ukrainian leader. The EU’s top diplomat KAJA KALLAS said, “I am afraid that all the pressure will be directed at the victim … to make concessions.”
| | | SELECTIVE PARDON: It’s official: The White House has pardoned former Honduran President JUAN ORLANDO HERNÁNDEZ of a drug trafficking conviction, despite criticism from Democrats and even some within his own party that the move contradicts Trump's aggressive anti-drug military operations in the Caribbean. Hernández was released from West Virginia’s high-security USP Hazelton prison Monday, where he had been serving out a 45-year sentence for trafficking roughly 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. The White House confirmed today that Trump had pardoned the former two-term president of Honduras, our own Gregory Svirnovskiy reports. Critics of the move, like Sen. BILL CASSIDY (R-La.), pointed out the inconsistencies in White House policy to “pardon this guy and then go after [Venezuelan President NICOLÁS] MADURO for running drugs into the United States.” Trump maintains that he was simply correcting another Biden administration overreach. “They said it was a [JOE] BIDEN set up,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday. “And I don’t mean Biden. Look, Biden didn’t know he was alive. But it was the people that surround the Resolute Desk, surround Biden, when he was there.” FOG OF WAR: Defense Secretary PETE HEGSETH said today he did not see survivors in the water during a September strike on a suspected drug boat that has become the center of bipartisan congressional inquiries. He cited the “fog of war” and said of the boat, “the thing was on fire.” Hegseth spoke during a Cabinet meeting where he minimized his role in the second strike on a boat that had already been hit by a first U.S. missile. The Washington Post reported Hegseth ordered the second strike. White House spokesperson KAROLINE LEAVITT on Monday put the responsibility for the strike on U.S. Navy Adm. FRANK “MITCH” BRADLEY, who she said was “within his authority and the law” in conducting the second strike. Hegseth told the Cabinet today that he “didn’t stick around” for the mission after the first strike. In September, he had said of the strike, “I watched it live. We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing.” Bradley is set to brief the Senate and House Armed Services committees on the boat strike Thursday, according to The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY: Trump may be getting some movement on his request for Israel to make nice with Syria. Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU said today that he could potentially reach an agreement with Syria — if Damascus gets on board with a buffer zone that Israel has argued is critical for its national security, The Wall Street Journal reports. The Israeli military occupied a 155-square-mile buffer zone between the two countries after the fall of BASHAR ASSAD last year. In comments while visiting Israeli troops wounded during an operation in southern Syria, Netanyahu echoed previous demands that the entire area between Damascus and Israel’s northern border must be demilitarized. “In a good spirit and understanding, an agreement can be reached with the Syrians, but we will stand by our principles,” he said. Netanyahu’s comments come as Trump ramps up pressure on the Israeli leader to take advantage of a “historic opportunity” to foster a relationship between Israel and Syria. “It is very important that Israel maintain a strong and true dialogue with Syria,” Trump wrote in a social media post yesterday, part of a broader effort to claim success in brokering peace in the Middle East. PREPARE FOR TAKEOFF: The Venezuelan government said today that it had accepted a migrant repatriation flight from the U.S. after effectively halting the program in response to Trump’s declaration that the Venezuelan airspace was “closed in its entirety.” "The Aeronautic Authority of Venezuela has received a request from the government of the United States to restart migrant repatriation flights from that country to Venezuela," the country’s transportation ministry said in a statement this morning, Reuters reports. Venezuela has continued to accept migrant repatriation flights for the past couple of months, even as the Trump administration has ramped up its military presence in the region and killed more than 80 people in strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats since September. The decision to restart those flights after Trump’s weekend saber-rattling indicates that communication between the two countries is still ongoing — at least in some capacity. The Venezuelan transportation ministry said that the newest repatriation flight is set to take off from Phoenix and land near Caracas, according to Reuters. READ: Pope Leo warns against military action in Venezuela IT’S TUESDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily! This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at dcheslow@politico.com and gewing@politico.com, and follow them on X @DaniellaCheslow and @giselleruhiyyih. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s global security journalists on social media at: @HeidiVogt,@jessicameyers,@RosiePerper,@nahaltoosi.bsky.social,@PhelimKine,@felschwartz,@ebazaileimil,@connorobrienNH,@paulmcleary,@reporterjoe,@JackDetsch,@magmill95,@johnnysaks130, @delizanickel, @leoshane and @audrey_decker9.
| | | WATCH WHAT YOU SAY: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is cracking down on employee engagements with the media. The cybersecurity agency sent staff an email warning them not to participate in unauthorized communications with reporters, our colleagues at Morning Cybersecurity report today (for Pros!). “While CISA is committed to a culture of transparency, we also have a responsibility to ensure we meet the imperative laid out above and to that end, the Office of the Chief External Affairs Office (OCEAO/ / EA) is the only office authorized to facilitate official communication with the media,” the Friday email reads. MARCI McCARTHY, CISA’s director of public affairs, when asked about the email, said the agency “does not comment on leaked internal emails, especially when they’re about leaking internal emails.” ICYMI: CISA director nominee Sean Plankey excluded from GOP nominations package CHINA CHIP BLOCKADE: Tighter export restrictions on high-end semiconductors are essential to block China from challenging the U.S. lead in development of cutting-edge artificial intelligence systems, the lead GOP and Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s East Asia, The Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy Subcommittee said in a hearing today. “The core of computing are advanced AI chips, the best of which are made by American companies,” subcommittee Chair PETE RICKETTS (R-Neb.) said. “This is a structural advantage that Beijing cannot easily overcome so we must collectively enforce semiconductor export controls and close loopholes so XI JINPING strategy fails to win the AI race.” Ricketts and subcommittee ranking member CHRIS COONS (D-Del.) aim to protect that U.S. tech advantage through their co-sponsorship of pending legislation — the Safe Chips Act — that would enshrine in law restrictions on exports of high-end chips to China, Ricketts added. The Trump administration has yet to replace a Biden-era framework aimed at preventing high-end AI chips from reaching adversaries. And the administration has rejected more than one proposal to tighten controls on advanced semiconductor sales to Beijing, as our own Ari Hawkins reported last month. “Maintaining AI primacy has to be a central national imperative, central to our economic security and geostrategic goals,” Coons said at the hearing.
| | | NEW PENTAGON PRESS MOVES IN: The Trump administration’s Pentagon held a rare press briefing for its new press corps today, with press secretary KINGSLEY WILSON addressing a crowd of media representatives cherry-picked by Hegseth — and devoid of mainstream media outlets. While welcoming the brand-new press corps, Wilson took the opportunity to bash the previous cohort of journalists who had occupied the Pentagon’s press room. “Legacy media chose to self-deport from this building,” Wilson said. Major media outlets — including Trump favorite, Fox News — left the Pentagon press corps earlier in the fall after they refused to sign onto strict new reporting guidelines pushed by the Trump administration. POLITICO was among the news outlets that turned in its badge. Familiar faces in the new press corps include far-right activist and Trump ally LAURA LOOMER and former Florida Republican Rep. MATT GAETZ, who now works at One America News Network. Many members of the Pentagon press corps gloated over their new digs as they moved into offices formerly occupied by press mainstays. “Out with the propagandists and hacks. In with the truth tellers who love America,” one newly credentialed Pentagon reporter, R.C. MAXWELL, posted yesterday. Maxwell claimed he was taking over a Pentagon cubicle that formerly belonged to Washington Post reporter DAN LAMOTHE. But there appeared to be some confusion on whose desk was whose. “The Washington Post @washingtonpost and Dan Lamothe @DanLamothe used to occupy this desk inside the Pentagon Press room,” Loomer captioned a photo of herself at the Pentagon yesterday. “Now it’s mine!”
| | | NAY TO NDAA? Rep. ELISE STEFANIK (R-N.Y.) said today she would help tank the National Defense Authorization Act unless House Speaker MIKE JOHNSON includes her measure to require the FBI to notify Congress when it opens investigations into candidates for federal office. “This bill is DOA unless this provision gets added in as it was passed out of committee,” Stefanik wrote, saying Johnson was blocking her provision “to protect the deep state.” Our own Hailey Fuchs and Meredith Lee Hill report that it is “a notable and unusual split inside the House GOP leadership team.” They report that Johnson called Stefanik’s version of events as “false” and said bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees had not agreed to include her provision. WAR POWERS TAKE 3: After two failed attempts, a new Democratic-led effort is underway to rein in Trump’s military actions in Latin America — but with a condition. Sens. TIM KAINE (D-Va.), RAND PAUL (R-Ky.), CHUCK SCHUMER (D-N.Y.) and ADAM SCHIFF (D-Calif.) said today that they would start a new effort in the event of “unauthorized military action against Venezuela.” “Should a strike occur, we will call up a War Powers Resolution to force a debate and vote in Congress that would block the use of U.S. forces in hostilities against or within Venezuela,” the four senators wrote. Last month the Senate voted 49-51 against Kaine’s resolution that would have required congressional approval for Trump to take military action against Venezuela. A similar, earlier resolution led by Schiff would have stopped Trump’s boat strikes; that one failed too.
| | | FRANKLIN FIGHTS BACK: Hegseth is locked in a battle with an unusual opponent this week: Franklin the Turtle — or rather the publisher of the beloved children's books featuring the character. Canadian publisher Kids Can Press slammed the Pentagon chief today for using “unauthorized” depictions of the series’ titular character after Hegseth had posted a mock cover showing Franklin shooting at drug traffickers, our own Seb Starcevic writes. In the made up cover, titled “Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists,” a smiling Franklin is shown dressed in U.S. military garb and firing from a helicopter at boats filled with men and cargo. “Franklin the Turtle is a beloved Canadian icon who has inspired generations of children and stands for kindness, empathy, and inclusivity,” Kids Can Press wrote in a statement on social media. “We strongly condemn any denigrating, violent, or unauthorized use of Franklin’s name or image, which directly contradicts these values.”
| | | — FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY: The State Department's head of human resources LEW OLOWSKI (technically known as the head of the Bureau of Talent Management) is departing his role and is expected to take on a job in the office of foreign missions, according to two people familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to speak about sensitive personnel moves. Olowski made a splash when a speech he gave early on in his tenure to new foreign service specialists (the professional support staff who serve overseas) referenced talking dolphins and KENDRICK LAMAR's diss track "Not Like Us." Tongues wagged at the State Department owing to his relatively junior tenure in the foreign service before he was elevated to the senior post. Many career employees at State credited him with some of the harsh cuts the department made as part of mass layoffs, with a particular aim at some diversity initiatives that have been a focus of the Trump administration. He will be replaced by SARAH McKEMEY who former Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN once pointed to as an example of those with immigrant roots leading foreign policy and was featured in a social media post celebrating diversity in the department during the Biden administration. She worked for Blinken on the line staff and as a special assistant before going to Vienna. She is currently chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources MICHAEL RIGAS. The State Department did not immediately respond to NatSec Daily’s request for comment. — NATO has selected Maj. Gen. LENA PERSSON HERLITZ to serve as deputy assistant secretary general. Persson Herlitz previously served as the military strategic operational commander at the Swedish Armed Forces headquarters as well as in international missions to Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. — The Stimson Center has appointed RANDA SLIM to launch and lead its new Middle East program. Before joining the Stimson Center, Slim worked as project director of the Middle East Track II Dialogues Initiative. She also worked as senior fellow and director of the Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues Program.
| | | — Sean Wiswesser, The Cipher Brief: The Kremlin's kill list: Inside a culture of state-sponsored murder — Alexander Stubb, Foreign Affairs: The West’s last chance — Victor Jack and Hanne Cokelaere, POLITICO: NATO allies ‘punching below their weight’ face pressure to buy arms for Ukraine
| | | — Defense Strategies Institute, 8:45 a.m.: 13th annual Advanced Data Analytics for Warfare & Intelligence Summit — The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 9 a.m.: Discussion: “The landscape and intractability of conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa: Findings from 'The Armed Conflict Survey 2025” — Center for Strategic and International Studies; and The Korea Foundation, 9 a.m.: The Republic of Korea-U.S. Strategic Forum 2025, focusing on “denuclearization, U.S.-Korea bilateral economic relations and regional relations with China, Japan and Russia” — Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, 10 a.m.: Discussion: “The dramatic transformation occurring within the National Reconnaissance Office” — Permanent Council of the Organization of American States, 10 a.m.: Special meeting “to receive a presentation on the issue of diplomatic asylum” — American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 10 a.m.: Discussion: “How a Senate hold on a 2015 cyber law is undermining America's cybersecurity agency” — The George Washington University's Institute for Middle East Studies and The Middle East Policy Forum, 1 p.m.: Book discussion: “Enduring Hostility: The Making of America's Iran Policy” — Center for a New American Security, 1 p.m.: Discussion: “Natural allies? U.S.-India relations in a time of trouble” — Senate Appropriations State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Subcommittee, 2 p.m.: Hearing: “The abduction of Ukrainian children by the Russian Federation,” with witnesses including Ambassador of Ukraine to the U.S. OLHA STEFANISHYNA — Jews United for Democracy and Justice, 8 p.m.: Discussion: “Israel update: Trump's plan — Breakthrough or breakdown” Thanks to our editors, Heidi Vogt and Emily Lussier, whose demands are absolutely unacceptable. | | | | Follow us on X | | | | Follow us | | | |
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