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White House begins demolitions for Trump's new ballroom

admin - Latest News - October 21, 2025
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Construction crews started demolishing part of the East Wing of the White House as part of President Donald Trump’s project to build a new ballroom.



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Oct. 21, 2025, 4:40 AM EDTBy Matt BradleyTEL AVIV — Hamas has violently sought to reassert its authority over the Gaza Strip in the wake of the Israel military’s partial withdrawal, but questions remain over the group’s future and efforts to rebuild.Since the ceasefire came into effect a week ago, the militant group has deployed armed police officers on streets from where Israeli forces have withdrawn, clashed with rival clans, directly fired upon and killed Israeli troops in multiple incidents, and staged at least one public execution of suspected collaborators. As Hamas continues to demonstrate its presence, Israeli security officials and experts on Gaza agree it has been badly diminished but not thoroughly destroyed, and will count with new recruits propelled to join after tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli fire. Assessments of Hamas’ strength are crucial to the negotiations around the group’s disarmament — an important stipulation in the American-brokered ceasefire deal that halted the war. So far, the group has refused to give up its weapons.“Hamas was damaged very severely in its military capabilities, but I think it will be fair to say that it wasn’t crushed,” said Shalom Ben Hanan, a fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Israel’s Reichman University and a nearly 30-year veteran of the Israeli Security Agency, also known as Shabak or Shin Bet. “Maybe the threat isn’t in the days to come or the nearest future. But their potential is still there.”Hamas militants with the Qassam Brigades in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza, on Monday.Bashar Taleb / AFP via Getty ImagesHanan said the group still commands about 15,000 to 25,000 fighters — an estimate he said was based on his regular briefings from serving Israeli security officials. According to an Israeli military official, who asked for anonymity to speak openly about the Israeli military’s internal assessment, about 10,000 to 20,000 commandos remain at Hamas’ disposal.Giora Eiland, the former director of Israel’s National Security Council and the former head of the planning department of the Israel Defense Forces, said Hamas lost about 20,000 fighters during two years of war — an estimate he also bases on conversations with serving security officials.A Hamas militant stands guard in Khan Younis on Friday, during a search for the bodies of hostages killed after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.ReutersBut the group will have little trouble reconstituting its manpower, Eiland said, and security officials believe Hamas has been recruiting new fighters throughout the war even under fire.“It is easy for Hamas to regain power and it is very easy for them to recruit more and more people to replace those who were killed,” Eiland said.Hamas wrested power from the more secular and internationally recognized Fatah party in 2007 after winning legislative elections the previous year. The Islamist group, which the United States, Israel and many other countries classify as a terrorist group, does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and launched the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in part to stall normalization efforts in the Arab world. Militants in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, in February.Abed Rahim Khatib / dap via APIsrael’s ensuing offensive has flattened much of the enclave, killed tens of thousands of civilians and engendered the kind of anger that could create thousands of potential recruits. “Although we will be speaking about young people with less military experience, they still have no doubt lots of competence and enough personal weapons like small arms and RPGs,” Eiland said, referring to rocket-propelled grenades.Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed and maimed in the war; a United Nations commission said in September that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Famine was officially declared in August in part of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, by the world’s leading authority on hunger. The war has also inflicted significant damage on Hamas’ supplies of its heaviest weapons and its weapons manufacturing capabilities, as well as on its senior leadership.The Israeli military official said that as many as 90% of the group’s rockets have been destroyed, and Israel has succeeded in frustrating Hamas’ ability to rebuild that lost heavy firepower.“Very important is the manufacturing sites, the smuggling routes and so on,” the military official said. “It’s not just taking away the fish, it’s taking away the rod.”All of the experts agreed that Hamas’ vast tunnel system remains its greatest strength and Israel’s greatest challenge.Eiland estimated that 70% to 80% of Hamas’ tunnels remain intact, with much of the surviving network unknown to Israel’s military.In a statement last week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the IDF would turn its attention to destroying the remaining tunnel network as part of the process of disarming Hamas. The IDF said it had been working to dismantle a part of the tunnel network when some of its soldiers came under fire Sunday.A Hamas militant in Gaza City on Wednesday.Ahmad Salem / Bloomberg via Getty ImagesThe group’s political power and popularity — key components in its ability to recruit, rebuild its weapons and suppress its rivals — have been badly damaged. Even if Gazans are enraged at Israel for killing nearly 70,000 Palestinians during the war, Hamas still takes part of the public blame.“Politically is where Hamas is really in shambles,” said Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, head of the Atlantic Council’s Realign for Palestine project, whose family is from the Gaza Strip. “They don’t really have a political program. They don’t really have a compelling agenda in Gaza.”But unlike the Islamic State terrorist group, or ISIS, and Al Qaeda — two terror groups whose power has been checked by the U.S.-led war on terror over the past quarter-century — Hamas presides over a true geographic constituency.“It is not a terrorist organization that came from nowhere and managed to take control over a certain area by spreading fear and terror,” Eiland said. “Hamas is the authentic representative of the people of Gaza.”Outside Gaza, Hamas also takes credit for turning global opinion against Israel, Alkhatib said.“Hamas feels that this shift is something that they alone brought about,” he said. “And Hamas ties that to its strategic picture on the ground.”Matt BradleyMatt Bradley is an international correspondent for NBC News based in Israel.
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Nov. 27, 2025, 11:30 AM ESTBy Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube, Mosheh Gains and Katherine DoyleWASHINGTON — Army Secretary Dan Driscoll was planning a trip to Kyiv to discuss drone technology with his Ukrainian counterparts when his mission suddenly got more complex. President Donald Trump was upgrading his role, Driscoll was told, to include international diplomat.The decision has thrust Driscoll to the forefront of the most vexing foreign policy challenge that Trump, by his own admission, has faced since he took office: ending the nearly four-year-long war in Ukraine. It’s a high-stakes foray for Driscoll, a former Army Ranger and financier, that has elevated his profile and fueled speculation inside and outside the Trump administration about where he might land next.This account of Driscoll’s diplomatic activities and how the administration came to trust him is based on interviews with four current U.S. officials and two former U.S. officials. For more than a week, Driscoll has crisscrossed Europe, shuttling from Kyiv to Geneva to lead talks with Ukrainian and other European officials. And he made a secret trip to the Middle East to meet with the Russians. All the while, he has socialized elements of the U.S.-backed peace plan crafted by Trump’s closest advisers.Driscoll flew from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on Wednesday to meet with Vice President JD Vance, who was there to address troops, and he is expected to again meet with Ukrainian officials.A senior administration official said Driscoll was tapped for Ukraine negotiations because Trump trusts him and because it was convenient given he was already scheduled to be in Kyiv for discussions about drones.Driscoll, who is also the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was hoisted into Trump’s orbit by Vance, his close friend. The two men are former Yale Law School students and military veterans.Driscoll, 39, a North Carolina native, served in Iraq in 2009 before he attended Yale and then worked in finance. Since his Senate confirmation in February, he has been focused on helping transform the Army by pushing to eliminate some weapons seen in the military as sacred cows and adding some new ones that are cheaper and easier to buy, moves intended to make the Army more relevant and “lethal,” he has said publicly.That effort has had its challenges, as some lawmakers worry Driscoll’s proposed changes could result in jobs leaving their districts and states. But Republicans and Democrats alike have praised him as sincere and accessible, and he has many lawmakers on speed-dial, according to two U.S. officials.Driscoll has no formal diplomatic background. But the two U.S. officials said he has been given latitude from the highest echelons of the White House to carry Trump’s message.“People know he’s operating with the intent of the vice president, and the VP is synced up with the president,” one of the U.S. officials said of Driscoll.“In the midst of conversations, he can be making decisions to go the next step or not without hesitation because he knows and trusts that he’s within the intent,” the official said. “He knows where the red lines are and where to keep going.”At Vance’s urging this month, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff asked Driscoll to talk about a peace deal while he was meeting with the Ukrainians during his trip to Kyiv, according to one of the previously mentioned U.S. officials and two additional U.S. officials.It was ultimately Trump who said he wanted Driscoll to be part of his impromptu peace effort, those three U.S. officials said. Trump wasn’t deterred by Driscoll’s lack of diplomatic experience, having already embraced unconventional diplomacy by tapping his friend and fellow businessman Witkoff to lead his peace efforts in the Middle East and Ukraine.Trump is known to refer to Driscoll as “drone guy,” one of those U.S. officials said, because of his expertise in the technology. He also has praised him publicly.“What a job he’s doing, this guy,” Trump said of Driscoll in September at an Oval Office event announcing the deployment of National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee.“Look at that nice face, and yet he’s a killer,” Trump added. “Nice, beautiful face, and he’s a total killer. I don’t know how you do it, huh?”“Lotion, sir,” Driscoll joked.The idea behind sending Driscoll was that as a military leader with the backing of the White House, he could look the Ukrainians in the eye, perhaps with more credibility than a conventional government diplomat, and persuade them it was time for peace, the three U.S. officials said.Witkoff read Driscoll in on the broad strokes of the peace deal he had assembled, though Driscoll wasn’t briefed on the specifics of the 28-point plan before he arrived in Kyiv, according to two of the U.S. officials. Elements of the plan were leaked to the media while Driscoll was engaged in informal talks in Kyiv, the two officials said. That leak and initial signs of momentum in the discussions between Driscoll and the Ukrainians prompted White House officials to decide to brief Driscoll on the 28-point plan, those U.S. officials said. Driscoll was then instructed to brief the 28-point plan to the Ukrainians, the officials said.In tasking Driscoll with peace negotiations in Kyiv, Trump’s hope was that he could lay important groundwork with the Ukrainians before Witkoff or Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also the national security adviser, got more deeply involved, the three U.S. officials said. The process has since evolved into a series of ongoing negotiations that have both drawn criticism that they favor Russia and raised hopes of a potential deal.The momentum Driscoll has helped build in recent days has raised questions inside and outside the administration about whether he could be on a short list to succeed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should he depart sometime next year, according to the three current U.S. officials and two former U.S. officials. Some of Trump’s top aides don’t trust Hegseth to lead on such sensitive and potentially consequential negotiations, according to two of the current U.S. officials and one of the former U.S. officials. Trump is fond of Hegseth despite the secretary making a series of errors since he began leading the Defense Department, including pausing aid to Ukraine without informing Congress or the State Department and sharing sensitive information about a military operation in a group chat on the Signal messaging app, according to four of the current and former officials and two people familiar with the matter.The senior administration official pushed back against the idea that Driscoll is in any way being positioned to succeed Hegseth. The official said Hegseth needed to be in Washington to brief Trump on his fight against drug cartels, manage the relationship between the United States and China and attend Trump’s intelligence briefings. Hegseth, the official said, is overseeing the sale of weaponry to NATO for Ukraine and has engaged in various conversations with the Ukrainians. “Secretary Driscoll’s role has evolved because he was going to be in Ukraine for talks on drone technology and war fighting capabilities anyway, and so it made sense to just tap him to have these conversations with the Ukrainians at this time, frankly, out of pure convenience and because, again, he is a trusted player on the president’s team,” the official said. “Secretary Hegseth is also beloved by the president, and the president has the utmost confidence in Secretary Hegseth.” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement, “The secretary has built an all-star team at the Department of War, and we are proud of our many accomplishments.”One of the U.S. officials described Driscoll, who has held a much lower-profile role than Hegseth, as “trusted, liked and respected” in the administration and in Congress.When he arrived in Kyiv on Nov. 19, his message for the Ukrainians was simple, according to two of the U.S. officials.The officials said Driscoll told the Ukrainians that unlike in the past — when the United States would reject Ukraine’s requests for weaponry, expanded intelligence or other assistance, only to later approve such requests — this time was different. He said the United States couldn’t continue to provide Kyiv with more weaponry at the same rate it has been, given American stockpiles are depleting and supplies are starting to run out, according to the officials.He also delivered a grim U.S. assessment on the war: that while the Russian military’s progress is slow, its ability to keep fighting could continue long past the Ukrainian military’s ability to keep fighting, with or without American and European support, NBC News has reported.Driscoll’s message to the Ukrainians wasn’t so much a finger in the chest as it was pragmatic, two of the U.S. officials said.“He didn’t tell the Ukrainians anything they didn’t already know,” one of the officials said.Driscoll and other U.S. officials then made an unannounced trip to Geneva for more meetings with the Ukrainians. Delegations from some European nations, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom, also visited Geneva to support Ukrainian efforts. Driscoll’s boyish exuberance that administration officials describe behind the scenes was on display as he turned to fist-bump an aide after a news conference he joined there with Ukrainian officials, Rubio, Witkoff and Trump’s outside adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.Driscoll appeared after several days of negotiations to have secured assurances, at least from the Ukrainians, that the outlines of a peace plan in its current form were potentially acceptable.The next day, Driscoll was secretly flying to Abu Dhabi to meet with a Russian delegation about a potential peace plan, albeit one that now had been somewhat altered in favor of Ukrainian interests.Russian officials haven’t voiced support for the current plan. Trump said Tuesday that Witkoff and possibly Kushner are set to travel to Russia next week for negotiations.He also said his Army secretary-turned-diplomat will hold additional meetings with the Ukrainians.Gordon LuboldGordon Lubold is a national security reporter for NBC News.Courtney KubeCourtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.Mosheh GainsI am NBC News’ producer & off-air reporter covering stories about and related to the Defense Department around the world.Katherine DoyleKatherine Doyle is a White House reporter for NBC News.
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