JD Vance Trains With Navy Seals

OK, this isn’t exactly “news,” but the fact that the Vice President of the United States can train with Navy Seals and keep up with them is, in fact, symbolic of the change in the cultural climate of Washington. The same can be said of the Secretary of War doing PT with the troops. Townhall: Vice President JD Vance at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado in California completed a grueling 90-minute workout on Monday alongside Navy special warfare trainees at BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolitions/SEAL), an elite program that produces the United States military’s Navy SEALs. BUD/S is famous for its “Hell Week,” where trainees are forced to do intense PT over a 5.5 day period with little sleep. Only about 20 percent of candidates make it through this section of BUD/S. “Just finished PT with the Navy SEALs for 90 minutes,” Vance posted on X. “They took it easy on me and I still feel like I got hit by a freight train. So grateful to all of our warriors who keep us safe and keep the highest standards anywhere in the world!” (Townhall) Vance, of course, was a Marine. But even Marines get winded when working out with the Seals.

Trump Keeps Amping Up the Pressure on Maduro in Venezuela

By now, everybody knows that the Trump administration is blowing up cartel speedboats and seizing sanctioned oil tankers (possibly putting hundreds of millions of dollars into the federal coffers). Ed Morrissey argues that the tactics support a strategy that goes beyond the obvious. Ed Morrissey: This conflict with Maduro means a lot more to America’s national and international security than just an ideological tiff with a socialist dictator. Trump wants to dismantle the systems that undergird terrorism and disconnect its benefits to America’s geopolitical foes in Moscow and Beijing, but especially in Tehran. The Bella I won’t be the last tanker that the US chases down and boards, regardless of whether it carries Venezuelan oil at that moment or not.  This has direct implications for US policy on Iran and the region, as Gregg Roman from Middle East Forum told me yesterday. Hezbollah and Iran’s IRGC have both been operating in Venezuela for decades, and those tentacles now go all across Latin America. However, Maduro is still the linchpin for the Iranian regime, which is why his ouster matters most to Trump and his new “Donroe Doctrine.” (Hot Air)

Trump Admin Busts Over 100 Illegal Alien Big Rig Drivers in California

“Operation Highway Sentinel” is a cool name for an important law enforcement effort that has taken, so far, over 100 illegal big rig drivers who have made our highways less safe thanks to Gavin Newsom. Townhall: Those arrested were from a multitude of countries, including India, Mexico, Colombia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Nicaragua, Russia, Georgia, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Honduras. “Gavin Newsom’s sanctuary state policies are costing American lives,” ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan said. “His government knowingly issued thousands of CDLs to illegal aliens who had no business driving at all, let alone behind the wheel of a massive semi-truck. These drivers get their licenses, leave California, then terrorize roads all over the country.” “ICE is stepping in where his state failed,” she added. “Just like our operations in Oklahoma and Indiana, we are taking these dangerous illegal alien truckers off the roads and making California streets safe again.” (Townhall)

GDP Growth Way Up, Trump Does Victory Lap

The forecasters didn’t see it coming, but President Trump was expecting economic growth to pop all along. And it did. Ed Morrissey: It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas … for the White House. Just as Democrats tried to force a return to economic policy with their “affordability” rhetoric, the Bureau of Economic Analysis delivered a forceful riposte. The US economy grew 4.3% in real gross domestic product in Q3 (annualized), the best quarter of growth in the past two years. It exceeds the 3.8% growth in Q2 that had largely been seen as driven by rebalancing of the trade deficit. It’s the first BEA analysis of overall economic activity since September, thanks to the Schumer Shutdown: Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 4.3 percent in the third quarter of 2025 (July, August, and September), according to the initial estimate released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 3.8 percent. Due to the recent government shutdown, this initial report for the third quarter of 2025 replaces the release of the advance estimate originally scheduled for October 30 and the second estimate originally scheduled for November 26. The increase in real GDP in the third quarter reflected increases in consumer spending, exports, and government spending that were partly offset by a decrease in investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased. (Hot Air, Bureau of Economic Analysis)

Charlottesville, VA, Gets Rid of System that Solved a Murder and Found Missing Children, All to Protect Illegal Aliens

You have to keep your priorities straight, and the City Council of Charlottesville have concluded that protecting illegal aliens from deportation is more important than finding missing children and solving murders. David Strom: the Charlottesville City Council looked at the data and saw that the system was reuniting families, solving heinous crimes, and returning stolen property to people, and decided that protecting illegal aliens from deportation was far more important than the safety of its residents. Does it get any more blatant than that? Nobody is even trying to pretend that the city has decided to drop using the system for privacy or any other reasons. It all boils down to weighing the safety and security of the citizenry on the one hand, and helping illegal aliens defy the law on the other. They chose the latter. Better that illegal aliens roam free, even if it means unsolved murders and children not being found quickly. What’s striking about the debate over using the Flock camera system is not that people are concerned that there are too many cameras in the city, creating a panopticon in which every move is recorded; in fact, the Charlottesville police department is looking for an alternative, and the city just contracted with a company to run some parking garages that use cameras as part of the payment system. (Hot Air)

New York School District Shuts Off Heat in Electric Buses to Extend Range

Practical considerations such as moving from point A to point B in relative comfort and safety mean little to the Climate Change Cult, so it shouldn’t surprise us that Kathy Hochel’s demand that diesel school buses be replaced with electric ones isn’t working out so well. WIVB: On the heels of a statewide mandate requiring all school bus purchases in New York State be electric by 2027, parents in the Lake Shore Central School District are speaking out, claiming some bus drivers are turning the heat down, or off completely, in an attempt to conserve battery life on their electric school buses. WIVB News 4 has received several calls from concerned parents in the school district, which covers parts of Angola, Brant, and Derby, regarding their child’s bus trips to and from school, claiming they’re coming in freezing when they get home after getting off the bus. The kids are coming home saying their bus is freezing cold and the parents are giving them hand warmers. “The heaters on the bus run off the same electricity as the bus itself,” said Scott Ziobro, a former school board candidate and parent who has children who go to school in the district. “They were told that it drains the battery capacity of the bus itself.” (WIVB News 4)

Rubio Blasts Allies For Restricting Speech

As important as the NATO alliance was during the Cold War in protecting liberal values against communist dictatorship, one has to wonder whether the current Western “democracies” still deserve the protection the United States provides. Secretary of State Rubio was asked about the threat to free speech across the pond. Marco Rubio:  Are we gonna live in a world where some American puts up a social media posts and then gets to some airport somewhere and is arrested? Um, we’re also concerned about the impact that some of their policies are having on our social media platforms. As you recently saw, you know, X. Is facing this massive multimillion dollar fine that they’re gonna have to pay, I guess, if they want to continue to operate. But I think more importantly, I think it, it, it, it touches on the broader question that was asked a little bit earlier. We all talk about how these alliances, in many cases, our alliances with our European partners are built on our, on our common principles are common values as much as anything else. These aren’t just a geopolitical arrangement. It is an alliance with like-minded countries with whom we share values and principles. And one of those values and principles, we hope is freedom and the freedom of expression, and we’re concerned that that is eroding. (Free Speech America)

SURPRISE! 60 Minutes Staff Lied to Bari Weiss and to the World

As Daybreak reported yesterday, the “journalists” at 60 Minutes have been attacking CBS News’ Editor in Chief for delaying the airing of a hit piece on the Trump administration and CECOT. Weiss wondered why nobody from the Trump administration was asked to comment, and she (and the rest of us) were told they refused to comment. Only…that’s not true. Ed Morrissey: Between the lines: According to a source familiar with “60 Minutes” correspondence with the administration, the “60 Minutes” team reached out to press officials at the White House, State Department and DHS, all of which provided comment to CBS News. None of those comments, which varied in length and substance, were included in the piece viewed by Axios. That’s not a “between the lines” issue. That directly reveals why Weiss pulled the segment in the US. For some reason, however, the Alfonsi segment aired in Canada, which Fischer viewed. It’s not clear why Weiss’ order didn’t prevent the segment from airing in another country when Weiss had ordered it pulled in the US. One has to wonder whether that’s clear to Weiss as well. Supposedly, the segment was transmitted “via app” to the Canadian distributor for 60 Minutes, but shouldn’t Weiss’ decision as the editor in chief of CBS News to keep it from airing have been universal? What is clear is that Weiss turned out to be correct in her assessment of the segment. Weiss first responded to Alfons’s claim about political motives for spiking the story by saying it “wasn’t ready” for air. Weiss then sent a more specific memo to CBS News personnel laying out the reasons for the decision, which included the need to get principals on the record to address the allegations…Money quote: “Tom Homan and Stephen Miller don’t tend to be shy. I realized we’ve emailed the DHS spox, but we need to push much harder to get these principals on the record.” Well, surprise again! According to Axios, Alfonsi did get principals to respond, including that same DHS spokesperson and more. Rather than include that input, Alfonsi not only lied in the segment about not getting a response, she or the producers of 60 Minutes misled CBS News management about it.  And now Axios has confirmed that, which shows exactly why Weiss got hinky after seeing the segment on Thursday. (Hot Air, Axios)

Trump Slams Colombian President After He Said the US Is on ‘Stolen Land.’

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro doesn’t exactly like Trump, and the feeling is more than mutual. In fact, President Trump fired a shot across the bow after Petro took aim at the president. The Hill: President Trump lashed out at Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Monday, warning that “he better watch his a‑‑.” “He has to watch it because he’s got drug factories. They make cocaine in Colombia,” Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago on the heels of an announcement about the building of new Navy ships. “He better watch his a‑‑ because he makes cocaine and they send it into the United States from Colombia.” “We love the Colombian people. I love the Colombian people,” the president said. “But their new leader is a troublemaker and he better watch it. He better close up those cocaine factories. There are at least three major cocaine factories. We know where they are.” Trump made the comment in response to a question about Petro’s criticism of the U.S. for demanding that Venezuela return all assets it seized in the past from U.S. oil companies. “Texas is a territory that was invaded. It wasn’t sold. So was California and all of the southern U.S.,” Petro said over the weekend. (The Hill)

Merry Christmas!

This is the last edition of Daybreak before next Monday. As we all come together to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, we want to thank our readers for their support and wish them the merriest of Christmases. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”