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US-Saudi Ties: Trump Calls Saudi Arabia a Major Non-NATO Ally in Boost to MBS (Bloomberg)
President Donald Trump said he would formally designate Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO ally in a further strengthening of ties between the two countries, capping a day of dealmaking between the US leader and the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
MBS, as Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader is known,
was joined by prominent executives and celebrities including Elon Musk and soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo at a lavish White House dinner on Tuesday, with Apple CEO Tim Cook and FIFA President Gianni Infantino also in attendance. Other guests, including Citigroup's Jane Fraser, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, and investor Bill Ackman, were served a menu featuring rack of lamb at long tables laden with candles and flowers. View the full guest list here, as reported by Axios.
Trump had earlier lavished praise on MBS during a gilded welcome to the Oval Office, calling the prince a “very good friend of mine” and absolving him of the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The pair agreed to a loosely-worded defense cooperation pact that includes the future sale of F-35 advanced fighter jets to the oil-rich kingdom, while the US agreed to formalize negotiations on helping with a Saudi civil-nuclear program.
Family
Connects: Trump Family’s Business Ties to Saudi Arabia Raise Ethics Worries (New York Times)
Press Alert: Trump Threatens ABC Station Licenses After Epstein Questions (Bloomberg)
President Trump called for the US Federal Communications Commission to revoke station licenses for ABC after a reporter asked about his handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump said the license should be taken away from ABC because their news is "so
fake and it's so wrong."
This Week on Capitol Hill: Congress Overwhelmingly Approves Releasing Epstein Files (New York Times)
The House on Tuesday approved a bill directing the Justice Department to release all files related to its investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a near-unanimous vote that was a stunning turn for an effort that Republicans had worked for months to kill.
Hours later, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, won unanimous agreement for the Senate to pass the measure as soon as it arrived in the chamber, which would clear it for President Trump’s signature. Trump, who toiled for months to derail the bill but reversed himself once it was clear it would pass overwhelmingly, has said he would sign it.
New Econ Order: India’s Economy Will Become the World’s Fourth-Largest, Behind Germany, China, and America (The Economist)
India will accomplish a remarkable feat in early 2026. By the close of the financial year in March, it will overtake Japan to become the world’s fourth-largest economy—and within striking distance of the third-largest, Germany.
The milestone shows
tremendous progress. At the dawn of this century, Japan was the world’s biggest economic power after the US, and India was not even in the top 10. Since then, India has zoomed past Brazil, Mexico, and Canada, several European countries, and its own former colonizer, Britain.
Scoop: US Secretly Drafting New Plan to End Ukraine War with Russian Envoys (Axios)
The Trump administration has been secretly working in consultation with Russia to draft a new plan to end the war in Ukraine, US and Russian officials told Axios.
The plan's 28 points fall into four general buckets,
sources tell Axios: peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe, and future US relations with Russia and Ukraine. A top Russian official said he's optimistic about the plan, but it's not yet clear how Ukraine and its European backers will feel about it.
Escalation: Russia Attacks on EU Are State-Sponsored Terrorism, Top Diplomat Says (Bloomberg)
The European Union’s top diplomat said that Moscow’s aggression against the bloc, including an explosion that occurred in Poland over the weekend, should be considered terrorism.
“These sabotage acts they are organizing on our territories in different countries are extremely, extremely serious,” Kaja Kallas, the high representative for foreign affairs at the European Commission, said at a Bloomberg event in Brussels on Tuesday.
Border Tensions: Sheinbaum Pushes Back on Trump, Insists US Won’t Strike Mexico (Bloomberg)
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum again ruled out a US military intervention in Mexico, pushing back on the latest suggestion of unilateral action from President Trump. “It won’t happen,” Sheinbaum said, responding to the US leader’s comments a day earlier that he may even deploy ground troops to Mexico to combat drug smuggling.
Trump added that he’s “not happy” with Mexico in wide-ranging comments that also touched on possible US military action against Venezuela and Colombia.
Legal Climate Clash: Environmentalists
Sue to Stop Oil Lease Sales in the Gulf of Mexico (New York Times)
Tech in Court: Meta Wins Federal Trade Commission Antitrust Trial Over Instagram, Whatsapp Deals (Bloomberg)
Meta Platforms Inc. won a key lawsuit after a federal judge ruled that the company’s acquisitions of the photo-sharing app Instagram and messaging service WhatsApp do not violate US antitrust law.
US District Judge James Boasberg in Washington said the Federal Trade Commission failed to prove the deals allowed the tech giant to illegally monopolize the social networking market.
Resolved: Cloudflare Reports Global Outage That Disrupted ChatGPT, X (Bloomberg)
🔊 Today's Episode is Live! Get the latest AI-powered take on today’s headlines with the new episode of the Daily Read Podcast — available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Climate Playbook: The Problem with Plastic - How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late (The New Press)
The good news: There’s still time to turn off the tap and live in a world without pointless plastic. That’s the hopeful message at the heart of the forthcoming book, ‘THE PROBLEM WITH PLASTIC: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late,’ in bookstores Dec. 2.
Just in time for the plastic-laden holiday shopping season, Judith Enck — former EPA official and founder and president of Beyond Plastics — provides a powerful investigation into plastic’s impact on human health and the environment, a searing indictment of the plastics industry that created this mess, and a playbook for how we can fight back - By Judith Enck and Beyond Plastics with Adam Mahoney. Order your copy here.
NYC Premiere: Perelman Performing Arts Center Presents A Christmas Carol This Holiday Season (New York Theatre Guide)
Following multiple acclaimed runs at London’s Old Vic Theatre and a five-time Tony Award–winning Broadway production in 2019, A Christmas Carol returns to New York for a limited run this holiday season.
Directed by Matthew Warchus, this adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens tale first premiered in London during the 2017 holiday season. It was so warmly received that the Old Vic revived it for a second limited engagement in 2018—and 2025 now marks the ninth holiday season that A Christmas Carol will grace the stage.
The show premieres this Sunday, Nov. 23, and will run through Sunday, Jan. 4. Learn more about the PAC-NYC performance here.
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