(NEW YORK) — More than 200 million people are waking up to an early blast of winter with the first major snowfall of the season and the coldest temperatures, too.
Parts of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan saw more than 1 foot of lake effect snow.
Flurries even fell in Nashville, Tennessee, and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
On Tuesday morning, the snow is still falling in Buffalo and Syracuse in upstate New York, as well parts of Pennsylvania.
That lake effect snow in upstate New York will continue Tuesday and into Wednesday morning off Lakes Erie and Ontario. Two to 4 inches of additional snowfall is possible before it turns to rain on Wednesday.
The cold blast is also expected to bring daily record low temperatures to dozens of cities in the Southeast, from Knoxville, Tennessee, to the Florida Keys.
Freeze warnings are in place Tuesday morning in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas.
The high temperature on Tuesday will only hit 48 degrees in Raleigh, North Carolina; 50 degrees in Atlanta; 53 degrees in Jacksonville, Florida; 57 in Orlando, Florida; and 68 in Miami.
And the Mid-Atlantic and southern New England are facing wind gusts of 35 to 50 mph on Tuesday, making the cold temperatures there feel even colder.
A person plays Mega millions lottery at a gas stations on July 11, 2023. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The estimated $900 million Mega Millions jackpot is up for grabs in Tuesday night’s drawing after no winners were selected on Friday.
The numbers drawn Friday were: 16, 21, 23, 48 and 70, plus the gold Mega Ball 5.
The jackpot was last won on June 27.
The prize has a cash value of $415.3 million which can be offered as a one-time lump sum payment or an immediate payment followed by 29 annual payments.
The odds of winning the jackpot at 1 in 290,472,336, according to Mega Millions.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets are $5 for one play.
The largest Mega Millions jackpot prize ever won was $1.6 billion prize won on Aug. 8, 2023.
A display of military drone equipment during the Steadfast Dart 25 exercise, part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Allied Reaction Force (ARF) training in Smardan, Romania, on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. (Photographer: Andrei Pungovschi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — A drone crashed on the territory of NATO member Romania during Russia’s overnight attack on Ukrainian targets along the Danube River, the country’s defense ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Radars “signaled the presence of groups of drones in the area neighboring the national airspace, which led to the preventive activation of air defense systems,” the ministry said in a statement posted to its website.
One “aerial vehicle” was reported impacting in the Grindu area, around 3 miles south of the shared border, the ministry said.
“Teams made up of military personnel went on-site and reported the presence of possible drone fragments,” it added. “The area was secured and investigations are to be conducted in the early hours.”
“Weather conditions in the southeast of the country prevented the aircraft conducting air policing missions from scrambling,” the ministry said of its air force assets.
Alert messages were sent to residents of Romania’s northern Tulcea County, along the Danube River which forms the border with Ukraine, the ministry said. On the other side of the river, “a large number of explosions were observed” around the port of Izmail, it added.
The drone incursion came as Ukraine defended another night of intense Russian attacks. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 119 drones of various types into the country overnight, of which 53 were shot down or suppressed.
The air force said 59 drones impacted across 18 locations, with drone debris reported falling in one location.
The Odesa region — which borders Romania to the west and encompasses Ukraine’s Danube River ports — was among the main targets of Monday night’s barrage, the air force said.
Russian drone and missile incursions into Romanian airspace have become a relatively common occurrence as Moscow expands its long-range strikes into Ukraine.
Romania’s Defense Ministry told ABC News in September that it had recorded at least 11 violations of the country’s airspace by drones since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
A ministry spokesperson said there had been approximately 50 attacks involving Russian drones on Ukrainian territory near Romania’s borders up until mid-September, of which 30 saw drone debris falling on Romanian territory.
Such incidents have become “almost routine” for Romanians, Constantin Spinu, a former spokesperson for Romania’s Defense Ministry, told ABC News.
“There is a war going on right across the border, so this situation is no longer a surprise for Romanian public opinion,” he added.
The Defense Ministry and wider government, though, “are taking this very seriously,” Spinu added.
Repeated incursions of Russian projectiles have prompted questions as to NATO’s readiness to defend its airspace. In September, Poland became the first NATO nation to shoot down Russian drones over its territory.
Romania is yet to down any intruding Russian munitions. “There is always a risk-benefit calculus — and that is to be sometimes in seconds,” Spinu said. “Whenever you shoot something in the air, you have to take into consideration that you might not hit the target and your projectile can be a danger.”
As NATO scrambles to revitalize its military-industrial base and refill its arsenals, there is also the question of resources.
“You don’t use an F-35 missile or an F-16 missile that costs millions” against a relatively cheap drone, Spinu said. “But should that €2,000 drone represent a real danger for the population, I think it is worth using a multi-million piece of equipment.”
Debris is piled up at the entrance to Camp Mystic on July 07, 2025 in Hunt, Texas. Heavy rainfall caused severe flash flooding along the Guadalupe River in central Texas, leaving more than 80 people reported dead, including children attending the camp. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) —The families of multiple campers and two counselors at Camp Mystic who died in the devastating flash flood in Texas in July are suing the camp, alleging gross negligence and reckless disregard for safety led to a “self-created disaster” that claimed the lives of 28 people total.
The Fourth of July flood wiped out the Christian all-girls sleepaway camp located along the Guadalupe River, which rapidly rose overnight while campers were sleeping. Twenty-five campers, two counselors and the camp’s director died after flood waters inundated the camp, trapping many in their cabins.
One of three lawsuits filed Monday includes the families of five campers — Anna Margaret Bellows, 8; Lila Bonner, 9; Molly DeWitt, 9; Lainey Landry, 9; and Blakely McCrory, 8 — and the two counselors who died — Chloe Childress, 18, and Katherine Ferruzzo, 19 — as plaintiffs.
“Today, campers Margaret, Lila, Molly, Lainey, and Blakely should be third graders, and counselors Chloe and Katherine should be freshmen at the University of Texas. They all are gone,” the petition stated. “And while their families struggle with their loss, the Camp’s actions since the tragedy have only deepened the pain.”
Among the actions, the lawsuit cites the recent announcement that Camp Mystic will partially reopen one of its sister sites next summer and continues to evaluate plans to rebuild the Guadalupe River location.
“And through it all, the Camp refuses to accept any responsibility for its actions and failures to act, defiantly blaming this tragedy on ‘an act of God’ that no responsible steps could have avoided,” the lawsuit alleged.
The lawsuit claims that the camp officials “focused on profits over safety,” made “catastrophic decisions concerning the cabin locations” and had unsafe policies regarding floods, including an alleged “never evacuate” order.
The families are seeking more than $1 million in damages, according to the petition.
“Our clients have filed this lawsuit to seek accountability and truth,” one of the families’ attorneys, Paul Yetter, said in a statement. “Camp Mystic failed at its primary job to keep its campers and counselors safe, and young girls died as a result. This action is about transparency, responsibility and ensuring no other family experiences what these parents will now suffer the rest of their lives.”
The second lawsuit against Camp Mystic was filed by the parents of 8-year-old camper Eloise “LuLu” Peck.
The lawsuit alleged that the campers and counselors were killed “after, predictably, the river rapidly rose, and floodwaters swept through what Camp Mystic knew was a vulnerable and low-lying area of the Camp.”
“Lulu Peck was among those horrifically swept away and killed,” it continued.
The lawsuit alleged that “these terrifying last moments and then deaths were proximately caused by the negligence and gross negligence” of the defendants, claiming they “knew that Camp facilities were located in a flood zone, knew of the history of flash flooding in Kerr County, knew of repeated prior flood events at the Camp, and received warnings from family members about flood risk.”
The third lawsuit was filed against Camp Mystic and related entities on Monday by the father of Ellen Getten, a 9-year-old camper who died on July 4.
The suit names two additional defendants that were not listed in the multifamily or Peck family suits: William Neely Bonner III and Seaborn Stacy Eastland.
All three lawsuits are seeking at least $1 million in damages.
In a statement to ABC News, Camp Mystic said, “We continue to pray for the grieving families and ask for God’s healing and comfort.”
Jeff Ray, legal counsel for Camp Mystic, said in a statement, “We intend to demonstrate and prove that this sudden surge of floodwaters far exceeded any previous flood in the area by several magnitudes, that it was unexpected and that no adequate warning systems existed in the area.”
“We disagree with several accusations and misinformation in the legal filings regarding the actions of Camp Mystic and Dick Eastland, who lost his life as well. We will thoroughly respond to these accusations in due course,” Ray added.
At least 138 people were killed in flash flooding across the Hill Country region, including 117 in Kerr County, officials said.
Officials in hard-hit Kerr County, where Camp Mystic is located, said that more than 12 inches of rain fell in under 6 hours, and that the Guadalupe River rose more than 20 feet per hour during the storm.
Regulations regarding the development of summer camps in an area known as “Flash Flood Alley” and flash-flood warning systems came under scrutiny following the disaster.
The catastrophe prompted the state to pass legislation aimed at enhancing safety measures at summer camps and create a grant program to support the installation of early-warning sirens in areas prone to flash flooding.
In September, Camp Mystic announced plans to reopen one site of its summer camp next year. The summer program officials said that Camp Mystic Cypress Lake, a sister site that opened in 2020, will be open in summer 2026, while Camp Mystic Guadalupe River will not be able to reopen by then due to the devastating damage sustained earlier this year.
“The heart of Camp Mystic has never stopped beating, because you are Mystic. We are not only rebuilding cabins and trails, but also a place where laughter, friendship and spiritual growth will continue to flourish,” camp officials said at the time. “As we work to finalize plans, we will do so in a way that is mindful of those we have lost. You are all part of the mission and the ministry of Camp Mystic. You mean the world to us, and we look forward to welcoming you back inside the green gates.”
A plane heading to Jamaica to help with storm relief crashed in a waterway in a community in Coral Springs, Florida, Nov. 10, 2025. (Obtained by ABC News)
(CORAL SPRINGS, Fla.) — Two people died when a small plane heading to Jamaica for Hurricane Melissa relief efforts plunged into a waterway in a Coral Springs, Florida, neighborhood, according to local officials.
The Beech B100 went down at about 10:19 a.m. on Monday behind some homes, according to the National Transportation Safety Board and the Coral Springs Fire Department.
No one on the ground was injured and no houses were hit, fire officials said.
The plane went down about five minutes after takeoff from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport and was heading to Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, Jamaica, for relief efforts, according to Fort Lauderdale city officials.
Jamaica is working to rebuild after the massive destruction caused by Hurricane Melissa. The storm made landfall on the island on Oct. 28 as a Category 5 hurricane, one of the most powerful landfalls on record in the Atlantic basin.
There were more than 30 deaths in Jamaica from Melissa and 100,000 housing structures were damaged, according to the United Nations.
Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) signage at a grocery store in Dorchester, Massachusetts, US, on Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. Mel Musto/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge said Monday that she will continue to block the Trump administration from enforcing a memo directing states to “undo” the issuance of full SNAP benefits.
The administration is currently seeking to “undo” hundreds of millions of dollars in SNAP benefits that went out after the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which operates the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, told states Friday afternoon that it was “working towards implementing November 2025 full benefit issuances” to comply with a court order.
During a tense hearing Monday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani rebuked the Trump administration for “trying to play vindictive games” with states that sent benefits to SNAP recipients.
“It would seem to me that if the agency is trying to comply with the law and with the executive branch’s preferences on policies, a piece of that wouldn’t be trying to play vindictive games with the states. That’s not part of it,” said Talwani, who said she planned to issue a written ruling later Monday.
The USDA sent out its initial guidance after U.S. District Judge McConnell on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to fully fund SNAP by Friday — but on Saturday the USDA told states that they must “immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025.”
Twenty states said they had already begun the process of issuing full November benefits.
“What you have right now is confusion of the agency’s own making,” Judge Talwani said.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, asked the Supreme Court Monday to stay the order requiring full payment of November SNAP benefits in order to allow Congress to finalize an end to the ongoing government shutdown without judicial interference.
“The irreparable harms of allowing district courts to inject themselves into the shutdown and decide how to triage limited funds are grave enough to warrant a stay,” wrote Solicitor General John Sauer.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who paused the order late Friday night, is expected to revisit it Tuesday.
Sauer, in an earlier filing, told the court that if the government reopens, its request would become moot — but in the meantime, the administration is making clear that it still wants the justices to allow it to make an only a partial payment of SNAP benefits for the month.
The administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday for an emergency stay of a ruling by U.S. District Judge John McConnell ordering the administration to fully fund SNAP for the month of November, saying it would partially fund SNAP with approximately $4.5 billion but that it needed the remaining funds to support WIC programs that feed children.
Justice Jackson granted the stay, pending a decision on the administration’s appeal to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Late Sunday, the circuit court denied the administration’s appeal, rejecting the administration’s argument that harm suffered by the government by complying with the order would outweigh the harm suffered by the millions of Americans who rely on the food assistance program.
“These immediate, predictable, and unchallenged harms facing forty-two million Americans who rely on SNAP benefits — including fourteen million children — weigh heavily against a stay,” wrote Judge Julie Rikelman.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Nov. 7, 2025 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Stocks closed markedly higher on Monday after the Senate voted hours earlier to advance a potential deal on the government shutdown, which has weighed on economic output and cast uncertainty over markets for well over a month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 380 points, or 0.8%, while the S&P 500 climbed 1.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq increased 2.2%.
Lawmakers in a rare Sunday session cleared a key hurdle toward potentially reopening the government by advancing a short-term funding bill by a razor-thin vote of 60-40, just meeting the threshold for it to pass.
Stocks rebounded on Monday after major indices registered a loss over the previous week, a rare blemish that hadn’t happened in four weeks prior.
The economy has shown some signs of strain during the shutdown.
A report on Friday revealed a decline in shopper attitudes in November, leaving consumer sentiment at its lowest point since 2022, University of Michigan data showed.
The survey came days after data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed Americans’ household debt levels have reached a record high.
Those developments could hold significant stakes for the wider economy, since consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.
Still, markets have proven resilient over a turbulent year marked by fluctuating tariffs, stubborn inflation and a slowdown of hiring. The tech giants have defied these headwinds, buoyed in part by an investment boom in artificial intelligence.
The S&P 500 has soared 14% in 2025, while the Dow has climbed 10%. The Nasdaq has surged 19%.
The Senate reconvened on Monday to continue working toward ending the federal government shutdown, which is now in its 41st day.
There are still some procedural measures necessary for the Senate to pass a deal on the government shutdown and send it for potential approval in the Republican-controlled House.
A potential resolution of the government shutdown would restore jobs and backpay for thousands of federal employees, which is expected to provide a jolt for the U.S. economy.
The federal government would also resume the collection and release of key government day in the event of shutdown deal, allowing investors to observe monthly inflation and hiring reports.
The Federal Reserve is set to issue a decision on the level of interest rates early next month. The central bank has slashed interest rates a quarter of a percentage point at each of its last two meetings.
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump over the weekend vowed to provide each American a $2,000 dividend to be distributed from what he said was tariff revenue.
“A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” the president wrote on social media Sunday, in part.
Within hours, however, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cast doubt on the plan, saying the payout could merely refer to tax savings enshrined by Trump’s signature domestic spending measure.
A tariff dividend may come “in lots of forms,” Bessent told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday, adding that he had not spoken with Trump about the proposal.
The idea of a potential tariff dividend – reminiscent of pandemic-era stimulus checks – has raised questions about who would qualify and what to make of the Trump administration’s mixed signals about the proposal. Some economists questioned whether the dividend is achievable with available tariff funds.
Here’s what to know about the proposed $2,000 tariff dividends.
What is a dividend?
The term “dividend” typically describes a payout to individual shareholders, funded by a company’s profits.
In this case, the concept functions in a similar fashion, indicating payouts to Americans that are funded by tax raised by Trump’s far-reaching tariffs.
The proposal mirrors the three stimulus checks mailed to Americans during the pandemic, two of which were authorized by Trump. Those three payments totaled as much as $3,200 per tax filer, as well as $2,500 per child, according to the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a watchdog established by Congress.
What did Trump say about a potential $2,000 tariff dividend?
Trump announced the policy proposal in a brief message on social media on Sunday morning, focused on tariff-related tax revenue.
“People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS! We are now the Richest, Most Respected Country In the World, With Almost No Inflation, and A Record Stock Market Price. 401k’s are Highest EVER,” the president wrote. “A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”
The message did not specify who would qualify for the payout or how the policy would operate.
Who would qualify for the $2,000 dividend?
It is not clear who would qualify for the payout, though Trump said the measure would exclude “high income people.”
The pandemic-era stimulus checks enacted by Trump were made available to individuals bringing in as much as $75,000 per year and couples earning up to $150,000. Beyond those benchmarks, higher earners were eligible for smaller payments.
Last year, median U.S. household income was $83,730, the Census Bureau found.
Did Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cast doubt on the dividend checks?
Hours after Trump’s announcement, Treasury Secretary Bessent appeared to throw cold water on the likelihood of tariff-related dividend checks.
On Sunday, Bessent suggested the $2,000 savings may instead be rooted in tax cuts previously enshrined by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill legislation, which he signed into law on July 4.
“It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility on auto loans. Those are substantial deductions that are being financed in the tax bill,” Bessent told ABC News’ “This Week” Sunday.
“The real goal of tariffs is to rebalance trade and make it more fair,” Bessent added.
The dueling remarks from Trump and Bessent come days after the Supreme Court heard arguments about whether a president has the constitutional authority to unilaterally levy tariffs. Arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, Solicitor General John Sauer downplayed the revenue-raising component of the policy, saying the tariffs do not encroach upon the taxing power afforded to Congress under the Constitution.
“The fact that [the tariffs] raise revenue is only incidental,” Sauer told the justices.
Has the U.S. raised enough tariff revenue to fund $2,000 checks?
If Trump were to make the dividend payments available to anyone earning $100,000 or less, the policy would reach about 150 million Americans, amounting to roughly $300 billion in dividends, Erica York, a policy expert at the Tax Foundation, said in a post on X.
As of Sept. 30, the federal government had generated $195 billion in tariff-related revenue, according to the Treasury Department.
By that math, the estimated $300 billion cost of the dividend check proposal would far exceed the amount of currently available tariff revenue.
When factoring in only revenue generated by Trump’s new levies and deducting some negative budgetary impact from those policies, York estimated net tariff revenues of only $90 billion, falling even shorter of the $300 billion required.
Moreover, depending on how the Supreme Court may rule regarding Trump’s legal authority to levy tariffs, the White House may be forced to return tens of billions of dollars in revenue to importers who paid the tax, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found.
In theory, however, the Trump administration could promise to pay the dividend from anticipated tariff revenue. The Treasury Department has forecast $3 trillion in tariff revenue over the next decade. Should the Trump administration choose that route, the dividend payments would add the federal debt, which currently stands at over $38 trillion, according to the Treasury Department.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) addresses the crowd at a Democratic “People’s Town Hall” in Bethlehem, PA on March 20, 2025. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Rep. Jamie Raskin sent a sharply worded six-page letter to President Donald Trump on Sunday following new information his committee received from a whistleblower alleging that Ghislaine Maxwell is preparing a “commutation application” for the Trump administration and receiving preferential treatment while incarcerated.
Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, accused the Trump administration of allowing “a corrupt misuse of law-enforcement resources” and demanded that Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche testify before the Judiciary Committee immediately to “answer for this corrupt misuse of law enforcement resources and potential exchange of favors for false testimony exonerating you and other Epstein accomplices.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement about Raskin’s letter: “The White House does not comment on potential clemency requests. As President Trump has stated, pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell is not something he has thought about.”
Asked in July about a possible pardon for Maxwell, Trump said no one had approached him, though he reiterated his power to grant one.
The Justice Department has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee who has led the minority on the panel’s Epstein investigation — released a statement on Monday calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson and Trump to “publicly oppose a commutation or pardon by President Trump” after the Judiciary Committee Democrats released their whistleblower information.
Johnson has resisted calls to swear in Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election in September to succeed her father Rep. Raul Grijalva, who died in March, and said he would after the House reconvenes following the Senate passing a government funding bill.
The speaker sent the House home after it passed the funding resolution four days before Grijalva’s election.
The speaker has denied that his decision is related to her intent to become the 218th signature on a discharge petition forcing a vote to release the Department of Justice’s full Epstein file.
“This is a White House cover-up, and Speaker Johnson is now complicit. Seat Adelita Grijalva, and release the Epstein files, now,” Garcia said.
Raskin’s letter is a follow-up to an August 12 letter he and other Democrats sent to the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons about Maxwell’s transfer to Federal Prison Camp Bryan, a minimum-security facility that he said was an “apparent flagrant violation of BOP policies, including one that explicitly prohibits the placement of sex offenders in such facilities.”
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for child sex trafficking and other offenses in connection with Jeffrey Epstein, the former financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in jail in 2019.
FCI Tallahassee in Florida, where Maxwell had been held, is a “low security” prison for men and women, while FPC Bryan is a “minimum security” camp just for women.
The transfer followed Maxwell’s two-day meeting in July with Blanche in Tallahassee, where her attorney said the two discussed “about 100 names” associated with Epstein, after the Trump administration promised to release additional information about the deceased sex offender.
(WASHINGTON) — President Trump met on Monday at the White House with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the White House said.
The visit marked the first time a Syrian president has ever visited the White House and is viewed as a crucial first step in normalizing U.S.-Syria relations.
The White House did not allow reporters and cameras access to the meeting.
Al-Sharaa is the former leader of U.S.-designated terror group al-Qaeda who was once wanted by the U.S. as a terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head. He has even served time in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.
A senior Trump administration official said Trump and al-Sharaa were expected to focus on counterterrorism efforts in Syria, and to discuss the signing of an agreement for Syria to join the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State. The coalition includes some 80 countries working to prevent a resurgence of the extremist group, according to the official.
It’s also the third meeting between Trump and al-Sharaa this year, as the Syrian leader confronts the challenges of rebuilding the country, seeking to restore ties with Arab countries and the West after years of civil war under Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The Assad regime’s fall brought to an end nearly 14 years of civil war.
Al-Sharaa arrived in Washington on Saturday and held meetings with members of Congress over the weekend, including with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, a Republican who represents a district in Florida.
Mast shared in a statement that he and al-Sharaa “broke bread” and had a “long and serious conversation about how to build a future for the people of Syria free of war, ISIS, and extremism.”
“He and I are two former soldiers and two former enemies. I asked him directly ‘Why we are no longer enemies?’” Mast revealed.
“His response was that he wishes to ‘liberate from the past and have a noble pursuit for his people and his country and to be a great ally to the United States of America,'” Mast shared in the statement.
The U.S. on Friday removed sanctions on al-Sharaa just one day after the United Nations Security Council lifted similar sanctions ahead of his meeting with Trump.
According to a notice on the U.S. Treasury Department website, the United States removed Specially Designated Global Terrorist designations on Sharaa and Syria’s interior minister, Anas Khattab.
