The Washington Times

Threat Status for Tuesday, October 7, 2025. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Correspondent Ben Wolfgang.

President Trump says he’s open to invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act to deal with “criminal insurrection” in Portland, Oregon. The law allows a president to deploy active-duty troops and federalize National Guard personnel during domestic unrest.

… It would give Mr. Trump significant new powers. The president flirted with the idea in his first term during protests after the killing of George Floyd. His defense secretary at the time, Mark T. Esper, publicly opposed the idea in a dramatic break with the president.

… In Illinois, Democrats sued to stop the deployment of Guard troops to Chicago. Mayor Brandon Johnson declared Chicago an “ICE-free zone” as Democrats fight the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement.

… The Latin Kings street gang placed a bounty on a senior Border Patrol official instrumental in immigration raids and deportations.

… It’s been two years since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Nearly 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage in the assault, which sparked a major Israeli military campaign targeting Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

… Negotiators from the two sides resumed peace talks today.

… Russia could soon allow year-round conscription to bolster its military ranks.

… There are signals that both the U.S. and Russia are willing to adhere to the New START nuclear arms treaty even after it expires in February.

… Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva asked Mr. Trump on a phone call Monday to remove tariffs on his country’s products.

… And rescuers are racing to evacuate more than 200 hikers trapped by a snowstorm on Mount Everest in Tibet.

Exclusive: U.S. helps track down accused Sinaloa Cartel drug trafficker in Mexico

Washington Times reporter Matt Delaney has an exclusive report on the operation that led to the capture of accused cartel affiliate Jason Duncker. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s National Counterterrorism Center provided intelligence to authorities on the ground for the Oct. 2 arrest in Monterrey, Mexico.

The ODNI said Mr. Duncker is accused of moving more than 75 kilograms of cocaine into the U.S. and distributing hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug proceeds throughout the cartel’s network. Officials said Mr. Duncker also moved drugs and money for the Gulf Cartel.

The arrest comes amid the Trump administration’s new military-backed war on drugs, which has included several strikes on alleged drug-smuggling speedboats off the coast of Venezuela.

How the U.S. can maintain air superiority in the 21st century

The cold reality for war planners inside the Pentagon: It’s no longer a given that the U.S. and its allies will control the skies with ease in any future conflict.

Ensuring air superiority in modern-day war will require a combination of cutting-edge tactical drones, surveillance aircraft powered by artificial intelligence, multimillion-dollar fighter jets and stealth bombers. Pentagon insiders and defense industry leaders spoke to that challenge at the recent Air, Space & Cyber Conference hosted by the Air & Space Forces Association at National Harbor in Maryland.

The big takeaway: America’s air superiority is an ideal that must be defended, not taken for granted.

Drones dominate the largest defense technology event in Ukraine's history

Threat Status correspondent Guillaume Ptak has an inside look at Ukraine’s recent Defense Tech Valley summit, the largest defense technology conference ever held in the war-torn country. For Kyiv, the conference wasn’t just a showcase but rather a signal to its allies, particularly in Washington, that Ukraine’s battle-tested drone industry is now a partner worthy of investment and collaboration.

Many of Ukraine’s most cutting-edge drone capabilities were on display at the conference: interceptor drones; artificial-intelligence-powered unmanned aerial vehicles; unmanned ground vehicles; electronic warfare systems; and laser defenses designed to neutralize Iranian-made Shahed drones used by the Russians.

Many of those capabilities are also a crucial component of the U.S. military’s modernization push. And they’re also very much top of mind in Europe, which is dealing with routine drone incursions in its airspace.

Opinion: Why trust Hamas to live up to its word?

It’s a key question as Israeli and Hamas negotiators meet this week in Cairo. While Hamas partially agreed to some of the 20 demands made by Mr. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there is still a core unknown: Will Hamas follow through on any of its promises?

Author and syndicated columnist Cal Thomas tackles that question in his latest piece for The Times. He argues that the U.S. and Israel must take a hard line in its dealings with the terrorist group, because anything less than that will mean that Hamas survives and could threaten Israel again in the future.

“Hamas has never lived up to a single agreement or voided its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel and killing Jews. Why should it be trusted this time? No one knows who is in charge of Hamas or whether anyone has the authority to speak for the entire terrorist organization, now that leadership has been wiped out by Israel’s attacks,” Mr. Thomas writes.

Opinion: Make Big Tech pay for its own massive AI energy bills

It’s often just a footnote in conversations about artificial intelligence and its unfolding impact on humanity: the astronomical energy costs associated with powering today’s leading AI products.

And Big Tech firms ought to pay for it themselves. Frank Lasee, president of Truth in Energy and Climate, makes that case in a new op-ed in The Times. He contends that the Silicon Valley giants are “quietly sucking the life out of our electric grids,” leading to increased utility costs for consumers.

“The data centers powering AI are devouring electricity like a kid with an unlimited candy stash, and it’s high time we force these cash-hoarding behemoths to build their own power plants or buy directly from generators,” Mr. Lasee writes. “With more than $368 billion in collective cash reserves — yes, that’s Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Nvidia lounging on mountains of money — they can certainly afford it.”

Threat Status Events Radar

• Oct. 8 — Investing in the North Korean People: Broadening Access to Information in North Korea, Stimson Center

• Oct. 8 — Relearning Great Power Diplomacy: A Conversation with Wess Mitchell, Hudson Institute

• Oct. 9 — Countering the Axis of Aggressors with Retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and Retired Gen. Laura Richardson, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• Oct. 13-15 — AUSA 2025 Annual Meeting & Exposition in Washington, Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA)

• Oct. 21-22 — Missile Defense Agency Small Business Conference, Tennessee Valley Chapter of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA)

• Oct. 22 — Europe’s Energy Transition: From Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine to Trump’s ‘Energy Dominance’ Agenda, Brookings Institution

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If you’ve got questions, Guy Taylor and Ben Wolfgang are here to answer them.