FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., became the second Democrat to co-sponsor the Laken Riley Act, which will get a vote on the Senate floor Friday after passing the House on Tuesday.
The measure would require Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and detain illegal immigrants that have committed theft, burglary or shoplifting until they are deported. Under the bill, states would also have standing to take civil action against members of the federal government who do not enforce immigration law.
"Arizonans know the real-life consequences of today’s border crisis," Gallego told Fox News Digital in a statement. "We must give law enforcement the means to take action when illegal immigrants break the law, to prevent situations like what occurred to Laken Riley."
"I will continue to fight for the safety of Arizonans by pushing for comprehensive immigration reform and increased border security."
The bill was re-introduced in the 119th Congress by Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., in the House and Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., in the Senate. It was named for the 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student who was found dead on the University of Georgia campus in February. Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant, was found guilty on 10 total counts, including felony murder. He initially pleaded not guilty.
He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in November.
The House passed the bill, 264 to 159, on Tuesday, with 48 Democrats joining Republicans.
"I’d like to thank Senator Gallego for cosponsoring the bipartisan Laken Riley Act. This commonsense legislation would keep American families safe, and every single senator should support it," Britt said in a statement after Gallego joined the bill.
The Alabama senator reintroduced the bill in the Senate on Tuesday after first debuting it last year. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., quickly teed the measure up for a floor vote on Friday.
Britt's bill has the full backing of every Republican in the Senate and is now co-sponsored by Democrat Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and Gallego.
Gallego notably voted in favor of the bill in the House last year, one of a few dozen Democrats to do so.
The Arizona Democrat won the swing state's Senate race in November, taking over the seat vacated by former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., who did not run for re-election. Gallego defeated Trump ally Kari Lake in the election, despite President-elect Donald Trump carrying the battleground state.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., revealed to Fox News Digital he would be voting in favor of the measure. The Democrat is up for re-election in Michigan in 2026, another state won by Trump.
Republicans will ultimately have a 53-seat majority in the Senate. However, because Sen.-elect Jim Justice of West Virginia delayed his swearing-in, the conference only has a 52-seat majority.
To overcome the legislative filibuster, the bill needs 60 votes. The measure's fate is thus expected to come down to the votes of a handful of Democrats.
In particular, the vote will put a spotlight on the Georgia Senate delegation, as Riley was a constituent of theirs. All eyes will be on Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., who has his own re-election battle in 2026 in yet another Trump-won state.
Ossoff did not provide comment to Fox News Digital in time for publication.
A member of House GOP leadership has introduced a new bill to radically expand concealed carry permissions for Americans across the country.
National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson, R-N.C., the leader of the House GOP campaign arm, is unveiling his Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act on Tuesday, a bill already backed by more than 120 fellow House Republicans.
It's also gotten support from a lone member of the House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine.
"What we're talking about is just requiring states to recognize the permit of another state just like you recognize a driver's license," Hudson told Fox News Digital. "When I drive to D.C. from North Carolina across Virginia, I don't stop at the Virginia line and take a driver's test to get another license. The state recognizes that North Carolina license."
President-elect Trump has already said he would sign such a bill if it reached his desk.
"I will sign concealed carry reciprocity. Your Second Amendment does not end at the state line," he said in a video from the beginning of his 2024 campaign.
His son, Donald Trump Jr., shared the clip days after his father won the presidency in early November.
Hudson said he has discussed the issue with Trump but not about the specific legislation.
"I know I'll need his help to get it through the Senate," the North Carolina Republican said.
He is optimistic this time, however, that the bill can get all the way to the White House, given Republicans' control of Congress and the presidency.
"I think we've got the best chance of getting this into law we've had since 2017," Hudson said.
Nearly 22 million Americans have some form of concealed carry permit, according to data published by the Social Science Research Network in 2023.
He raised the example of Shaneen Allen, a single mother from Philadelphia who was pulled over during a routine traffic stop in New Jersey but was arrested for unlawful possession when she informed officers of her concealed carry permit and the firearm in her vehicle.
"There's a hodgepodge of different state laws when it comes to concealed carry, and so this bill just clarifies that and then rectifies the situation where a law-abiding citizen can become a criminal just by crossing an invisible state line," Hudson said.
The bill is also backed by pro-gun groups Gun Owners of America (GOA), the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the U.S. Concealed Carry Association.
"With all 50 states now issuing concealed carry permits, 49 states allowing nonresident carry and 29 states with permitless or constitutional carry, it is simply common sense for Congress to ensure that each state’s concealed carry license is valid in every other state," GOA Director of Federal Affairs Aidan Johnston told Fox News Digital.
Former President Jimmy Carter's body was brought to the District of Columbia on Tuesday afternoon and will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol before a state funeral set for Thursday across town at the Washington National Cathedral.
Carter died Sunday, Dec. 29, at 100 years old. His death came just over a year after the death of his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter.
Carter’s ceremonial arrival at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda came after the start of six days of funeral ceremonies that began Saturday morning in the 39th president's hometown of Plains, Georgia.
Carter's casket was greeted at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, D.C., on Tuesday by the U.S. Air Force Band playing "Abide with Me." From Andrews, a hearse took Carter's casket to the U.S. Navy Memorial for a brief ceremony. Carter, a Naval Academy alumnus, served as a submarine officer before leaving the Navy to take over his family's farm.
At the Navy Memorial, the casket was transferred to a horse-drawn caisson for a procession up Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Capitol.
Vice President Harris delivered a eulogy at the Capitol's lying-in-state ceremony and was joined by second gentleman Doug Emhoff in presenting a memorial wreath on behalf of the executive branch of the government.
The U.S. Capitol ceremony on Tuesday featured remarks from both House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., representing their respective houses of Congress.
Johnson praised Carter in his speech as an "extraordinary man" and applauded both his service in the military and his work for charitable causes such as Habitat for Humanity and The Carter Center, the latter founded in 1982 by the former first couple.
"I'm reminded of his admonition to quote, 'Live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon,'" Johnson remarked on Tuesday. "And of his amazing personal reflection, 'If I have one life and one chance to make it count for something.'"
"We all agree that he certainly did," he concluded. "So today, in these hallowed halls of our republic, we honor President Carter, his family and his enduring legacy that he leaves not only upon this nation but upon the world."
Johnson announced last month that Carter would lie in state in a letter to Carter's second-eldest son, James Carter III.
"In recognition of President Carter’s long and distinguished service to the nation, it is our intention to ask the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate to permit his remains lie in state in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol," the leaders wrote.
Besides Carter, just 12 presidents have lain in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, the use of which requires approval by both the House and Senate. The last president to lie in state was George H.W. Bush in December 2018. Since 1865, nearly all services held in the Capitol Rotunda have used the catafalque that was constructed in 1865 for displaying President Lincoln's casket.
Members of the public can view Carter’s casket from early Wednesday through early Thursday, when his official state funeral service will be held at the Washington National Cathedral.
The former president will be honored and remembered through several days of funeral services before returning to his hometown for private funeral and interment ceremonies. He will be laid to rest by his wife.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he will step down as the country’s leader, capping off nearly 10 years in office that included a handful of public blunders and controversies.
"I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process," Trudeau told reporters Monday. "Last night, I asked the president of the Liberal Party to begin that process. This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election."
His resignation comes after pressure from his own party, the Liberal Party, mounted over his handling of the economy and immigration.
Fox News Digital took a look at Trudeau’s years in office and compiled his top five biggest blunders that sparked condemnation from Canadians and other nations.
Trudeau found himself in a scandal in 2019 after photos surfaced of him wearing blackface in 2001. The prime minister said in an interview after the fact that he could not give a definitive number on how many times he had worn blackface.
"Darkening your face, regardless of the context or the circumstances, is always unacceptable because of the racist history of blackface," he said in 2019.
"I should have understood that then, and I never should have done it."
One photo from 2001 showed Trudeau at an Arabian Nights-themed gala wearing brownface. He also admitted that while in high school he wore blackface while singing the popular Jamaican song "Day-O." In another instance, video footage from the 1990s showed Trudeau in blackface. The prime minister said at the time he could not recall how many times he wore blackface or brownface, a comment that haunted him in the following years as right-leaning lawmakers unleashed on Trudeau for his handling of the coronavirus in the 2020 era.
"I will ask the prime minister, who may I remind this House wore blackface on more times than he can remember, apologize to the peace-loving, patriotic Canadians who are outside right now," Conservative Member of Parliament Candice Bergen said of Trudeau in 2022 while demanding that he apologize to protesters who spoke out against the country’s strict coronavirus mandates.
Canada had some of the strictest coronavirus mandates and requirements in the world, including making vaccinations mandatory in federally regulated workplaces, shutting down businesses for months and arresting citizens if they violated lockdown protocols.
In response to the lockdowns that disrupted the economy and day-to-day life, Canadians staged multiple protests across the country in 2022. Known as the "Freedom Convoy," thousands of 18-wheelers and other trucks traveled to cities, as well as the Ambassador Bridge between Canada and Michigan, to protest vaccine mandates.
Trudeau slammed the truckers and protesters as spreading "hateful rhetoric" while heaping praise on Black Lives Matter, which was at the forefront of the "defund the police" protests that rocked the U.S. in 2020.
"I have attended protests and rallies in the past when I agreed with the goals, when I supported the people expressing their concerns and their issues. Black Lives Matter is an excellent example of that," Trudeau said in 2022.
"But I have also chosen to not go anywhere near protests that have expressed hateful rhetoric, violence toward fellow citizens, and a disrespect not just of science but of the front-line health workers and, quite frankly, the 90% of truckers who have been doing the right thing to keep Canadians safe, to put food on our tables. Canadians know where I stand. This is a moment for responsible leaders to think carefully about where they stand and who they stand with," he continued.
The Freedom Convoy protests were reported as being overwhelmingly peaceful by local media.
Canadian pastor Artur Pawlowski was repeatedly arrested, fined and imprisoned for breaking lockdown measures during the pandemic, sparking fierce condemnation from Christians and others worldwide.
In one viral video from 2021, police in Alberta were seen arresting and charging Pawlowski for "organizing an illegal in-person gathering" during Holy Week ahead of Easter.
"Shame on you guys, this is not Communist China. Don't you have family and kids? Whatever happened to 'Canada, God keep our land glorious and free'?" Pawlowski told the arresting officers.
Amid his legal battles, Pawlowski slammed Trudeau for his arrests.
"I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to worship as I see fit, free to stand up for what I believe is right," Pawlowski told Fox Digital in 2023. "Should we throw all of that out and move to Saudi Arabia? I think Justin Trudeau would fit in perfectly over there. Or maybe North Korea would be better for him. He loves dictatorship. I'll buy him a ticket. Go, please enjoy it."
Restaurants and other business owners in the country were rocked by lockdown orders, including some businesses bucking the mandates and opening their doors during the pandemic.
In Toronto, one restaurant owner was seen handcuffed by police for defying the orders in 2020, while other business owners launched lawsuits at their government for imposing mandates on businesses during the pandemic.
A report published in 2023 found an increase in restaurants that filed for bankruptcy as they dealt with a "post-pandemic hangover phase," the CBC reported at the time.
Trudeau, while describing himself as a "proud feminist," admonished U.S. voters for electing President-elect Donald Trump after his decisive win over Vice President Harris in November.
"We were supposed to be on a steady, if difficult, march towards progress," Trudeau said in December. "And yet, just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president."
"Everywhere, women’s rights and women’s progress is under attack, overtly and subtly," Trudeau continued. "I want you to know that I am, and always will be, a proud feminist. You will always have an ally in me and in my government."
The remarks came after Trudeau's meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Trump reportedly suggested to Trudeau during the meeting that Canada become the 51st state and has since publicly referred to Canada as such.
The Canadian Parliament came under fire in 2023 when members gave a man who fought for the Nazis a standing ovation. Trudeau and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were both present in parliament when the man, 99-year-old Yaroslav Hunka, received applause.
Hunka, a Ukrainian-Canadian who fought in the SS Division Galicia for the Nazis, was invited to Parliament to attend Zelenskyy's address to government officials. Members of Parliament from political parties on either side of the aisle stood and applauded Hunka for his military service before news broke that he fought on behalf of Nazi Germany.
Trudeau apologized for the embarrassment, while the speaker of Canada's House of Commons stepped down for inviting Hunka.
"This is a mistake that deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada," Trudeau said at the time.
"All of us who were in this House on Friday regret deeply having stood and clapped even though we did so unaware of the context," he added. "It was a horrendous violation of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust."
Mark Zuckerberg, who often bends with the political winds, is getting out of the fact-checking business.
And this is part of a broader effort by the Meta CEO to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump after a long and testy relationship.
After a previous outcry, Zuck made a great show of declaring that Facebook would hire fact-checkers to combat misinformation on the globally popular site. That was a clear sign that Facebook was becoming more of a journalistic organization rather than a passive poster of users’ opinions (and dog pictures).
But it didn’t work. In fact, it led to more info-suppression and censorship. Why should anyone believe a bunch of unknown fact-checkers working for one of the increasingly unpopular tech titans?
Now Zuckerberg is pulling the plug, announcing his decision in a video to underscore its big-deal nature:
"The problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally censor just 1 percent of posts. That’s millions of people. And we’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship. The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech."
Let me jump in here. Zuckerberg bluntly admits, with that line about "cultural tipping point," that he’s following the conventional wisdom–and, of course, the biggest tipping point is Trump’s election to a second term. And skeptics are portraying this as a bow to the president-elect and his team.
"So we’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring free expression on our platforms…
"We’re going to get rid of fact checkers" and replace them with community notes, already used on X. "After Trump first got elected in 2016, the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy.
"We tried in good faith to address those concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S."
It was Zuckerberg, along with the previous management at Twitter, that banned Trump after the Capitol riot. This led to plenty of Trumpian attacks on Facebook, and the president-elect told me he had flipped his position on banning TikTok because it would help Facebook, which he viewed as the greater danger.
Trump said last summer that Zuckerberg plotted against him in 2020 and would "spend the rest of his life in prison" if he did it again.
The president-elect boiled it down in a posting: "ZUCKERBUCKS, DON’T DO IT!"
Here’s a bit more from Z: "We’re going to simplify our content policies and get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse. What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas. And it’s gone too far."
Indeed it has. And I agree with that. In 2020, social media, led by Twitter, suppressed the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop, dismissing it as Russian disinformation, though a year and a half later the establishment press suddenly declared hey, the laptop report was accurate.
Let’s face it: People like Zuckerberg and Elon Musk (now embroiled in a war of words with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over an alleged coverup of gang rapes of young girls when Starmer was chief prosecutor) have immense clout. They are the new gatekeepers. With so-called legacy media less relevant–as we see with the mass exodus of top talent from Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post and the recent rise of podcasts–they control much of the public dialogue. And yes, they are private companies that can do what they want.
At yesterday’s marathon news conference, a reporter asked Trump about Zuckerberg: "Do you think he’s directly responding to the threats that you have made to him in the past with promises?"
"Probably. Yeah, probably," Trump said, twisting the knife a bit.
Meanwhile, having made the obligatory trek to Mar-a-Lago for dinner, the CEO has taken a number of steps to join forces with the new administration. And it doesn’t hurt that Meta is kicking in a million bucks to the Trump inaugural.
Zuck named prominent Republican lawyer Joel Kaplan as chief of global affairs, replacing a former British deputy prime minister. On "Fox & Friends" yesterday, Kaplan said:
"We’ve got a real opportunity now. We’ve got a new administration and a new president coming in who are big defenders of free expression, and that makes a difference. One of the things we’ve experienced is that when you have a U.S. president, an administration that’s pushing for censorship, it just makes it open season for other governments around the world that don’t even have the protections of the First Amendment to really put pressure on US companies. We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on that kind of thing around the world."
We’re going to work with President Trump. Got it?
What’s more, Zuckerberg is adding Dana White, chief executive officer of United Fighting Championship, to the Meta board. White is a longtime Trump ally, so MAGA now has a voice inside the company.
In other words, get with the program.
Footnote: At his news conference, where Trump seemed angry about the latest court battles and plans to sentence him, the incoming president said–or "didn’t rule out," in journalistic parlance– "military coercion" against two of his latest targets.
"Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes," he said. And Americans lost many lives building the Panama Canal. "It might be that you’ll have to do something."
He’s not going to use military force against either one. But his answer stirs the pot, as he knew it would.
Yesterday — 7 January 2025Latest Political News on Fox News
President-elect Trump on Tuesday again suggested that Canada should be added as the U.S.'s 51st state, sharing maps showing Canada as part of the U.S.
Trump shared a pair of posts to his social media platform Truth Social on Tuesday night — one with a map of the U.S. and Canada with "United States" written across the two countries and another post with the U.S. and Canada covered in an American Flag.
"Oh Canada!" he wrote in one post.
The incoming president has been pushing recently for Canada to be added to the U.S., including earlier on Tuesday.
"Canada and the United States. That would really be something," Trump said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. "They should be a state."
On Monday, the president-elect argued in a social media post that "many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State."
"The United States can no longer suffer the massive Trade Deficits and Subsidies that Canada needs to stay afloat," he wrote on Truth Social.
"Justin Trudeau knew this, and resigned. If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them," he added. "Together, what a great Nation it would be!!!"
Trudeau, who announced Monday that he will resign as Canadian prime minister once a replacement is chosen, said Tuesday there is no way Canada would join the U.S.
"There isn't a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States," Trudeau wrote on the social media platform X. "Workers and communities in both our countries benefit from being each other’s biggest trading and security partner."
Trump has been trolling Canada in recent weeks, floating the idea of it becoming the 51st state and posting a doctored photo of him standing beside a Canadian flag on top of a mountain.
The president-elect has also mocked Trudeau, repeatedly referring to him as "governor." Additionally, Trump has threatened to impose massive tariffs on Canada.
Trump has also been pushing for Denmark to sell the North Atlantic island of Greenland to the U.S.
Democrats held onto their narrow majorities in Virginia's legislature as they won two of three special elections on Tuesday in the first ballot box showdowns of 2025.
The closely-watched contests were seen by the political world as the first gauge of the mood of voters since President-elect Trump's convincing victory in November, in elections that also saw Republicans win control of the U.S. Senate and hold their fragile House majority.
They're also viewed as an early barometer for high-profile gubernatorial showdowns later this year in Virginia and New Jersey and next year's battle for Congress in the midterm elections.
The Associated Press projected that the Democrats would win both special elections in Loudon County, in northern Virginia.
In a special state Senate election, Democrat Kannan Srinivasan, currently a member of the state House, defeated Republican Tumay Harding. The seat became vacant after Democratic state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam was elected to Congress in November.
And in a special state House race to fill Srinivasan's vacant seat, Democrat JJ Singh, a small business owner and former congressional aide, topped Republican Ram Venkatachalam.
Loudon County, on the outer edges of the metropolitan area that surrounds the nation's capital, in recent years has been an epicenter in the national debate over bathroom policy for transgender students and allowing them to play female sports.
The one-time Republican-dominated county has trended for the Democrats over the past decade as Loudon's population has continued to soar. Vice President Kamala Harris easily carried the county in November's White House election, although Trump improved his showing compared to four years ago.
The third special election on Tuesday took place in a state Senate district west of Richmond, Virginia's capital city, where Republican Luther Cifers defeated Democrat Jack Trammell.
The seat became vacant when state Sen. John McGuire, who with the support of Trump, narrowly edged U.S. Rep. Bob Good in a contentious GOP primary last June before winning election to Congress in November.
Democrats will retain their 21-19 majority in the Virginia Senate and their 51-49 control of the state House of Delegates, during Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin's final year in office.
Youngkin energized Republicans nationwide three years ago, as the first-time candidate who hailed from the party’s business wing edged out former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2021 to become the first GOP candidate in a dozen years to win a gubernatorial election in the one-time swing state that had trended towards the Democrats over the previous decade.
Virginia is unique due to its state law preventing governors from serving two consecutive four-year terms, so Youngkin cannot run for re-election next year.
Virginia and New Jersey are the only two states in the nation to hold gubernatorial elections in the year after a presidential election. Because of that, both contests receive outsized national attention, and Virginia in particular is often seen as a bellwether of the national political climate and how Americans feel about the party in the White House.
The Biden administration is asking a federal appeals court for an injunction to temporarily block a plea deal agreement with three detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, which would see the defendants avoid the death penalty.
The three prisoners were set to enter their pleas as early as Friday at the military prison.
On New Year’s Eve, a military appeals court shot down Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's effort to block the deal between military prosecutors and defense lawyers, saying Austin did not have the power to cancel plea agreements.
Specifically, the court opinion said the plea deals reached by military prosecutors and defense attorneys were valid and enforceable and that Austin exceeded his authority when he later tried to nullify them.
In its appeal this week, the government says, "Respondents are charged with perpetrating the most egregious criminal act on American soil in modern history—the 9/11 terrorist attacks."
"The military commission judge intends to enforce pretrial plea agreements that will deprive the government and the American people of a public trial as to the respondents’ guilt and the possibility of capital punishment, despite the fact that the Secretary of Defense has lawfully withdrawn those agreements," the appeal read. "The harm to the government and the public will be irreparable once the judge accepts the pleas, which he is scheduled to do in hearings beginning on January 10, 2025."
The appeal also noted that once the military commission accepts the guilty pleas, there is likely no way to return to the status quo.
"The government and the public will lose the opportunity for a public trial as to the respondents’ guilt and to seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world," it continued. "The government is likely to prevail on the merits of its petition for a writ of mandamus and prohibition, but it will be a pyrrhic victory unless this Court first issues a stay of the military commission’s proceedings, at least as they relate to enforcing the withdrawn pretrial agreements and accepting the respondents’ pleas, until this Court can decide the merits of the government’s petition."
The plea deal in the long-running case against the terrorists was struck over the summer and approved by the top official of the Guantánamo military commission.
A number of 9/11 victims and U.S. politicians have condemned the plea deals.
"Joe Biden, Kamala Harris have weaponized the Department of Justice to go after their political opponents, but they’re cutting a sweetheart deal with 9/11 terrorists," now-Vice President-elect JD Vance said at the time.
The Pentagon revoked the deals in July.
"Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024," a letter from Austin states.
On Monday, the Biden administration announced the transfer of 11 Yemeni detainees, including two former bodyguards for Osama bin Laden, who were being held at Guantánamo Bay, to Cuba.
All the men were captured in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and were held for more than two decades without being charged or put on trial.
The transfer was carried out as part of an early morning secret operation on Monday, days before Mohammed, Guantánamo’s most notorious prisoner, was scheduled to plead guilty to plotting the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in exchange for a life sentence rather than face a death-penalty trial, the New York Times reported.
The move had been in the works for about three years after an initial plan to conduct the transfer in October 2023 faced opposition from congressional lawmakers.
Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
A prominent fact-checking organization used by Facebook to moderate political content reacted to news that it will revamp its fact-checking to better avoid bias with an article outlining its disappointment and disagreement with the move.
"Lead Stories was surprised and disappointed to first learn through media reports and a press release about the end of the Meta Third-Party Fact-Checking Partnership of which Lead Stories has been a part since 2019," Lead Stories editor Maarten Schenk wrote on Tuesday in response to an announcement from Meta that it would be significantly altering its fact-checking process to "restore free expression."
Lead Stories, a Facebook fact checker employing several former CNN alumni including Alan Duke and Ed Payne, has become one of the more prominent fact checkers used by Facebook in recent years.
Fox News Digital first reported on Tuesday that Meta is ending its fact-checking program and lifting restrictions on speech to "restore free expression" across Facebook, Instagram and Meta platforms, admitting its current content moderation practices have "gone too far."
"After Trump first got elected in 2016 the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a threat to democracy," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video message on Tuesday. "We tried in good faith to address these concerns without becoming the arbiters of truth. But fact-checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they created, especially in the U.S.."
"What political bias?" the article from Lead Stories asks before explaining that it is "disappointing to hear Mark Zuckerberg accuse the organizations in Meta's U.S. third-party fact checking program of being "too politically biased.’"
"Especially since one of the requirements Meta imposed for being part of a partnership included being a verified signatory of the IFCN's Code of Principles, which explicitly requires a "commitment to non-partisanship and fairness,’" the article states. "In all the years we have been part of the partnership, we or the IFCN never received any complaints from Meta about any political bias, so we were quite surprised by this statement."
Meta said in its announcement that it will move toward a system of moderation that is more in line with Community Notes at X, which Lead Stories seemed to take issue with.
"However, In our experience and that of others, Community Notes on X are often slow to appear, sometimes downright inaccurate and unlikely to appear on controversial posts because of an inability to reach agrement [sic] or consensus among users," Lead Stories wrote. "Ultimately, the truth doesn't care about consensus or agreement: the shape of the Earth stays the same even if social media users can't agree on it."
Lead Stories added that Community Notes is "entirely non-transparent about its contributors: readers are left guessing about their bias, funding, allegiance, sources or expertise and there is no way for appeals or corrections" while "fact-checkers, on the other hand, are required by the IFCN to be fully transparent about who they are, who funds them and what methodology and sources they use to come to their conclusions."
Schenk added, "Fact-checking is about adding verified and sourced information so people can make up their mind about what to believe. It is an essential part of free speech."
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Duke said that Lead Stories plans to press on.
"Lead Stories will continue, although we have to reduce our output with no support from Meta," Duke said. "We are global, with most of our business now outside the USA. We publish in eight languages other than English, which is what will be affected."
Some conservatives took to social media to blast Lead Stories over their article lamenting the change at Meta after years of conservative pushback to Facebook’s fact checkers as a whole on key news stories, including the suppression of the bombshell reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
"Of all the fact-checking companies, Lead Stories is the worst," British American conservative writer Ian Haworth posted on X. "Couldn't be happier that they'll soon be circling the drain."
The executive director of Politifact, a fact checker also used by Facebook, issued a strong rebuke of Zuckerberg following Tuesday's announcement.
"If Meta is upset it created a tool to censor, it should look in the mirror," Aaron Sharockman said in a statement he posted on X following Zuckerberg’s announcement.
Sharockman fumed, "The decision to remove independent journalists from Facebook’s content moderation program in the United States has nothing to do with free speech or censorship. Mark Zuckerberg’s decision could not be less subtle."
He threw back Zuckerberg’s accusation of political bias, stating that Meta’s platforms, not the fact-checkers, were the entities that actually censored posts.
"Let me be clear: the decision to remove or penalize a post or account is made by Meta and Facebook, not fact-checkers. They created the rules," Sharockman said.
At the conclusion of his Lead Stories post, Schenk wrote, "Even though we are obviously disappointed by this news, Lead Stories wishes to thank the many people at Meta we have worked with over the past years and we will continue our fact checking mission. To paraphrase the slogan on our main page: ‘Just because it's now trending without a fact-checking label still won't make it true.’"
Fox News Digital's Gabriel Hays and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has meetings with over a dozen senators over the next two days, including top progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in addition to others in the Democratic caucus.
President-elect Donald Trump announced last year that RFK Jr. was his pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in his second administration. Since the news broke, Kennedy has been on Capitol Hill meeting with various senators.
Up until this point, he had only met with Republicans in the upper chamber. But on Wednesday, Kennedy begins his sit-downs with a handful of Democrats, who could be crucial to his getting confirmed.
Kennedy, a former Democrat and independent presidential candidate, will attend meetings with Democratic caucus members, Sens. Catherine Cortez-Masto of Nevada, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Mark Warner of Virginia, Warren and Sanders.
The one-on-ones with Democrats are coming as several in the party have expressed openness to some of Kennedy's positions, particularly as it relates to agriculture and food production.
But some of those same policy stances pose a potential problem for his support among Republicans in the Senate.
He will also be joining Sens. Jim Banks, R-Ind., Bill Cassidy, R-La., Susan Collins, R-Maine, John Cornyn, R-Texas and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, for meetings on the hill this week.
Grassley is one of a handful of Republicans that have flagged concerns regarding Kennedy's positions on agriculture and how they could affect farmers.
"They've got to be able to use modern farming techniques, and that involves a lot of things, not only really sophisticated equipment, but also fertilizers and pesticides. So, we have to have that conversation," Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., recently told reporters.
Grassley previously emphasized the need for genetic engineering to keep up with food demand and feed the country.
However, others have expressed confidence that Kennedy will make the right calls for farmers. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said he warned Kennedy not to go "overboard" with agriculture regulations during their meeting last year.
He added that Trump's HHS pick was "very on board" and "understands our farmers are in trouble, and we want to make sure that we have farmers that can make a living."
After Kennedy endorsed Trump ahead of the 2024 election, the two debuted their campaign to "Make America Healthy Again."
This slogan has been adopted by a caucus formed by some Senate Republicans who are supporting Kennedy for the HHS role and hope to facilitate his and Trump's policies to promote health in the country.
Minnesota Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar is facing blowback from both X users and the platform itself over her post about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot in which she claimed police officers were "injured and killed."
"Four years ago, the electoral vote certification was interrupted by a violent mob. Police officers were injured and killed," Klobuchar posted on X on Tuesday. "Our democracy hung in the balance. I knew we had to do our duty and complete the count – and in the early hours of January 7th, we did."
That post was soon slapped with a "Community Note" by X that said, "No officers were killed."
"The medical examiner found Sicknick died of natural causes which means ‘a disease alone causes death. If death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural.’ Four other officers committed suicide days to months later."
"No police officers were killed," conservative commentator Dana Loesch posted on X.
"Zero police officers were killed," Red State writer Bonchie posted on X. "The time to stop lying about this was a long time ago."
"Can someone explain to me why it's okay for politicians to continually lie about this?" Bonchie added. "Let's say you think J6 is the worst thing ever. Fine, but how does that make it acceptable to say officers were killed? It's four years later and the fact-checkers still won't touch this."
"It is so sick to see people lie about who was killed," Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway posted on X. "A Trump supporter was shot and killed, but no police officers were killed. Someone of your stature should not be lying brazenly about this. Just sick."
"She should be censured for this lie," Right Turn Strategies President Chris Barron posted on X.
"Not a single officer was killed on Jan 6," Federalist Election Correspondent Brianna Lyman posted on X. "Sicknick died of natural causes on Jan. 7 Two officers died by su*cide in the weeks following while two other officers who were not present at the time of the protest later died by su*cide that could not directly be tied to J6."
"No police officers were killed," conservative writer Ben Kew posted on X. "The only person who was murdered was Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter."
Fox News Digital reached out to Klobuchar’s office for comment but did not receive a response.
U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes the day after he confronted rioters on Jan. 6, according to Washington's top medical examiner.
"The USCP accepts the findings from the District of Columbia's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner that Officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes," the Capitol Police said in a 2021 press release. "This does not change the fact Officer Sicknick died in the line of duty, courageously defending Congress and the Capitol."
Law enforcement officials testified in 2021 that about 140 police officers were injured in the riot.
The White House’s outgoing cyber czar, Harry Coker, called for three key things to meet the growing threat of digital attacks: more funding, deregulation and opening up cyber jobs to those without college degrees.
As adversaries like Iran, China and Russia lob near-constant attacks on the U.S. digital infrastructure, "we have to prioritize cybersecurity within federal budgets" President Joe Biden’s national cyber director said at an event with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C.
"I would love for the incoming administration, or any administration, to recognize the priority of cybersecurity," Coker said.
He added that he understands the U.S. is in a "tough budget situation."
"I get that, and I support making progress towards reducing the deficit, but we have to prioritize cybersecurity within our current budgets," he said.
At the same time, the Biden appointee railed against "duplicative federal regulation" and said he’d heard from those working to protect the nation’s online infrastructure that they spend "a staggering 30 to 50%" of their time working to comply with regulation, rather than ensuring protection from hacks.
"Armed with the industry's call to streamline, we worked with Congress to write bipartisan legislation that would bring all stakeholders, including independent regulators, to the table to advance the regulatory harmonization," he went on.
"Many of us were disappointed that this has not become law yet, but we have laid the groundwork for the next administration in Congress to do the right thing for our partners in the private sector."
His urging comes as the U.S. is grappling with the fallout of one of China’s biggest attacks on American infrastructure in history, dubbed Salt Typhoon.
A Chinese intelligence group infiltrated nine U.S. telecommunications giants and gained access to the private text messages and phone calls of Americans, including senior government officials and prominent political figures.
The Salt Typhoon hackers also gained access to an exhaustive list of phone numbers the Justice Department had wiretapped to monitor people suspected of espionage, granting them insight into which Chinese spies the U.S. had caught onto and which they had missed.
China was also behind a "major" hack of the Treasury Department in December, gaining access to unclassified documents and the workstations of government employees.
And earlier this year, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s communications were intercepted by Chinese intelligence, just as she was making determinations about new export controls on semiconductors and other key technologies. The same hacking group also targeted officials at the State Department and members of Congress.
Amid this onslaught of attacks, Coker said the cyber industry is suffering a recruitment issue.
"Today there are nearly 500,000 open cyber jobs in this great nation," he said.
"The federal government is leading by example… removing federal employee and contractor hiring from a focus on college degrees to a focus on what we're really after: skills.
"When we do away with the four-year college degree requirement, we expand our talent pool," Coker went on. "Many Americans don't have the time or the means to go to college for four years, but they can do it for two years or less."
-Laken Riley Act passes House with 48 Dems, all Republicans
-Trump threatens to tap allies for military shipbuilding if US can't produce
Canada's Justin Trudeau announced his resignation as prime minister Monday, with his Liberal Party in turmoil amid declining poll numbers and an election on the horizon.
Whoever assumes leadership in the unpopular governing party will become the next prime minister, and that person must tackle rising costs of living, an immigration crisis and aggressive economic pressure from President-elect Trump – not to mention the challenge from Canada's ascendant Conservative Party in the next election, to be held no later than October.
The next Liberal Party leader will be chosen in a national leadership contest, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Party President Sachit Mehra said Monday he would call a meeting "to be held this week to begin the nationwide democratic process of selecting a new leader of the party."…Read more
CURTAIN CALL: Pardons, Israel, domestic terrorism and more: Biden's plans for final days of presidency…Read more
'BIG MISTAKE': Trump: Carter was a 'very fine' person but Panama Canal moves were 'a big mistake'…Read more
NOT FOR SALE: Danish prime minister has blunt message for Trump: Greenland is not for sale…Read more
'DEAL THAT MUST HAPPEN': Donald Trump Jr arrives in Greenland as his father says Denmark ‘give it up’…Read more
BLUE STATE BEHEMOTH: Trump trolling Canada as 51st state could boost Democrats with 'blue-state behemoth'…Read more
'POINT OF NO RETURN'?: Iran's nuclear program is nearing 'a point of no return,' France's Macron says…Read more
BIG GUNS: Kim Jong Un’s big guns spotted on Russian front lines: report…Read more
'A BAD IDEA': Physician governor urges Capitol Hill to block RFK Jr.'s confirmation: 'Our children's lives depend on it'…Read more
'PLAYING WITH THE COURTS': Trump blasts ongoing 'lawfare' in first public remarks since Congress certified his election…Read more
STOPPING TRAFFIC: House Republican's bill would rip federal funds from states that give illegal immigrants driver's licenses…Read more
'QUIT PLAYING AROUND': Ex-Obama adviser calls out Schumer for 'foolish' claim Dems didn't mislead on Biden…Read more
DEFINING DOGE: What to know about DOGE and its quest to slash government waste, spending…Read more
'COME A LONG WAY': Trump says Meta has ‘come a long way’ after Zuckerberg ends fact-checking on platforms…Read more
'BEAUTIFUL NAME': Trump announces Gulf of Mexico will get new, pro-America revamp…Read more
Get the latest updates on the Trump presidential transition, incoming Congress, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's newly unveiled freedom of speech policies signal a major shift in the Facebook social media platform's content moderation strategy, following years of congressional clashes over alleged "censorship" and the regulation of political information.
"We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms," Zuckerberg said in a video posted Tuesday morning. "More specifically, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S."
Zuckerberg's shift in content moderation comes amid a history of being grilled by politicians on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill.
In January 2024, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., confronted Zuckerberg during a heated exchange about the harmful impact of social media on users, particularly young girls. The questioning followed revelations from internal Meta studies that indicated a significant number of teenage girls were exposed to harmful content, including unwanted nudity, sexual advances, and material promoting self-harm, within just one week.
"So, you didn’t take any action, you didn’t fire anybody, you haven’t compensated a single victim. Let me ask you this. There are families of victims here today. Have you apologized to the victims? Would you like to apologize now?" Hawley said, drawing applause from the audience.
In response, Zuckerberg rose from his seat and addressed the crowd directly, saying, "I’m sorry for everything you’ve all been through. No one should have to go through the things that your families suffered."
Zuckerberg added, "This is why we’ve invested so much… and will continue through industry-leading efforts to make sure that no [one has] to go through what your families have had to suffer."
In that same hearing, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, delivered a scathing rebuke of the tech giant CEO.
"Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us. I know you don't mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands," Graham said. "You have a product that's killing people."
Graham's remark came in light of South Carolina state Rep. Brandon Guffey suing Instagram following the suicide of his 17-year-old son, Gavin. Gavin took his own life after falling victim to an extortion scheme run by a group operating through the Meta-owned app.
In 2018, then-House lawmakers grilled Zuckerberg over the site’s failure to protect the personal information of 87 million users. Zuckerberg, who co-founded Facebook in 2004 from his Harvard dorm room, said in a Facebook post at the time, "Looking back, it’s clear we were too slow identifying election interference in 2016, and we need to do better in future elections."
In November 2020, then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Zuckerberg both faced the Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing titled "Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election." The session put the spotlight on the tech giants' controversial content moderation decisions, including the suppression of the New York Post story about Hunter Biden just weeks before the presidential election.
Testifying remotely, both CEOs acknowledged missteps and outlined how they'd handle similar challenges in the future. Zuckerberg highlighted Facebook's expansive voting initiatives, which he called "the largest voting information campaign in American history." According to his testimony, over 140 million users visited the Voting Information Center on Facebook and Instagram, with 33 million accessing it on Election Day alone. The campaign reportedly helped 4.5 million people register to vote.
To combat misinformation and voter suppression, Zuckerberg detailed measures like partnerships with election officials, the removal of false claims, and warnings applied to over 150 million pieces of content reviewed by independent fact-checkers. Facebook also implemented "policies prohibiting explicit or implicit misrepresentations about how or when to vote as well as attempts to use threats related to COVID-19 to scare people into not voting," according to Zuckerberg’s testimony.
Meta’s third-party fact-checking program was put in place after the 2016 election and had been used to "manage content" and misinformation on its platforms, largely due to "political pressure," executives said, but admitted the system has "gone too far."
Last year, Zuckerberg sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, in which he admitted that he felt pressure from the Biden administration, particularly with regard to COVID-19 content, and even subjects like satire and humor.
"The thing is, as American companies, when other governments around the world that don’t have our tradition or our First Amendment, when they see the United States government pressuring U.S. companies to take down content, it is just open season then for those governments to put more pressure [on their companies]," explained Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan. "We do think it is a real opportunity to work with the Trump administration and to work on free expression at home."
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Liz Huston, Trump-Vance transition spokesperson said, "President Trump has always been a champion of free speech, and his landslide victory put an end to the Biden era of oppressive censorship."
'President Trump's return to the White House is a signal to Americans that their fundamental right to free speech is once again safe," she added.
Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman and Adonis Hoffman contributed to this report.
During a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump renewed his criticisms of the Biden administration for selling off border wall materials at "five cents on the dollar," saying: "These people either hate our country or they’re stupid."
He also slammed the private company managing the border wall sales for attempting to sell the materials back to his incoming administration at a significant upcharge.
"You know what they were doing. They were calling us up and saying: ‘We'll sell it back to you at 200 cents.’ In other words, double what we paid for it," he said. "So, they were going to buy it from this guy [President Joe Biden] for five cents on the dollar. They were making deals."
The Biden administration has been auctioning off border wall parts since at least 2023, with parts listed for sale on auction marketplaces, after it abruptly shut down most border wall construction in 2021.
An official at the Department of Defense told Fox News Digital in December that the materials being sold through online auctions were already sold off by the federal government earlier in 2024, with a large percentage of the materials being sold to a government surplus retailer called Gov Planet.
Speaking in December, Trump said the Biden administration’s border wall sales were "almost a criminal act" that would cost American taxpayers "hundreds of millions of dollars."
Trump said on Tuesday the private retailer was "calling us, asking us to pay them 200 cents because it's a good deal because we can have it immediately."
But to this, Trump said: "You know what ‘immediately’ is? Just leave it in place."
"Fortunately, we had a very smart judge that stopped it cold," he went on. "But think of it. They were selling the wall. That was exactly the wall that the Border Patrol wanted that was designed by them: steel, concrete, rebar… Everything was top of the line, very expensive. It would be double what we paid for it then, six years ago."
Speaking of the Biden administration, Trump said: "These people either hate our country or they’re very stupid."
"They were selling the wall for five cents on the dollar and trying to resell it back to us for 200 cents, or less, but for 200 cents on the dollar." he said. "That deal is like all the other things that these people do."
Jimmy Carter, the centenarian former president who lived long enough to see Donald Trump elected again but died just before the start of the new year, has a foreign policy legacy that wasn't just defined by his four years in the White House.
Over the term of his presidency, the former Georgia governor could boast of helping to establish peace between Israel and Egypt and reestablishing relations with China. But by the time he suffered one of the nation's most decisive defeats by President Ronald Reagan in 1980, Carter still had ambitions that he was not ready to stop pursuing.
Carter is largely celebrated for the altruistic nature of his post-presidency, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity well into his 90s. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his peace negotiations, but some accused the former president of meddling in international affairs without any official title.
Here's a look Carter's forays on the world stage, both as president and beyond:
In 1994, Bill Clinton was in office in the midst of a standoff with North Korea over the communist country's nuclear program. The U.S. was floating the idea of sanctions – and even considered a preemptive strike on North Korea's nuclear facilities to destroy their capabilities.
Carter had received invitations from North Korea to visit, and was eager to try his hand at defusing the situation and hashing out an agreement to unify the north and the south. As Clinton weighed his options, Carter called. He had negotiated the framework of a peace agreement, without authorization.
Carter had flown to North Korea with a CNN crew and hashed out the deal. He called Clinton to warn him he was about to go on CNN to announce the deal, which infuriated the Clinton White House, according to Carter biographer Douglas Brinkley's book, "The Unfinished Presidency."
Carter also accepted a dinner invitation from Kim Il-Sung, where he stated the U.S. had stopped pursuing sanctions at the U.N., which was untrue. Backed into a corner, Clinton had to accept the peace deal and stop pursuing sanctions.
Carter’s discussions with leader Kim Il-Sung may have averted conflict with North Korea in the 1990s. The nation, of course, continued pursuing nuclear weapons and acquired them in 2006.
In the Middle East, Carter declared he could have resolved the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians in a second term, a prospect that has still not been achieved by any president.
"Had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final solution," he told The New York Times in 2003.
Throughout the 1990s, Carter befriended Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat and coached him on how to appear more moderate to the west, even as Arafat continued to lead attacks on Israel and led the Second Intifada in 2000.
When President George H.W. Bush decided to launch the Persian Gulf War after Iraq's Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Carter was vehemently opposed to the idea. Five days before Bush's deadline for Hussein to withdraw, Carter wrote to leaders of nations on the U.N. Security Council and key Arab states – Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria – imploring them to abandon the U.S. and its war efforts.
"I urge you to call publicly for a delay in the use of force while Arab leaders seek a peaceful solution to the crisis. You may have to forego approval from the White House, but you will find the French, Soviets, and others fully supportive. Also, most Americans will welcome such a move."
The move prompted former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft to accuse Carter of violating the Logan Act, which says private citizens cannot negotiate with foreign governments.
In 2008, President George W. Bush's secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, publicly tore into Carter for meeting with Hamas, a designated terrorist group, after the administration explicitly told him not to.
Rice told reporters Carter's meeting could confuse the message that the U.S. would not work with Hamas.
"I just don't want there to be any confusion," Rice said. "The United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help" further a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Carter, a strong advocate of the Palestinians after his presidency, claimed that Israel's policies amounted to an apartheid worse than South Africa's.
In 1978, the groundbreaking possibility of Egypt and Israel normalizing relations had screeched to a halt. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt suggested ceasing contact with the Israelis.
In September of that year, Carter brought Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Camp David, where Carter spent more than a week mediating negotiations on an agreement between the two sides. A framework of a treaty known as the Camp David Accords came out of that meeting, and six months later, Egypt became the first Arab state to establish relations with Israel.
The agreement included the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and a "pathway" for Palestinian self-rule in Gaza. Sadat was assassinated in 1981 after Arab fury over the peace agreement.
In 1978, following months of secret negotiations, Carter established formal U.S. relations with China, breaking decades of hostility between the two nations. That meant rescinding a defense treaty with Taiwan, where Carter remains a controversial figure.
It also prompted Congress to pass the Taiwan Relations Act to continue to provide arms to Taiwan and "maintain the capacity to resist" any attempts to take it over.
In 1979, the Iranian regime’s shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and Carter had a strategic relationship, with Carter quiet on his questionable human rights record even as the shah’s grip on power was slipping.
Protests had kicked up in Iran over the shah’s oppressive policies, but Carter continued to support him, fearing the alternative: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Pahlavi fled into exile in January 1979, and Carter initially resisted requests to grant him refuge in the U.S. before allowing him to seek cancer treatment in New York City in October of that year. And on Nov. 4, Iranian students angry at the decision stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 52 hostages.
The hostage crisis spanned the rest of Carter’s term and, for many, defined his legacy on the world stage. Without any resolution, in April 1980, Carter moved to a military rescue.
The mission ended in tragic failure: several helicopters were grounded outside Tehran in a sandstorm, and eight special forces members were killed when their helicopter crashed. Iran then captured U.S. equipment and intelligence.
The hostages were not released until Jan. 20, 1981 – minutes after President Ronald Reagan was inaugurated.
President-elect Trump has brought Carter's Panama Canal treaties back into the spotlight, musing on Tuesday that offering control of the canal to Panama lost Carter the 1980 election.
Despite fierce opposition from the right, Carter believed returning the canal would improve U.S. relations in Latin America and ensure peace between U.S. shipping lanes, fearing that opposition to U.S. control could lead to violence on the waterway.
"It’s obvious that we cheated the Panamanians out of their canal," Carter wrote in a diary. But he'd also received intelligence that it could take up 100,000 troops to defend the canal in the event of an uprising.
In recent days, Trump has suggested taking the canal back – claiming the U.S. is paying too much to use it, and it is controlled by China.
"Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a big reason why Jimmy Carter lost the election, even more so than the hostages," Trump said.
FIRST ON FOX:Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate are renewing a push to crack down on noncitizen voting in federal elections, reintroducing a bipartisan bill that was repeatedly touted last year by the GOP.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, are reintroducing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which looks to ensure that noncitizens cannot vote in federal elections.
While only citizens can vote in federal elections, Republicans have claimed that it is impossible to enforce because noncitizens and illegal immigrants are eligible for driver’s licenses and other benefits in states, which can lead them to being registered to vote.
The bill requires states to obtain documentary proof of U.S. citizenship and identity in person when registering an individual to vote. It also requires states to establish a program to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls, and allows citizens to bring suits against officials that fail to uphold the law.
The bill was passed in the House last year, with five Democrats voting in favor, but stalled in the Senate – where the Democrat-controlled chamber passed a spending bill without the SAVE Act being included, as Republicans had hoped. President Biden had promised to veto the bill.
The bill has gained increasing importance among Republicans amid a surge of migrants into the U.S. during the Biden administration, as well as recent announcements by states that they had identified thousands of noncitizens on their rolls.
But now Republicans control the Senate and soon the White House, where President-elect Trump has voiced support for legislation to prevent noncitizens from voting.
"Republicans must pass the Save Act, or go home and cry yourself to sleep," he said in July.
Roy, who is introducing the bill in the House with Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-NY., said, "American elections belong to American citizens, and the public's confidence in those elections is the cornerstone of our republic,"
"We in Congress have a duty to our fellow citizens to provide that confidence. We must have concrete enforcement mechanisms in place to ensure that our elections and our sovereignty cannot be hijacked and influenced by foreign nationals who have no business voting in this country," he said.
"The House passed this critical bipartisan bill last year – we must do it again. I look forward to working with the Republican Senate to put this policy on President Trump's desk," he said.
Lee said public trust in election integrity "is absolutely essential for the legitimacy of our democratic institutions."
"A vast majority of our countrymen agree: only American citizens should be able to register and vote in American elections. The SAVE Act gives states the ability to prevent illegal voter registration and protect the ballot box from foreign election interference," he said.
Garbarino, meanwhile, criticized New York City for disregarding the principle of American citizens deciding their elections by allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections.
"The SAVE Act upholds the integrity of our elections by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, ensuring this fundamental right is reserved exclusively for American citizens," he said.
The bill also has the support of groups including the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, Tea Party Patriots Action and the Immigration Accountability Project. It has 59 co-sponsors in the House. The bill was introduced in the lower chamber on Friday and is expected to be introduced in the Senate next week.
The bill comes as Congress is expected to have immigration-related issues as a top priority. On Tuesday, the House passed the Laken Riley Act, which would require federal immigration authorities to detain illegal immigrants found guilty of theft-related crimes. It also would allow states to sue the Department of Homeland Security for harm caused to their citizens because of illegal immigration.
Fox News’ Julia Johnson and Liz Elkind contributed to this report.
President-elect Donald Trump, fed up with the U.S.' lagging ship-building capabilities, offered an out-of-character solution to the problem: Outsource production if the U.S. can’t keep up.
"We’re going to do something with ships. We need ships. And we may have to go a different route than you would normally go," the incoming president suggested to radio host Hugh Hewitt.
"We don’t build ships anymore. We used to build a ship a day. We don’t build ships anymore. We want to get that started. And maybe we’ll use allies, also, in terms of building ships. We might have to."
"China’s building, from what I’m hearing, every four days, they’re knocking out a ship. We’re sitting back and watching, and we’ve suffered tremendously."
Trump’s stance is sure to put the domestic shipbuilding industry and labor groups on alert. But it comes as China’s shipbuilding capacity is more than 232 times greater than that of the U.S., and the Navy has for decades struggled to build ships on time.
And it's a divergence from his campaign promise to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., and trigger a blanket tariff on global imports into the U.S., along with a 60% tariff on all goods imported from China.
China’s navy is the largest in the world, with more than 370 ships and submarines. The U.S.' battle force includes 295 vessels, including 11 active aircraft carriers. In 2017, Congress passed a law requiring the Navy to keep and maintain 355 ships.
Without disclosing details, Trump hinted at a plan to grow the Navy's ship fleet.
"We’re going to be announcing some things that are going to be very good having to do with the Navy. We need ships. We have to get ships. And you know, everybody said, ‘Oh, we’ll build them.’ We may have to go to others, bid them out, and it’s okay to do that. We’ll bid them out until we get ourselves ready," he said.
The U.S. also lags in nuclear submarines, according to military experts. The U.S.’ nuclear submarines reached a Cold War high of 140, according to Jerry Hendrix, retired Navy captain and senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute, in an op-ed for American Affairs.
"The bottom line is that the American submarine force, the ‘point of the spear’ of American power, upon which so many military plans depend, is unprepared to meet the current threat environment, and there are no quick fixes. It has taken decades—and a sequence of bad assumptions and poor decisions—to fall into the current state of unpreparedness," he wrote.
The most recent figures show the U.S. submarine flight at 68, only 50 of which are classified in the hunter-killer "fast attack" category.
Currently, China controls 46.59% of the global shipbuilding market. South Korea comes in second at 29.24%, and Japan third with 17.25%. The U.S. has a relatively insignificant control of the market at 0.13%. And it costs roughly twice as much to build a ship in the U.S. as it does elsewhere in the world.
Congress' $895 billion annual defense policy bill authorized $33.5 billion for new ships and submarines.
According to a Navy report last year, several key shipbuilding programs are years behind schedule, in large part due to a lack of workers.
Trump also called out management of the Navy’s Constellation-class frigate program, blaming Biden-era officers for "playing around and tinkering," adding to costs.
Speaking with Hewitt, Trump seemed to refer to a deal the Pentagon struck with the American arm of Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri for the new class of ships in 2020.
"And they were going and really doing a good job, and the generals, you know, the Biden admirals and generals and all of the people that are involved, they started playing around and tinkering and changing the design, and this, you know, that costs. That costs a lot of money," Trump said.
"But the generals or the admirals went in, and they said, ‘Oh, why don’t we make it a little bit wider? Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we do that?’ And it was designed specifically for speed and other things. When you start making it wider, you start making it slower," Trump continued.
"We had it down, and they made changes. They always have to make changes. You know, these guys get in there, and they think they’re smart, and in many cases, unfortunately, they’re not smart, and they take something, and they make it worse for a lot more."
Then-President Ronald Reagan had a 600-ship goal for the Navy when he assumed office, dedicated to rebuilding the nation's fleet after the Vietnam War. But his administration also terminated a subsidy for shipbuilding that decimated the commercial market, meaning U.S. shipyards were solely dedicated to meeting the needs of the military.
President-elect Trump will meet with Republicans in the Senate on Wednesday as he prepares to take office again at the end of the month and hit the ground running on his agenda.
The Trump transition team confirmed the meeting with the Senate GOP, who are now in control of the upper chamber, to Fox News Digital.
The president-elect is being hosted for the huddle by the chairwoman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., her office said.
Trump will be in Washington, D.C., this week for the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter, who passed away this month at 100 years old after being in hospice care.
The meeting, which will include Senate Republican leadership, among others, will be held in the Mansfield room of the Capitol at 6 p.m. The room is used for weekly Senate caucus lunches and other large meetings.
The group will address plans for a budget reconciliation bill, or two, in the coming months. Trump has said he wants "one powerful Bill," as opposed to the proposal initially put forth by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., for two different reconciliation bills, one addressing the border and another to tackle taxes.
The reason this process is so integral to Republicans' work in this Congress is that it allows them to bypass the Senate's legislative filibuster, lowering the 60-vote threshold. This way, the GOP can push through legislation with the support of their conference alone.
"Members of Congress are getting to work on one powerful Bill that will bring our Country back, and make it greater than ever before. We must Secure our Border, [Unleash] American Energy, and Renew the Trump Tax Cuts, which were the largest in History, but we will make it even better - NO TAX ON TIPS. IT WILL ALL BE MADE UP WITH TARIFFS, AND MUCH MORE, FROM COUNTRIES THAT HAVE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF THE U.S. FOR YEARS. Republicans must unite, and quickly deliver these Historic Victories for the American People. Get smart, tough, and send the Bill to my desk to sign as soon as possible. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" Trump wrote on Truth Social this week.
However, Trump has not ruled anything out, including the two-bill strategy, he told radio host Hugh Hewitt.
All Republican conference members were invited to attend the meeting, but it's unclear exactly who will be going on Wednesday night.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., is planning being there, according to his office.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., will also attend the discussion, telling Fox News Digital in a statement that he was "[l]ooking forward to meeting with President Trump tomorrow. It’s important that we work together to pass a conservative, Pro-American agenda."
Hawaii's Democratic Governor and practicing physician, Josh Green, is visiting Capitol Hill this week to lobby lawmakers against the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary. In a Tuesday op-ed for The New York Times, he argued that "our children's lives depend" on preventing Kennedy from leading the agency.
Green, who worked as a physician before entering politics, has continued practicing emergency room medicine throughout his legislative career. In 2019, as Hawaii's lieutenant governor, Green helped spearhead efforts to increase vaccination rates in Samoa amid a measles outbreak in the region. Green arrived in the nation's capital on Sunday evening to begin his meetings that will go until he returns to Hawaii on Thursday.
"As the only physician governor, I need to explain what are good picks and what maybe aren't so good picks for the cabinet," Green said in a video ahead of his planned trip to Washington, noting that his lobbying against Kennedy is not anything personal or politically motivated. "[RFK Jr's] appointment to be the head of Health and Human Services is not consistent with safety for our children," he said.
During his trip to Washington, Green said that he would be discussing with lawmakers and other leaders to explore "a better place for [RFK Jr.] to be" rather than HHS, calling his potential confirmation "a bad idea."
Questions over the likelihood of Kennedy's confirmation took a turn this week after Sen. Bill Cassidy, R–La., the incoming chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, called out the potential future HHS Secretary for being "wrong" on the issue of vaccines. The criticism follows concerns that Kennedy may seek to get rid of the polio vaccine, after news broke that one of his previous colleagues at Childrens Health Defense, a health-focused nonprofit Kennedy previously chaired, petitioned the government in 2019 to revoke its approval.
Green's criticism of Kennedy has largely revolved around his anti-vaccine views as well, in particular Kennedy's response to a measles outbreak in Samoa, during which the potential future HHS Secretary promoted doubts around vaccine efficacy, according to Green and others, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. Those efforts included a letter Kennedy sent to the country's prime minister, as chairman of Children's Health Defense, suggesting that the measles vaccine could have potentially exacerbated the outbreak.
The Democratic governor penned an op-ed published in The New York Times on Tuesday, continuing to drill at Kennedy's anti-vaccine efforts in 2019 amid Samoa's measles outbreak. According to Greene, Kennedy "used misinformation to scare all the people of Samoa away from being vaccinated" and served to "torpedo" the country's vaccination efforts.
"Too much depends on our commitment to truth and the lifesaving power of vaccines to entrust Mr. Kennedy with the direction of these programs. Our children’s lives depend on it," Green wrote.
Kennedy's team has not responded to repeated efforts by Fox News Digital to get in touch, but in 2023, Kennedy said during an appearance in a short film that he "never told anybody not to vaccinate" and that he "didn't go [to Samoa] with any reason to do with that." Furthermore, amid concerns about how Kennedy might approach the polio vaccine, he told reporters on Capitol Hill last month that he is "all for the polio vaccine."
Proponents of Kennedy's nomination have suggested his proposed plans, if confirmed, will be rooted in logic and science.
"I think that Kennedy has aimed to stand for evidence-based changes to policy," said Nina Teicholz, a nutrition expert and founder of The Nutrition Coalition, a New York-based nonprofit organization.
"Right now, the media is covering RFK Jr. poorly and unfairly, giving him no credit for ideas that are well within the bounds of discussion," added Dr. Vinay Prasad, in an article published by The Free Press. "Many of RFK Jr.'s ideas have a logic."
Fox News Digital reached out to Green's office for comment but did not hear back by publication time.
