It is 11 weeks into his second administration, and President Donald Trump is not slowing down.

The president has signed 111 executive orders since his inauguration on Jan. 20, far outpacing any of his immediate predecessors in the White House.

"More than any in American history," Trump touted a week ago.

Trump has been expanding the powers of the presidency, as he has upended long-standing government policy and made major cuts to the federal workforce through an avalanche of executive orders and actions. 

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While Trump regularly showcases his performance steering the nation, some of the latest national public opinion polls suggest Americans may not be so pleased with the job he's doing as president.

The president stands at 43% approval and 53% disapproval in a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted March 31-April 2, and he is also underwater - at 46%-51% - in a Wall Street Journal poll in the field March 27-April 1.

While a survey from the Daily Mail, which was also conducted over the past week, suggested Trump's approval rating is in positive territory, the majority of the national public opinion surveys in the field since mid-March indicate Trump in negative territory.

WHERE TRUMP STANDS IN THE LATEST FOX NEWS NATIONAL POLL

Trump has seen his numbers edge down slightly since the start of his second term, when an average of his polls indicated the president's approval rating in the low 50s and his disapproval in the mid-40s.

Contributing to the slide are increasing concerns over the economy and inflation, which was a pressing issue that kept former President Joe Biden’s approval ratings well below water for most of his presidency.

Additionally, the latest surveys were conducted nearly entirely before Trump's blockbuster tariff announcement last week, which sparked a trade war with the nation's top trading partners, triggered a massive sell-off in the financial markets, and increased concerns about a recession.

When asked about the market plunge, the president told reporters on Sunday evening, "Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something."

Daron Shaw, a politics professor and chair at the University of Texas who serves as a member of the Fox News Decision Team and is the Republican partner on the Fox News poll, calls the economy "the 800-pound gorilla."

According to the Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 37% of Americans approve of the job the president's doing on the economy, with 52% giving him a thumbs down.

Trump's numbers on the economy are slightly better in the Wall Street Journal poll - 44% approval and 52% disapproval - but still underwater.

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Shaw suggested that over the past week the president has been "slowly losing the argument that tariffs are part of a larger program that will bring down prices."

"He’s got his work cut out for him….he’s losing the narrative," Shaw said of Trump. "He’s got to make the case that tariffs are part of a larger economic plan that’s going to deal with problems that people feel."

The only issue where Trump is in positive territory in the Reuters/Ipsos and Wall Street Journal polls is immigration and border security, which, along with inflation, was another top issue that helped catapult him back into the White House.

However, Shaw noted that Trump's success has blunted the importance of the issue.

"The broader narrative is that he’s had success on border security and has essentially tabled that as an issue," he argued. "One of the problems of succeeding is that it’s something that you no longer really talk about. It’s no longer at the top of people’s issue priorities. So one of his dominant issues has been neutralized by his success on the issue."

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While Trump's poll numbers are edging down in most surveys, they are still superior to ratings during his first term in office. Trump’s poll numbers were almost entirely in negative territory in most surveys for the entirety of his first term in office.

"Keep these numbers in perspective. The numbers he’s averaging right now are still higher than he was at any point during his first presidency," veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse told Fox News.

Newhouse emphasized that Trump's Republican "base is strongly behind him," which was not the case at the start of his first term in the White House.

The move could see some taxpayer-funded organisations not directly controlled by ministers scrapped.

A spokesperson for Labour says he has been suspended from the party after being arrested.

The UK government sought to keep details of its row with Apple over requested access to its encrypted cloud storage tool private.

The mother of Brianna Ghey says reports the Online Safety Bill could be watered down are "shocking".

President Donald Trump’s 12th week in office is likely to center around the fallout from last week’s announcement of several new tariffs and a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"HANG TOUGH," Trump said on social media Saturday while defending new U.S. tariffs, adding that "it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic."

The comments come as much of Trump’s 12th week in office promises to center around the president’s decision last week to announce new tariffs on dozens of countries around the world, a policy he argued will eventually "supercharge" the economy as part of his "economic revolution."

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But concerns remain about the economic pitfalls of the new tariffs, most notably after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq saw their worst plunge of the decade late last week. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2,231.07 points, or 5.5%, on Friday, adding to the concern over Trump’s trade policies.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the tariffs a "massive assault on American families" during an appearance on CNN over the weekend, arguing that the policy will only serve to "help the billionaires."

Nevertheless, Trump appeared ready to double down on his tariff push in the week ahead, vowing the trade plan will be a "win" in the long run.

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"We are bringing back jobs and businesses like never before. Already, more than FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS OF INVESTMENT, and rising fast! THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN," Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social.

Meanwhile, Trump is set to host Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, when the two leaders are likely to discuss not only the 17% tariff the president placed on the longtime U.S. ally but also the ongoing expansion of the Israeli invasion of Gaza.

Trump is also likely to keep a close eye on Congress in the week ahead as GOP lawmakers push forward to advance the president’s multitrillion-dollar spending agenda.

The Senate adopted Trump’s budget blueprint over the weekend, which will now require approval from the House in order to push forward toward the budget reconciliation process. But doubts remain that Trump’s agenda can clear the lower chamber this week, with the GOP holding a slim majority that has strong disagreements among factions of the party.

"The Senate is free to put pen to paper to draft its reconciliation bill, but I can’t support House passage of the Senate changes to our budget resolution until I see the actual spending and deficit reduction plans to enact President Trump’s America First agenda," Rep. Andy Harris, the House Freedom Caucus chair, wrote on X on Saturday.

A federal judge's 22-page decision on Sunday called the deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia "wholly lawless."

Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported to an El Salvadoran megaprison last month for being an alleged MS-13 gang member. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Department of Homeland Security and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., where he was living in Maryland. 

"Although the legal basis for the mass removal of hundreds of individuals to El Salvador remains disturbingly unclear, Abrego Garcia’s case is categorically different—there were no legal grounds whatsoever for his arrest, detention, or removal," Xinis wrote. 

"Nor does any evidence suggest that Abrego Garcia is being held in CECOT at the behest of Salvadoran authorities to answer for crimes in that country. Rather, his detention appears wholly lawless," she continued. 

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Also on Sunday, Attorney General Pam Bondi doubled down on the Trump administration's decision to deport Abrego Garcia.

"We have to rely on what ICE says," Bondi said in a "Fox News Sunday" interview. "We have to rely on what Homeland Security says. They're our clients, and I firmly believe in the work they are doing, and we're going to make America safe again. That was President Trump's directive to all of us."

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The White House has remained firm in its decision to deport Abrego Garcia following a report from The Atlantic that federal attorneys said that there was an "administrative error" in bringing him to CECOT men’s prison in El Salvador.

Court filings also show Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. in 2011 at the age of 16 after fleeing gang threats in El Salvador, the outlet reported. 

Abrego Garcia later married a U.S. citizen and worked in construction to support her, their son and her two children from a previous relationship.

The allegations about his affiliation with MS-13 stem from a 2019 arrest outside a Maryland Home Depot store, where he and other young men were looking for work, according to The Associated Press.

Abrego Garcia was arrested in Baltimore on March 12 after working a shift as a sheet metal apprentice in Baltimore and picking up his 5-year-old son, who has autism and other disabilities, from his grandmother’s house, his lawyers' complaint stated.

Fox News Digital's Taylor Penley, Brie Stimson, Bill Mears and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

As the Trump administration pursues an "all of the above" energy strategy, hydrogen experts welcome the new attention and are advancing efforts to make it a top, domestically-produced power source.

The Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Association, one of seven "hubs" nationwide, partners with tribal, public and private concerns to build hydrogen production projects throughout their region.

"Hydrogen has a lot of dexterity as a molecule, and it can be used for a host of different things," PNWHA president Chris Green told Fox News Digital.

Hydrogen can be a power source, but it more so is utilized as an energy carrier due to its periodic makeup.

"It is a carrier of electrons and can store energy in that regard. But as a fuel, it's just like any other fuel. It can be used to propel machinery, equipment and industrial processes, those kinds of things. And so it's another sort of energy commodity product that we can make here at home domestically," Green said.

Hydrogen also has a dual role in agriculture, he said. 

Fertilizer – of which much has been historically imported from now-war-torn Russia and Ukraine – is hydrogenic in makeup. Ammonium nitrate – a key ingredient – is hydrogen sourced. If the U.S. can bolster its hydrogen production, it can rely less on unreliable or adversarial economies, especially amid new tariffs.

And its power-sourcing and energy-carrying nature can power equipment, mills and more.

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With all of these important uses, Green said the U.S. has a chance to "leap ahead of everybody else if we can build out all this infrastructure."

Beginning in the aughts, there had been talk of hydrogen-powered vehicles. But the extremely flammable nature of hydrogen has kept it from being a ubiquitous fuel source like petrol.

One company investing big in hydrogen, particularly in the West, is Chevron. The company said hydrogen may appeal to those worried about the energy sector’s environmental footprint.

The Texas-based energy giant is "leveraging [its] strengths to safely deliver lower carbon energy in a growing world," according to a statement.

"Hydrogen can play a key role in delivering large-scale lower-carbon solutions especially where electrification of demand is not feasible," the statement said, adding it is confident hydrogen’s prominence will grow in the near-term.

Hydrogen is also used in processed foods, metallurgy and other areas.

In Utah, Chevron entered into a venture with Mitsubishi called ACES Delta or "Advanced Clean Energy Storage [of] Delta [UT]."

By harnessing the naturally protective state of an enormous subterranean salt cavern, the ACES Delta project currently under construction aims to produce up to 110 tons of hydrogen daily and store it at "utility scale" in the environmentally safe confines of the cavern.

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Chevron expects the ACES Delta project to provide "delivery-scale" amounts to the Intermountain Power Agency – also based in the Beehive State – in the near term.

The company also boasted of the accessibility of the hub – which is located along U.S. 50, a highway that cuts a 3,000-mile swath through the center of the country from Sacramento, California, to Washington, D.C., and on to Ocean City, Maryland.

That hub also has the regional potential to power the world’s fifth-largest economy: California, which has otherwise driven out most fossil fuel refiners and producers.

In his interview, Green also noted the demand for cleaner-burning jet-fuel alternatives and suggested that rather than replacing oil, it is a greener complement to sweet crude.

"Sometimes, don’t think about hydrogen as replacing a bunch of other things as much as we think about it complementing and then nurturing or supporting or boosting some of these existing supply chains," he said.

"[I]f you produce a lot of it, then you've got optionality to support a host of different industry verticals that could benefit from it."

Hydrogen has earned rare bipartisan support, bridging a divide where the right typically resists renewables like wind and solar, and the left often opposes "Big Oil."

"Central Washington is leading the way in the all-of-the-above approach needed to achieve American energy dominance," said Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash.

"I am working with the Trump administration to ensure we protect the domestic resources we are building here at home."

Newhouse told Fox News Digital that PNWH2 has made "huge strides" in advancing technology toward safe and clean energy that decreases foreign reliance.

"Supporting the hub means new jobs, new investments, and stronger domestic supply chains that fall in line with the administration’s bold energy agenda," Newhouse said.

On the left, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in June that PNWH2 "is poised to play a leading role in growing America’s green hydrogen economy."

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"Investments in hydrogen have the potential to reduce emissions from the most difficult to decarbonize sectors," added Sen. Jeffrey Merkley, D-Ore.

"[W]hen done right, hydrogen can help us solve hard problems and decarbonize sectors of the economy."

In terms of agriculture’s interest in a hydrogen future, the Washington State Potato Commission told Fox News Digital that as a cornerstone of the Evergreen State and others’ economies, agriculture drives innovation and growth.

"The Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub will play a crucial role in securing a local hydrogen supply for fertilizer production, helping to mitigate supply chain disruptions and rising costs that challenge the industry," an official said.

"Beyond fertilizer, hydrogen presents an opportunity to potentially fuel agricultural machinery, such as tractors and trucks. Washington’s potato farmers are committed to supporting hydrogen production in the Pacific Northwest, strengthening the future of agriculture in our region."

Fox News Digital reached out to the Energy Department for comment.

The prime minister says measures will help the car industry but critics claim they are not enough.

The British overseas territory is facing a 42% tax on the goods it exports to the US.

A bill making its way through the New York state legislature would prohibit police from conducting traffic stops for minor violations in an effort to limit unnecessary stops and further "racial equity and public safety."

The proposal would bar officers from pulling people over or searching them for various traffic violations, including having a taillight out, expired vehicle registration tags, too much window tint or if the smell of marijuana is detected.

In certain cases, evidence collected in violation of the bill may be excluded in court.

The measure aims to limit "the frequency of traffic stops for minor violations in furtherance of racial equity and public safety," according to the bill, as racial minorities in the state make up the majority of arrests and traffic stops.

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In Nassau County alone, black and Latino residents account for 61% of arrests, 50% of traffic stops, 60% of field interviews and 69% of pat-downs, despite making up under 30% of the county’s population combined, police data shows. 

White drivers are issued an average of 1.3 tickets per stop compared to two tickets for black drivers and 2.1 for Latino drivers, the data shows.

A lawsuit against Nassau argues that police in the county have acted with racial bias when conducting traffic stops.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman told reporters on Friday it is "ridiculous" to argue that there is racial bias in policing during traffic stops, saying that officers are usually unaware of the driver’s race before making a stop.

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"It’s just a bizarre argument, it’s pro-criminal," Blakeman said, according to the New York Post. "It doesn’t matter what race you are. If you’re breaking the law, then you’re breaking the law."

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said minor infractions such as broken lights or expired registrations typically lead to warnings but that restricting the ability to enforce the law makes the roads less safe.

"They say the roads are so bad in Nassau County. Well, you would just be taking another tool away from us that’s going to get these bad drivers off the road," he told reporters. "Stop taking the handcuffs off of the criminals and putting them onto our men and women in law enforcement."

The county's district attorney, Anne Donnelly, said the proposal "is the most ridiculous thing I have seen in my 36 years in law enforcement."

Donnelly also said she believes the bill would disproportionately impact Nassau because of the region’s high number of drivers and car accidents, as she claims it would allow people to essentially get away with breaking the law, according to the NYP.

She referenced a traffic stop that resulted in the 1993 capture of serial killer Joel Rifkin, who murdered at least 17 people in the area before he was stopped over the missing license plate on the rear of his pick-up truck that had a body in its trunk, the outlet reported.

"When an officer walks up to a driver and asks them for their license and registration — they never know what is going to happen next," Donnelly said. "It’s important to be able to make these legitimate stops. There is no such thing as a routine traffic stop."

President Donald Trump said Sunday that he is not willing to make a deal with China unless the trade deficit of over $1 trillion is resolved first.

While speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said with some countries there is a trade deficit of over a billion dollars, but with China, it is over $1 trillion.

"We have a $1 trillion trade deficit with China. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year we lose to China, and unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal," he said. "I’m willing to make a deal with China, but they have to solve this surplus. We have a tremendous deficit problem with China… I want that solved."

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Trump also said because of the tariffs, the U.S. has $7 trillion of committed investments when it comes to building automotive manufacturing plants, chip companies and other types of businesses, "at levels that we’ve never seen before."

But in terms of trade deficits, Trump said he has spoken with a lot of leaders in Europe and Asia, who are "dying" to make a deal, but as long as there are deficits, he is not going to do that.

"A deficit is a loss," he said. "We’re going to have surpluses, or we’re, at worst, going to be breaking even. But China would be the worst in the group because the deficit is so big, and it’s not sustainable.

"I was elected on this," Trump added.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a stop in Texas on Sunday and visited the family of a 6-year-old girl who died of the measles virus in February.

Kennedy confirmed the visit to Texas in a post on X in which he encouraged people to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine amid rising measles cases.

"I came to Gaines County, Texas, today to comfort the Hildebrand family after the loss of their 8-year-old daughter Daisy," Kennedy wrote in the post. "I got to know the family of 6-year-old Kayley Fehr after she passed away in February. I also developed bonds with and deep affection for other members of this community during that difficult time."

Kennedy said his intention was to visit Gaines County quietly, console the families and be with the community while they grieve.

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But he also said he was there to support Texas health officials and to learn how HHS agencies can be better partners to control the measles outbreak.

As of Sunday, there were 642 confirmed cases of measles across 22 states, and 499 of those are in Texas.

Kennedy deployed a team from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in March to help bolster the local and state response to the outbreak while also supplying pharmacies and state-run clinics with MMR vaccines and other supplies.

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Kennedy also had the team work with local schools and healthcare facilities to support contact investigations and reach out to communities to answer questions regarding healthcare.

"The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine," Kennedy wrote in the social media post. "I’ve spoken to Governor Abbott, and I’ve offered HHS’ continued support. At his request, we have redeployed CDC teams to Texas. We will continue to follow Texas’ lead and to offer similar resources to other affected jurisdictions."

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The grim Texas measles tally includes six infants and toddlers at a daycare center in Lubbock who tested positive within the past two weeks, according to NBC News. 

Two of those children are among 56 people who have been hospitalized with measles in the area since the disease began spreading in January.

About one to three out of every 1,000 children infected with measles die from respiratory and neurological complications, according to data from the CDC. 

Nearly one out of every 20 children with measles suffers from pneumonia, which is the most common cause of death from measles in young children.

The measles outbreak began in Texas in late January but has since spread to a few other states.

Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.

An undocumented immigrant attending an anti-Trump "Hands Off!" rally on Saturday said she was "unafraid" to flash her immigration status and sexual orientation publicly.

"I am an immigrant, I am undocumented, unafraid, queer and unashamed," Greisa Martinez Rosas, a longtime left-wing immigration activist, told those in attendance at the Washington, D.C., demonstrations over the weekend, according to a report in the New York Post.

The comments come as protests against the Trump administration’s immigration and cost-cutting policies have spread across the country in recent days, with critics slamming the president for his push to hasten deportations and gut federal agencies through the Department of Government Efficiency.

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Rosas is originally from Hidalgo, Mexico, but came to the U.S. as a child, the report notes, where she eventually grew up in the Dallas area. She has since gone on to serve as the executive director of United We Dream, a network of more than 400,000 young immigrants.

Her comments were made in front of tens of thousands of protesters who attended the rally in the nation’s capital, one of more than 1,000 protests held around the country on Saturday.

The report notes that Rosas’ comments quickly went viral on social media, where not all users were enthusiastic about her message.

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"Deport her. Now," one user on X said, according to the Post.

"Lock her up," another said.

Others quipped that her public declaration was likely to land her on the radar of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).

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"The only thing she didn’t tell ICE is her home address," one X user said. "I’m confident they can look that up."

"I guess we will see her arrested later this week, thanks for coming forward to let ICE know where you are," added another.

Elon Musk slammed the alleged "puppetmasters" behind anti-Trump demonstrations this weekend after viral video showed protesters struggling to explain why they believe President Donald Trump is a "fascist." 

"The problem is the puppetmasters, not the puppets, as the latter have no idea why they are even there," Musk posted to X on Sunday accompanied by video footage of protesters stumbling over what issues they have with Trump. 

"He just does everything he wants… He's a convicted felon, you know, that's all I know," one protester in the video said after tripping over why he believes Trump is a "fascist," while holding a sign reading, "The Fascist Trump Regime Must Go." The footage was recorded by Ted Goodman, a political strategist who launched a livestream program with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, on Saturday in Washington, D.C.

"One of the things is he's trying to control the media," another protester in the video responded when asked for evidence Trump is allegedly a "fascist."

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"Doesn't every president try to control the narrative?" Goodman pressed. 

"They try to control their own narrative. But one of the things that Trump has done, for example, is the renaming the Gulf of Mexico and then not allowing the Associated Press to come into the White House," the protester continued. 

The first protester explained in the video that he was there after he "saw people were hanging out," while the second protester explained he was there due to "executive overreach." 

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The first protester added that he had been given a sign describing Trump as a "fascist," as well as a printed one-sheeter that declared, "We are facing fascism… The time to act is now!" alongside a photoshopped image of Trump with a Hitler-styled mustache. 

Video of the protesters racked up more than 12 million views on X by Sunday afternoon. 

More than 1,200 protests were held across the nation on Saturday as critics gathered to protest the administration, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), reciprocal tariffs, federal layoffs and immigration reform. 

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"[I’m] protesting how horrible things have become in our country," one protester told Fox News Digital from a demonstration in New York on Saturday. "I mean, we've been taken over by a bunch of robber barons who are trying to take away all of our rights, benefits and liberty."

"I am protesting what is happening with this blessed country, the democracy that was advanced democracy now in transition to a dictatorship, and we are almost in a fascist state right now – only because the rule of law is bending right now, and it may break," another protester told Fox Digital. 

The protests this weekend follow mass protests targeting Tesla last weekend. Elon Musk, who is helping lead DOGE and is a staunch Trump ally, is the CEO of Tesla and has seen anti-Trump critics physically attack, monetarily boycott, and protest the car company over his politics. 

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"Who is funding and organizing all these paid protests?" Musk posted to X last weekend of the recent anti-Tesla protests. 

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Amid the protests, a local news outlet, media personalities and conservative critics speculated that the anti-Tesla protests were embroiled in "astroturfing," which is defined by Merriam-Webster as a campaign "falsely made to appear grassroots." 

Fox News Digitals' Kaylee Holland and Madeline Coggins contributed to this report. 

Legacy media and longtime politics reporters are increasingly reporting on scandals that rocked the Democratic Party ahead of the November election, shining additional light on political issues that Republicans had long spotlighted and railed against. 

"A full 4½ years after The Post’s bombshell series on Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling schemes, The New York Times has deigned to take an interest in the former First Son’s corruption," the New York Post's editorial board wrote in a piece last week slamming the New York Times for reporting on Biden corruption allegations years after other outlets had already uncovered reported details. 

"We’d say the Times’ willingness to at long last cover this comes better late than never, but it only published the story now that it doesn’t remotely matter anymore," the editorial board continued. 

The New York Times declared in an article published on Friday that former first son Hunter Biden "sought support from the State Department" to aid his former employer, Ukrainian energy company Burisma, while his father served as vice president. Hunter Biden allegedly leveraging his last name and father's political status in the U.S. has long been criticized by conservatives, who have alleged that Hunter and his father engaged in influence-peddling through Burisma.  

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Hunter Biden was paid millions of dollars while serving on the board of Burisma after joining the company as legal counsel in the spring of 2014 before being elevated to the Board of Directors later that year. 

The Bidens were accused by Republicans of having "coerced" the Burisma CEO into paying them millions of dollars in exchange for their help in getting the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company fired during the Obama administration. 

The 46th president denied any involvement in his son's business dealings. 

Biden issued his son a sweeping 10-year pardon before exiting the Oval Office in January that protects Hunter Biden from offenses he "has committed or may have committed" from Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 1, 2024. Alleged Biden family influence-peddling has echoed from the halls of Congress to social media channels on X, but legacy outlets and left-wing media outlets often didn't give a platform to the allegations.

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Jonathan Turley, Fox News' contributor and Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, published an op-ed for Fox News Digital on Sunday remarking on the NYT's piece that was published years after other outlets and experts investigated alleged Biden family influence-peddling.

"For years, some of us have written about the Biden family’s multimillion-dollar influence-peddling operation and the Justice Department’s refusal to charge Hunter Biden with being an unregistered foreign agent. Now, years later, The New York Times has found evidence suggesting that the former president's son was acting as a foreign agent as early as the Obama administration, when his father was vice president," Turley wrote.

Media veterans and legacy outlets have leaned into reporting on and investigating a handful of other scandals and political news that conservatives had long sounded the alarm on, including that the coronavirus likely originated out of a lab in China, as well as on President Biden's mental decline in the lead-up to the election last year. 

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The New York Times ran a column last month claiming the scientific community "badly misled" the public in an effort to suppress the theory that COVID-19 originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, even after the paper's own science writer called the theory "racist." 

"We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives," the March 16 piece published by NYT columnist and Princeton sociology professor Zeynep Tufekci, argued that the scientific community long suspected COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab, but purposefully "hid or understated crucial facts," to mislead the public about the lab’s "terrifyingly lax" safety precautions. 

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"We have since learned, however, that to promote the appearance of consensus, some officials and scientists hid or understated crucial facts, misled at least one reporter, orchestrated campaigns of supposedly independent voices and even compared notes about how to hide their communications in order to keep the public from hearing the whole story," Tufekci wrote.

The Trump administration's CIA reported earlier this year that the lab leak was the likely origin of the COVID-19 virus, which had previously been passed off by media outlets and scientists as a likely conspiracy theory. 

The New York Times defended that it had reported on the lab leak theory multiple times across the years, including in 2021, when approached for comment by Fox News Digital on the recent articles on both Hunter Biden and the lab leak theory. 

"The New York Times has intensely pursued every theory and lead on the origins of Covid-19, documented the political debate, funding, influence, and shifts in thinking among the scientific community, and reported on China’s censorship campaign that has stifled the search for truth. The Times has helped readers navigate the coronavirus pandemic through independent, verified reporting, and any insinuation that we have not thoroughly pursued leads is false," a NYT spokesperson said. 

And a newly released book by longtime D.C. reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, "Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House," investigates Biden's mental decline in the lead-up to the general election, calling him a "shell of himself."

"All of them," Parnes told Vanity Fair of who in Biden's inner circle is most to blame for covering up his mental decline when he was in office. "It’s pretty remarkable how they kept him very closed off. He was a shell of himself. When he entered the White House, he was so, so different from the man who I covered as vice president, a guy who would hold court in the Naval Observatory with reporters until the wee hours."

"We’d been watching Biden’s decline for a long period of time and, honestly, thought he had lost his fastball some when he was running in 2020. And it was still so shocking to see the leader of the free world so bereft of coherent thought," Allen added of Biden's mental decline. 

Biden's mental acuity had been under conservatives' microscope since before the 2020 election, with concerns heightening in February 2024 when Special Counsel Robert Hur, who was investigating Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents as vice president, announced he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, calling Biden "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." 

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The report renewed scrutiny over Biden’s mental fitness, which rose to a fever pitch in June 2024 after the president’s first and only presidential debate against Trump. Biden's debate performance was seen as an abject failure, with traditional allies soon joining conservatives in their concern over the president's health in the context of encouraging Biden to pass the mantle to a younger generation of U.S. leaders. 

Biden dropped out of the race in July, and shortly thereafter endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the party's presidential candidate. Harris ultimately failed to rally enough support to defeat Trump at the polls in November.

Jake Tapper, a CNN anchor and longtime Trump critic, has also touted his upcoming book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," which is also anticipated to detail Biden’s mental decline and the alleged cover-up by members of the Democratic Party.

Fox News Digital reached out to Biden's post-presidential office but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller, Gabriel Hays, and David Spector contributed to this report. 

White House Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett doubled down on the effectiveness of President Donald Trump's tariffs on Sunday, saying dozens of countries are now seeking to open negotiations and U.S. manufacturing is booming.

Hassett made the claim during an appearance on ABC News' "This Week" with host George Stephanopoulos. He said that over 50 countries have already said they want to negotiate new trade agreements with Trump's administration since the tariffs hit last week, though he acknowledged there may be short-term pain for consumers.

He pointed to the decrease in prices that has existed since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2000, arguing that the loss of jobs outweighs the low prices.

"If cheap goods were the answer, if cheap goods were going to make Americans' real wages better off, then real incomes would have gone up over that time. Instead, they went down because wages went down more than prices went down. So we got the cheap goods at the grocery store, but then we had fewer jobs," he said.

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Hassett added that he has received "anecdotal word" that some U.S. auto plants are adding second shifts to their work schedules in response to the tariffs.

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Stephanopoulos then pressed Hassett to explain why Russia wasn't targeted with any additional tariffs.

"There's obviously an ongoing negotiation with Russia and Ukraine, and I think the president made the decision not to conflate the two issues. It doesn't mean that Russia in the fullness of time, is going to be treated wildly different than every other country," Hassett responded.

"But Russia's one of the only countries, one of few countries that is not subject to these new tariffs, aren't they?" Stephanopoulos pressed.

"They're in the middle of a negotiation, George, aren't they?" Hassett countered. "Would you literally advise that you go in and put a whole bunch of new things on the table in the middle of a negotiation that affects so many American and Ukrainian and Russian lives?"

"Negotiators do that all the time," Stephanopoulos argued.

"Russia is in the midst of negotiations over peace that affects really thousands and thousands of lives of people and that's what President Trump's focused on right now," Hassett said.

Anti-Israel organizer Mahmoud Khalil ripped the administration of Columbia University in an op-ed published in the school's newspaper on Friday.

The op-ed, titled simply "A letter to Columbia," accuses the institution of "laying the groundwork for my abduction."  He goes on to compare President Donald Trump's crackdown on anti-Israel protesters to Columbia's own apathy toward Palestinians, listing other students who have been "snatched by the state."

"The situation is oddly reminiscent of when I fled the brutality of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and sought refuge in Lebanon," Khalil wrote. "The logic used by the federal government to target myself and my peers is a direct extension of Columbia’s repression playbook concerning Palestine."

He went on to accuse Columbia administrators of manufacturing "public hysteria about antisemitism without once mentioning the tens of thousands of Palestinians murdered under bombs made of your dollars."

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He also targeted some fellow students at Columbia who he says helped to create a false sense that antisemitism was spreading across the campus. He also pointed to efforts by certain students to unmask anti-Israel protesters, though he did not name any individuals.

JUDGE ORDERS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO RETURN MAN MARYLAND MISTAKENLY DEPORTED TO EL SALVADOR PRISON

"Especially in light of the dual degree program with Tel Aviv University, I can’t help but think that if I were in Palestine, some of these students would be the ones stopping me at checkpoints, raiding my university, piloting the drones surveilling my community, or killing my neighbors in their homes. While students were building solidarity at Columbia, some pro-Israel students were participating in the genocide as military personnel during their school breaks, only to return to campus and claim victimhood in the classroom," he argued.

"To members of Columbia’s faculty who pat themselves on the back for their progressive leanings but are content to limit their participation to performative statements: What will it take for you to resist the destruction of your University? Are your positions worth more than the lives of your students and the integrity of your work?" he added.

The message comes weeks after ICE agents detained Khalil in New York City in early March. The Department of Homeland Security alleged that he "led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization."

Last week, several Columbia University students chained themselves to a gate outside the school's St. Paul’s Chapel in protest against Khalil's arrest.

The students demanded that the institution release the names of the trustees "who gave Mahmoud Khalil’s name to ICE." The Columbia Palestine Solidarity Committee wrote on X that "We will not leave until our demand is met."

The school denies that any of its administrators requested ICE's presence on campus.

Democrats are celebrating a larger-than-expected victory in a high-profile and historically expensive election in battleground Wisconsin, in the first statewide ballot box contest since President Donald Trump's return to power in January.

And while the GOP came out on top in Tuesday's other marquee contests, comfortably holding control of two vacant congressional seats in twin special elections in red state Florida, Democrats are spotlighting that their candidates overperformed in overwhelmingly Republican districts.

Democrats are portraying last week's contests as early referendums on Trump's sweeping and controversial moves during the opening months of his second tour of duty in the White House, including the massive federal government downsizing being steered by billionaire White House special adviser Elon Musk.

And Democrats argue that the results in Wisconsin and Florida are a sign of things to come in next year's midterm elections.

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"These races proved what we’ve seen over and over again this year: people are already fed up with Trump’s chaos agenda and they’re voting for a change," Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin emphasized in an email to supporters.

But Republican National Committee chair Mike Whatley, pointing to the Florida victories, countered that "the American people sent a clear message…they want elected officials who will advance President Trump’s America First agenda, and their votes can’t be bought by national Democrats."

LIBERAL-LEANING CANDIDATE WINS FIRST MAJOR STATEWIDE ELECTION OF THE YEAR

In Wisconsin, liberal-leaning Judge Susan Crawford topped conservative-leaning Judge Brad Schimel by roughly 10 percentage points, to preserve the liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is likely to rule going forward on crucial issues like congressional redistricting, voting rights, labor rights and abortion.

With a massive infusion of money from Democratic-aligned and Republican-aligned groups from outside Wisconsin, which turned the technically nonpartisan race into the most expensive judicial election in the nation's history, the contest partially transformed into a proxy battle over Trump as well as Musk, who personally inserted himself into the election.

Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, who has taken a buzz saw to the federal government workforce as he steers Trump's recently created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), dished out roughly $20 million in the Wisconsin race through aligned groups in support of Schimel.

And Musk, in a controversial move, handed out $1 million checks at a rally in Green Bay last Sunday to two Wisconsin voters who had already cast ballots in the contest and had signed a petition to stop "activist judges."

DEMOCRAT CONGRESSMAN LASHES MUSK IN OPENING SALVO OF SENATE BID

"I never could have imagined that I'd be taking on the richest man in the world, for justice in Wisconsin. And we won," Crawford said in her election night victory speech.

The results in Wisconsin will likely give the Democrats a jolt, and validate their efforts to target Musk.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the chamber, argued that Wisconsin voters "sent a decisive message to Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and DOGE by rejecting an extreme Republican for their Supreme Court: our democracy is not for sale."

And the DNC, looking ahead to next year's bigger contests in the 2026 midterm elections, called the showdown in Wisconsin a "bellwether race."

WHERE TRUMP STANDS WITH AMERICANS 10 WEEKS INTO HIS SECOND TOUR OF DUTY IN THE WHITE HOUSE

But veteran Republican strategist Matt Gorman noted that two years ago, when the conservatives lost their majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the liberal-leaning candidate won by 11 points.

Pointing to this week's 10-point margin, with Trump in the White House, Gorman asked"this is what Democrats are jumping up and down over?"

In Florida, the double-digit victories by the Republican candidates will give the GOP a little bit of breathing room in the House of Representatives, where the party is holding onto a very fragile majority as it aims to pass Trump's agenda.

But the Democratic candidates in the two special congressional elections vastly outraised their Republican counterparts – a sign that the party's base is angry and energized – which forced GOP-aligned outside groups to pour money and resources into the races during the final stretch. And the Democratic candidates ended up losing by 15 and 14 points in districts that Trump carried by 37 and 30 points in last November's presidential election.

REPUBLICANS HOLD CONTROL OF TWO VACANT CONGRESSIONAL SEATS IN THIS RED STATE

Democrats quickly spotlighted how the party "overperformed" in Florida. And the House Majority PAC, the top super PAC supporting House Democrats, touted that the results showed "that the political headwinds are firmly at our backs heading into 2026."

But Mike Marinella, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, argued that "Democrats just lit over $20,000,000 on fire in a doomed-to-fail effort to make two deep-red Florida districts competitive – and got blown out of the water in the most embarrassing way."

WHERE TRUMP STANDS WITH AMERICANS 10 WEEKS INTO HIS SECOND TOUR OF DUTY IN THE WHITE HOUSE

The elections in Wisconsin and Florida were held on the eve of Trump's blockbuster tariff announcement, sparking a trade war with the nation's top trading partners and triggering a massive sell-off in the financial markets. The latest move by the president could also set the stage for an even bigger ballot box backlash next year.

But Democrats have a serious brand issue right now.

The party's favorable rating sank to all-time lows in separate national polls conducted last month by CNN and NBC News. Those numbers followed a record low for Democrats in a Quinnipiac University survey in the field in February. 

Additionally, the latest Fox News National poll indicated that congressional Democrats' approval rating is at 30%, near an all-time low. And Democratic activists are irate over their party's inability to blunt Trump's agenda.

And when it comes to normally low-turnout off-year elections and special elections, the party in power – which in the nation's capital is clearly the Republicans – often faces political headwinds.

"We'll get up to fight another day. But this wasn't our day," Schimel said in his concession speech.

And Wisconsin GOP chair Brian Schimming noted that "coming off a successful November, we knew the April elections would be challenging."

DNC chair Martin is touting that "Democrats have won or over-performed in nearly every special election race this year, including this week’s."

But Republicans note that Democrats enjoyed a slew of special election victories in 2023 and 2024 before suffering serious setbacks in last November's elections.

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"Special elections are special for a reason, and not always useful canaries in the coal mines for what lies ahead," veteran Republican strategist Colin Reed told Fox News Digital. "While they can be used as a barometer for energy, they are also a reflection of the individual candidates whose names are on the ballots."

And Gorman emphasized that special elections "are not predictive."

Reed argued that "the bigger challenge for the Democrats looking ahead is the lack of a vision or governing agenda beyond reflexive and blanket opposition to the White House and their continued positioning way outside the mainstream on a slew of commonsense issues." 

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer will announce Sunday that he understands the rationale behind President Donald Trump’s tariffs and that the West is entering a new economic era.

"The world has changed, globalization is over and we are now in a new era," the prime minister’s office said in a statement to the Sunday Times. "We’ve got to demonstrate that our approach, a more active Labour government, a more reformist government, can provide the answers for people in every part of this country."

The statement comes after Trump announced new tariffs on dozens of countries around the world on Wednesday, including a 10% levy on goods from the U.K.

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While Starmer will still argue that tariffs are wrong, according to the Sunday Times report, the prime minister will also admit that he understands the rationale behind Trump’s move and why such policies have become increasingly popular with voters.

"Trump has done something that we don’t agree with, but there’s a reason why people are behind him on this," the prime minister’s office said in the statement.

Starmer is expected to emphasize the failures of free trade and mass migration specifically during the address on Sunday, the report said, arguing that it has failed millions of voters. 

MUSK SAYS HE HOPES FOR 'ZERO TARIFFS,' FREEDOM OF TRADE ZONE BETWEEN US AND EUROPE

Meanwhile, the report noted that Trump ally Elon Musk seemingly publicly broke with the president during a video interview for an event in Italy Saturday, saying he hopes, eventually, for a "zero-tariff" solution between the U.S. and Europe one day.

"At the end of the day, I hope it’s agreed that both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free-trade zone between Europe and North America," he said.

Musk also called for there to eventually be more "freedom" of movement between the two continents, an apparent break from Trump’s hard line on immigration.

"That’s what I hope occurs, and also more freedom of people to move between Europe and North America if they wish," Musk said. "If they wish to work in Europe or wish to work in America, they should be allowed to do so, in my view. So that has certainly been my advice to the president."

The White House did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.