A fourth U.S. citizen has been arrested in Venezuela in connection with an alleged plot to kill President Nicolás Maduro, according to the country’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello.

The citizen, who has not been named, was detained Tuesday in the capital, Caracas, while taking photos of electrical and oil-industry infrastructure as well as military units, Cabello said during a speech before the National Assembly, whose members applauded the detention.

‘Those who try to mess with Venezuela, we will screw them, regardless of their name,’ Cabello said. ‘It is not the first time he has come to Venezuela.’  

A State Department spokesperson tells Fox News Digital that it is aware of unconfirmed reports of an additional arrest in Venezuela but is unable to make further comment.

The State Department says its ability to provide assistance to U.S. citizens in Venezuela is severely constrained and it is working diligently for additional information. 

Relations between the U.S. and Venezuela have been frosty in recent times, with the Biden Administration easing sanctions on its oil industry and other sectors in late 2023, but by April 2024 the administration had rolled back most sanctions relief due to Maduro officials’ antidemocratic actions, including barring opposition primary winner Maria Corina Machado from running. Earlier this year, Venezuela stopped accepting flights of migrants deported from the U.S. and Mexico.

The arrest comes just days after Cabello said three Americans, two Spaniards and a Czech had been detained for trying to assassinate Maduro and overthrow the Venezuelan government, Reuters reported.

The Associated Press identified the American service member as Wilbert Joseph Castañeda Gomez, a member of the Navy.  

Cabello is accusing the CIA, Spain’s intelligence agency, organized crime groups, sex workers and members of the opposition of being behind the plot to take out Maduro following his disputed election win in July which was marred by allegations of fraud.

During a press conference on Saturday, Cabello said the detainees were allegedly linked to plans to assassinate Maduro and other officials. 

‘These groups seek to seize the country’s wealth, and we as a government will respond firmly to any destabilization attempt,’ Cabello said, adding that officials seized about 400 rifles originating in the U.S.

The State Department denies the allegations with a spokesperson telling Fox News Digital that ‘any claims of U.S. involvement in a plot to overthrow Maduro are categorically false.’ 

‘The United States continues to support a democratic solution to the political crisis in Venezuela,’ the spokesperson said.

While Maduro was declared the winner in July by Venezuelan officials, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month there was ‘overwhelming evidence’ Maduro’s opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez secured the most votes.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, which is stacked with Maduro loyalists, said Maduro won a third six-year term, but it did not provide a detailed breakdown of the results.

Members of the opposition, however, surprised the government by collecting tally sheets from 80% of the nation’s electronic voting machines and publishing them online. The tally sheets, they said, indicate that former diplomat Edmundo González won the election with twice as many votes as Maduro.

According to the Congressional Research Service, a public policy research institute of Congress, Maduro officials have enforced the election results they claim through harsh postelection repression of protesters, activists, and opposition leaders. 

After the attorney general issued an arrest warrant accusing González of terrorism, he fled into exile. In response, on Sept. 12, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed financial sanctions on 16 Maduro officials for their role in either electoral fraud or repression.

‘These officials impeded a transparent electoral process and the release of accurate election results,’ Blinken said in a statement. 

‘Rather than respecting the will of the Venezuelan people as expressed at the ballot box, Maduro and his representatives have falsely claimed victory while repressing and intimidating the democratic opposition in an illegitimate attempt to cling to power by force.’

Earlier this month, the U.S. seized a plane owned by Maduro in the Dominican Republic, after it was purchased through a straw company in violation of sanctions laws and export controls, officials said. 

Fox News’ Landon Mion and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Liberal immigration groups are criticizing Vice President Harris’ recent adoption of tougher border policies, but are still supporting her as at least one indicated they believe Harris’ new stance is all for show, Axios reported Wednesday.

Kerri Talbot, executive director of the Immigration Hub, told Axios that she opposes Harris’ current stance on border policy. She called the Harris campaign’s proposal essentially a ‘Republican bill,’ but added that she still supports Harris.

‘We all know and trust Harris to make the right decisions when she’s in office. I don’t think this bill will ever come up again, as is,’ Talbot told the outlet.

Other liberal immigration groups also say they oppose Harris’ new immigration policies, though they still support her campaign.

Gina Cummings of Oxfam America argued the Harris campaign’s immigration stances ‘should not be brought to the Senate floor or passed under any current or future administration.’

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif, told Axios that Harris’ bill ‘contains some of the same tried and failed policies that would actually make the situation worse at the southern border.’

Nevertheless, Padilla added that Harris ‘is the only candidate in this race who also values keeping families together and providing a pathway to citizenship for long-term residents. And I’m proud to support her.’

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

The southern border and the economy remain the top two issues for voters, and also the two issues where voters consistently say they think former President Trump would do a better job than Harris.

Republicans have blasted Harris for her role as ‘border czar,’ a colloquial title she received in 2021 when Biden tasked her with stemming the flow of illegal immigration by addressing ‘root causes.’

House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., is now pressing the Biden administration to provide documents on the communications Harris’ office had with border enforcement groups.

Comer wrote to acting Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Troy Miller this week, demanding an update on the request.

‘It is important the Committee and the American people understand Vice President Harris’s role as the border czar in the ongoing border crisis,’ Comer said in the letter obtained by Fox News Digital.

‘The mass illegal entry and release of illegal aliens into the United States under the Biden-Harris Administration has contributed to murders, sexual assaults, and serious bodily injuries committed against numerous Americans at the hands of illegal aliens. These crimes should have never happened,’ the letter continued.

Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report

— Voters attending a town hall for former President Donald Trump in Flint, Michigan, blamed rhetoric from Democrats for spurring the two assassination attempts on the former president.

‘I don’t think gun control is the answer, I think it’s the rhetoric… some of the things that are being said shouldn’t be said,’ one voter attending the Trump town hall told Fox News Digital.

The comments come as Trump held his first campaign event since an apparent attempt on his life at Trump International Golf Club in Florida on Sunday. U.S. Secret Service agents were able to spot the shooter, identified as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, when he was roughly 300–500 yards from Trump, engaging him and causing him to flee the scene.

Routh was captured later Sunday, while Trump was uninjured in the incident.

The incident marked the second time Trump has survived an attempt on his life, coming just over two months after the former president was grazed in the ear by a bullet during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Trump has blamed ‘rhetoric’ by President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the violence, arguing that the two would-be assassins have ‘acted’ on ‘highly inflammatory language’ by Democrats.

‘He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,’ Trump told Fox News Digital of the latest suspected gunman. ‘Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out.’ 

Voters in Flint largely echoed Trump’s remarks before his town hall event Tuesday, with one telling Fox News Digital that the ‘political rhetoric is at an all-time high.’

‘We’ve gotten so toxic in America that we’ve started this war between ourselves, we’ve forgot to love each other,’ another voter said.

‘Democrats,’ added another when asked who was to blame for the attempts on Trump’s life. ‘They continue to say he’s a threat to democracy for no reason whatsoever.’

The Trump event comes less than two months before November’s election, when Michigan promises to play a critical role in determining the winner once again.

Harris holds a narrow lead over Trump of under one percentage point in the state, according to the latest Real Clear Politics Polling average, a smaller margin than what was enjoyed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Biden at similar points in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

: New House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., wants to focus on two key issues for the remainder of this year – government funding and next year’s House GOP Conference rules. 

‘I’ve been on the Freedom Caucus, really, since, since the beginning,’ Harris told Fox News Digital on Tuesday night, in his first interview since being elected chair of the ultra-conservative group.

‘I’ve watched, you know, all our chairs do a great job pushing the conservative agenda with Congress, and with the American people. And right now our big fight is going to be on controlling spending. It’s going to be on what the rules look like for the next Congress.’

Harris promised, ‘I’m going to roll up my sleeves and battle those two issues.’

The Maryland Republican, who was first elected in 2010, was chosen to lead the Freedom Caucus for the remainder of the year after Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., vacated the role following his June primary loss to another Republican.

Harris has not been known to be particularly chatty with reporters on Capitol Hill, making him an understandable successor for a group that keeps even its membership list undisclosed.

The Freedom Caucus has also long been seen as a thorn in the side of House GOP leaders, pushing them to go further in pushing conservative policies through Congress.

Harris, however, praised Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership on government funding ahead of a Wednesday vote on a Freedom Caucus-backed plan to avoid a government shutdown.

The plan is a six-month extension of this year’s federal funds known as a continuing resolution (CR), to give lawmakers more time to hash out fiscal year 2025’s priorities, paired with a measure requiring proof of citizenship in the voter registration process.

‘The leadership he’s shown on this issue is excellent,’ Harris said. ‘I think if we had had this discussion one month ago and someone suggested that Speaker Johnson was going to bring a six-month CR to the floor, and, oh, by the way, we add the [Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act] into it – most people wouldn’t believe it.’

But the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House have called the legislation a nonstarter.

Harris would not say how conservatives could force Johnson to stick by the plan, even as several Republicans have publicly opposed the measure over concerns the speaker would not fight for the SAVE Act if it was rejected by the Senate. 

‘If it fails, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ he said.

Harris did, however, urge those GOP critics to take a ‘second look’ at the bill ahead of Wednesday’s vote.

‘I hope they take a second look before tomorrow and realize that the important signal would send to the American people,’ Harris said. ‘I’d love to hear the argument Chuck Schumer is going to make to say, ‘Yeah, you know, we’re going to reject that because we want illegal aliens to vote.’’

The Maryland Republican similarly would not go into detail about what changes he would want to see to the House GOP Conference rules – though the issue is expected to take center stage in the end-of-year leadership elections.

Ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., agreed to changing certain conference rules to win over his critics after House Republicans won the majority in the 2022 midterm elections.

That notably included lowering the threshold for triggering a vote on the speaker’s ouster – called the motion to vacate the chair – from a simple majority to just one vote.

‘I hope that in its wisdom, that the Republican majority next year – because I believe there will be a Republican majority – not only adopts and endorses all those changes we made this term, but maybe make some further changes. Those will be discussed more obviously in the next two months.’

When pressed for details, Harris noted there were other members of the group besides himself.

‘That’s going to be up to what the Freedom Caucus says,’ Harris said. ‘I’m the chairman, but I’m not all the members.’

Vice President Harris spoke to the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in Philadelphia on Tuesday, about a month after former President Trump spoke to the same group and made waves when he questioned Harris’ race.

The event marks Harris’ first solo interview with the national media. It was held at NPR’s Philadelphia station, WHYY, and was moderated by three Black journalists, including Eugene Daniels of Politico Playbook, WHYY’s Tonya Mosely and TheGrio’s Gerren Keith Gaynor. The stop marked Harris’ 13th visit to the Keystone State this year.

During his July interview with the NABJ in Chicago, Trump drummed up a firestorm of criticism when he said, ‘I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know. Is she Indian or Black?’

Harris was not asked to respond to those remarks from Trump on Tuesday, but she did slam the former president for what the moderators described as racially charged rhetoric about Haitian migrants in a small Ohio town eating people’s pets.

‘It’s harmful, and it’s hateful and grounded in some age-old stuff that we should not have the tolerance for,’ Harris said of the rumors being circulated by Trump. ‘We’ve got to say that you cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of the president of the United States of America, engaging in that hateful rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country.’

When asked by one of the moderators if this case of ‘irredeemable racism’ deserved some sort of federal response to help the community heal, Harris sidestepped the question.

Meanwhile, Harris also sidestepped whether she would sign or veto a bill establishing a federal committee to study reparations for the Black community. Harris said she ‘thinks’ a federal reparations commission will be taken up by Congress and, therefore, she won’t need to use her power as president to study the matter at the federal level.

Harris also spoke about the Black vote on Tuesday and took a far different approach than President Biden did in 2020. 

‘If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black,’ Biden said while campaigning for the presidency in 2020. Harris, however, said Tuesday that she expects to have to ‘earn’ the Black vote, particularly Black men. ‘I think it’s very important to not operate from the assumption that Black men are in anybody’s pocket.’

Beyond race-focused topics, the interview included remarks from Harris about her economic plan, abortion, support for Israel – which she said has the right to defend itself – and gun control.

‘The United Sates of America absolutely has a role’ in aiding Israel’s right to self-determination, Harris said during Tuesday’s interview. 

On gun control, Harris was resolute that she and her running mate, Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are both gun owners – something that came as news to voters during last week’s presidential debate. ‘We’re not trying to take anybody’s guns away from them, but we do need an assault weapons ban,’ she said. Previously, as a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris said she thought a mandatory gun buyback program run by the federal government was ‘a good idea.’ However, Harris’ campaign has said she no longer supports such a program.

Harris added that she does support universal background checks for those seeking to legally obtain a firearm. When one of the moderators pointed out that most handguns are purchased illegally, Harris pointed to the need to eradicate ‘gun show loophole[s].’

‘We need to address each entry point in the issue,’ Harris insisted.

Later, the moderators turned to the second assassination attempt made on Trump’s life over the weekend. Harris indicated that she spoke to Trump after the close call to check on him.

‘I am in this election, in this race, for many reasons, including to fight for our democracy. And in a democracy, there is no place for political violence,’ Harris said. ‘We can and should have healthy debates and discussion and disagreements but not resort to violence to resolve those issues.’

Harris was asked a follow-up question about her confidence in the Secret Service to protect her, with Harris responding in the affirmative.

‘Not everybody has Secret Service. And there are far too many people in our country right now who are not feeling safe,’ she said. ‘I mean, I look at Project 2025, and I look at, you know, the Don’t Say Gay laws coming out of Florida. Members of the LGBTQ community don’t feel safe right now, immigrants or people with an immigrant background don’t feel safe right now. Women don’t feel safe right now. And so, yes, I feel safe. I have Secret Service protection, but that doesn’t change my perspective on the importance of fighting for the safety of everybody in our country.’

Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, told Fox News Digital Monday that she would ‘be honored to serve’ in a potential Trump administration.

If tapped, Gabbard expressed her desire to work in a position where she can make the greatest impact, particularly in areas related to foreign policy or national security. Gabbard is an active-duty military veteran who completed two tours in the Middle East, and currently serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. 

‘I feel I can make the most impact in these areas of national security and foreign policy, and work to bring about the changes that President Trump talks about,’ Gabbard said Monday evening from a campaign fundraising event in Atlanta, Georgia. Gabbard added that bringing an end ‘to the influence of the military industrial complex,’ working to prevent World War III and bringing the U.S. back ‘from the brink of nuclear war’ would be among her priorities. War should be a ‘last resort,’ Gabbard said. She has also supported former President Trump’s plans to end the war in Ukraine.

Gabbard spent time as the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee between 2013 and 2016, and previously supported candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, and President Biden. However, blaming a shift within her former party that she has not agreed with, Gabbard became increasingly friendly with the GOP before leaving the party and eventually joining Trump’s transition team last month. 

‘There are a lot of people who I meet in a lot of different places every day who are former Democrats, or people who are leaving the Democratic Party,’ Gabbard said Monday. ‘People who recognize the same things that I have and experienced the same things that I have and realize that the Democratic Party of today doesn’t stand for them, doesn’t stand for freedom, it doesn’t stand for civil liberties… doesn’t stand for peace.’  

The former Democratic congresswoman has been outspoken against what a Harris administration could do to peace around the world and, on Monday, she slammed Democrats – including Vice President Kamala Harris – for what she described as their refusal to engage in diplomacy with U.S. adversaries. 

‘President Trump did in his last administration what President Obama refused to do, what President Biden refused to do, what Kamala Harris has made clear she refuses to do – which is to go out and do that tough work that a president and commander in chief has to do in diplomacy,’ Gabbard said. ‘Not just hanging out with your friends, and your allies, and your partners, but actually going out and talking to your adversaries.’

Gabbard argued that peace will remain elusive until the leaders in the White House are willing to do this sort of diplomacy. She also slammed Harris for escalating the war in Ukraine and being ‘flippant’ about the chances of a nuclear disaster.

‘The longer this war goes on and the more that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and the neocons of Washington continue to escalate this war, the greater risk we are of a potential nuclear war, World War III,’ Gabbard said on Monday. ‘It is unconscionable and unacceptable that Kamala Harris and others who are continuing to escalate [the war in Ukraine] are so flippant about the reality of nuclear war.’

The Biden administration is moving to reinstate a Trump-era rule that lifted endangered species protections on gray wolves in the U.S.

Wolves were delisted from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) under President Trump in 2020, returning management of gray wolf populations to state and tribal wildlife professionals, according to a press release from the Department of Interior.

However, a federal judge reversed Trump’s decision in 2022 after environmental groups sued the Department of the Interior over the delisting, reinstating protection for the species.

Gray wolves are currently protected under the ESA as ‘threatened’ in Minnesota and ‘endangered’ in the remaining states, except for those in the Northern Rocky Mountain region, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services. However, a new filing by the Biden administration suggests that the Trump-era ruling should be reinstated.

Attorneys with the Justice Department filed a motion with the 9th U.S. District Court of Appeals on Friday to reverse the court’s decision on the Trump-era delisting and lift ESA protections on gray wolves.

The filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco claimed that the court was wrong in overturning the Trump-era ruling on the species. 

‘The district court misunderstood the ESA’s clear mandate and compounded that error by imposing its own views of the science,’ court documents read. ‘Its decision invalidating the rule should be reversed.’

The Biden administration claimed in its 87-page filing that gray wolves no longer meet ESA standards of protection in that they are no longer considered ‘endangered’ or ‘threatened.’

Court documents referenced the 2020 ruling from Trump’s Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service that delisted the wolf species.

‘After that thorough analysis, the Service concluded that no configuration of gray wolves was threatened or endangered in all or a significant portion of its range. That analysis was well-reasoned and well-supported by the administrative record,’ the brief reads.

The move comes just months after a group of 20 House Republicans sent a letter to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Martha Williams, urging the Biden administration to remove protections for the gray wolf, citing sometimes life-threatening conflicts with ranchers and farmers.

In February, FWS rejected requests from conservation groups to restore protection for gray wolves across the Northern Rocky Mountain region. 

Most recently, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers passed legislation in April to end federal protection for gray wolves and remove them from the endangered species list.