Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on Friday that ‘the reality of U.S. troops in Ukraine is unlikely,’ but insisted that there was ‘no daylight’ between himself and Vice President JD Vance.

In a bilateral press conference with Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Hegseth touched on the possibility of U.S. troops going into Ukraine. At first, he appeared to shut down the idea, but then he seemed to not take it entirely off the table. 

Hegseth added that he would ‘never put constraints around what the President of the United States would be willing to negotiate with the sovereign leaders of both Russia and Ukraine.’

On Thursday, in an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal, Vance reportedly said that the option of sending U.S. troops to Ukraine remained ‘on the table.’  

Vance also told the outlet that the U.S. could use ‘economic tools’ or ‘military tools’ against Russia to bring about an end to the nearly three-year-long war. The vice president said that President Donald Trump wants ‘a productive negotiation’ with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He also teased a deal that would ‘shock a lot of people.’

Vance is in Germany for the Munich Security Conference, where he is expected to meet with Zelenskyy.

The vice president’s remarks appear contrast with what Hegseth told the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels earlier this week. In his opening remarks to the group, Hegseth said that rather than admitting Ukraine to NATO, security guarantees to the country would be supported ‘by capable European and non-European troops.’ However, he also appeared to completely rule out the possibility of U.S. troops

‘To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be U.S. troops deployed to Ukraine,’ he said.

At the Munich Security Conference, Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker, R-Ms., told Politico that he was ‘puzzled’ and ‘disturbed’ by Hegseth’s remarks in Brussels.

‘Everybody knows … and people in the administration know you don’t say before your first meeting what you will agree to and what you won’t agree to,’ Sen. Wicker told Politico, classifying Hegseth’s comments as a ‘rookie mistake.’

Trump has long spoken about ending the war between Ukraine and Russia, often asserting that it would not have started had he been in the Oval Office.

On Wednesday, Trump announced that in a ‘lengthy and highly productive’ phone call Putin agreed to ‘immediately’ begin negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

Trump said he asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Ambassador and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to lead the negotiations, saying he thinks they ‘will be successful.’

President Donald Trump has made major foreign policy moves in his first few weeks in office, including cutting off U.S. funding to the controversial United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). UNRWA has long faced accusations of ties to terrorists, which have intensified over the course of the Israel-Hamas war that began with the massacre on Oct. 7, 2023.

Former President Joe Biden initially cut off U.S. funding to UNRWA in January 2024, months into the war, after Israel accused members of the U.N. agency of taking part in Hamas’ brutal attacks.

U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said Americans need to know that some U.N. agencies, such as UNRWA, are founded on ‘altruistic good intentions,’ but have ‘morphed into something which is the complete opposite of what it was supposed to be.’

UNRWA was founded in 1949 ‘to carry out direct relief and works programs for Palestine refugees,’ according to the agency’s website. However, Neuer disputes Palestinians’ refugee status and says that President Trump’s proposed Gaza takeover uncovered a ‘truth that has been hidden.’

Neuer points out that UNRWA supporters and critics of the president’s proposal have accused Trump of ‘uprooting them [Palestinians] from their homes and lands,’ which would mean that ‘they’re not refugees.’ Gaza, which the U.N. recognizes as part of the ‘State of Palestine,’ would be considered their home under this criticism, negating their refugee status.

However, the problems with UNRWA go beyond ambiguous definitions. Neuer told Fox News Digital that the agency ‘systematically employed individuals who were supporting terrorism.’ He pointed to Fathi al-Sharif, who served as the principal of a school run by UNRWA, as well as the agency’s teachers’ union in Lebanon.

‘We know that the head of UNRWA’s education system, namely, teacher, school principal and head of the teachers’ union of 2,000 teachers in Lebanon, was a man named Fathi al-Sharif… he was the head of Hamas in Lebanon,’ Neuer said, adding that American taxpayers’ money funded al-Sharif and ‘the entire education system that he oversaw.’

In the case of Suhail al-Hindi, UNRWA’s former head of a ‘local staff union in Gaza,’ the agency insists that it suspended and fired al-Hindi after an announcement that he had been ‘elected to political office with Hamas.’

In response to a request for comment, UNRWA told Fox News Digital that it ‘prohibits any type of involvement of staff in a militant or armed group. As a representative of the U.N., any involvement in a group that promotes discrimination or violence violates the principle of neutrality and gravely jeopardizes UNRWA’s ability to provide services and protection to refugees.’

UNRWA referenced al-Hindi’s case specifically, noting it ‘also dismissed another staff member whose name appeared in the list of those newly elected to Hamas political office in Gaza.’

Contrary to critics’ claims, Neuer told Fox News Digital that Israel was not always trying to shut down UNRWA, saying that the Jewish State first saw the agency as ‘convenient’ in the late 1960s. However, Neuer said that Israel’s view on the agency has greatly shifted, particularly since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

In January 2024, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini ordered an investigation of any staff who allegedly participated in Hamas’ attacks, which he condemned in a statement. UNRWA told Fox News Digital that ‘upon ascertaining that the individuals were indeed UNRWA staff members,’ Lazzarini ‘immediately’ terminated their appointments.

Late last month, Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon formally notified U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres of Israel’s demand that UNRWA cease operations in Jerusalem and evacuate its premises.

‘Months of good-faith engagement with the United Nations and years of related grievances conveyed to UNRWA, have been met with blatant disregard, compromising its fundamental obligation to impartiality and neutrality beyond repair,’ Danon wrote in the letter.

In a statement released last month, UNRWA spokesperson Jonathan Fowler slammed the laws that Israel passed in October 2024, saying that the Jewish State’s shortening of UNRWA staff visas was ‘tantamount to being evicted.’ However, Fowler confirmed that ‘UNRWA remains absolutely committed to stay and deliver,’ referring to the agency’s other locations in the region.

While Israel’s views on the agency have changed, prompting action from the country’s government, Neuer points out that several countries, including the U.S., failed to ‘take any meaningful action’ against UNRWA. He called the countries’ past moves ‘largely performative and limited.’

When asked about what Americans need to know about UNRWA, Neuer says that the agency is ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing,’ adding examples of U.N. officials who he says have gone against their mission. He also compared it to a social issue commonly debated here, namely anti-racism.

‘Just like Americans were told for at least the past 5 years – maybe more – that anti-racism means you have to discriminate against white people, against heterosexuals, you know, all kinds of categories, we were told that’s tolerance, that’s equality. We were told that racism and discrimination was anti-racism and anti-discrimination. We were fed a pack of lies,’ Neuer told Fox News Digital.

Addressing UNRWA and the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Neuer added, Theyare no humanitarian agencies. They are agencies that systematically have incentivized and legitimized terrorist groups from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Islamic regime in Iran. That’s the reality.’

When asked by Fox News Digital about Neuer’s allegations, UNRWA dismissed them and accused U.N. Watch of ‘spreading disinformation against’ the agency.

‘The agency systematically reviews all allegations of misconduct, including breaching U.N. values and humanitarian principles, and launches investigations into any credible allegation, applying disciplinary measures where misconduct has been established, up to and including separation,’ UNRWA told Fox News Digital.

President Trump’s executive order called for ‘renewed scrutiny’ of UNHRC, UNRWA and the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In the order, UNHRC is accused of ‘protecting human rights abusers,’ while UNESCO is slammed for its ‘failure to reform itself’ among other issues.

As Democrats blast Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts as a ‘constitutional crisis,’ Fox News Digital spoke to a government spending expert who explained that many departments, including entitlements, are ripe with fat that can and should be cut. 

James Agresti, president of the nonprofit research institute Just Facts, spoke to Fox News Digital about some of the opportunities to make cuts to entitlements and pointed to $2 billion worth of improper payments at the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 2022, which was enough to pay 89,947 retired workers in 2023.

‘It’s hard to wrap your head around a figure like that,’ Agresti said. ‘There’s a lot of fat in Social Security, as there are in almost all entitlement programs.’

The SSA sent roughly 7,000 federal employees disability benefits in 2008 while they were still taking wages from federal jobs, according to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The GAO estimated that about 1,500 of those individuals ‘may have improperly received benefits’ since their wages went beyond maximum income thresholds. The GAO investigation also found that over 71,000 ‘stimulus checks’ were sent by the Obama administration to people who were deceased, including 63,481 people whose deaths had been previously reported to the agency.

President Donald Trump and Musk have signaled concerns about illegal immigrants with Social Security numbers contributing to fraud at SSA, which Agresti said are concerns backed up by facts.

In 2010, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration did a study of this problem, and it found that there were 800,000 noncitizens who had Social Security numbers and were working under them, which means they can receive benefits on them, and they obtain those Social Security numbers by submitting false birth certificates to the Social Security Administration,’ Agresti said.

Agresti explained that there are similar problems at the Internal Revenue Service ‘where they’re doling out child tax credits for the children of illegal immigrants, and they are basically accepting anything that’s thrown at them.’

There was an investigation back several years ago where the same birth certificate was issued, it was given to them in numerous cases to get these child tax credits, and they just gave it to them,’ Agresti said. ‘There was absolutely no accountability. In fact, the order from management was just get it done, get it off your desk. Don’t worry about investigating whether or not it’s legit and this is quite frankly, it’s theft.’

‘It’s stealing from the US taxpayers, it’s stealing from the government. And certain people have just come to tolerate it. And quite frankly, I just think that’s ridiculous. We would never tolerate this in our regular life. Somebody ripping us off for 10, 20% of our income.’

Agresti told Fox News Digital that Social Security is ‘actually one of the better ones’ when compared to other entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid, where the improper payments are ‘astronomical’ and ‘sometimes five, 10, 15%, 20% with the Children’s Health Insurance Program.’

Speaking about the IRS, Agresti said it has essentially become a ‘welfare program’ with the introduction of congressional laws that issue refundable tax credits’ and said there are ‘massively’ high improper payments in the agency, particularly with the earned income tax credit and child tax credit. 

Democrats have been vocally railing against Trump and Musk’s DOGE efforts, particularly when it comes to entitlement programs, where they argue that the administration is attempting to strip legitimate earned benefits owed to taxpayers. 

Agresti told Fox News Digital that ‘nothing could be further from the truth’ and when it comes to social security, DOGE is ‘trying to make sure that your Social Security check is there and not lost to fraud.’

I think we’re seeing one big obstacle right now, the Democratic Party, which is going after it and demonizing Trump and Musk for making a good faith effort to fix this kind of problem, and I don’t see the reason for it,’ Agresti said. ‘I don’t see the motivation for it. But it’s ridiculous that they’re misconstruing what they’re doing.’

The federal government is a behemoth, and it’s got a lot of tentacles. A lot of employees and governments are infamous for having very low accountability for their employees. It’s just the way it’s always been.’

Saudi Arabia has emerged as a central player in the pursuit of a U.S.-brokered peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, in large part due to the political capital it wields with its massive oil reserves. 

President Donald Trump suggested Riyadh as a meeting place to kick off face-to-face talks between himself and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin agreed the location was acceptable. To some it might seem a curious choice, but the Middle Eastern kingdom has reasons to involve itself in finding an end to the conflict happening thousands of miles from its borders. 

For Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, mediating peace negotiations would help to solidify his standing as a global leader. It also offers him a leg up on Qatar, which was heavily involved in negotiations between Israel and Hamas. Qatar has also, since 2023, helped facilitate the return of dozens of Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the war. 

Trump cited both his and Putin’s relationship with the Saudis in his remarks. ‘We know the crown prince, and I think it’d be a very good place to be,’ he said. 

It’s why Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has taken a front-row seat to the U.S. dealings in Eastern Europe. Witkoff jetted off to Moscow this week and returned home with Marc Fogel, an American teacher who had been detained by the Kremlin on charges of bringing medical marijuana into Russia in 2021. Witkoff credited Prince Mohammed for his ‘instrumental’ role in mediating the release. 

Trump said in a Truth Social post Wednesday he’d designated Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Witkoff to lead peace negotiations but failed to mention the special envoy he originally hired for the task, retired Gen. Keith Kellogg. The post came after he spoke by phone with both Putin and Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy. 

The Saudi kingdom is the largest exporter of oil in the world and plays a critical role in setting global prices. Higher oil prices generate more revenue for the Kremlin from Russia’s own exports.

In 2024, Russia made $108.22 billion from oil and gas sales, 26% more than the previous year, according to Reuters. 

Trump has repeatedly pressed nations in the OPEC alliance to flood the market with oil and lower the global price, believing Russia would be more open to negotiations if its war coffers are hit. 

‘Right now the price is high enough that that war will continue,’ Trump told executives at the World Economic Forum at Davos last month.

‘You got to bring down the oil price,’ he said. ‘That will end that war. You could end that war.’

The Trump team is far closer to the Saudis than the Biden administration was, though relations may strain over Trump’s plan to move Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip and into neighboring nations and take over the territory. Still, bin Salman has pledged to invest as much as $600 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. 

Trump, who spoke to bin Salman just ahead of his Davos remarks, said he would be asking ‘the Crown Prince, who’s a fantastic guy, to round it out to around $1 trillion.’

The Saudis and Ukraine have a common enemy in Iran, which has long been providing Russia with Shahed drones and other munitions. 

‘The [Iran-backed] Houthis have deployed Iranian weaponry against Saudi Arabia, targeting critical infrastructure, including oil pipelines and airports,’ said Daniel Balson of the advocacy group Razom for Ukraine. ‘In fact, repeated Houthi attacks against highly urbanized targets like Khamis Mushait in Saudi Arabia have served as a prelude for Russia’s use of drone warfare against Ukrainian cities.’

In May 2023, bin Salman invited Zelenskyy to speak at a meeting of Arab leaders in Jeddah. Later that year, Zelenskyy and bin Salman held closed-door talks with diplomats from 40 countries on ending the war, but Russia did not participate.

Putin thanked Saudi Arabia in August for its role in negotiating the most extensive prisoner swap since the Cold War, securing the release of 26 people.  

A mammoth bill advancing a broad range of President Donald Trump’s policy goals survived a key hurdle on Thursday, putting Republicans closer to their goal of passing a bill by sometime in May.

The legislation passed the House Budget Committee on a party-line 21 to 16 vote and is expected to be taken up by the entire chamber for a floor vote later this month.

It comes despite eleventh-hour negotiations that had the bill’s eventual passage in question even as the committee met to discuss the text on Thursday morning.

The 45-page resolution directs various House committees to find a sum of at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, with $300 billion in new spending allocated toward the border, national defense and the judiciary. 

It also directs $4 trillion toward raising the debt limit, and it includes $4.5 trillion to extend Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and other tax provisions pushed by the president for the next 10 years.

House and Senate Republicans are aiming to use the budget reconciliation process to pass a broad range of Trump policy goals, from border security to eliminating taxes on tipped and overtime wages.

By lowering the threshold for passage in the Senate from two-thirds to a simple majority, it will allow the GOP to use their razor-thin majorities to get legislation signed into law with zero Democratic support, provided the measures included relate to the budget and other fiscal matters.

Conservative spending hawks on the House Budget Committee had demanded assurances that Republicans would seek to cut spending as deeply as possible in the reconciliation process, particularly to offset new spending on Trump’s tax priorities.

House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, told reporters early Thursday afternoon that committee Republicans came to an agreement on an amendment that would win over holdouts, however.

The proposal would mandate a corresponding reduction in the $4.5 trillion tax allocation if Republicans failed to cut at least $2 trillion in spending elsewhere.

Conversely, if spending cuts exceeded $2 trillion, it would increase the amount of money directed toward tax cuts by the same amount.

‘The amendment that will come up is a good amendment,’ Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a Budget Committee fiscal hawk who had issues with the original text, told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s common sense. It’s doing what we said we’d be doing.’

The House advanced its proposal after being forced to punt the committee vote last week in the face of disagreements over where to set the baseline floor for spending cuts.

Senate Republicans advanced their own plan in the meantime, passing a narrower bill on Wednesday night that included new funding for the border and defense but would leave Trump’s tax cuts for a second package.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called that bill a ‘nonstarter’ in the House.

But while the House’s bill passed a critical test on Thursday, it’s just the first step in a long process.

Passing a budget resolution then sends instructions to other committees to seek cuts and policy changes in their respective jurisdictions, before those proposals are added back to one large bill.

The House and Senate must also agree on a compromise between their two versions and pass identical pieces of legislation before they can be sent to Trump’s desk.

Republicans have a three seat majority in the Senate and a one seat majority in the House, meaning they can afford precious little dissent among themselves to pass a final bill.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is getting a tough job done.

‘Senate Republicans have been committed to getting President Trump’s nominees through,’ Thune, who’s been on the job steering the Senate for six weeks, told Fox News in an exclusive national digital interview.

Thune was interviewed ahead of Brooke Rollins’s confirmation as secretary of agriculture, which brought to 16 the number of Trump nominees approved by the Senate.

Only 11 Cabinet nominees were approved by this date eight years ago during Trump’s first term in the White House.

And on this date four years ago, the Senate had confirmed only seven of then-President Biden’s Cabinet nominees.

Rollins’ confirmation followed the confirmations of two of Donald Trump’s most controversial nominees: former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services.

Gabbard and Kennedy were confirmed on near party-line votes in a chamber the GOP controls with a 53-47 majority.

‘I think that the Senate Republicans have proven that we are united,’ the South Dakota Republican said.

Thune, a two-decade Senate veteran who served in GOP leadership the past few years before succeeding longtime leader Sen. Mitch McConnell as the top Republican in the chamber, emphasized the team effort.

‘What you try and do is just try and make the people around you better,’ Thune said. ‘We’ve got a lot of talent in the Senate, people who … we want to deploy and utilize and let them use their gifts and talents [to] get things done around here that need to be done.’

The senator pointed to his father, a former college athlete and coach, who he said would advise him to ‘make the extra pass if somebody’s got a better shot. So what we’ve been trying to do is look for an opportunity to make the extra pass. And I think that it does really utilize the great talent we have here in the Senate.’

Thune says he’s been meeting ‘fairly regularly’ with the president, in person, on the phone and through text.

‘It’s a regular pipeline,’ he said. ‘His team has been really good, too, about working with our team here. I think we’ve had a very constructive working relationship. And I tell people, our incentives are aligned. We all want to get to the same destination.’

Thune hasn’t always had a constructive relationship with the often unpredictable Trump.

Trump was critical of Thune in the years after his first term and briefly considered backing a primary challenge against the senator as he ran for re-election in 2022.

Thune said that ‘like a lot of people,’ he’s had ‘differences with the president in the past.’

‘But I think right now, we understand the things that we want to get done in the course of his term and the opportunity that we have, which is rare in politics, to have unified control of the government, House, Senate and White House. We need to maximize that, and in order to do that, we’ve got to have a very constructive relationship in which there’s regular communication,’ Thune emphasized.

McConnell was the only Senate Republican to vote against confirming Kennedy and Gabbard. McConnell, who suffered from polio as a child and is a major proponent of vaccines, was critical of Kennedy’s history of high-profile vaccine skepticism.

‘I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles,’ McConnell said after the Kennedy vote.

Trump, who’s long criticized McConnell, took aim again.

‘I have no idea if he had polio. All I can tell you about him is he shouldn’t have been a leader. He knows that. He voted against Bobby. He votes against almost everything. He’s a very bitter guy,’ Trump charged.

Thune, interviewed after Gabbard’s confirmation and ahead of the final vote on Kennedy, said the 82-year-old McConnell is ‘still active up here and still a strong voice on issues he’s passionate about, including national security.’

‘So when it comes to those issues, he has outsized influence and a voice that we all pay attention to,’ Thune said. ‘He’s got views on some of these nominees that maybe don’t track exactly with where I or other Republicans have come down, but we respect his positions on these, some of these noms, and I know that on a lot of big stuff ahead of us, he’s going to be with us. He’s a team player.’

Thune added, ‘I’ve had plenty of consultations with him through the years and in recent months and weeks, and we’ll continue to reach out to him when we think it makes sense to get a lay of the land that, based on his experience, he can help us navigate.’

While he’s enjoyed a slew of confirmation victories this week, Thune is realistic.

‘I feel good about how it’s gone so far, but we’ve got some really hard sledding ahead. We know that, and we just have to keep our heads down and do the work,’ he cautioned.

While confirming Trump’s Cabinet is currently job No. 1, Thune is juggling numerous tasks.

‘Obviously, most of our time has been occupied moving the president’s team and getting his nominees confirmed, and we’ll continue to do that. But as we go about that process, we’re looking for windows, too, to move important legislation,’ he said.

He pointed to the Laken Riley Act, quickly passed by the Senate and the House and signed into law by Trump.

The controversial measure, which is named after a nursing student who was killed by an illegal immigrant while jogging on the University of Georgia’s campus, requires federal immigration authorities to detain illegal immigrants found guilty of theft-related crimes.

Thune pointed out that the legislation grabbed bipartisan support, but he added that it’s ‘a bill that was responsive to the election mandate, and it was a bill that divided Democrats and united Republicans.’

He also chastised his predecessor as Senate majority leader, Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York.

Thune argued that during Schumer’s tenure ‘the floor would get bogged down. You know, votes would take forever. We’re just trying to make more efficient use of people’s time and get this place kind of operating on a schedule again. We’re going to continue to do that and getting back to regular order.’

Several senior Justice Department officials resigned in protest Thursday rather than comply with an order to drop a bribery case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. 

The resignations came amid President Donald Trump’s effort to overhaul the agency, which he said has been weaponized against political opponents.

The six resignations include Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, Trump’s pick to temporarily lead the office prosecuting Adams, who resigned her post on Thursday, according to the memorandum by Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, a Trump appointee.

‘I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached,’ Sassoon wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

Adams, a Democrat who said he was targeted by the Biden administration, has been willing to work with the Trump administration crackdown to curb illegal immigration. Adams pleaded not guilty to charges that he accepted bribes from Turkish officials. 

‘Rather than be rewarded, Adams’s advocacy should be called out for what it is: an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case,’ Sassoon wrote to Bondi. 

Adams’ lawyer Alex Spiro said in an email to Reuters that the charges against his client are a ‘sham.’

‘If SDNY had any proof whatsoever that the mayor destroyed evidence, they would have brought those charges—as they continually threatened to do, but didn’t, over months and months,’ Spiro wrote. ‘This newest false claim is just the parting shot of a misguided prosecution exposed as a sham.’

In his Thursday memo, Bove wrote that Sassoon had refused to comply with what he called his office’s finding that the case against Adams amounted to weaponization of the justice system. 

‘Your resignation is accepted…you lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the DOJ,’ he wrote. 

‘Your office has no authority to contest the weaponization finding,’ wrote Bove, Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer. ‘The Justice Department will not tolerate the insubordination.’

After Sassoon refused to dismiss the case, the Trump administration directed John Keller, the acting head of the Justice Department’s public corruption unit, to do so, according to people familiar with the matter.  

Keller also resigned on Thursday, two people familiar with the matter said, as well as Kevin Driscoll, a senior official in the department’s criminal division. 

Three other deputies in the Justice Department’s public corruption unit – Rob Heberle, Jenn Clarke, and Marco Palmieri – also resigned on Thursday over the Adams case, a person familiar with the matter said.

A Justice Department official confirmed Keller’s and Driscoll’s resignations, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the other three.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House. Since taking office in January, Trump has fired more than a dozen federal prosecutors who pursued cases against him.

In a statement to Fox News, Bove said he concluded that the prosecution against Adams had to be dismissed in order to ‘prioritize national security and public safety over continuing with a case that has been tainted from the start by troubling tactics.’

‘There is no room at the Justice Department for attorneys who refuse to execute on the priorities of the Executive Branch – priorities determined by the American people,’ he said. ‘I look forward to working with new leadership at SDNY on the important priorities President Trump has laid out for us to make America safe again.’

Fox News’ David Spunt contributed to this report. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a page from President Donald Trump’s playbook during a joint press conference Thursday, saying he wants to make India great again, or ‘MIGA.’

Modi met with Trump at the White House, where the world leaders discussed a range of issues, including trade, the economic relationship between India and the United States and military sales. 

During a press conference, Modi said Indian people were focusing on their heritage and ways to ensure his nation is developed by 2047. 

‘Borrowing an expression from America, our vision for a developed India is to make India great again, or MIGA,’ he said through a translator. ‘When America and India work together, that is, when it’s MAGA plus MIGA, it becomes a mega partnership for prosperity.

‘And it is this mega spirit that gives new scale and scope to our objectives.’ 

At the beginning of the press conference, Trump announced the United States would be providing India F-35 fighter jets and increasing military sales to the country by billions of dollars. 

Trump also said his administration approved the extradition of Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin, one of the plotters of a deadly 2008 terrorist attack that killed 160 people. 

‘I’m pleased to announce that my administration has approved the extradition of one of the plotters and one of the very evil people of the world having to do with the horrific 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack to face justice in India,’ Trump said. 

In addition, Modi said India would accept illegal Indian immigrants in the United States who are deported back home. 

‘Anybody who enters another country illegally,’ Modi said, ‘they have absolutely no right to be in that country.

‘And as far as India and the U.S. is concerned, we have always been of the same opinion. And that is that any verified Indian who is in the U.S. illegally, we are fully prepared to take them back to India.’

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as the new secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), hours after being confirmed in the Republican-controlled Senate Thursday by a close vote of 52-48 that was almost entirely along party lines.

Kennedy stood in the Oval Office alongside his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, and accompanied by his children, while he placed his hand on a Bible and swore the oath of office. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch swore in Kennedy.

After the ceremony, Kennedy told attendees about his first visit to the Oval Office. 

‘My first time in this Oval Office was in … 1962. I came here, and I had a meeting with my uncle who was president then, where we talked about the environment. He was involved very deeply, as we all know, in restoring physical fitness in this country.

‘For 20 years, I got on my knees every morning and prayed that God would put me in a position where I could end the childhood chronic disease epidemic in this country,’ Kennedy said.

‘On Aug. 23 of last year, God sent me President Trump. He’s kept every promise he’s made to me. He’s kept his word in every account and gone way beyond it. … I’m so grateful to you, Mr. President.’ 

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against Kennedy’s nomination. McConnell, the former longtime GOP Senate leader, had polio as a child and is a major proponent of vaccines.

Kennedy, the well-known vaccine skeptic and environmental crusader who ran for the White House in 2024 before ending his bid and endorsing Trump, needed a simple majority to be confirmed by the Senate.

‘I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles,’ McConnell said after the Kennedy vote.

Kennedy, whose outspoken views on Big Pharma and the food industry have also sparked controversy, has said he aims to shift the focus of the agencies he would oversee toward promotion of a healthy lifestyle, including overhauling dietary guidelines, taking aim at ultra-processed foods and getting to the root causes of chronic diseases.

The push is part of his ‘Make America Healthy Again’ campaign.

Trump regularly criticized Kennedy during his independent presidential bid, accusing him of being a ‘radical left liberal’ and a ‘Democrat plant.’

Kennedy fired back, claiming in a social media post that Trump’s jabs against him were ‘a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims.’

However, Kennedy made major headlines again in August when he dropped his presidential bid and endorsed Trump. 

Kennedy had long identified as a Democrat and repeatedly invoked his late father, former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and his late uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, who were both assassinated in the 1960s. Kennedy in recent years built relationships with far-right leaders due in part to his high-profile vaccine skepticism.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday her government was deciding whether to initiate a lawsuit against Google for renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America on Google Maps. 

‘We are going to wait. We are already seeing, observing what this would mean from the perspective of legal advice, but we hope that they will make a revision,’ Sheinbaum said, according to Reuters. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Google. 

Google renamed the body of water after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to change it. Now, Google Maps users in the United States will see ‘Gulf of America’ in the app, and users outside the U.S. and Mexico see both terms, the company said.

‘We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. That covers a lot of territory,’ Trump said Tuesday. ‘The Gulf of America. What a beautiful name. And it’s appropriate.’

Sheinbaum has decried the move, saying the Gulf of Mexico name has long been recognized internationally.

‘All we are asking of Google is to look at the decree that the White House released and that President Donald Trump signed. You’ll see in that decree that it does not refer to the whole gulf,’ Sheinbaum said.

‘If necessary, we will file a civil suit,’ she added. ‘Our legal area is already looking into what that would mean, but we hope that (Google) reconsiders.’

Aside from Google, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sent out a charting notice confirming that its systems were in the process of updating the name, in addition to updating the newly named Mount McKinley in Alaska, formerly known as Denali.

‘Please be advised that the FAA is in the process of updating our data and charts to show a name change from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and a name change from Denali to Mount McKinley. This will be targeted for the next publication cycle,’ the notice said.