admin

Vice President JD Vance declared Wednesday that, ‘these are days of destiny,’ as he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to build on the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip.

‘We have a very, very tough task ahead of us, which is to disarm Hamas but rebuild Gaza to make life better for the people in Gaza, but also to ensure that Hamas is no longer a threat to our friends in Israel,’ Vance said in Jerusalem, speaking alongside Netanyahu.

‘That’s not easy. I think the prime minster knows that as well as anybody. But it’s something that we’re committed to in the Trump administration,’ Vance continued. ‘And I think that we’ve, even in the past 24 hours, had a lot of good conversations with our friends in the Israeli government, but also, frankly with our friends in the Arab world who are stepping up and volunteering to play a very positive role in this.’

‘As the prime minister said, these are days of destiny, and we’re very excited to sit down and work together on the Gaza peace plan,’ Vance added.

Netanyahu told reporters that Israel has an unmatched alliance and partnership with the U.S. that is generating opportunities for security and the expansion of peace in the Middle East.

Vance also met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday, telling reporters afterward, ‘We’re here to talk about how to ensure that the peace agreement that started about a week ago sticks, that we move into phase two, into phase three with success.’

The peace deal included the release of hostages being held by Hamas.

‘As the president said, there will be torments along the way. It will be difficult, but I feel very optimistic based on my conversation with our Israeli friends and also with our Gulf Arab friends, that it’s possible that we actually can make peace stick, and that we can create the kind of environment where our Gulf Arab friends and our Israeli friends can build a better Middle East for everybody,’ Vance added. ‘So that is the goal of the administration. We think that it’s in the best interest of the United States. We also think that it’s in the best interest of everybody who lives here.’

Herzog said, ‘I truly believe that the fact you’re here is another brick in building the future for peace.’

‘We all are grateful to President Donald Trump for his steadfast insistence on moving forward. We must move forward,’ Herzog continued. ‘We must offer hope for the region, for Israel, the Palestinians, our neighbors, and for the future of our children.’

President Donald Trump is slated to meet with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte Wednesday — days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the White House.

NATO announced Tuesday that Rutte would visit Washington Wednesday, but the organization did not provide any additional details regarding the nature of the trip. However, it comes as Trump has said he wants to direct his focus on ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, following the ceasefire deal in the Middle East. 

Rutte said that Wednesday’s White House visit aims to build on the momentum after securing the peace agreement in the Middle East. 

‘I was texting with the president after an enormous success in Gaza, and we said, ‘Hey, let’s have a meeting in Washington to discuss how we now can deliver his vision of peace in Ukraine,’’ Rutte told reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday after meeting with lawmakers, according to The New York Times.

‘I have total confidence in President Trump. He’s the only one who can get this done,’ Rutte said. 

Rutte has visited the White House on several occasions during Trump’s second term, including in July and also in August after Trump’s Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. NATO has backed Ukraine since Russia first invaded, and has provided Kyiv with military equipment and other assistance since 2022. 

In August, Rutte and other European leaders joined Zelenskyy in an effort to advance peace talks to end the war in Ukraine. At the time, Trump said that European nations would shoulder the bulk of the burden by providing Ukraine with security guarantees in an attempt to deter future aggression from Russia. 

As part of these security guarantees, Ukraine has sought to become a member of NATO during the peace negotiations. However, Trump has routinely ruled that out as a possibility. 

Meanwhile, Russia’s list of demands has historically included prohibiting Ukraine from ever joining NATO, and concessions on some land that previously belonged to Kyiv. 

Additionally, Rutte’s meeting comes as Trump appeared to throw cold water on any hopes that the U.S. would arm Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, like Trump had said he was considering doing days ahead of Zelenskyy’s visit. 

‘I would much rather have them not need Tomahawks,’ Trump told reporters Friday. ‘I would much rather have the war be over to be honest, because we’re in it to get the war over.’ 

Additionally, Trump changed his tune on whether Ukraine would need to cede territory it had lost to Russia as part of a peace deal. Although Trump altered his position in September and said that Ukraine could secure back its lost territory, Trump reverted to his previously held position on the matter. 

‘They can negotiate something later on down the line,’ Trump told reporters Sunday. ‘But I said cut and stop at the battle line. Go home. Stop fighting, stop killing people.’

The change in tone came after Trump spoke with Putin Thursday and the two were originally slated to meet this month in Budapest. However, plans for the meeting were scrapped after Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. 

‘Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call,’ a senior official said in a statement Tuesday to Fox News. ‘Therefore an additional in-person meeting between the Secretary and Foreign Minister is not necessary and there are no plans for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the near future.’ 

Meanwhile, Trump recently has cast doubt on whether Ukraine can defeat Russia. 

‘They could still win it. I don’t think they will, but they could still win it,’ Trump told reporters Monday. 

Fox News’ Gillian Turner and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Former special counsel Jack Smith is standing by his 2023 decision to subpoena several Republican lawmakers’ phone records, calling the move ‘entirely proper’ and consistent with Justice Department policy.

Smith said through his lawyers in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital that the subpoenaed data, known as toll records, belonging to eight senators and one House member were carefully targeted to support his investigation into President Donald Trump’s alleged subversion of the 2020 election.

‘As described by various Senators, the toll data collection was narrowly tailored and limited to the four days from January 4, 2021 to January 7, 2021, with a focus on telephonic activity during the period immediately surrounding the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol,’ Smith’s lawyers wrote Tuesday to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

Toll records do not reveal the contents of phone calls but instead reveal when calls were made and to whom.

Smith’s lawyers said that although Grassley, who brought the subpoenas to light, has not reached out to Smith, they felt compelled to write to the chairman to address claims from Republicans that Smith improperly spied on lawmakers.

Grassley responded to the letter, saying he would continue an unbiased probe into Arctic Frost, the name of the FBI investigation that led to Smith’s election-related prosecution of Trump.

‘I’m conducting an objective assessment of the facts&law like he says he wants So far we exposed an anti-Trump FBI agent started the investigation/broke FBI rules &only REPUBLICANS were targeted SMELLS LIKE POLITICS,’ Grassley wrote on X.

The targeted senators included Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. 

In addition to the eight senators, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Tuesday that he recently discovered Smith also attempted to subpoena his toll records but that his phone company, AT&T, did not hand them over.

The Republicans have broadly claimed they were inappropriately spied on, and compared Arctic Frost to the Watergate scandal.

Smith’s lawyers emphasized the normalcy of seeking out phone records and said that public officials are not immune from investigation.

Smith brought four criminal charges against Trump alleging he illegally attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, but he dismissed the charges after Trump won the 2024 election, citing a DOJ policy that discourages prosecuting sitting presidents. 

Former special counsel Robert Hur sought toll records during his investigation into former President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents. The DOJ subpoenaed phone records of former Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, who is serving prison time after he was convicted in 2024 of corruption charges.

The first Trump administration subpoenaed phone records of Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and then-Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and dozens of congressional staffers from both parties as part of a leak investigation.

Former DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz warned in a report about the leak probe that lawmakers’ records should only be subpoenaed in narrow circumstances because it ‘risks chilling Congress’s ability to conduct oversight of the executive branch.’

Smith’s lawyers also disputed FBI Director Kash Patel’s accusations that he attempted to hide the subpoenas ‘in a lockbox in a vault,’ noting that the former special counsel mentioned subpoenaing senators’ records in a footnote of his final special counsel report.

‘Moreover, the precise records at issue were produced in discovery to President Trump’s personal lawyers, some of whom now serve in senior positions within the Department of Justice,’ Smith’s lawyers said.

Read Smith’s letter below. App users click here.

Politics is a funny thing. Five years ago, when he was riding high as the Democrat governor of New York, mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo could never have imagined that the future of his political career would be in the hands of New York City Republican voters.

It’s a bit strange for the Republican voters too, but having lost the Democratic primary to far-left Zohran Mamdani, Cuomo’s only chance to win is to convince those voters, who polls show are backing Curtis Sliwa, that he deserves to be mayor.

So far, for Cuomo, this has mainly consisted of him saying that, unlike Mamdani, he is not a communist. Yes, that’s good, but like putting ‘not in prison’ on your dating profile, it’s kind of the bare minimum.

Whether Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, who currently polls under 20%, drops out or not, and it’s not looking likely, Cuomo is going to have to convince Gotham’s conservatives to choose him. Here are a few ways he might do it.

A Seat At The Table

Cuomo should pledge that, if he is elected, Republicans will play a major role in his administration. This could look a lot of ways, including promising to make a strong GOP voice like former City Councilman Joe Borelli or current City Council member Vickie Paladino a deputy mayor. Cuomo’s original pitch in this campaign was to unite the city, but so far there is no indication that his would be anything other than a boilerplate Democrat administration. That has to change.

Support ICE

On Tuesday, Cuomo sent out an ill-advised X post criticizing Immigration Customs and Enforcement for raids in New York’s Chinatown that targeted illegal street vendors. There is no doubt the liberals in Cuomo’s war room noted the chaos on the streets and saw an opportunity to put up points against President Donald Trump. But actually, they missed an opportunity.

The reason we see this aggressive approach from ICE in Gotham is that, as a sanctuary city, the legal system will not cooperate with ICE. So, instead of a simple and safe handover of an illegal migrant with a detainer, the feds are forced to conduct raids. Cuomo, in one sentence, could pledge to end this.

Promise To Work With Trump

One of the most perplexing positions that Cuomo has staked out since he launched his independent bid is that Democrat Mamdani is too weak to effectively fight Trump, but that he’ll walk forward if the president puts his finger in his chest. Cuomo plays the tough guy role pretty well, but the problem is that the voters he needs really like Trump. A lot.

Cuomo can help his cause with GOP voters enormously if he would just say that Trump’s results in Washington, D.C., have been tremendous, and he is committed to working with the president to clean up New York’s parks and streets and deal with vagrancy and addiction.

Call Out His Own Party’s Cowards

Even on the Indie line, Andrew Cuomo is still a Democrat of long standing, and in an Interview with Bret Baier on Fox News Channel Tuesday night, he finally began to call out the threat that the far left poses to his party. He also said that the reason top party leaders in New York like Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries won’t endorse him over Zany Zohran is that, ‘If a politician doesn’t have to make a decision, they’re not going to make a decision.’

It’s not good enough. If Mamdani really is the existential threat to New York that Cuomo and Sliwa both claim, then any Democrat who refuses to call out communism in their own party must be put on blast. Cuomo needs to call out the cowardice.

Pledge To Primary Socialists In New York

One of the reasons that GOP voters are skeptical of Cuomo is that even if he won, and even if he had the best intentions in the world, the rest of the city government is overrun with Democrat Socialists who will thwart his efforts.

Cuomo should promise that if elected, he will work to fill all of those positions with traditional, normal Democrats, to the extent he can still find any, and will oppose the vigorous Marxism overtaking the party.

Even if Cuomo does all of these things, it’s still a long shot, but it would be a new race, a different race. Republican voters need a real choice. They don’t expect Sliwa to triumph, but right now, Cuomo looks too much like Mamdani to win them over.

Like it or not, Cuomo’s chances now rest in the hands of GOP voters. Is he capable of telling them what they want and need to hear?

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM DAVID MARCUS

The U.S. government is aware of the kidnapping of an American Christian missionary in the West African nation of Niger, U.S. official sources told Fox News. 

The sources told Fox News that they suspect that the missionary has been taken north to Islamic State-controlled areas where an offshoot of ISIS operates. 

‘We are aware of reports of the kidnapping of a U.S. citizen in Niamey, Niger,’ a State Department spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News. ‘Since we were alerted of the situation, our Embassy officials have been working with local authorities. It is a top priority for the Trump Administration to look after the safety of every American, and we are seeing efforts from across the U.S. Government to support the recovery and safe return of this U.S. citizen.’

The missionary is a pilot for the evangelical missionary agency Serving in Mission, according to Reuters.

The abduction took place only about 100 yards from the presidential palace in Niamey, where ousted President Mohamed Bazoum has been held since he was toppled by a coup more than two years ago, according to CBS News. 

Following the kidnapping, the U.S. Embassy in Niger said it now requires all personnel to travel only in armored vehicles and announced that all restaurants and open-air markets are ‘off-limits’.

Kidnappings appear to have intensified this year in areas of West Africa where militants operate. An Austrian woman was abducted in January in Niger, and a Swiss citizen was abducted in April in the same country, Reuters reported.

In addition, five Indian citizens working for a company providing services to Niger’s Kandadji dam project were kidnapped during an attack by armed men in April that also killed a dozen soldiers, according to the outlet. 

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin contributed to this report.