NationalWatch

Theodore Roosevelt is best known as the 26th President of the United States and the legendary “rough-rider” of the Spanish-American War. But much less is known about his deep connection and love for North Dakota, a state that was instrumental in shaping his larger-than-life persona, adventuring spirit and immense love for the outdoors.

Now, nearly 106 years after his death, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation plans to celebrate and honor that connection between the man and the land that shaped him by opening a massive state-of-the-art presidential library built on over 90 acres in the North Dakota Badlands.

“IN THE ARENA” BOOK BY PETE HEGSETH USES THE TIMELESS TRUTHS OF TEDDY ROOSEVELT’S ICONIC ‘MAN IN THE ARENA’ SPEECH

The project is founded on the three Roosevelt values of citizenship, leadership and conservation. The library, built on the edge of Medora, North Dakota, will overlook Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which is the only national park named after a person.

In the spirit of Roosevelt, the foundation behind the project is not building just any ordinary library. The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library will harness the power of both technology and nature to give visitors a highly immersive experience that rather than shutting one in, inspires and pushes you to experience the joy of the outdoors as Roosevelt did.

The library will not just seek to educate people about Roosevelt. Instead, it will use immersive storytelling methods, the latest technology, including augmented reality, and the surrounding nature in Medora, North Dakota, to show people of all ages what they can learn from the life and experiences of the man and president.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, OCTOBER 14, 1912, TEDDY ROOSEVELT SHOT IN CHEST, MAKES CAMPAIGN STOP MINUTES LATER

Citizenship

In a message announcing the project, Edward O’Keefe, CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation, said, “TR famously balked at the critic, and encouraged everyone to ‘get in the arena’ of life.”

O’Keefe, a North Dakota native, explained that the vision for the library is to serve as a hub for civic engagement, learning, and research. The library will include a large auditorium which the foundation envisions as a space that could host future presidential debates.

Above all, O’Keefe said that the library will seek to connect people with what Roosevelt used to describe as the “strenuous life” of the North Dakota wilderness.  

“North Dakota is the fulcrum of the hero’s journey in TR’s almost unbelievable life story,” said O’Keefe.

“[Roosevelt] wrote that if all his memories were to be taken from him, and he was forced only one memory from his incredible life he would choose to remember ‘my life on the ranch with its experiences close to nature and among the men who lived nearest her,’” he explained. “He did not choose the memory of the Roughriders or the charge up Kettle Hill; he would not recall McKinley’s assassination and his rise from the vice presidency to the Oval Office … TR chose to remember North Dakota, and so North Dakota chooses to remember TR.”

Leadership

Roosevelt, who served two transformative presidential terms from 1901 to 1909, moved to the North Dakota Badlands in 1884 in his early twenties. He was suffering from a broken heart after both his wife and mother died on the same fateful day. It was in North Dakota that the broken man found comfort in the solitude and beauty of the wilderness.

He later wrote that he “would not have been president had it not been for my experience in North Dakota.”

With this in mind, O’Keefe said that the library “will not be a box in the Badlands with artifacts under glass,” but “like TR’s life, will be an experience.”

“We want every visitor to the TR presidential library and museum to walk out understanding the role of nature as a restorative force in TR’s life, and that each of us can be the change we want to see in the world,” said O’Keefe. “This museum can be a platform for embracing civic dialogue, thoughtful debate, and inspiration around the globe.”

Conservation

After receiving the approval of Congress and then-President Donald Trump, the foundation completed its purchase of the land for the library from the U.S. Forest Service in 2022. The land is situated close to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Roosevelt’s famous Elkhorn Ranch.

The building is designed to be able to live off the land, just as Roosevelt did.

The project website states that just as “through his action, passion, and foresight, Roosevelt ushered in a new era of conservation and stewardship of the American natural landscape,” the library’s design “will reflect and expand upon those values, setting an ambitious new standard for environmental conservation and sustainability leadership.”

The foundation is utilizing local contractors and constructing the library with materials that will allow the building to minimize waste and emissions as well as water and energy usage.

MEET THE AMERICAN WHO WAS THE ‘WORKING MAN’ FOUNDING FATHER, IRISH IRONSMITH GEORGE TAYLOR

Instead of disrupting the sloping, grassy North Dakota “burning hills,” the library’s design team from the U.S.-Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta envisioned a building that blended in naturally with the landscape. The building has an earthen roof that curves with the nearby butte. The grounds and roof will be made up of native plants and grasses so as to help restore the biodiversity of the region which has been degraded over time.

Pictures shared exclusively with Fox News Digital by the foundation show that the library interior is already taking shape. Natural light flows down from glass ceiling panels, coloring a set of already completed massive, rammed-earth walls, composed of a mixture of gravel, sand, silt and clay.

Right in front of the library will be a large circular hiking trail surrounding the butte with several unique viewpoints along the way that encourage visitors to explore and reflect.

A new chapter

The library is expected to open on July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of America and the Declaration of Independence.

Theodore Roosevelt V, a great-great-grandson of the 26th president and ally of the project, has said through the library “North Dakotans have ensured a legacy not just for their state but also for our nation and the world.”  

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But beyond North Dakota, Roosevelt said that all Americans can be inspired by the continuing legacy of his great-great-grandfather.

“My great great grandfather’s legacy of citizenship, leadership, and conservation are as relevant today as they were during the height of his presidency,” he said in a statement on the library website. “When you focus on people interested in solutions rather than divisive rhetoric, it becomes clear that there is much more that unites us than divides us – just as there was at the turn of the 20th century.”

“Like Theodore Roosevelt, a man of paradoxes – Republican and progressive, crusader against monopolies and capitalist, hunter and conservationist, partisan and rogue independent – our country is many different things. Finding the commonality among them may just be the key to America’s future.”

President-elect Trump’s nomination of Kash Patel as FBI director evoked strong reactions from supporters and critics Saturday night.

Patel’s nomination hints at massive changes the agency will likely undergo during the second Trump administration. As a staunch supporter of Trump, Patel is a fierce critic of government corruption and the so-called “deep state” and has blasted the bureau in the past.

In a September interview with “The Shawn Ryan Show,” Patel said the FBI’s footprint “has gotten so frickin’ big.”

“I would shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopen the next day as a museum of the deep state,” Patel said.

TRUMP NOMINATES KASH PATEL TO SERVE AS FBI DIRECTOR: ‘ADVOCATE FOR TRUTH’

Trump has not historically been a fan of the FBI, which raided his Florida estate in 2022 and years earlier investigated false claims he was a Russian asset. Most observers expect Trump will demand an agency overhaul by his director.

“Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” Trump said in a statement. “He played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution.”

Patel’s nomination was met with instant praise from Republicans. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called Patel an “America First fighter.” Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., also praised the pick.

“Great choice by @realDonaldTrump,” Donalds wrote on X. “Kash is a patriot and 100% America First.”

Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, also issued his congratulations.

NEW YORK JUDGE GRANTS TRUMP REQUEST TO FILE MOTION TO DISMISS CHARGES, CANCELS SENTENCING INDEFINITELY

“Kash was INSTRUMENTAL in President Trump’s first term and will be EVEN GREATER in his second!” the former White House physician wrote. “Time to clean this place up, and Kash is the man to do it!!! MAGA!”

Commentators on the left, however, panned the pick. MSNBC’s Morning Joe previously called Patel the “personification of MAGA rage about the Justice Department and the FBI.”

On Saturday night, far-left commentator Mehdi Hasan accused Patel of being a “deeply strange and alarming and sycophantic figure.” Andrew McCabe, who briefly served as acting FBI director under Trump in 2017 before being fired for allegedly leaking to the media and a “lack of candor,” called Patel’s nomination “a plan to disrupt, to dismantle, to distract the FBI.”

“It’s a terrible development for the men and women of the FBI and also for the nation that depends on a highly functioning, professional, independent Federal Bureau of Investigation,” McCabe said on CNN. “The fact that Kash Patel is profoundly unqualified for this job is not even, like, a matter for debate.”

TRUMP NOMINATES CHARLES KUSHNER TO SERVE AS US AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE: ‘STRONG ADVOCATE’

Tom Nichols, a staff writer for The Atlantic, told MSNBC Patel is “as dangerous as it gets.”

“I suppose if we still have the ability to be shocked, it’s shocking,” Nichols said. “But I think this is something … many of us saw it coming and, you know, shouldn’t be that surprising. But it’s an incredibly dangerous development.”

Two conditions will need to be met for Patel to take office. Current FBI Director Christopher Wray will either need to resign or be fired, and Patel will need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Wray has not signaled an intent to resign. On Saturday night, the FBI told Fox News Digital Wray is focused on his work at hand.

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“Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats,” an FBI spokesperson said. “Director Wray’s focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with and the people we do the work for.”

Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.

President-elect Trump on Saturday nominated Florida sheriff Chad Chronister as administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

“For over 32 years, Sheriff Chad Chronister has served the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, and received countless commendations and awards for keeping his community SAFE,” Trump wrote in his announcement moments before he nominated Kash Patel to replace Christopher Wray as FBI director. 

“A proud graduate of the FBI National Academy’s 260th Session, Chad is Co-Chairman of the Regional Domestic Security Task Force for Region IV Tampa Bay, Council Member of the Florida Attorney General’s Statewide Council on Human Trafficking, Chairman of the Criminal Justice Sub-Committee, Vice-Chairman of the Hillsborough County Public Safety Coordinating Council, and Vice-Chairman of the Hillsborough County Public Schools Citizen Oversight Committee,” he continued.

TRUMP NOMINATES KASH PATEL TO SERVE AS FBI DIRECTOR: ‘ADVOCATE FOR TRUTH’

Trump said Chronister would work with Pam Bondi, his nominee for attorney general after Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew as nominee, to “secure the Border, stop the flow of Fentanyl, and other Illegal Drugs, across the Southern Border, and SAVE LIVES.”

Congratulations to Chad, his wife Nikki, and two wonderful sons!” he added. 

Chronister called his nomination the “honor of a lifetime” in a statement posted to social media. 

“I am deeply humbled by this opportunity to serve our nation,” he added. 

TRUMP NOMINATES CHARLES KUSHNER TO SERVE AS US AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE: ‘STRONG ADVOCATE’

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Chronister was appointed by then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott to head the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in 2017, and has been re-elected twice. 

President-elect Donald Trump has named longtime ally Kashyap “Kash” Patel to serve as the next director of the FBI in the new administration.

Patel, 44, is an attorney with experience in national security, intelligence and counterterrorism. He has been a member of Trump’s transition team, advising the administration on other appointments.

Trump announced Patel’s appointment in a Truth Social post on Saturday.

NEW YORK JUDGE GRANTS TRUMP REQUEST TO FILE MOTION TO DISMISS CHARGES, CANCELS SENTENCING INDEFINITELY

“Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” Trump’s statement read. “He played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution.”

This story is developing. Check back with us for more updates.

President-elect Trump has nominated Charles Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner, to serve in his new administration as the U.S. ambassador to France.

“I am pleased to nominate Charles Kushner, of New Jersey, to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to France,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday. “He is a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker, who will be a strong advocate representing our Country & its interests.”

In 2020, Kushner was pardoned by Trump 15 years after being found guilty of falsifying tax returns, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions.

Kushner, the founder of Kushner Companies, served a two-year sentence for his conviction. The witness tampering charge stemmed from an incident where he paid a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law into an encounter that was recorded on video. Kushner then sent the footage to the man’s wife, Kushner’s sister, in order to prevent her from testifying before a grand jury.

NEW YORK JUDGE GRANTS TRUMP REQUEST TO FILE MOTION TO DISMISS CHARGES, CANCELS SENTENCING INDEFINITELY

Kushner was prosecuted by then-U.S. Attorney General Chris Christie in 2005. Christie later called the case “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was U.S. attorney,” during a 2019 PBS interview.

Trump touted Kushner’s accomplishments in his statement on Saturday, calling Kushner Companies “one of the largest & most successful privately held Real Estate firms in the Nation.”

“He was recognized as New Jersey Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, appointed to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, & served as a Commissioner, & Chairman, of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, as well as on the Boards of our top institutions, including NYU,” Trump said.

TRUMP APPOINTS TULSI GABBARD AS DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: ‘FEARLESS SPIRIT’

“His son, Jared, worked closely with me in the White House, in particular on Operation Warp Speed, Criminal Justice Reform, & the Abraham Accords,” his statement concluded. “Together, we will strengthen America’s partnership with France, our oldest Ally, & one of our greatest!”

In 2018, Jared Kushner worked to get the First Step Act passed by Congress, which focused on reforming federal prisons. Kushner became passionate about the issue after witnessing how his father had been treated in prison.

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“President Trump promised to fight for the forgotten men and women of this country — and that includes those in prison,” Jared Kushner wrote in the Wall Street Journal at the time.

Fox News Digital’s Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.

President-elect Trump says he had a “very productive meeting” with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at his Mar-a-Lago club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday. 

Trudeau jetted into Mar-a-Lago unannounced on Friday just days after Trump threatened to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products. Trump is threatening to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico over failures by both nations to curb the flow of illegal immigrants and illicit drugs from those countries into the U.S. 

“We discussed many important topics that will require both countries to work together to address, like the fentanyl and drug crisis that has decimated so many lives as a result of illegal immigration, fair trade deals that do not jeopardize American workers and the massive trade deficit the U.S. has with Canada,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday.

MUSK, STALLONE AMONG STAR-STUDDED NAMES PARTYING AT TRUMP’S MAR-A-LAGO CLUB FOR THANKSGIVING

“I made it very clear that the United States will no longer sit idly by as our citizens become victims to the scourge of this drug epidemic, caused mainly by the drug cartels, and fentanyl pouring in from China. Too much death and hardship!”

Trump wrote that Trudeau, who has been serving as prime minister of Canada since 2015, made a commitment to work with the U.S. to “end this terrible devastation of U.S. families.”

U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds at the Mexican border. On immigration, Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in October alone and 23,721 arrests at the Canadian border between October 2023 and September 2024 — and Canadian officials say they are ready to make new investments in border security.

MEXICAN PRESIDENT MIGHT BE CHANGING VIEW ON US AS TRUMP WIN SENDS WARNING TO RULING SOCIALISTS 

Trump said the pair also spoke about many other important topics, including energy, trade and the Arctic, although he did not go into further detail. 

“All are vital issues that I will be addressing on my first days back in office, and before,” Trump concluded, without saying whether tariffs were still on or off the table. 

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, after speaking with Trump on the telephone, said Thursday she was confident a tariff war with Washington would be averted.

Sen.-elect Dave McCormick, R-Pa., posted a picture to X late Friday showing him at a Mar-a-Lago dinner table along with President-elect Trump, Trudeau, and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, among others. The ritzy club has been a hive of activity since President-elect Trump’s historic election win over Vice President Harris earlier this month as the 45th president co-ordinates his transition back to the Oval Office. 

Tech billionaires Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg have also met Trump at the famous location, along with many of those nominated for top roles in the incoming administration. Trump selected Musk to lead an outside advisory panel known as the “Department of Government Efficiency” to slash waste in the federal government.

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As he was leaving his West Palm Beach hotel, Trudeau stopped briefly to answer a reporter’s question about the dinner meeting, saying it had been “an excellent conversation.”

An official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said it had been a “positive, wide-ranging dinner that lasted three hours.” 

The official said other topics included defense, Ukraine, NATO, China, the Middle East and pipelines, as well as the Group of Seven meeting in Canada next year.

Fox News’ Louis Casiano and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

As Democratic Denver Mayor Mike Johnston says he would be willing to go to jail over his opposition to the Trump mass deportation plan, a new study claims the mayor’s Blue city has spent a whopping $356 million of taxpayers’ hard-earned money on migrants.

The eye-popping sum, which amounts to $7,900 per foreign national in the city, was revealed by an updated analysis last week by the Common Sense Institut (CSI), a non-partisan research organization dedicated to protecting and promoting the U.S. economy. 

The group says it used city data to land on the stunning sum which equates to 8% of the city’s 2025 budget of $4.4 billion. The figures combine the city’s budget as well as regional education and healthcare organizations.

DENVER MAYOR MIKE JOHNSTON SAYS TRUMP’S MASS MIGRANT DEPORTATIONS WILL CREATE ‘TIANANMEN SQUARE MOMENT’

Denver has seen an unprecedented influx of migrants arrive in the city under the Biden-Harris administration and Johnston has already slashed city services to house and feed those migrants. Cuts included reducing services at recreation centers and stopping the planting of spring flower beds, while the city tapped into a contingency fund to pay for the spiraling costs. 

The CSI claims that the bulk of the $356 million spent on migrants was through education, with the city also splashing out on healthcare, hotels, transportation and childcare. Denver is a sanctuary city, meaning it does not enforce immigration law, nor does the city cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The group says that about 45,000 migrants have arrived in the Denver metro area since December 2022 with 16,197 migrant students enrolling in Denver metro schools.

DENVER MIGRANT ADVOCATES SAY SIX MONTHS OF FREE RENT, FOOD NOT ENOUGH: ‘A SLAP IN THE FACE’ AND ‘OFFENSIVE’

“The total cost to Denver metro schools related to new migrant students is $228 million annually, which would equate to 1-2% of the total state K-12 education budget for the 2024-25 academic year,” the group writes.

“Previous CSI reporting estimated the per-student cost of instruction and support in the Denver metro to be $14,100 per year. Assuming this cost across all recent migrant students totals $228 million.

Meanwhile, Denver doctors earlier this year said that the migrant crisis had pushed the state’s hospital system to its breaking point and was causing a humanitarian crisis. 

The CSI study estimates that emergency departments in the Denver metro area have delivered an estimated $49 million in uncompensated care to migrants. 

“With 16,760 [migrant] visits to Denver metro emergency departments from December 2022 to the present, providers would have delivered $49,124,029 of uncompensated care to migrants.

The study reports that at the height of the migrant influx in January 2024, officials estimated Denver was going to spend $180 million through 2024. Actual expenditures tracked by the city now show it will spend about $79 million.

“Of the total, 34.5% has been spent on facilities including hotels, 29.4% on personnel, 14% on services, and 11% on food,” the report finds. 

Johnston said during a recent interview that he was prepared to protest against anything he believes is “illegal or immoral or un-American” in the city – including the use of military force – and was then asked if he was prepared to go to jail for standing in the way of policies enacted by the administration.

“Yeah, I’m not afraid of that, and I’m also not seeking that,” Johnston said. “I think the goal is we want to be able to negotiate with reasonable people [on] how to solve hard problems.”

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Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar” designate, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity this week that he would jail Johnston if he broke the law in shielding illegal migrants. 

 “All he has to do is look at Arizona v. U.S. and he would see he’s breaking the law. But, look, me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing. He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail.”

Fox News’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the public face of the federal government’s coronavirus pandemic response, is facing criticism on social media over a manuscript published in a top journal where he maintains his position that the virus originated in nature and cites a debunked claim that President-elect Trump told Americans to inject themselves with bleach to stop the virus.

Fauci, along with researcher Gregory Folkers, published a paper in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal this week with the title, “HIV/AIDS and COVID-19: Shared Lessons from Two Pandemics.”

Fauci, who faced intense criticism for his handling of the pandemic, was critical of Trump’s handling of the pandemic in the paper.

“With COVID-19, the role of political leadership at the highest level — or the lack thereof — was again shown to be critical,” the authors wrote. “As COVID-19 exploded globally and in the United States, President Donald Trump frequently minimized the seriousness of the pandemic, repeatedly claiming that COVID-19 would just ‘go away’ In the first full year of the pandemic (2020, the last year of his presidency) he failed to use his bully pulpit to encourage people to use available ‘low-tech’ tools such as masks/respirators, better ventilation, and physical distancing to reduce the risk of infection.”

FAUCI SAYS WEST NILE VIRUS WAS A ‘HARROWING’ EXPERIENCE: ‘AFRAID I WOULD NEVER RECOVER’

“Trump also gave credence to unproven and potentially dangerous substances for COVID-19 prevention and treatment such as bleach injections, the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine and the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. Many of his hundreds of communications during the COVID-19 pandemic were missed opportunities for political leadership in promoting policies and practices to mitigate the impact of a raging pandemic.”

The paper also says that “abundant evidence from top evolutionary virologists and leading scientists in other fields strongly suggests that the virus jumped species from an animal reservoir to humans in the Huanan market in Wuhan, China, and then spread throughout China and the rest of the world.” 

LAURA INGRAHAM: WE CAN NEVER LET A FAUCI HAPPEN TO THE US AGAIN

Several media outlets have fact-checked and debunked the claim that Trump instructed people to inject themselves with bleach including Politifact who called President Biden’s accusation “mostly false.”

“Fauci is an embarrassment,” conservative communicator Steve Guest posted on X.

“Oy vey,” National Review contributor Pradeep Shanker posted on X.

“Fauci is out with a new scientific paper on HIV/AIDS & COVID-19 where he falsely claims Trump told people to inject bleach & where he argues COVID-19 has a natural origin (Wuhan lab leak not even mentioned) by citing the same authors who wrote the infamous Proximal Origins paper,” author and journalist Jerry Dunleavy posted on X. 

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Fox News Digital reached out to the NIH for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Immigration and border security were hot topics in 2024 as the Biden administration continued to tackle the historic migrant crisis at the southern border, migrant crime made headlines across the country, and both topics were top priorities for voters ahead of the November election.

In 2025, those topics are likely to remain key issues. Here are five things to watch in 2025:

BORDER STATE OFFERS TRUMP MASSIVE PLOT OF LAND TO AID MASS DEPORTATION OPERATION

 

Does Trump deliver?

President-elect Trump has promised to launch a historic mass deportation program next year. He has expressed openness to declaring a national emergency and using military assets in order to get it done. His team have already started looking at how to expand detention near major metropolitan areas.

His border czar, Thomas Homan, has promised that national security and public security threats will be the priority, but no illegal immigrant is off the table. The Trump administration increased deportations significantly up until 2019 before COVID-19 hit the U.S., so it is expected to move in that direction again.

Trump may need to rally Congress for additional resources, a task made easier by Republican control of the House and Senate, and will need to overcome potential lawsuits filed against any policies he introduces.

At the congressional level, expect a push for a sweeping bill like H.R.2 — the Republican border bill passed in 2023 that would limit asylum significantly while providing additional resources at the border. 
 

Will Democrats resist?

Officials in multiple Democratic states have already previewed their resistance to the deportation push by the Trump administration. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said recently he was prepared to go to jail over his opposition to Trump’s deportation plan.

Meanwhile, governors in Massachusetts, Illinois and Arizona have all said that they won’t co-operate with deportations. 

Trump officials say they don’t need their assistance, only for them to step aside as federal authorities do their job. But it will be something to watch to see if Democratic officials merely do not assist the administration, or if that turns to active resistance.

 

Mexican co-operation?

Mexico plays a crucial role in securing the U.S.-Mexico border, with lower levels of encounters at the U.S. border often coinciding with crackdowns at Mexico’s southern border. 

That was on display in 2024, as numbers lowered at the border after Biden administration officials met with Mexican officials in December 2023. The two countries had previously come to an agreement by which the U.S. would allow in migrants via parole programs, while Mexico would consequently accept a certain number of non-Mexican returns back from the U.S.

But with President-elect Trump having promised to end those programs, it is unclear to what extent Mexico will continue to co-operate.

Trump has promised to impose a significant 25% tariff on goods from Mexico if it does not halt the flow of illegal immigrants across the border. It’s a similar tactic by which Trump got Mexico to agree to the 2019 expansion of the remain-in-Mexico policy.

But will it work? Will Mexico keep the traffic heading north low, or will it reduce its enforcement? That will be a question answered in 2025.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS
 

What will Congress do?

Congress has struggled to find consensus on border security and immigration, something that has frustrated multiple administrations. President Biden and former President Barack Obama were thwarted in their efforts to get Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, while President-elect Trump struggled to get lawmakers to provide funding for the wall at the southern border.

Now, Republicans hold the House and Senate, but by thin margins. So it is unclear if Trump will ever see a sweeping bill similar to the House Republicans’ border bill that passed the chamber in 2023 come to his desk.

Trump can do a great deal by executive action, but his mass deportation plan will require additional funding from Congress. To what extent Congress acts on those requests could determine how successful that effort, along with additional security at the southern border to stop migrants from entering the U.S. in the first place, will be. 

 

Legal immigration?

While illegal immigration is in the spotlight after the historic crisis at the southern border, it will likely be a key issue in the next administration, with some keen for additional restrictions on not only the use of humanitarian parole but also visas like the H-1B visa tech worker program and the H-2A agricultural worker program.

Additionally, whether the administration will have another go at trying to re-implement its public charge rule, which limited legal immigrants from receiving green cards if they had been reliant on some forms of welfare and are deemed to be likely to be reliant on welfare if they receive permanent residency. The administration is expected to reduce the numbers coming in via parole, which was expanded significantly under the Biden administration, and is also expected to reduce the annual refugee cap.

President-elect Trump and others in his future administration — including billionaire Elon Musk — have said at times they want more immigration, but only legal immigration.

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“I want a lot of people to come into our country, but I want them to come in legally,” Trump said in October.

 But some in Trump’s base want lower levels of immigration overall, including legal immigration. Which side of the argument wins will become clearer as 2025 rolls on.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – President-elect Donald Trump announced Karoline Leavitt will return to the White House next year as his press secretary, making the 27-year-old the youngest White House press secretary in U.S. history and notching another massive career benchmark. 

Leavitt has been a fierce defender of Trump throughout his hard-fought campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris, which included Democrats and the Harris campaign lobbing attacks at Trump that he is a “fascist” and on par with Nazi Germany dictator Adolf Hitler, two assassination attempts and crisscrossing the nation to rally support for the former president. 

“Karoline Leavitt did a phenomenal job as the National Press Secretary on my Historic Campaign, and I am pleased to announce she will serve as White House Press Secretary,” Trump said in a statement announcing Leavitt as his press secretary this month. 

“Karoline is smart, tough, and has proven to be a highly effective communicator. I have the utmost confidence she will excel at the podium, and help deliver our message to the American People as we, Make America Great Again.”

TRUMP PICKS KAROLINE LEAVITT TO SERVE AS WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY

Ahead of her appointment as the youngest press secretary in the nation’s history – unseating President Richard Nixon’s press secretary Ron Ziegler, who was 29 when he took the same position in 1969 – Leavitt had long been in Trump’s orbit and also made her own political mark with a congressional run in 2022. 

TRUMP’S SPEEDY CABINET PICKS SHOW HIS ‘PRIORITY TO PUT AMERICA FIRST,’ TRANSITION TEAM SAYS

Leavitt served in Trump’s first administration as assistant press secretary before working as New York Rep. Elise Stefanik’s communications director following the 2020 election. Leavitt launched a congressional campaign in her home state of New Hampshire during the 2022 cycle, winning her primary, but losing the election to a Democrat. 

During her time on the campaign trail for Trump this cycle, Leavitt sparred with liberal media outlets about Trump’s candidacy, fielded media inquiries about the 45th president’s policies and vision for the U.S., served as one of Trump’s top defenders amid legal battles and political landmines lobbed by both the Biden and Harris campaign, and maneuvered an unprecedented campaign cycle that saw President Biden drop out of the running in July amid heightened concerns over his mental acuity and age. 

She was among the dozens of Republican elected officials and Trump supporters who joined Trump in Manhattan court over the spring as he faced trial over 34 counts of falsifying business records, which Trump repeatedly slammed as a “sham” case. She also reported that with the job as the campaign’s national press secretary, she became accustomed to Trump’s “sleep schedule” – which has famously only consisted of roughly four or five hours of rest before getting to work – and joined him at rallies across the nation and at the campaign’s headquarters in Florida. 

Leavitt currently serves as the Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman ahead of Jan. 20, when Trump will be sworn in as president. 

Leavitt made national headlines in June, before Biden dropped out of the race, when CNN’s Kasie Hunt cut her microphone off as she argued on air that CNN hosts Jake Tapper and Dana Bash would be politically biased against Trump while moderating a debate between Biden and the now president-elect. Biden ultimately performed terribly during the debate, which opened the floodgates to traditional Democrat allies calling on him to drop out of the presidential race and pass the torch to a younger generation. 

KAROLINE LEAVITT WANTS DEMS TO ‘LOOK IN THE MIRROR’ AFTER ‘DISGUSTING’ COMMENTS AGAINST TRUMP

“That’s why President Trump is knowingly going into a hostile environment on this very network, on CNN, with debate moderators who have made their opinions about him very well known over the past eight years. And their biased coverage of him,” Leavitt said to Hunt during the interview previewing the debate. 

“So I‘ll just say my colleagues, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, have acquitted themselves as professionals as they have covered campaigns and interviewed candidates from all sides of the aisle. I‘ll also say that if you talk to analysts of previous debates, that if you’re attacking the moderators, you’re usually losing,” Hunt responded.

As Hunt tried to redirect the interview back to previewing the debate, Leavitt said it would take just a few minutes to pull up examples of Tapper’s anti-Trump rhetoric across the years. 

KAROLINE LEAVITT ON SWING STATE DEMOCRATS TOUTING TIES TO TRUMP: THIS IS THE ‘WRITING ON THE WALL’

“Ma’am, I’m going to stop this interview if you’re going to continue to attack my colleagues,” Hunt said, before Leavitt continued that she was “stating facts” about what CNN hosts had previously said about Trump. 

“I’m sorry, guys, we’re going to come back out to the panel,” Hunt said. “Karoline, thank you very much for your time. You are welcome to come back at any point. She is welcome to come back and speak about Donald Trump, and Donald Trump will have equal time to Joe Biden when they both join us later this week in Atlanta for this debate.”

Following the mic getting cut, Leavitt told Fox News Digital at the time that, “CNN cutting off my microphone for bringing up a debate moderator’s history of anti-Trump lies just proves our point that President Trump will not be treated fairly in Thursday’s debate. Yet President Trump is still willing to go into this 3-1 fight to bring his winning message to the American people, and he will win.”

As Leavitt juggled the media, she also spent the first six months in her role as Trump campaign national press secretary while pregnant with her first child. Ahead of Mother’s Day this year, Leavitt touted the importance women and mothers have within the Trump orbit and celebrating that in July, she would welcome her own baby. 

DEMOCRATS ARE THE TRUE THREAT TO DEMOCRACY: KAROLINE LEAVITT

“Joe Biden can’t even define what a ‘woman’ is, and his Administration disrespectfully refers to mothers as ‘birthing people.’ Joe Biden has left working moms and families behind by creating the worst inflation crisis in decades, welcoming millions of illegal immigrants into our country to commit crimes, and allowing violent protests to erupt on college campuses,” Leavitt exclusively told Fox News Digital in May. 

The campaign touted that it employed dozens of moms during the election cycle, including Leavitt and recently-announced White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. He has also hired hundreds of working moms since 2016, including high-profile names such as Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kayleigh McEnany. RNC and Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez and Trump legal spokeswoman Alina Habba are also both mothers of young kids. 

“We have a really welcoming environment for children at the office, the headquarters in West Palm Beach,” Leavitt told the Conservateur in October. “You know, we joke that on Saturdays, it’s bring-your-kid-to-work day.”

Months following the article touting the women and moms on the campaign, Democrats came under fire in October after Harris campaign surrogate Mark Cuban said “you never see [Trump] around strong, intelligent women.”

“This is extremely insulting to the thousands of women who work for President Trump, and the tens of millions of women who are voting for him,” Leavitt shot back at Cuban. “These women are mothers, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders, and they are, indeed, strong and intelligent, despite what Mark Cuban and Kamala Harris say.” 

TRUMP’S PICKS SO FAR: HERE’S WHO WILL BE ADVISING THE NEW PRESIDENT

Leavitt gave birth to her son in July and had planned to take maternity leave before a would-be assassin opened fire on Trump and his supporters at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, just days ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Trump was injured on the side of his head, while two other rally-goers were also injured, and local dad and Trump supporter Corey Comperatore was fatally shot. 

Leavitt said the assassination attempt sparked her to jump back into the campaign just days after giving birth. 

“I had just brought my newborn, my three-day-old baby home from the hospital. And I said, ‘I’m going to turn on the television and watch the rally today,’” Leavitt recounted to the Conservateur of watching the tragic and shocking rally on July 13. 

“I looked at my husband and said, ‘Looks like I’m going back to work.’”

She also recounted that following the birth of her son, she received a call from Trump congratulating her before having her chat with former first lady Melania Trump.

“It was incredibly warm and kind,” she said of Trump’s call. “He wanted to check in. He asked me how I was doing.” Trump then passed the phone to his wife, the Conservateur reported. 

“Mrs. Trump and I talked about how wonderful it is to be a mother to a boy. They spoke about their love for Barron, and the president cracked a joke: ‘We have a little boy, but he’s not so little now!’” she said. 

Leavitt predicted Trump would notch a win this cycle, repeatedly pointing to his message of unity and uplifting Americans of all races and creeds, his vow to secure the border and strengthen the economy following spiraling inflation under the Biden-Harris administration. 

Trump was declared the victor in the race late into the evening on Election Day, after sweeping battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. He ultimately secured 312 electoral votes and locked down the popular vote. 

Leavitt celebrated the win as the “Greatest political comeback in HISTORY!” where Trump “defeated the big tech oligarchs who tried to silence him, the weaponized system of justice against him, and the fake news that has lied about him and his supporters for years.”

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Just over a week after his win at the ballot boxes, Trump named Leavitt as his White House press secretary pick. 

“Thank you, President Trump, for believing in me. I am humbled and honored,” she posted to her X account following the announcement.  

“Let’s MAGA!”

In the past couple of years the Texas National Guard and state authorities have placed over 100 miles of razor wire at some of the most critical migrant crossing points along the southern border. The state, which makes up over 60 percent of the U.S. border with Mexico, has spent well over $10 million erecting and maintaining these border barriers as part of its larger multi-billion-dollar border enforcement campaign “Operation Lonestar.”

This week, a federal appeals court ruled against the Biden administration’s attempt to block Texas from continuing to place walls of razor wire – also called concertina or “c-wire” – along the border. This comes after U.S. Border Patrol agents under the Biden administration cut down Texas’ wire on a 26-mile stretch of the border in September 2023.

Earlier this year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said that “Biden should be thanking Texas, not obstructing our efforts to secure the border.”

“Joe Biden completely abandoned his constitutional duty to secure the border. Texas stepped up in his absence to build the wall, repel illegal crossings, and protect our country,” said Abbott.

HEARTBREAKING VIDEO SHOWS 10-YEAR-OLD MIGRANT LEFT ALONE AT BORDER

But does razor wire really keep migrants from entering the country illegally, and is it worth the cost?

Andrew Arthur, a law and policy expert at the Center for Immigration Studies, says the answer is an emphatic “Yes.”

He pointed to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that shows illegal migrant encounters in Texas’ five border sectors dropped by nearly two-thirds in January after the state finished placing wire.

Arthur told Fox News Digital that Texas began placing wire fortifications in May 2023 after the COVID-era measure Title 42 expired. Then, after the migrant surge in December, Texas deployed additional guard personnel, state troopers and resources to the border.

“Based on the numbers that we’re looking at here, it is most definitely effective,” he said. 

INCOMING BORDER CZAR HOMAN ISSUES WARNING IN TEXAS TO DEMS OPPOSING TRUMP DEPORTATIONS: ‘DON’T TEST US’

“What the wire did from my reading of this is it shifted that flow west,” he explained. “And that’s important, because that’s a much longer route. You’re adding hundreds of miles to that smuggling journey.”

While effective, razor wire is not without drawbacks. More than a traditional border wall, wire needs to be constantly monitored. It also requires regular upkeep and additional wire being laid down after old wire is damaged or destroyed.

“It’s a temporary solution, because you’re going to have to replace the concertina wire that they have and, at some point, they’re not going to be able to keep sending wave after wave of troopers, because a lot of those guys are hundreds of miles from their homes, because Texas is a big state,” he explained. “When I was embedded with a trooper down there, he was from Abilene, which is nowhere near the border, and he had been there for six weeks.”

There are also humanitarian considerations.

Arthur said that by being an effective deterrent, razor wire protects migrants from attempting the dangerous crossing over the Rio Grande.

Meanwhile, Dylan Corbett, who runs an El Paso-based migrant aid and advocacy group called the Hope Border Institute, said that the presence of c-wire along the border has increased migrant injuries and deaths.

Corbett told Fox News Digital that doctors working with the Hope Border Institute have had to treat the wounds of families injured by the wire, as well as “wounds caused by projectiles fired by the National Guard.”  

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“In El Paso, nearly our entire border has been fortified by layers of concertina wire, including part of our border with New Mexico,” he explained. “While the numbers of border deaths along the whole border appear to have gone down over the past year, in El Paso they have increased. That increase has been sharp over the past couple years and coincides with the presence of the Guard and the concertina wire, because it is forcing border crossers just to the west of the city, where they die in the desert or crossing the river.”

He called for the federal government to finally step in and “assert its supremacy over managing migration at the border and fix our overall system.”

“More people are dying here than ever before,” he said. “The longer we wait, states will continue to engage in uncoordinated and irresponsible enforcement actions on their own, unnecessarily putting lives at risk and needlessly diverting millions of dollars in taxpayer resources.”  

It’s long been said that Congress is a lot like school.

What’s the first thing they do in school? Take attendance.

That is one thing which they usually don’t do in Congress.

But they might next year.

FAMILIAR FACES, FAMILIAR PLACES: THE LATEST FROM CAPITOL HILL

Figuring out who is present and accounted for and who is out will emerge as one of the most dramatic daily events on Capitol Hill.

It is always about the math on Capitol Hill.

But the 119th Congress will really be about the math.

Every day in the House will hinge on who’s sick. Who has a parent/teacher conference. Whose plane was delayed due to snow. Who is just playing hooky and isn’t reliable. Who was giving a speech downtown, got caught in traffic and just didn’t make it back in time. Whose kid is starring in the school play. Whose aunt died.

President Trump and House Republicans have big plans for their 2025 legislative agenda. But the miniscule size of the GOP majority could temper those expectations on a daily basis.

It will be interesting to see what Republicans can execute.

Republicans will likely begin the new year with a 219-215 majority. So 434 seats. There is one vacancy as former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., resigned. That’s a margin of four seats. But it in reality, it means the GOP majority can only tolerate one Republican defector on each roll call vote without needing help from the other side. One Republican “nay” is 218-216. But two Republican rebels produces a 217-217 tie. By rule, ties lose in the House.

But the beginning of the new Congress on January 3 could represent the Halycon days for the House Republican Conference.

Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Michael Waltz, R-Fla., intend to resign in January to join the Trump Administration. Stefanik is up for United Nations Ambassador and requires confirmation for that post. The President-elect tapped Waltz to serve as National Security Advisor. That position is not subject to Senate confirmation. So the Republican majority will dwindle to 217-215. At that point, Republicans can’t lose any votes to pass their agenda.

THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO GAETZ’S STATUS IN THE HOUSE AND THE ETHICS COMMITTEE REPORT

That is a problem for House Republicans who regularly had a squadron of defectors – ranging from keeping the government open to even impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. This could even spell problems for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., returning to the Speaker’s suite. Johnson must win an outright majority of all House members voting when the new Congress convenes on January 3 to become Speaker. He’ll have a bit of a cushion when the new Congress starts. But it won’t be much. House Republicans still suffer from political PTSD after the 15 rounds it took to elect former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., early last year.

Yes. There will be special elections to fill the seats of Gaetz, Stefanik and Waltz. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has already called a special election for the Gaetz seat for April 1.

You can’t make this stuff up.

The other special elections are months away because Stefanik and Waltz haven’t resigned yet. In fact, if Stefanik is confirmed and resigns in late January, it may be May before there’s a special election in her seat – based on New York law and discretion afforded New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D).

The results in special elections sometimes produce “special” results. The usual electorate periodically stays home and the opposite party captures those seats in off-cycle elections. So, even though these are “Republican” seats, there’s no guarantee that Republicans will automatically prevail.

But if things go according to plan, Republicans will have those seats back in a few months, with a comparatively robust 220-215 majority. That means Republicans can lose up to two votes on any major issue.

But there are always absences. Always resignations.

And this isn’t limited to the Republican side of the aisle.

SPRINT TO CONFIRM TRUMP NOMINEES KICKS OFF IN JANUARY

There have long been concerns about the health and attendance of 79-year-old Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee. Scott faced criticism earlier this year over a lack of public appearances and interviews.

76-year-old Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., is the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee. Grijalva vowed that this term would be his last after suffering from cancer. The illness sidelined Grijalva for months. He missed more than 300 roll call votes on the floor between February and this fall and did not conduct interviews.

Late Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Tex., Bill Pascrell, D-N.J. and Donald Payne Jr., D-N.J., were all in office when they passed away this year. Late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., died in 2023.

Democrats make a lot of noise right now about the agenda of President-elect Trump. It will be incumbent on Democrats to have full attendance to oppose Republicans and generally make life miserable for the majority. But Democrats can only do that if they show up. All the time.

Such was the case when House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., had the votes of every House Democrat on each roll call for Speaker in January and October of last year. Only Rep. David Trone, D-Md., missed a couple of votes because he underwent a surgical procedure. But Trone returned to Capitol Hill later that evening to vote.

Rep. Al Green, D-Tex., was hospitalized this past February. But Green came to the Capitol in a wheelchair in February to help torpedo the initial effort to impeach Mayorkas. Republicans had three defectors on their side. Green’s vote fresh from a hospital gurney forced the GOP effort to fail on the floor and try again.

One factor which was a challenge for the GOP was the health of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. Scalise was diagnosed with cancer last year and was out the first part of 2023. Scalise has now recovered. But his absence hamstrung the GOP on big votes like the initial Mayorkas impeachment.

Unfortunately – and inevitably – there will be absences due to health. And God forbid, death. Rarely does a Congress pass without the death of a lawmaker – sometimes unforeseen. Late Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., and two aides died in a traffic accident during the summer of 2022.

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So listen for the attendance bells in the House next year. Check the weather forecast and the flight schedule at Reagan National Airport. Better look at Waze if they’re flying into Dulles. See if the flu or another round of COVID burns through Congress.

Yes. Understanding whether someone is for or against a given bill or amendment is always important in Congress. But what supersedes that is whether they’re actually present.

President Biden on Friday picked up a copy of a book that described Israel as a colonial power in the face of Palestinian resistance despite his repeated support for the Jewish state. 

Biden was spotted by the press leaving Nantucket Bookworks holding a copy of “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017” by Columbia University professor emeritus Rashid Khalidi, the New York Post reported. 

“I do not speak to the Post (or the Times for that matter), so this is not for publication, but my reaction is that this is four years too late,” Khalidi told the Post of Biden holding his book. 

The newspaper noted it did not agree to any terms conditioning Khalidi’s response as off the record or on background.

ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS ARRESTED IN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING

Fox News Digital has reached out to Khalidi and the White House.

The book argues that “the modern history of Palestine can best be understood in these terms: as a colonial war waged against the indigenous population, by a variety of parties, to force them to relinquish their homeland to another people against their will.” 

It was not clear if Biden purchased the book or if it was given to him. 

Khalidi, who is of Palestinian and Lebanese descent, called the first Trump administration a “mouthpiece” for Israel and has criticized Israel over the humanitarian toll in Gaza after Hamas killed about 1,200 people inside Israel Oct. 7, 2023, in addition to kidnapping hostages, including Americans. 

“It’s perfectly unclear, reading the Israeli press, what their political objective is. I mean, ethnic cleansing. That’s not a political objective. They’re doing that. They’re driving the population of the Northern Gaza Strip into the Southern Gaza Strip. But what their political objective is, is, to me, entirely unclear, in the writings of, as far as one can tell, from the Israeli press,” he said on the “Intercepted” podcast in November 2023.

Biden has repeatedly declared his support for Israel but has been criticized by Israeli supporters for putting conditions on U.S. aid to the Middle East ally and pausing shipments of heavy munitions to Israel earlier this year.

Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian supporters, who nicknamed Biden “Genocide Joe,” have increasingly criticized him and Netanyahu over civilian casualties in Gaza. Biden has also reportedly criticized his Israeli counterpart behind closed doors, the Post reported. 

The book, published in 2020 before Trump brokered relationships between Israel and five Muslim countries, criticized Trump for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day war. 

In the book, Khalidi wrote about Israel’s alleged discriminatory policies against Palestinians.

“Settler-colonial confrontations with indigenous peoples have only ended in one of three ways: with the elimination of full subjugation of the native population, as in North America; with the defeat and expulsion of the colonizer, as in Algeria, which is extremely rare; or with the abandonment of colonial supremacy, in the context of compromise and reconciliation, as in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Ireland,” he wrote.

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He also praised the first intifada by Palestinians against Israel, which occurred from 1987 to 1993 and left more than 2,000 people dead, the Post wrote. 

“The First Intifada was an outstanding example of popular resistance against oppression and can be considered as being the first unmitigated victory for the Palestinians in the long colonial war that began in 1917,” the book says.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries condemned several threats, mostly focused on lawmakers from Connecticut, targeting members of his caucus, just days after numerous threats were made against President-elect Trump’s Cabinet selections.

Jeffries, D-N.Y., confirmed in a statement Friday that several Democrats were targeted with threats ranging from pipe bombs in their mailboxes to “swatting” — or filing a false police report on another person’s behalf that often results in a SWAT team being dispatched.

All of the threatening messages were signed “MAGA,” Jeffries said, adding law enforcement found no ordnance at any of the targeted lawmakers’ homes.

“America is a democracy. Threats of violence against elected officials are unacceptable, unconscionable and have no place in a civilized society. All perpetrators of political violence directed at any party must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” he said. “House Democrats will not be deterred or intimidated from serving the people by violent threats. We have been in close communication with the Sergeant at Arms office and it is imperative that Congress provide maximum protection for all Members and their families moving forward.”

Later Friday, President Biden told reporters on Nantucket, Massachusetts, that his administration is working “hard” with the FBI on the threats to lawmakers and Trump nominees.

TOP DEM: ‘UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRATION’ IS A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY

After Jeffries spoke out, Rep. Seth Magaziner, a Democrat from neighboring Rhode Island, announced on Friday afternoon that his home had been targeted, as well. Magaziner said Providence police responded quickly and no one was harmed.

Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., had his home targeted by a bomb threat. A spokesperson said it appeared to be part of a “coordinated effort.”

Five other Democrats from the Constitution State received similar threats, including Reps. Joe Courtney, John Larson, Rosa DeLauro, Jahana Hayes and James Himes.

CT DEM SAYS IT’S CLEAR HUNTER BIDEN BROKE THE LAW

“There is no place for political violence in this country, and I hope that we may all continue through the holiday season with peace and civility,” said Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee who replaced Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

Prior to that spate of threats, Trump’s U.N. ambassador-designate Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said she was traveling home to her North Country district for Thanksgiving when she was informed of a threat against her home.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. — Trump’s initial choice for attorney general — also received a threat.

Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y. — Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency — said his home was subjected to a “pro-Palestinian-themed” pipe bomb threat. Zeldin is Jewish.

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Former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., whom the president-elect tapped for Labor secretary, said her Oregon home was targeted, as was that of former San Diego Chargers cornerback Scott Turner, whom Trump named to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Trump nominees including Cantor-Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, America First Policy Institute President Brooke Rollins and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth also received threats.

In a statement, the FBI said it is aware of “numerous bomb threats and swatting incidents targeting incoming administration nominees and appointees, and we are working with our law enforcement partners.”

“We take all potential threats seriously and, as always, encourage members of the public to immediately report anything they consider suspicious to law enforcement,” it said.

Fox News’ Kevin Ward contributed to this report.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has flown to Florida to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club after Trump threatened to impose sweeping tariffs on Canadian products.

A person familiar with the matter said Trudeau will have dinner with Trump. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc accompanied Trudeau on the trip. Trudeau’s visit comes days after Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico on the first day of his presidency over failures by both nations to curb the flow of illegal immigrants and illicit drugs from those countries into the United States. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Trump’s representatives. 

MEXICAN PRESIDENT MIGHT BE CHANGING VIEW ON US AS TRUMP WIN SENDS WARNING TO RULING SOCIALISTS 

“Right now a Caravan coming from Mexico, composed of thousands of people, seems to be unstoppable in its quest to come through our currently Open Border,” he wrote Monday on Truth Social. “On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders.”

On Wednesday, Trump spoke with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. He said Sheinbaum agreed to “stop Migration through Mexico, and into the United States,” following a productive discussion over the phone. 

Sheinbaum has promised to raise tariffs on U.S. goods if Trump followed through with his threat. 

Trump has previously urged America’s neighbors to the north and south to do more to prevent illegal migration into the U.S. and to combat the flow of illegal drugs, in particular fentanyl. 

Shortly after Trump’s tariff promises, Canadian officials said the country places the “highest priority” on border security.

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“Our relationship today is balanced and mutually beneficial, particularly for American workers,” Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said in a joint statement. “Today, Canada buys more from the United States than China, Japan, France, and the U.K. combined. Canada is essential to US domestic energy supply, and last year 60 percent of U.S. crude oil imports originated in Canada.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump transition, exclusive interviews and more Fox News politics content.

Here’s what’s happening…

-op 5 biggest political turkeys ripped by conservatives in 2024

-Connecticut House Democrats report being targeted by bomb threats on Thanksgiving

-Biden thankful for smooth transition of power, urges Trump to ‘rethink’ tariffs on Canada and Mexico

Farm to Table

Several liberal figures called on conservatives and President-elect Donald Trump supporters to give thanks to illegal immigrants on Thanksgiving, suggesting they acknowledge a large portion of migrants were the ones who harvested and packed their entrées enjoyed on Thursday.

“Everyone at the dinner table today, especially MAGA, please give thanks to the undocumented immigrants that picked and packed the food you’re enjoying,” said former Obama Housing & Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro.

“They deserve our grace. Happy Thanksgiving,” the former San Antonio mayor added.

Castro’s post was lambasted by respondents, who rhetorically asked which crops were being picked by the migrants flooding New York City and Chicago, while others suggested the characterizations were “racist” assumptions about farmworkers…Read more

Trump Transition

TRANS IN MILITARY?: Trump team dismisses reports he will discharge trans in military: ‘No decisions on this issue have been made’…Read more

COMMON UNDERSTANDING: Trump says Mexico will stop flow of migrants after speaking with Mexican president following tariff threats…Read more

‘RADICAL LEFT LUNATICS’: Trump delivers Thanksgiving message to ‘Radical Left Lunatics’…Read more

Trail Dust

MEDIA SHAKEUP: Inside how podcasters helped make Trump close the deal with young male voters…Read more

STILL HOT: Political betting markets still have plenty of action despite end of election season…Read more

Capitol Hill

IOWA RACE: Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks beats Dem challenger in state’s 1st Congressional District…Read more

Across America 

GAME PLAN: New Republican Governors chair, pointing to campaign battles ahead, touts ‘our policies are better’…Read more

CALIFORNIA RACE: Democrat Derek Tran unseats Rep. Michelle Steel in California’s 45th Congressional District…Read more

GIANT CUTS: Top auto giants reporting job, factory cuts amid heightened push into EV market…Read more

BUS RIDE BACK HOME: Texas could bus migrants to directly to ICE for deportation instead of sanctuary cities under proposed plan…Read more

‘HUGE WIN’: Federal court of appeals just ruled that Texas has the right to build the razor wire border wall…Read more

EVACUATION DAY?: What is Evacuation Day? The forgotten holiday that predates Thanksgiving…Read more

CANADIAN ‘EMPIRE’?: New York lawmaker suggests NYS, New England secede to Canada over Trump…Read more

Get the latest updates on the Trump presidential transition, incoming Congress, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com.

After its Facebook account was indefinitely suspended, the popular American gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson thanked Elon Musk and X for supporting free speech amid what it called ongoing attacks against the First and Second Amendments.

In a Friday post on X, Smith & Wesson announced that it had been indefinitely suspended from Facebook after the platform flagged several of its posts for promoting the sale of weapons.

Founded in 1852 in Norwich, Connecticut, today Smith & Wesson is based in Maryville, Tennessee, and is one of the most recognized gun brands in America, reporting $535.8 million in sales in the 2024 fiscal year.

Smith & Wesson said that “despite our extensive efforts and resources spent on trying to adhere to Facebook’s ever-changing community guidelines on firearms, our account was suspended indefinitely on Friday, November 22nd, 15 years after its original creation.”

ELON MUSK PLEDGES SUPPORT FOR THE SECOND AMENDMENT: ‘TYRANTS’ DISARM THE PEOPLE

The manufacturer shared a screenshot of the suspension notice it had received from Facebook in which the platform said several posts dated Nov. 22, 13 and July 18 violated the rules on promoting weapons.

Facebook’s commerce policy prohibits the promotion of buying, selling and trading of weapons, ammunition and explosives. However, according to Facebook’s parent company Meta’s website, there is an exception for legitimate brick-and-mortar and online retailers, though their content is still restricted for minors.

ZUCKERBERG SAYS ‘ESTABLISHMENT’ ASKED FACEBOOK TO CENSOR COVID MISINFO THAT ENDED UP TRUE: ‘UNDERMINES TRUST’ 

Smith & Wesson said that while it would work to reinstate its account, it encouraged its 1.6 million Facebook followers and fans to “seek out platforms” that represent the “shared values” of free speech and the right to bear arms.

“In an era where free speech and the right to bear arms are under constant attack, we want to thank Elon Musk and X for supporting free speech and our constitutional rights guaranteed by the 1st and 2nd Amendments,” said Smith & Wesson.

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Musk responded to the post by saying, “[we] believe in the Constitution.” He also pointed out that X had resumed allowing users to post the gun emoji after it was replaced by a water gun by Twitter in 2018. 

The National Association for Gun Rights, which is a Second Amendment advocacy group with over 4.5 million activists, also chimed in, saying, “Thank you for giving us a place to shelter in this storm of Constitution-hating companies.”

In a separate post, the association called X one of the last holdouts for free speech and gun rights.

“It is becoming clear that X is one of the last major bastions of 2A and Firearms content on social media,” said the group, adding, “the noose is slowly tightening everywhere else, seeking to squeeze us out entirely.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Meta for comment but had not heard back at the time of publication. 

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha is urging NATO leaders to invite Ukraine to join the Western military alliance during a meeting in Brussels next week, according to a letter sent to alliance leaders—reflecting the country’s frenzied push to gain membership in the alliance in the final days of Biden’s presidency. 

The letter, first reviewed by Reuters, comes as Ukraine has re-upped its request for NATO membership to help put an end to Russia’s war, including a recent uptick in attacks on its energy infrastructure. It also comes as the Biden administration has granted Ukraine new permissions to fight back against Russia in their final months in office. 

In the letter, Ukraine’s foreign minister acknowledged his country’s ongoing war with Russia prohibits Kyiv from joining NATO right now. But he argued that an invitation for membership in Brussels would be a powerful show of force—and a major symbolic blow—to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has long opposed the idea of their membership in NATO.

“We believe that the invitation should be extended at this stage,” Sybiha said in the letter. “It will become the Allies’ adequate response to Russia’s constant escalation of the war it has unleashed, the latest demonstration of which is the involvement of tens of thousands of North Korean troops and the use of Ukraine as a testing ground for new weapons,” he added.

Also on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used an interview on Sky News to up the public pressure for NATO leaders to extend his country a membership offer.

Speaking Friday to Sky News’s Stuart Ramsay, the Ukrainian president suggested that NATO could extend membership to the territory of Ukraine still under its control to help accelerate the NATO memberhsip process and wind down Russia’s war as quickly as possible.

“If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” he told Ramsay. NATO should “immediately” cover parts of the country that are under Ukrainian authority, he said, stressing that it it something Ukraine needs “very much otherwise he will come back,” in apparent reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Ukraine would face many hurdles in attempting to join NATO, despite assurances from the alliance that it is on an “irreversible path” to membership.

That’s because Ukraine lacks two key requirements for NATO membership: territorial integrity and the absence of ongoing conflict. Currently, Russia controls roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory, Rebekah Koffler, a strategic military intelligence analyst and author of “Putin’s Playbook,” told Fox News Digital in an interview Friday. 

Any country hoping to gain membership “cannot have ongoing conflict because of Article 5,” Koffler said. 

For Russia,”it is a red line for Ukraine to be part of NATO,” Koffler added, since Russian President Vladimir Putin considers Ukraine part of Russia’s strategic security perimeter.

NATO members are also split over the idea of accepting Ukraine. “Those who are against it are concerned about Article 5 obligations: admitting Ukraine into NATO would automatically place the United States and the entire NATO alliance at war with Russia because of the collective defense clause,” Koffler said.

The State Department said Friday that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spoken by phone to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Sybiha to discuss battlefield updates and incoming U.S. security assistance in wake of recent Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. On the call, officials said, Blinken “briefed the Foreign Minister on U.S. goals for sustainable support for Ukraine, to be discussed at upcoming diplomatic engagements with NATO and through the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.”

The press release stopped short of detailing any further overtures to Ukraine.

Still, Ukraine’s push for membership comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his administration brace for the many unknowns of a second Trump presidency. Trump has long expressed skepticism of NATO, and suggested as recently as this year that he could end the war between Russian and Ukraine “in a day.”  

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While Ukraine’s push for NATO membership is not new, the timeline for leaders to approve their bid has taken on new urgency, as the war nears its third year and as President-elect Trump prepares to take office again.

NATO membership was included as one of the first— and most important—steps in Zelenskyy’s multi-part “victory plan” to help win the war against Russia.

The outline, which his administration published in October, suggested that Ukraine could put an end to the war with Russia as early as 2025, if the country’s requests are granted for more weapons and the continued ability to carry out military operations on Russian soil. 

Any country hoping to gain membership “cannot have ongoing conflict because of Article 5,” Koffler said. 

For Russia,”it is a red line for Ukraine to be part of NATO,” Koffler added, since Russian President Vladimir Putin considers Ukraine part of Russia’s strategic security perimeter.

President Joe Biden, for his part, has used his final weeks in office to authorize new permissions for Ukraine in the ongoing war with Ukraine.

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Earlier this month, the Biden administration granted Ukraine new permission to use U.S.-supplied long-range weapons to strike targets inside Russian teritory. Later, they also signed off on the transfer of anti-personnel mines to bolster Ukrainian army defenses in the east. 

A powerful New York State Democrat made waves when she suggested the Empire State “think outside the box” like President-elect Trump is with his mass-deportation plans and potentially secede to Canada, or at least battle the feds if they try to strip federal funding from the state.

New York Democratic state Sen. Liz Krueger suggested to Politico that if Trump follows through with a reported threat to slash federal funding from “sanctuary” jurisdictions, Albany could return fire against Washington for holding back some or all of the more than $360 billion it annually sends to the Treasury.

“We’re talking a lot of money. We’re talking money we couldn’t possibly replace unless we started sending the feds a lot less money,” the state Senate Finance Committee chairwoman told Politico, noting the feds similarly fund billions in New York Medicaid subsidies.

Krueger was also asked about a recent comment about joining America’s neighbor to the north now that Trump is president-elect.

“If Trump won, yes,” she told City & State NY prior to the election, regarding having her state join neighboring Quebec and Ontario as its own “southern province.”

NEW YORK RIPE FOR TRUMP’S TAKING: NYSGOP CHAIR

Meanwhile, a top official in the New York Republican Party suggested Friday that Krueger have at it.

“Liz Krueger is a completely unserious person,” said David Laska, communications director for the NYSGOP. “She should feel free to lead the way and expatriate: New Yorkers won’t miss her bloviating,” Laska told Fox News Digital.

On X, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley posted an image of CSA Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendering at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, at the end of the Civil War.

“While perhaps tempting for many, State Sen. Liz Krueger is not the first to ‘think outside the box’,” Turley wrote.

“Apparently, when elections don’t go your way, the solution is to plant the Maple Leaf flag in America,” wrote the conservative X aggregator site Twitchy.

“I’ll treat you to a one-way ticket to Montreal on the climate-friendly Amtrak,” wrote political strategist and former New York Post reporter Candice Giove. Krueger had headlined a Monday climate change demonstration with Democratic Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz.

“Your elitist proposal to leave the U.S. and become a Canadian province is an insult to my uncle, who died for our nation. It’ll be the best $122 spent,” Giove said, posting a screenshot of the latest fare for the national railroad’s “Adirondack” service.

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Krueger had suggested New York’s fellow liberal New England neighbors band together and become the newest Canadian province since icy Nunavut split from the Northwest Territories in 1999.

“I thought I would suggest to Canada that instead of us all trying to illegally cross the border at night without them noticing, which is pretty hard because there’s a lot of us, that they should instead agree to let us be the southeast province, a new province of Canada, and I offered, even though I hadn’t gotten agreement from other states yet, that I thought New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, would combine and be a great new province as the southeast province of Canada,” she said. 

Krueger said she loves the U.S. and that Trump winning a second term is not her fault or that of New York — which ultimately awarded its electors to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Krueger said at the time that “basically everybody” in the northeastern states is a progressive Democrat in the vein of Canadian liberal leadership.

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Krueger also reportedly received “unofficial responses” from Canadians who characterized the idea as “sellable in Ottawa.”

However, in remarks to Fox News Digital later Friday, Krueger said her secession idea was a “joke, of course.”

“But what is actually deadly serious is the threat from Donald Trump to take away tens of billions of dollars in federal money from New York and other states that didn’t support him in the election,” she said. 

“And those Trump cuts will affect all New Yorkers, whether they voted for him or not. They could impact healthcare coverage for millions of people, thousands of manufacturing jobs, transportation infrastructure that millions of New Yorkers rely on — the list goes on. So, though obviously New York is not going to become part of Canada, we will need to think outside the box to try to protect New Yorkers from Trump’s vindictive and destructive policies.”

Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar”-designate and an upstate New York native himself, told “The Ingraham Angle” this week that people who say they will stand in the way of mass deportation proceedings will fail.

“I’m going to do this job — the men and women of ICE are going to do this job — you’re not going to stop us,” said Homan, who hails from the Fort Drum area.

“If you impede us, there’s going to be consequences,” Homan warned.

During the election, Trump pledged to “save” New York and saw thousands gather for a rally at Madison Square Garden. 

In Manhattan, Reuters reported Trump only won a single voting precinct called Two Bridges — between the Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge — near both Chinatown and the “Five Points” immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York.” The area is reportedly 80% Asian American.

Meanwhile, other New York Democrats blamed some within their own party for Harris’ loss instead of lambasting Trump.

Rep. Ritchie Torres of The Bronx recently said Trump can thank the “far left” for his win, suggesting progressives delving into “absurdities” like “from the river to the sea” and “Latinx” alienated many minority voters who would typically vote Democrat.

Several liberal figures called on conservatives and President-elect Donald Trump supporters to give thanks to illegal immigrants on Thanksgiving, suggesting they acknowledge a large portion of migrants were the ones who harvested and packed their entrées enjoyed on Thursday.

“Everyone at the dinner table today, especially MAGA, please give thanks to the undocumented immigrants that picked and packed the food you’re enjoying,” said former Obama Housing & Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro.

“They deserve our grace. Happy Thanksgiving,” the former San Antonio mayor added.

Castro’s post was lambasted by respondents, who rhetorically asked which crops were being picked by the migrants flooding New York City and Chicago, while others suggested the characterizations were “racist” assumptions about farmworkers.

Others replied by saying this Thanksgiving they are “thankful for Tom Homan” – Trump’s incoming border czar.

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Meanwhile, on MSNBC, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., was asked about migrant farmworkers who may not have legal status in the U.S.

Host Jonathan Capehart reported Thanksgiving costs were down 5% over 2023 and that nearly half of farmworkers are noncitizens.

“There’s no indication that Donald Trump would exempt agricultural workers from his calls for mass deportation when he takes office,” Capehart told Garcia. 

“Donald Trump ran a whole campaign centered around denigrating and sometimes outright lying about immigrants… Immigrant labor is a key part of the American economy, and that includes immigrants who pick so much of the food that all of us will eat tomorrow and on Thanksgiving.”

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Garcia said he “completely agrees” with the pundit, adding that team Trump’s rhetoric has been “frankly un-American and shameful and would harm the economy.”

Garcia added that many food service workers also lack legal status and that it would be wrong to ignore their contributions this Thanksgiving.

“So the idea that we’re going to have mass-deport all of these workers that we depend on that our families depend on is absolutely crazy. It’s inhumane, it is un-American,” he said, adding mass deportations of those workers would badly hurt the economy.

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“I think it’s really quite shameful what’s actually happening right now. I hope Americans push back on it, and especially this Thanksgiving, are thinking about all these people that are just asking to be here just so they can work and provide for their families and quite frankly, provide for the country.”

Actor and occasional Trump critic John Fugelsang posted on X that when the Wampanoag Native Americans fed the pilgrims who landed in present-day Massachusetts, “they had no idea they’d just invented a social safety net for undocumented immigrants.”

In that vein, a meme circulated on X depicting a pilgrim accepting a roasted turkey from a Native American with the caption, “Thanksgiving: Celebrating the day Americans fed undocumented immigrants from Europe.”