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A deadly confrontation at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend is the latest in a string of high-profile security incidents involving President Donald Trump, as former Secret Service officials warn that low-tech, lone actors now pose one of the toughest challenges to presidential protection.

“It should be quite clear to all of us by now that Trump is the most threatened president in the history of the U.S.,” former Secret Service agent William “Bill” Gage told Fox News Digital Monday, pointing to multiple high-profile incidents in recent years. Unlike past presidencies, where threat levels often subsided over time, Gage said, “the longer he’s president, the more these attacks keep happening.”

Gage said the most difficult cases to prevent are often the least sophisticated. The recent incidents, he noted, were “super low-tech attacks by people with zero training,” using rudimentary weapons. “If you were standing behind them in line at Starbucks, you wouldn’t have given them a second look,” he said.

Gage said the threat landscape shifted over the course of his 12-year career as a Secret Service agent. When he joined the Secret Service in 2002, he said the agency was moving away from what he described as the traditional “lone gunman” model — figures like Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated John F. Kennedy, or international militants such as “Carlos the Jackal,” one of the world’s most wanted terrorists in the ’70s and 80s — and adapting to a post-9/11 world focused on coordinated terrorist networks like al Qaeda and later ISIS.

“But if you look at Butler and the two incidents at Mar-a-Lago, those were super low-tech attacks,” Gage said. “The low-tech actors are the ones that tend to slip through the cracks.”

He also warned of a potential copycat effect when details of such incidents become public. 

“If it were up to the Secret Service, they would never report any of these incidents ever,” Gage said, arguing that widespread coverage allows others to “study what happened” and attempt to refine it. 

In today’s hyperconnected political climate, he said, that dynamic adds another layer of complexity for agents trying to stop the next threat before it materializes.

In the early hours of Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, a 21-year-old man identified as Austin Tucker Martin of North Carolina was shot and killed by U.S. Secret Service agents and a local sheriff’s deputy after entering the secure perimeter of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

Authorities say Martin drove through the north gate carrying a shotgun and a gasoline can. After being ordered to drop both, he dropped the can but raised the shotgun toward officers, who fired and killed him at the scene. Trump and First lady Melania Trump were in Washington at the time.

The incident marked the third highly publicized security encounter involving Trump in less than two years. In July 2024, a gunman opened fire at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing Trump’s ear and killing an attendee before being shot by a Secret Service sniper. In September 2024, a man armed with a rifle was confronted by agents near Trump’s golf course while he was playing; that suspect was later convicted on attempted assassination charges.

While the incidents have drawn intense attention, former Deputy Assistant Director Don Mihalek said the latest Mar-a-Lago intrusion does not necessarily signal a breakdown in protective systems.

“He got through an exterior gate of an active club,” Mihalek told Fox News Digital. “This wasn’t someone reaching the president’s residence.” Agents confronted the suspect within seconds, he said, describing the rapid response as evidence that overlapping security layers functioned as designed.

Mihalek said presidential protection relies on multiple rings of security because outer perimeters at properties like Mar-a-Lago cannot be sealed in the same way as the White House. “If he ended up in the president’s house on Mar-a-Lago, that might be a different conversation,” he said.

He also cautioned against viewing recent incidents in isolation, noting that presidents routinely face roughly 2,000 threats per year, most of which are mitigated before the public ever becomes aware of them. “These just happen to be very public instances,” Mihalek said, arguing that the social media era amplifies perceptions of escalation.

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Mihalek pointed to last summer’s rally shooting in Butler as an example of how early intervention can be decisive, noting that local law enforcement had reportedly identified the suspect prior to the attack. “If somebody had walked up and said, ‘Hey, who are you?’ we wouldn’t be talking about Butler,” he said.

As Trump prepares to address Congress at the State of the Union, both former officials said the security posture at the Capitol is unlikely to change in response to the weekend incident.

The annual address is designated a National Special Security Event — the highest level of federal security planning — triggering coordination among the Secret Service, U.S. Capitol Police, FBI, War Department and other agencies. The designation allows for expanded perimeter controls, airspace restrictions and continuity-of-government planning.

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Gage, who previously led advance planning for State of the Union addresses, said the event operates under a well-established security “blueprint” built to account for worst-case scenarios. “There’s really no way to increase it anymore,” he said.

Both former officials said the defining challenge for presidential protection today is unpredictability: individuals with minimal training, rudimentary weapons and the ability to find reinforcement online. Unlike organized extremist networks, such actors may leave few detectable signals before acting.

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FIRST ON FOX: After President Donald Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem met Monday with Angel Families impacted by crimes committed by illegal immigrants, the agency announced it had arrested additional illegal immigrants convicted of sexual assault and violent crimes.

Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis told Fox News Digital that “while Americans were enjoying their weekends, the heroic men and women of ICE were working around the clock to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens out of our country, including pedophiles, rapists and violent assailants.”

Bis said that while “sanctuary politicians and the media ignore the victims of criminal illegal immigrant crime. Today, President Trump and Secretary Noem met with Angel families and victims at the White House,” adding that “these victims and their families are why we continue to fight for the arrest and removal of illegal aliens from our communities.”

Among those arrested by ICE this weekend was Gerardo Moran-Cisneros, from Mexico, who was convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years old in Los Angeles. Also in Los Angeles, ICE arrested Jathniel Rei Tangkilisan, from Indonesia, convicted of domestic battery in Hollywood.

In the Los Angeles suburbs, ICE arrested Hoang Dung Duong, from Vietnam, who was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in Santa Ana, California.  

Across the country in New York City, ICE arrested Pedro Pichasaca-Dutan, from Ecuador, who was convicted of rape. In nearby Somerset County, New Jersey, ICE arrested Mexican national Victor Ortiz-Ramos, who was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a victim less than 13 years old.

Also in New Jersey, which is a sanctuary state, ICE arrested Carlos Aparicio-Zarate, also from Mexico, who was convicted of aggravated assault — serious bodily injury in Asbury Park.

In the Chicago suburb of Wheaton, Illinois, Martin Villanueva-Arenas, another Mexican illegal, was arrested by ICE following his conviction for aggravated criminal sexual assault of a child, leaving the scene of an accident and resisting a peace officer.

In Chicago proper, ICE arrested Jose Parada-Valdivia, from Mexico, who is convicted of possession with intent to distribute cocaine. Meanwhile, ICE also arrested Mexican national Juan Ortiz-Pozos, who is convicted of aggravated vehicular hijacking and aggravated battery on a peace officer in Chicago’s Cook County.  

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In Houston, ICE arrested Javid Finton McLawrence, from Grenada, who was convicted of indecent assault. In the Dallas-area Tarrant County, ICE apprehended Jeremias Hernandez-Fernandez, from Mexico, who was convicted of indecency with a child.

Over the weekend, ICE also arrested Mexican nationals Juan Vasquez-Perez, convicted of third-degree sex abuse in Johnson County, Iowa, and Esteban De Paz Jimenez, convicted of assault and battery on a family member, aggravated robbery and preventing summons of law enforcement in Caroline County, Virginia. The agency also arrested Claudy Ngoy, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill in Wake County, North Carolina.

On Sunday, Trump signed a declaration proclaiming Feb. 22 “National Angel Family Day” in honor of the “thousands of American lives stolen from us by criminal illegal aliens and the deadly drugs they bring across our borders.”

In the declaration, Trump reaffirmed his commitment to combatting illegal immigrant crime, writing, “We stand with the Angel Families, many of whom continue to be left without justice” and “we recommit to carrying out the largest mass-deportation effort in our Nation’s history, getting the worst of the worst out of our country, and putting a stop to the violence targeting the brave men and women of law enforcement.”

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Among those present for the Angel Family event were Allyson Phillips, mother of slain Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, Alexis Nungaray, mother of slain Houston teen Jocelyn Nungaray, and the family of Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother of five who was killed by an illegal alien.

Trump told the families, “For too long, your stories were suppressed so that politicians could open our borders. But today, the world hears you.”

“We are not just mitigating the threat anymore; we are eliminating it,” he went on, adding, “The justice delivered in Tapalpa this weekend is just the beginning for every family in this room.”

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Several of the Angel Families spoke during the event as well, with Phillips telling Trump, “You are a man of your word, Mr. President.”

“My daughter Laken didn’t die in vain,” said Phillips. “Because of the Laken Riley Act and the work you’re doing to clear out these monsters, other mothers won’t have to live my nightmare.”

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The Trump administration is escalating pressure on Senate Democrats as negotiations to end the partial government shutdown remain at a standstill.

The partial government shutdown, which is only affecting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), entered its second week on Monday. So far, the impacts of the shutdown have been minimal, but the pain could be coming soon as the agency activates “emergency measures” while the shutdown drags on.

DHS announced over the weekend it would be making tweaks to some of the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) functions that could lead to longer wait times for passengers and lawmakers alike.

“Shutdowns have real-world consequences, not just for the men and women of DHS and their families who go without a paycheck, but it endangers our national security,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. “The American people depend on this department every day, and we are making tough but necessary workforce and resource decisions to mitigate the damage inflicted by these politicians.”

The agency announced that, for now, TSA PreCheck would stay operational after a back-and-forth over whether to continue the program during the shutdown. The program is used by more than 20 million people to speed up wait times at airports across the country, according to the agency. However, courtesy escorts for members of Congress have been suspended.

“At this time, TSA PreCheck remains operational with no change for the traveling public,” a spokesperson for the agency told Fox News Digital. “As staffing constraints arise, TSA will evaluate on a case-by-case basis and adjust operations accordingly.”

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Much of the real pain that could come from a prolonged shutdown will have to do with TSA agents missing paychecks. That became a major factor during the historic 43-day shutdown last fall that saw wait times skyrocket and flight cancellations compound by the day.

Some Republicans believe it will take that kind of disruption to get Democrats to reverse course on their current position.

“Nothing’s going to happen here until flights get shut down, right? When TSA workers stop showing up,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital. “When the Democrats, you know, can’t fly, then they’ll give in. I mean, they don’t care, because they’re being paid.”

Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the White House are gridlocked in their ongoing back-and-forth over a compromise to fund the agency.

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Schumer and his caucus want more stringent reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), following deadly shootings in Minnesota amid immigration operations. The White House has so far been willing to entertain some of the changes they’ve proposed, but Republicans have drawn red lines on imposing judicial warrant requirements and unmasking agents, among other provisions.

That means a bulk of the agency is going without funding as both sides continue to butt heads, given that ICE and some immigration enforcement functions are flush with funding from the “big, beautiful bill.”

The tweaks to TSA are not the only steps DHS has taken to implement emergency measures during the shutdown.

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Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has halted Global Entry at airports and diverted agents to instead help process travelers.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has also stopped all public assistance for ongoing disasters, paused non-emergency work, halted non-disaster-related activities and restricted personnel travel to activities “strictly necessary to respond to active disasters and life-safety emergencies,” according to the agency.

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A Republican lawmaker is teaming up with outspoken detransitioner Chloe Cole to push federal legislation that would block gender-related medical procedures for minors, saying that children are being rushed into receiving treatments with life-altering results.

The Chloe Cole Act is being introduced on Monday as federal legislation aimed at protecting minors from gender-related medical procedures. 

Rep. Bob Onder, R-Mo., who is behind the bill, has a medical degree and is sounding the alarm over the impact that gender-related treatments can have on minors. The congressman told Fox News Digital that his bill will not only protect minors from these treatments, but will also give children and parents the right to hold medical professionals accountable in court.

“We know that in the last 15 years, the transgender movement has convinced tens of thousands of boys and girls that they are born in the wrong body…. And then a chain of transgender clinics has exploited these kids for the ideology and for the profit and really done permanent damage to the health of those kids with wrong sex hormones, puberty blockers and even mutilating surgeries,” Onder told Fox News Digital.

The congressman said the Chloe Cole Act arises from President Donald Trump‘s January 2025 order titled, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The order encouraged lawmakers to “work to draft, propose, and promote legislation to enact a private right of action for children and the parents of children whose healthy body parts have been damaged by medical professionals practicing chemical and surgical mutilation.” The order noted that statutes of limitations for these cases should be “lengthy.”

Cole, who has become a prominent detransition advocate, told Fox News Digital that the legislation is “a vital step in our mission to ensure that no minor in America ever endures the kind of lasting, irreparable damage I experienced.”

“While we’ve made significant strides in raising awareness and enacting protections in recent years, the fight is far from over. Too many children remain at risk of irreversible harm from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures pushed on them before they can fully understand the consequences,” Cole said in a statement provided exclusively to Fox News Digital.

“We must finish what we’ve started and safeguard the next generation from these experimental and barbaric treatments,” she added.

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A recent legal judgment in New York has provided advocates like Cole some hope in holding medical providers accountable. Recently, a jury awarded 22-year-old Fox Varian $2 million in damages after she sued a plastic surgeon who performed a double mastectomy on her when she was a teenager. Varian’s lawsuit was also aimed at her psychologist. The New York Times noted that Varian claimed the 2019 double mastectomy left her disfigured. Varian, like Cole, was born female and at one point identified as a man. She is now undergoing the detransition process.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has previously expressed support for providing minors with gender-related medical treatment.

“The AAP and other major medical organizations — including the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the World Health Organization — support giving transgender adolescents access to the health care they need,” a 2023 statement from the AAP read. “The AAP opposes any laws or regulations that discriminate against transgender and gender-diverse individuals, or that interfere in the doctor-patient relationship.”

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Cole celebrated the judgment, and said in a Fox News Digital op-ed: “There are so many other young people like us. We were lied to by doctors, nurses and therapists when we were vulnerable and confused children. They did irreversible harm to our bodies and minds, making a mockery of the medical profession. They should absolutely be held accountable for sacrificing us in service to radical transgender ideology.”

In her op-ed, Cole brought up a subject that Onder also touched on during his interview with Fox News Digital: the prevalence of medical professionals warning parents that their child could harm themselves or even commit suicide if they are not allowed to undergo the procedures.

“Those parents are being lied to,” Onder said. “The words I hear quoted over and over again, by Chloe, by Luka Hein, by others, is that their parents were told, ‘Would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?’ implying that the risk of suicide is approaching 100%, but nothing could be further from the truth. That is an utter lie,” Onder said.

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The congressman lambasted the industry behind gender-related medical procedures, wondering if children were being pushed into the surgeries because of “sick ideology” or a “desire for profit.”

“Parents are being lied to, the transgender clinics and the transgender doctors are making off with a lot of money. It’s really a despicable development in American medicine. And as a physician, I look forward to the day where it’s in our rearview mirror and no longer are kids being exploited,” the congressman added.

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Imagine a boxing match.

A boxing match may only go a few rounds. But it’s a big production. There’s a massive buildup for weeks in the press. There’s the weigh-in. Both fighters enter the ring to fanfare. Everyone scans the crowd to see “who” is there or nabbed seats close to the ring. Celebrities. Actors. Musicians. Models. Other famous athletes.

There’s a lot to see.

And that’s why the president’s State of the Union speech is similar.

Yeah, there’s the speech. But there’s a lot more on which to focus when President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. It may range from what “trunks” the fighters wear when they enter the ring to who is serving as their cornermen.

Do you train your attention on the speech itself and what the president says? Does he deliver a stemwinder of an address, veering off into any number of political tributaries and addressing countless grievances? Do you observe the delivery of a president who maintains a mostly loyal MAGA base but struggles with soaring disapproval ratings? What about the presence of Supreme Court justices who ruled against the president last week on tariffs, one of the most seminal issues of his administration? How about his push to double down on tariff policies, despite the decision by the High Court? We haven’t even discussed what the president may say about ICE, unrest in the Twin Cities, the stalemate over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. And that’s to say nothing about the possibility of invading Iran or new questions emerging about Greenland.

This is just an incomplete list regarding the speech. But State of the Union messages are now laced with theater and performance. It extends well beyond what the president may say or do. Lawmakers were practically props a few decades ago, applauding and cheering when they heard the president tout a policy or achievement they endorsed. Or, sitting silently if something came up which they opposed.

Now, State of the Union is a participatory if not contact sport. The president’s most ardent opponents are expected to make noise, heckle, boo, shout or even upbraid the president. Think of the iconic photo depicting Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, waving his cane at Trump before House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., banished him from the address last year. Or former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., on their feet, jeering former President Joe Biden a few years ago.

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Tuesday night will serve as a test for congressional decorum. Expect outbursts and shouted retorts. But we’ll see if anyone raises – or lowers – the bar when it comes to their conduct compared to Johnson bouncing Green from the chamber last year.

Then there’s the old “look who I brought” to the speech watch. Democrats may gravitate toward pillars of their community, local heroes or those wronged by ICE. Republicans may bring along local law enforcement officials helpful toward the detention and deportment of those in the country illegally. Or the relatives of those harmed by illegal immigrants.

There’s also a question of whether some lawmakers will show up.

Some Republicans representing vulnerable districts or competitive states may skip out to build distance between themselves and the largely unpopular president. Meantime, a growing number of Democrats plan to attend an alternative to the president’s address. They are eschewing the speech in exchange for what they call the “People’s State of the Union” on the National Mall.

Some Democrats may pull double duty.

One wonders if some lawmakers — of both parties — will use travel issues posed by the East Coast blizzard as a convenient excuse to skip out.

Someone who might not skip out: former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y. The House expelled Santos in late 2023. Only the sixth member ever kicked out of the House. But as a former member, Santos still has privileges to come and go from the Capitol as he wants. So Santos showed up for Biden’s State of the Union in 2024. Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and identity theft in 2024. But Trump commuted Santos’ sentence last fall.

And then there is who reacts to Trump. Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, delivers the official Democratic response. She’s a moderate former congresswoman who prevailed last fall by campaigning on “affordability.” Republicans will focus on Spanberger and plans to redraw House districts in Virginia to offset prospective gains by GOPers through redistricting — at the president’s behest — in Texas.

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Three other prominent Virginians have delivered rebuttals to State of the Union messages in recent years.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., was Virginia’s governor when he responded to President George W. Bush in 2006. Democrats drafted Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., to deliver the response to Bush’s 2007 speech. Republicans tapped Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell to speak after Obama’s 2010 oratory. Most responses to presidential State of the Union addresses either don’t go well or are barely remembered. It may be noteworthy if Spanberger hacks through the noise at all and people remember anything from her presentation.

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., will deliver the Democrats’ response in Spanish. This will be Padilla’s highest-profile moment since guards protecting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem threw the senator to the ground when he interrupted her remarks about ICE during a news conference in Los Angeles in June.

The president will be on screen most of the time during the speech. But the two men who likely rival Trump for screentime are Johnson and Vice President JD Vance. Or at least their torsos will as they’re half visible in the frame, sitting above Trump on the House dais. Johnson will run the show, as he is speaker of the House. Vance is there in his capacity as president of the Senate. Both are seated directly behind the president.

Johnson owes much of his viability as speaker to Trump. And Vance’s viability as a potential 2028 presidential candidate may hinge on the president as well. Reporting emerged this week that Trump is questioning advisors about who should carry the MAGA torch after he leaves office: Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio will appear in the chamber as part of the president’s Cabinet. The network pool feed will inevitably grab shots of Rubio when Trump discusses the January raid in Venezuela, Iran, Greenland, the future of NATO or the U.S.’ relationship with Canada. But Vance will be in the picture — literally — most of the night. Viewers are sure to watch for Vance’s demeanor. Commentators will dissect and parse various reactions and body language of the vice president. And everyone will hear whether he namechecks Vance or Rubio during his remarks.

Lots to see. Lots to examine. Lots to debate. But State of the Union addresses are not what they were. We see the president all the time. Be it on TV. Social media. Memes. Presidential messages and their impacts were curated differently not that long ago. People didn’t see or hear from the president very often. Today, the public hears from this president, in particular, all the time. So that alone diminishes the impact of such a speech.

Still, this is the annual televised boxing match of American politics. Everyone will “score” which side landed blows. Who won which round? And, how badly one side or the other bludgeoned their opponent.

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But we enter the arena on a daily basis in politics and not just once a year. Every day is a slugfest evaluated by the public. And while it remains a big day on the annual political calendar, State of the Union may have shrunk in its impact.

Today’s politics feature a daily undercard bout. And the public is usually obsessed with social media, watching for TKOs.

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The Justice Department announced Friday the firing of a second court-appointed U.S. attorney in as many weeks, revealing the swift removal of another prosecutor selected by federal judges to lead a district.

The judges in the Eastern District of Virginia had chosen veteran lawyer James Hundley to fill the vacancy left by Trump-appointee Lindsey Halligan, who stepped down from the role last month after the court said she was illegitimately serving. A top DOJ official quickly announced Hundley’s termination on social media, intensifying the ongoing fight between the executive and judicial branches over who has authority to choose the top prosecutors in each of the 93 federal court districts.

“Here we go again. EDVA judges do not pick our US Attorney. POTUS does. James Hundley, you’re fired!” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote on X.

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Blanche’s comment echoed a similar one he made when announcing the termination of Donald Kinsella after judges in the Northern District of New York chose him to replace Trump appointee John Sarcone, whom they also disqualified.

Constitutional scholar John Yoo recently told Fox News Digital that while the law gives judges the authority to choose a lawyer to fill a U.S. attorney vacancy, the Constitution and court precedent clearly grant the president — not the attorney general or deputy attorney general — the power to dismiss U.S. attorneys at will.

Underscoring that the decision had come from the president was Dan Scavino, the head of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, who told Hundley through a social media post, “Check your email James,” after Blanche announced Hundley’s termination.

Halligan’s and Sarcone’s absences have left DOJ leadership, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and Blanche, to serve as signatories on court filings in those districts as the Senate fails to confirm Trump’s preferred nominees to serve in them and several other blue state districts, where the home state senators must approve of the nominees under the upper chamber’s blue slip tradition.

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In a similar scenario, the court disqualified Trump appointee Alina Habba, and DOJ leadership responded by assigning three department officials to assume the duties of the U.S. attorney there.

The DOJ initially also appealed the decision to disqualify Habba, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a lower court ruling on it, and the department has not at this stage sought relief from the Supreme Court.

FIRST ON FOX: As Washington tightens export controls to preserve America’s artificial intelligence edge, top AI firm Anthropic says three China-based AI laboratories found another way to access advanced U.S. capabilities.

The U.S. firm alleges DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax used roughly 24,000 fraudulent accounts to generate more than 16 million exchanges with Anthropic’s Claude chatbot in a coordinated “distillation” campaign designed to extract high-value model outputs, according to a report first obtained by Fox News Digital. 

The threat goes beyond ripping off U.S. companies, according to the report. Anthropic argues that models built through large-scale distillation are unlikely to retain the safety guardrails embedded in frontier U.S. systems.

“Foreign labs that distill American models can then feed these unprotected capabilities into military, intelligence, and surveillance systems—enabling authoritarian governments to deploy frontier AI for offensive cyber operations, disinformation campaigns, and mass surveillance,” Anthropic said. 

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Anthropic says it identified the campaigns using IP address correlations, request metadata and infrastructure indicators that differed sharply from normal customer traffic. The activity, the company said, was concentrated on Claude’s most advanced capabilities — including complex reasoning, coding and tool use — rather than casual consumer prompts.

“We have high confidence these labs were conducting distillation attacks at scale,” Jacob Klein, Anthropic’s head of threat intelligence, told Fox News Digital.

Distillation is a common AI training technique in which a smaller or less capable model is trained on the outputs of a stronger one. 

Frontier labs often use it internally to create cheaper versions of their own systems. But Anthropic says the campaigns it uncovered were unauthorized and designed to shortcut years of research and reinforcement learning work.

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Across the three operations, more than 16 million exchanges were generated over a period ranging from weeks to months, according to Klein. Anthropic intervened after detecting the activity, though he acknowledged the broader challenge is ongoing.

“There isn’t an immediate silver bullet to stop all of these,” Klein said. “We view this as larger than Anthropic.”

While the company cannot precisely quantify how much the Chinese labs improved their systems, Klein said the capability gains were “meaningful” and “substantial.”

“What we can say with confidence is they distilled us at scale,” he said.

The report raises new questions about the effectiveness of current U.S. export controls, which have largely focused on limiting China’s access to advanced AI chips and direct transfers of model weights.

Klein argued that distillation targets a different layer of competitive advantage — the reinforcement learning process that refines and sharpens frontier models after they are trained.

“If you think about how you stay ahead in the AI race, compute is one piece of that,” Klein said. “But increasingly reinforcement learning is critical. Distillation allows you to extract those capabilities.”

He emphasized that advanced chips still “very much matter,” but said policymakers must think about the issue “holistically.”

Anthropic said it has shared its findings with relevant U.S. government entities and industry partners. Klein suggested publicly naming the labs could prompt “thoughtful government action” or at least engagement with the companies involved.

At the same time, the company said it has no evidence that the Chinese government directly coordinated the campaigns. But proxy services used to resell access to U.S. frontier AI models operate openly in China.

Washington has tried to slow China’s AI progress by limiting access to the most advanced computer chips used to train powerful systems. But Anthropic argues that even without direct access to those chips, foreign labs can still copy parts of a model’s intelligence by repeatedly querying it and training their own systems on the answers.

On Feb. 12, OpenAI sent a memo to the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party alleging that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek systematically “stole” its intellectual property through large-scale distillation. According to OpenAI, DeepSeek employees used third-party routers and masking techniques to bypass geographic access restrictions and harvest outputs from ChatGPT.

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That same day, Google’s Threat Intelligence Group warned of what it described as “distillation attacks” targeting its Gemini models. Google said it observed campaigns using more than 100,000 prompts aimed at replicating Gemini’s reasoning abilities. The company attributed the activity to “private-sector companies” as well as state-aligned actors.

Together, the reports suggest distillation has emerged as a growing flashpoint in the U.S.–China AI race, raising questions about how frontier American systems can be protected even when direct transfers of model weights and cutting-edge chips are restricted.

Anthropic has been in the spotlight in recent weeks amid reported tensions with the Pentagon over how its AI models can be used in military operations. War Secretary Pete Hegseth is meeting with CEO Dario Amodei to discuss terms governing military use of Claude. Administration officials said Anthropic asked questions about the model’s reported role in a U.S. operation targeting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, suggesting the company wouldn’t approve of its product being used, while Anthropic insisted disagreements were over mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.

FIRST ON FOX: The family of a slain Louisiana police officer will have the chance to see President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night after being invited by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

The top congressional leader is bringing the wife and fiancée of Marc Tyler Brock to Trump’s primetime address, Fox News Digital learned on Monday.

“It is my profound honor to host Shirley Brock-Dennis and Kambreigh Smith — the respective mother and fiancée of Vivian Police Officer Marc Brock — as my guests for the State of the Union address. In November, Officer Brock was tragically killed in the line of duty,” Johnson told Fox News Digital.

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The speaker called Brock “an extraordinary young man who touched countless lives through his service and volunteer activities,” and said his death is a “somber reminder” of the risks that law enforcement officers take every day.

“I am grateful that Shirley and Kambreigh will join us and help share Officer Brock’s story with the nation,” Johnson said.

Brock, 25, was killed late last year while attempting to serve an arrest warrant against a man who at the time was charged with cyberstalking in Vivian, La., according to local outlet KLFY.

Vivian is located in Louisiana’s 4th congressional district, which Johnson represents.

JOHNSON PRAISES TRUMP’S ‘BOLD ACTION’ IN FORMAL STATE OF THE UNION INVITATION LETTER TO CONGRESS

The House speaker will be front-and-center when millions of Americans tune in to Trump’s State of the Union speech, his second address to a joint session of Congress since returning to the White House last year.

He and the vice president will both be sitting behind Trump as he speaks to Americans and assembled officials about what he has done so far and what he has left to do in his final term.

Brock was part of a six-person team serving a warrant in November 2025 when he was shot through a closed door and was later declared dead at the hospital. 

He was described as a “hero” by Vivian Police Chief Ryan Nelson in comments to KSLA News.

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The man who killed him was charged with first-degree murder earlier this month.

Johnson himself has ties to public safety officers, his late father having been a firefighter in Shreveport, La.

California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, widely believed to have White House ambitions, is facing blowback over a viral clip that critics say portrays him talking down to Black voters while discussing his poor test scores and reading ability. 

“I’m not, you know, I’m not trying to impress you, I’m just trying to impress upon you, I’m like you. I’m no better than you,” Newsom told Mayor Andre Dickens at a book tour event on Sunday in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Rialto Center for the Arts.

“You know, I’m a 960 SAT guy. And, you know, and I’m not trying to offend anyone, you know, ‘trying to act all there if you got 940,’ Newsom continued. “Literally a 960 SAT guy, you’ve never seen me read a speech. Because I cannot read a speech. Maybe the wrong business to be in.”

The clip, first posted by the conservative influencer account End Wokeness, has been viewed over 20 million times after being posted on Sunday, with many conservatives suggesting that Newsom’s comment was “racist.”

NEWSOM SAYS ‘FATE’ WILL DECIDE IF HE FACES OFF AGAINST HARRIS IN 2028 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY

“His way of bonding with black ppl is to tell them how stupid he is & that he can’t read,” rapper Nickii Minaj posted on X. “Do you wanna know the craziest part of this footage that will haunt him forever? He’s literally slowing his speech down & talking in a sporadic cadence.”

“I can’t believe this is real,” conservative influencer account LibsofTikTok posted on X. “Where’s BLM and Democrats denouncing this racism?”

“He said this to appear down with black folks,” Founder and CEO of XX-XY Athletics Jennifer Sey posted on X. “Could he be more racist? Like actually really racist?”

“The soft bigotry of low expectations,” GOP Sen. Ted Cruz posted on X. 

NEWSOM CONFRONTED ON CALIFORNIA BEING THE ‘HIGHEST COST OF LIVING’ STATE IN THE US AMID AFFORDABILITY CRISIS

“This is disqualifying,” Fox News contributor Joe Concha posted on X. “Run this ad over and over in 2027-2028…”

“California governor Gavin Newsom tells a black audience he’s just like them, got a 960 SAT and he can’t read,” Outkick founder Clay Travis posted on X. “Will any Democrats planning to run in 2028 hit on him on this? They should, moronic statement.”

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“If any Republican said what this moron Newscum said their political careers would be over,” conservative radio host Mark Levin posted on X. “Let’s see how the Democrats and their media react.”

“Liberal racism on display,” political commentator Carol Swain posted on X. 

Newsom’s office defended his comments in a statement to Fox News Digital.

“First MAGA mocked his dyslexia and now they’re calling him racist for talking about his low SAT scores. This is MAGA-manufactured outrage,” Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon said. 

“The Governor has said this publicly for years — including with Charlie Kirk and dozens of other audiences. The same people who excused or ignored Trump’s racist ape video can go f*** themselves.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Atlanta mayor’s office for comment.

Newsom, who is on the road promoting his new memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry,” is considered a top contender for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028 as most pundits believe he has his eyes on the White House.

Greenland’s rejection of President Donald Trump sending a U.S. military hospital ship has touched off a private-public healthcare debate amid ongoing diplomatic talks about Arctic security.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen on Sunday turned down Trump’s offer, and now Trump special envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, has weighed in.

“Shame on Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen!” Landry wrote in response to a Fox News report on Nielsen’s objection. “President Donald J. Trump and America care. After speaking to many Greenlanders about the day to day problems they face, one issue stood out — healthcare.”

Greenland has sought more self-governance from Denmark under the Self Government Act in 2009 to take more local authority under home rule, but Danish officials’ instant rejection of Trump’s offer is aligned with Greenland’s own rejection that came later Sunday.

CANADA AND FRANCE OPENING NEW CONSULATES IN GREENLAND’S CAPITAL AMID TRUMP PRESSURE

“President Trump’s idea of ​​sending an American hospital ship here to Greenland has been noted,” Nielsen wrote in a translated Facebook post. “But we have a public healthcare system where treatment is free for citizens.

“It is a deliberate choice.”

Greenland remains open to dialogue and cooperation with the U.S., with a caveat, according to Nielsen.

“But talk to us instead of just making more or less random outbursts on social media,” Nielsen said in his own public Facebook protestation.

TRUMP KEEPS MACRON UNDER SPOTLIGHT AS GREENLAND TALKS GRIND FORWARD FROM DAVOS

Greenland’s “free for citizens” care is not sufficient, Landry argued in his Facebook response posted to his campaign’s page.

“Many villages and small towns lack basic services that Americans often take for granted,” Landry’s post continued. “Small settlements are without permanent doctors, diagnostic tools, or specialist care – forcing residents to travel great distances for vital treatments that should be available at home.”

The healthcare issue underlies the overreaching Trump hopes to annex Greenland to secure the strategic Arctic region from Russian and Chinese designs, calling it a vital issue for “national security” for both the U.S. and the NATO alliance.

“A healthy Greenland is vital for America’s national security,” Landry’s post concluded. “America is committed to defending Greenland, and that begins by ensuring its people are defended against basic illnesses and ailments. 

“These missions matter because health is inseparable from security. America’s commitment to defending Greenland must begin with ensuring its people are healthy.”

The recent dust-up came after Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command evacuated a crew member who required urgent medical treatment from a U.S. submarine in Greenlandic waters, seven nautical miles outside of Greenland’s capital of Nuuk.

“Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there,” Trump wrote Saturday night on Truth Social. “It’s on the way!!!”

That post sparked objection from both Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Sunday.

“The Greenlandic population receives the healthcare it needs,” Poulsen told Danish broadcaster DR, according to Reuters. “They receive it either in Greenland, or, if they require specialized treatment, they receive it in Denmark.

VANCE: US SHOULD GET ‘SOME BENEFIT’ FROM GREENLAND IF IT’S GOING TO BE ‘ON THE HOOK’ FOR PROTECTING TERRITORY

“So it’s not as if there’s a need for a special healthcare initiative in Greenland.”

Frederiksen spun the Trump offer into a political debate on public healthcare.

“Am happy to live in a country where there is free and equal access to health for all,” Frederiksen wrote in a translated post, sharing a Democrat attack point on Trump’s Republican Party’s struggles to reform what Trump has rebuked as a “failure” of Obamacare. “Where it’s not insurances and wealth that determine whether you get proper treatment. You have the same approach in Greenland.”

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The U.S. Navy has two hospital ships, the Mercy and the Comfort. Both were last docked in Alabama for repairs, according to Reuters.

The cousin of an armed man shot and killed after driving into the secure perimeter of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate described him as a “good kid” who never talked politics, saying the incident was “mind-blowing.”

Braeden Fields, a cousin of the man authorities identified as 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin of North Carolina, described Martin as quiet, afraid of guns and from a family of avid Trump supporters.

“He’s a good kid,” Fields, 19, told The Associated Press, adding that the two grew up together. “I wouldn’t believe he would do something like this. It’s mind-blowing.”

Fields described Martin as generous, saying he would regularly donate money he earned from work at a local golf course to charity.

MAN WHO CRASHED INTO NEVADA SUBSTATION FOUND DEAD IN CAR WITH ARSENAL IN SUSPECTED TERROR INCIDENT: SHERIFF

“He wouldn’t even hurt an ant. He doesn’t even know how to use a gun,” Fields said.

He said his cousin didn’t discuss politics.

“We are big Trump supporters, all of us. Everybody,” Fields said, but his cousin was “real quiet, never really talked about anything.”

Martin allegedly made an “unauthorized entry” through the north gate of the resort in Palm Beach, Florida, as another vehicle was exiting around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, authorities said.

AGITATOR ARRESTED ON BATTERY CHARGE OUTSIDE TRUMP’S WEST PALM BEACH GOLF COURSE

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw told reporters at a press conference that the suspect was seen carrying what appeared to be a shotgun and a fuel can. He said Secret Service agents and a sheriff’s deputy then confronted the suspect.

“He was ordered to drop those two pieces of equipment that he had with him – at which time he put down the gas can, raised the shotgun to a shooting position,” Bradshaw told reporters. “At that point in time, the deputy and the two Secret Service agents fired their weapons and neutralized the threat.”

The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene. Trump, who often spends weekends at Mar-a-Lago, was at the White House at the time of the breach.

Martin’s family had reported him missing around 1:38 a.m. Sunday, the Moore County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release.

A neighbor of the Martin family described seeing the 21-year-old’s mother go to a gas station to report him missing.

INVESTIGATORS SEEK MOTIVE AFTER GEORGIA MAN ALLEGEDLY RAN TOWARD CAPITOL WITH LOADED SHOTGUN

“She had no idea where he was,” Cindy Carlyle told WRAL News. “She was very upset, and she just made the comment that she had gotten a text from him, you know, saying that, ‘I’m okay, I love you.'”

Cindy’s husband, Danny Carlyle, told the outlet that the situation was tragic and was likely something that could have been avoided.

“It’s just like a nightmare … things like this don’t happen close to home,” he said.

The sheriff’s office said it had no prior history with the 21-year-old and has since turned over the missing person case information to federal authorities.

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Investigators are working to compile a psychological profile on Martin.

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan, Sophia Compton and Greg Wehner, along with The Associated Press, contributed to this report.

All eyes will be on Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger after President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, as the rising star Democrat raises her national profile with the traditional rebuttal speech.

Spanberger was elected to lead the commonwealth just last year, ending Republican control in Richmond and defeating former Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears by roughly 15 points.

Since then, she’s been hailed as one of the faces representing the future of the Democratic Party.

The Virginia Democrat was likely chosen to lead this year’s response due to her battleground district credentials, in a year when the left is working to appeal to swing voters who are turned off by Trump.

VIRGINIA GOV. SPANBERGER CUTS TIES WITH ICE IN FEDERAL IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT COOPERATION

Spanberger was first elected to Congress during the “blue wave” of 2018 by defeating incumbent former GOP Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., by only about 2%. She became the first woman to represent the district and the first Democrat elected there since the 1970s.

And while much media attention was focused on the far-left “Squad” Democrats elected that year — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and ex-Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo. — Spanberger sought to set herself apart with a clique of her own.

Indeed, she and four other Democrat women with national security backgrounds formed a group they dubbed “The Badasses” after being elected together that same year.

SPANBERGER SAYS VIRGINIA ‘CHOSE PRAGMATISM OVER PARTISANSHIP’ IN VICTORY SPEECH

Just one of those women, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., remains in the House today, however.

Spanberger and ex-Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., were both elected governor of their respective states last year. Another, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., moved to the upper chamber of Congress. Ex-Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., lost her seat to current Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va. 

Spanberger, for her part, is an eight-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). She worked with the agency’s clandestine services for a time and was an operations officer by the time she left for the private sector in 2014.

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During her 2018 congressional campaign, Republicans seized on Spanberger’s earlier time spent teaching at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, Virginia, from 2002 to 2003, according to a Washington Post article from the time.

“Critics have dubbed it ‘Terror High’ because some students joined al-Qaeda years after graduating. Spanberger received two federal security clearances after disclosing her teaching work to the Postal Service and the CIA, which eventually sent her overseas as a covert agent fighting terrorism,” the report said.

Former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, one of the Democratic candidates eyeing the Golden State governorship, held up a message that read “F— TRUMP” during the California Democratic Party’s 2026 state convention on Saturday.

“Yeah, that’s right, f— Trump,” she declared.

“Together, we’re gonna kick Trump’s a– in November. I’ll stand up to Trump and his cronies just like I did in Congress, with or without my whiteboard,” she said.

ILLINOIS LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR SEEKING US SENATE SEAT RELEASES VIDEO OF PEOPLE SAYING ‘F— TRUMP’

“But this election for governor is about more than defeating Trump. We know what Trump is willing to do. He’s willing to kill people in the streets, to rip away healthcare, and to ruthlessly attack our democracy. But this governor’s race asks us, what are we willing to do, what is California willing to do for our democracy?” she said.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and the Republican National Committee for comment on Monday.

UNEARTHED FEC RECORDS EXPOSE KATIE PORTER’S HYPOCRISY AFTER SHE FUMES AT ‘NEW BILLIONAIRE’ JOINING RACE

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has endorsed Porter for governor.

“Senator Elizabeth Warren knows what it means to fight for working families. Together, we’ve held the powerful accountable, put people before billionaires, and worked hard to lower costs for Americans. Grateful to my friend @ewarren for her endorsement in this race,” Porter wrote in a post on X.

LIBERAL MEDIA DARLING IN THE HOT SEAT AFTER EXPLOSIVE INTERVIEW GOES VIRAL

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“From the moment @katieporterca set foot in my consumer law class, I knew that she would be a warrior for working families. Katie will champion the kind of bold, progressive vision that California workers and families deserve, and I’m proud to endorse her for California Governor,” Warren said in a post on X.

A government shutdown, big or small, is usually a front-and-center issue for lawmakers — but the most recent partial closure could be put on the back burner as Congress returns to several issues in Washington.

Senate Democrats and the White House are still at odds over funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as the shutdown dragged into its tenth day. Neither side is budging, with the most recent concrete action coming early last week.

Trump, who proved pivotal in striking a funding truce with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in January, was not directly involved in recent negotiations. 

‘TARIFFS SUCK’: SOME REPUBLICANS PRIVATELY CELEBRATE AS SUPREME COURT BLOCKS TRUMP POLICY

Trump has not had any “direct conversations or correspondence” with congressional Democrats recently, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, noting that the White House and its representatives have been handling the dialogue.

“But, of course, Democrats are the reason that the Department of Homeland Security is currently shut down,” she said. “They have chosen to act against the American people for political reasons.” 

Senate Democrats offered a counter to the White House’s own counterproposal, which quickly was rejected as “unserious” by Leavitt. It’s a peculiar instance, given that this is the third shutdown during Trump’s second term, and neither side appears to be in a particular rush to end it.

DEMOCRATS RISK FEMA DISASTER FUNDING COLLAPSE AS DHS SHUTDOWN HITS DAY 5

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital that there’s “some room for give and take” in the negotiations, but remained firm in the GOP’s positioning against requiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from getting judicial warrants, unmasking or other reforms sought by Democrats that could increase risks for agents in the field.  

“I felt like, you know, the last offer the White House put out there was a really — it was a good faith one, and it was clear to me that they’re attempting, in every way, to try and land this thing so we can get DHS funded,” Thune said. 

Funding the agency will be a top priority for the upper chamber, but they’ll be delayed because of winter storms descending on the East Coast. The weather has caused the Senate to delay a vote on the original DHS spending bill until Tuesday night, ahead of Trump’s State of the Union address.

There are other issues that could get in the way of hashing out a deal, including a possible conflict with Iran and Trump’s desire to move ahead with tariffs without congressional approval.

GOP WARNS DEMOCRATS USING DHS SHUTDOWN TO STALL SENATE VOTER ID PUSH

Trump told reporters Friday that he was “considering” a limited military strike against Iran, which already has riled up some in Congress, who are demanding that lawmakers get a say on whether the U.S. strikes.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said in a statement that he has a war powers resolution to block an attack on Iran filed and ready, and challenged his colleagues to vote against it.

“If some of my colleagues support war, then they should have the guts to vote for the war and to be held accountable by their constituents, rather than hiding under their desks,” Kaine said.

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On the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling to torpedo his sweeping duties, Trump is considering bypassing Congress to move ahead with another set of global 10% tariffs.

That comes as some Republicans are quietly celebrating the end of the duties, and others are open to working with the administration on a path forward for trade policy.

On tariffs, a Republican aide told Fox News that the GOP was “waiting to see what POTUS does next.”

“The State of the Union should be interesting,” they said.

A man was shot and killed early Sunday after allegedly breaching the secure perimeter of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, the U.S. Secret Service said.

The incident occurred around 1:30 a.m. when the suspect made an “unauthorized entry” through the north gate of the resort as another vehicle was exiting. The man has been identified as 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin of North Carolina, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw confirmed to Fox News.

The suspect was observed carrying what appeared to be a shotgun and a fuel can. Agents and a deputy from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO) confronted him.

“They confronted a white male that was carrying a gas can and a shotgun. He was ordered to drop those two pieces of equipment that he had with him – at which time he put down the gas can, raised the shotgun to a shooting position,” Bradshaw told reporters. “At that point in time, the deputy and the two Secret Service agents fired their weapons and neutralized the threat.”

SECRET SERVICE THWARTS POTENTIAL THREAT NEAR TRUMP’S WHITE HOUSE GROUNDS WITH RAPID RESPONSE

Bradshaw said the suspect did not exchange any words with law enforcement officers who instructed the man to “drop the items.” 

The man was pronounced dead at the scene.

No Secret Service or PBSO personnel were injured, and no Secret Service protectees were present at the location during the time of the incident, officials said. 

Trump was at the White House at the time of the breach, even though he frequently spends weekends at Mar-a-Lago, according to The Associated Press.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the man is believed to have bought the shotgun while traveling south, and authorities later discovered the weapon’s box inside his vehicle, The Associated Press reported.

The Moore County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release that a relative reported Martin missing around 1:38 a.m. Sunday.

He was entered into a national missing person database before federal authorities informed local officials they were conducting an active investigation in Florida related to Martin.

BONGINO DETAILS FBI’S ‘ZERO-FAIL MISSION’ AFTER HUNTING STAND FOUND NEAR TRUMP’S AIR FORCE ONE EXIT AREA

The sheriff’s office said it had no prior history with the 21-year-old and has since turned over the missing person case information to federal authorities. It is not involved in the Florida investigation.

The incident, including the suspect’s background, actions and potential motive, as well as the circumstances surrounding the use of force, are under investigation by the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

Officials said they are working to compile a psychological profile as part of the investigation, according to The Associated Press.

FBI Miami Special Agent in Charge Brett Skiles said the bureau is assisting in the investigation because the shooting occurred in an area under Secret Service protection.

He said the FBI’s evidence response team is processing the scene and collecting evidence, and urged residents who live nearby to review their exterior cameras for footage from Saturday night into early Saturday morning. 

“If you see anything that looks suspicious or out of place, please contact us,” he told reporters.

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FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X that his agency is “dedicating all necessary resources in the investigation of this morning’s incident,” and “will continue working closely with @SecretService as well [as] our state and federal partners and will provide updates as we are able.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X that the U.S. Secret Service “acted quickly and decisively to neutralize a crazy person, armed with a gun and a gas canister, who intruded President Trump’s home.”

The breach comes after Trump faced two assassination attempts during his 2024 campaign.

More than half a million women and girls in the United States are living with the physical and psychological scars of female genital mutilation — including many in Minnesota, home to a large Somali community from a country where roughly 98% of women have undergone the procedure, according to United Nations data.

Yet despite a state law that makes performing the procedures a felony, Minnesota has never secured a single criminal prosecution under its law — raising questions about enforcement, and whether cases could be going on undetected.

Female genital mutilation, or FGM, involves the cutting or removal of parts of a female’s genital organs, typically for cultural rather than medical reasons. The practice is irreversible.

“It’s hidden — it’s a cultural practice, and who is doing the cutting could be a family member or a doctor who is also in that same culture,” Minnesota Republican state Rep. Mary Franson told Fox News Digital, noting it may be carried out within tight-knit communities. She said the secrecy surrounding the practice makes it exceptionally difficult to detect and confront.

MINNESOTA ‘ON THE CLOCK’ AS HHS THREATENS PENALTIES OVER CHILDCARE FRAUD SCANDAL

For some within Minnesota’s Somali community, the issue is less about public crime statistics and more about private silence — a practice survivors say is carried in secrecy, shame and fear.

The lack of prosecutions comes amid broader scrutiny of how Minnesota agencies handle oversight failures, including high-profile welfare and daycare fraud cases in which prosecutors allege billions of taxpayer dollars were siphoned off while warning signs went unaddressed. Investigators and watchdogs later concluded that officials were reluctant to probe deeply in culturally sensitive contexts — a reluctance, critics say, allowed large-scale violations to persist in plain sight.

The estimate of more than half a million survivors in the United States comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent national analysis, published in 2016.

Together, the scale of the issue and the difficulty of detection have raised questions about whether Minnesota’s ban on FGM is being effectively enforced when the crime is often carried out in secrecy.

Survivor warns of lasting harm

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born activist and author who survived FGM, described the lasting physical and psychological damage she endured and called for legal accountability.

“Female genital mutilation is violence against the most vulnerable — children,” Hirsi Ali told Fox News Digital. “It causes infection, incontinence, unbearable pain during childbirth and deep physical and emotional scars that never heal. Religious or cultural practices that deliberately and cruelly harm children must be confronted. No tradition can ever justify torture.”

Hirsi Ali, who founded the AHA Foundation as a means to end FGM, said that the pressure placed on parents in these groups to enforce the practice poses an overwhelming risk to girls.

“Only legal accountability can help reduce that risk,” Hirsi Ali said. “I survived female genital mutilation and I carry its scars with me. But I refuse to accept that another girl in America must endure what I did in Somalia.”

‘I remember being held down’

Zahra Abdalla, a Minnesota-based Somali survivor of female genital mutilation, told Fox News Digital that the practice survives in secrecy, shielded by family pressure and silence.

Abdalla, who spoke to Fox News Digital on camera but asked that her face be blurred, said she was between six and seven years old when she was forcibly restrained in a refugee camp in Kenya while adult women in her community carried out the procedure without anesthesia, using a razor blade.

“They tied my hands and my legs,” Abdalla said. “I remember being held down. I remember the pain — and knowing I could not escape.”

Abdalla said she was “lucky” because she fought back during the procedure, kicking one of the women who was pregnant at the time. The disruption, she said, caused the cutting to stop before it was fully completed. She said the wound was later washed with salt water. 

“That pain — I thought I was going to pass out,” she said.

The damage followed her into adulthood, she said, later requiring surgery and, in her view, contributing to multiple miscarriages. She also said intercourse was very difficult. 

She said the practice is often driven by marriage expectations, adding that in some communities men are reluctant to marry women who have not undergone the procedure.

“It’s tied to dowry. It’s tied to marriage,” she said, referring to the financial and social expectations placed on families when arranging marriages. “It’s tied to what men expect,” she said. “Families believe it protects a girl’s value.”

She said silence remains one of the biggest barriers to enforcement. She is the executive director of the nonprofit Somaliweyn Relief Agency (SRA), which seeks to raise awareness about the practice.

“You don’t talk about it,” she said. “You’re told to stay quiet.”

While she said she cannot confirm specific cases inside Minnesota, she said she believes some families take girls back to Somalia during school breaks to have the procedure performed.

No prosecutions despite felony law

Her warning mirrors how some of the only known U.S. cases have surfaced.

In a high-profile federal case in Michigan in 2017, prosecutors alleged that two young girls were taken from Minnesota to undergo female genital mutilation. The case later collapsed because the judge ruled that Congress did not clearly have the constitutional authority, at the time, which expanded federal jurisdiction in cases involving interstate or international travel.

That ruling prompted Congress to strengthen the statute, a change signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2021 under the Stop FGM Act, which expanded federal jurisdiction in cases involving interstate or international travel.

However, a Fox News Digital review of publicly available Minnesota court records, enforcement announcements and professional licensing disciplinary records found no documented prosecutions or sanctions tied to FGM. The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office said prosecutions for state crimes like female genital mutilation are handled by county attorneys and did not identify any FGM cases. County prosecutors contacted for this story also did not identify any prosecutions.

Those provisions, however, have not resulted in documented criminal prosecutions.

Minnesota criminalized female genital mutilation in 1994, classifying the practice as a felony.

The Minnesota Department of Health told Fox News Digital that it does not track specific data on female genital mutilation, underscoring how difficult the practice is to monitor or enforce.

Global context, local uncertainty

Around the world, FGM is most prevalent in parts of Africa and the Middle East.

Somalia has among the highest prevalence rates in the world, with United Nations data estimating roughly 98% of women ages 15 to 49 there have undergone the procedure. The United Nations, World Health Organization and UNICEF classify FGM as a human rights violation rooted in efforts to control female sexuality and enforce gender inequality, and the UN observes an annual day of awareness in February to combat the practice globally.

Those figures describe conditions in Somalia and are not proof the procedure is occurring in Minnesota, but they help explain why risk is acknowledged even as the practice remains difficult to detect.

Medical experts say the procedure can cause chronic pain, severe bleeding, infections, urinary problems, sexual dysfunction, childbirth complications and, in some cases, death. Because it permanently alters genital tissue, the harm cannot be undone. Survivors often require repeated medical care and carry lasting psychological trauma.

Critics say the gap between the law and enforcement is fueled by silence. 

Survivors often do not report the practice out of fear, stigma, family pressure or concern about involving authorities — even when mandatory reporting laws exist. Medical professionals, particularly OB-GYNs, are often the first to encounter adult survivors, placing clinicians near the center of any enforcement effort that has yet to materialize.

MINNESOTA FRAUD WHISTLEBLOWER SAYS ‘LACK OF GUARDRAILS WAS PRETTY SHOCKING’

The CDC has not released a newer national estimate, and there is no data on the number of people in Minnesota who are victims. However, a CDC-supported Women’s Health Needs Study conducted from 2019 to 2021 included Minneapolis as one of four U.S. metro areas documenting a significant survivor population.

The study did not track where procedures occurred or whether anyone was charged, underscoring how little the public knows about enforcement.

Fox News Digital also contacted multiple Minnesota clinics that provide reproductive and women’s health services asking whether clinicians encounter patients with physical evidence of female genital mutilation. None responded.

Lawmakers push task force amid accountability questions

Some Minnesota state lawmakers have introduced legislation this session to establish a “task force on prevention of female genital mutilation” — a step that Rep. Mary Franson said reflects concerns raised by women in the community that the practice may be occurring or going undetected in Minnesota.

Franson said the legislation was prompted by concerns raised by women in the Somali community. The bill’s chief author is Rep. Huldah Momanyi-Hiltsley, a Democrat of Kenyan heritage, and it is co-sponsored by Franson along with Democratic Reps. Kristin Bahner, Kristi Pursell and Anquam Mahamoud, who is Somali-American. None of them responded to multiple Fox News Digital requests for comment. 

Franson said she became a focal point of opposition once she became publicly associated with the bill.

“The bill was brought forward by women in the Somali community. I was the chief author, but then Democrats told one of the DFL women that if I carried the bill, they would not support it,” Franson said. “Of course, it’s because they believe I am a racist.”

Franson, who is white, first introduced FGM-related legislation in 2017 that would have classified the practice as child abuse and clarified parental accountability. That effort stalled and never became law.

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At the federal level, Congress criminalized female genital mutilation in 1996 and later expanded federal jurisdiction in 2018 under legislation signed by then-President Donald Trump, explicitly covering cases involving interstate or international travel.

Even so, prosecutions nationwide have remained rare, with the only widely cited state-level conviction occurring in Georgia in 2006, where a woman was convicted under Georgia state law for performing FGM on a minor.

In Minnesota, where the practice has been a felony since 1994, there is no public record of a single criminal prosecution — raising an unavoidable question: with laws on the books and a documented survivor population, who is responsible for enforcing the ban, and why have prosecutions not followed?

Greenland’s prime minister publicly rebuked President Donald Trump on Sunday, rejecting his proposal to send a U.S. hospital ship to the Arctic territory and urging him to stop making “random” social media posts about its future.

Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen issued the response in a pointed Facebook post following Trump’s announcement.

“We say no thank you from here,” Nielsen wrote. “President Trump’s idea of ​​sending an American hospital ship here to Greenland has been noted. But we have a public healthcare system where treatment is free for citizens.”

The prime minister also contrasted Greenland’s system with that of the U.S., writing that in America “where it costs money to go to the doctor.”

TRUMP TELLS DAVOS US ALONE CAN SECURE GREENLAND, INSISTS HE WON’T ‘USE FORCE’

Nielsen said Greenland is “always” open to dialogue with the U.S. but urged Trump to engage directly.

“Talk to us instead of just making more or less random outbursts on social media,” he wrote. “Dialogue and cooperation require respect for decisions about our country being made here at home.”

On Saturday, Trump announced on Truth Social that his administration was working with Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry to send a hospital ship to Greenland to care for people who are sick and “not being taken care of there.”

RUSSIA, CHINA SQUEEZE US ARCTIC DEFENSE ZONE AS TRUMP EYES GREENLAND

Landry was designated special envoy to Greenland in December and has held formal discussions outlining Trump’s plans to strengthen Arctic security amid threats from Russia and China.

In late January, Landry spoke with NATO leaders and expressed support for a “framework of a future deal” to expand U.S. influence in the region.

TOP NATO OFFICIAL REVEALS DETAILS OF STUNNING MEETING WITH TRUMP THAT PRODUCED GREENLAND DEAL ‘FRAMEWORK’

Trump’s offer came after Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command evacuated a crew member from a U.S. submarine seven nautical miles outside Greenland’s capital, Nuuk.

The crew member was transferred by a Danish Defense Seahawk helicopter to a hospital in Nuuk and handed over to Greenlandic health authorities, the Joint Arctic Command said.

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The U.S. Navy operates two hospital ships – the USNS Mercy and the USNS Comfort – both of which were last docked in Alabama for repairs, according to Reuters.

Fox News Digital’s Eric Mack contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump called on Netflix to fire board member Susan Rice immediately or “pay the consequences.”

Trump’s comments followed remarks Rice made Thursday on the “Stay Tuned with Preet” podcast, hosted by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. 

During the interview, Rice warned that corporations she said had “taken a knee” to Republican pressure should not expect forgiveness from Democrats if they return to power.

“This is not going to be an instance of forgive and forget. The damage that these people are doing is too severe to the American people and our national interest,” Rice said.

LARA TRUMP WARNS AGAINST DEMOCRATS’ “ACCOUNTABILITY AGENDA” FOR TRUMP ALLIES

It was not immediately clear what specific actions the Trump administration might pursue.

Netflix did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

BATTLEGROUND STATES SHOULDER BURDEN OF TRUMP’S TARIFFS AS MIDTERM MESSAGING RAMPS UP

Rice made the remarks while discussing what she described as corporate retreats from diversity and governance commitments amid pressure from Republican lawmakers.

“If these corporations think that the Democrats, when they come back into power, are going to, you know, play by the old rules, and, you know, say, ‘Oh, never mind. We’ll forgive you for all the people you fired, all the policies and principles you’ve violated, all, you know, the laws you’ve skirted.’ I think they’ve got another thing coming,” Rice added.

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Rice, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, predicted an “accountability agenda” awaited those entities, forecasting an electoral shift in the upcoming midterm elections. 

She also pointed to waning public approval for Trump’s economic and immigration policies in making her case.

An emotional Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., attempted to blame critics – and even President Donald Trump’s own off-the-cuff agility – for the backlash she received for her response to a question at the recent Munich Security Conference on American defense of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.

“If you think I don’t understand foreign policy, because of out of hours of discourse about international affairs, I pause to think about one of the most sensitive geopolitical issues that currently exist on earth, I’m afraid the issue is not my understanding, but perhaps the problem is you’ve gotten adjusted to a president that never thinks before he speaks,” a raspy-voiced Ocasio-Cortez said on a late-night Instagram Live video circulating on social media.

The leftist congresswoman’s Munich stumbling on Friday, Feb. 13, started the critical firestorm and has conservatives questioning her fitness for a potential 2028 Democrat presidential primary campaign.

“Um, you know, I think that this is such a, you know, I think that this is a um — this is, of course, a, um, very long-standing, um, policy of the United States,” she said with pause when asked about America defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion to enforce its One China Policy over the island-nation.

AOC HIT WITH SOCIAL MEDIA BACKLASH AFTER APPEARING TO STRUGGLE WITH QUESTION ABOUT US DEFENDING TAIWAN

“And I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point, and we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic, research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise.”

Vice President JD Vance, a potential 2028 presidential campaign opponent in a prospective general election matchup, weighed in multiple times this week to Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks.

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“I think it’s a person who doesn’t know what she actually thinks, and I’ve seen this way too much in Washington with politicians: Where they’re given lines and, when you ask them to go outside the lines they were given, they completely fall apart,” Vance told Fox News’ “The Story With Martha MacCallum” in an in-studio interview earlier this week.

“That was embarrassing,” he continued. “If I had given that answer I would say, ‘You know what? Maybe you ought to go read a book about China and Taiwan before I go out on the world stage again.’ I hope that Congresswoman Cortez has the same humility. I’m skeptical.”

A man in his early 20s was shot and killed early Sunday after allegedly breaching the secure perimeter of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, the U.S. Secret Service announced.

The Secret Service said the incident occurred around 1:30 a.m. when the suspect made an “unauthorized entry” at the property.

The individual was observed near the north gate carrying what appeared to be a shotgun and a fuel can.

Agents and a deputy from the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO) confronted the man who was pronounced dead at the scene. 

SECRET SERVICE THWARTS POTENTIAL THREAT NEAR TRUMP’S WHITE HOUSE GROUNDS WITH RAPID RESPONSE

No Secret Service or PBSO personnel were injured, and no Secret Service protectees were present at the location during the time of the incident, officials said.

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The FBI, Secret Service and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office are investigating, including the man’s background, actions and potential motive, as well as the use of force.

This is a breaking news story; check back for updates.