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As Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, put it, his role in steering President Donald Trump‘s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has come “to an end.”

However, the president, in a social media post on Thursday night announcing that he and Musk would team up for a 1:30 p.m. ET White House news conference on Friday, teased that Musk would continue to help the Trump administration.

“This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way. Elon is terrific!”

Musk’s political impact on national politics and on next year’s midterm elections – for better or for worse – is far from over and is likely to live on well past his official departure from the Trump administration.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR DOGE AFTER ELON MUSK’S DEPARTURE 

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, announced this week that his role in steering President Donald Trump’s DOGE has come “to an end.” (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump, after winning back the White House in last November’s election, created DOGE with marching orders to overhaul and downsize the federal government. Trump named Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX and Trump’s biggest political donor in the 2024 election, to steer the organization.

“Elon Musk made the most serious attempt at reducing the size and scope of government in modern political history. It was at times chaotic but impactful,” veteran GOP strategist Ryan Williams told Fox News.

Williams predicted that Musk’s “efforts will continue to linger as a political football, but also a guide for Republicans if they’re serious about limiting the growth of the federal government.”

After returning to the White House in January, Musk and DOGE quickly swept through federal agencies, rooting out what the new administration argued was billions in wasteful federal spending. Additionally, they took a meat cleaver to the federal workforce, resulting in a massive downsizing of employees. 

Nothing symbolized Musk’s controversial moves more than his brandishing of a chainsaw during a February appearance at the MAGA-dominated Conservative Political Action Conference, where he touted “how easy” it was to “save billions of dollars sometimes in… an hour.”

The moves by DOGE grabbed tons of national attention and triggered a slew of lawsuits in response. Many of DOGE’s cuts in government staffing were stymied or reversed by federal court orders.

While DOGE was originally tasked with slashing $2 trillion from the federal government’s budget, the DOGE website earlier this week said that its efforts to date had led to roughly $175 billion in savings due to asset sales, contract cancellations, fraud payment cuts, in addition to other steps to eliminate costs.

MUSK CRITICISM OF TRUMP’S ‘BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL’ FRUSTRATES SOME REPUBLICANS 

Musk’s arrival in the nation’s capital came with a bang.

Thanks to a direct pipeline to the president and his powerful mouthpiece on the social media site X, Musk instantly and repeatedly made headlines with his provocative moves and the targeting of people he did not like, often to the chagrin of Trump administration officials and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Trump repeatedly praised Musk and DOGE’s efforts. 

“The vast majority of people in this country really respect and appreciate you, and this whole room can say that very strongly; you have really been a tremendous help,” the president said during a Cabinet meeting four weeks ago, when Musk announced that he would be cutting back on his time spent with DOGE and the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump, right, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a special adviser to the president, speak to reporters near a red Model S Tesla vehicle on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday, March 11, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Pool via AP )

However, behind the scenes, there was a lot less harmony.

“People got really sick of him really quickly,” a veteran Republican strategist with ties to the administration and Capitol Hill who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely told Fox News.

“He was fun to begin with,” the strategist noted, before adding that “people inside and around the administration and people outside” were tired of Musk “by the end, when he’s sitting in a meeting wearing multiple hats on his head.”

Additionally, Musk’s recent criticism of Trump’s sweeping “big beautiful bill,” which passed a major congressional hurdle, did not help matters.

While a slew of public opinion polls, including national surveys from Fox News, indicated that Americans like the idea of downsizing the federal government, those same surveys highlighted that the public was far from thrilled with how Musk and DOGE carried out cuts to the federal bureaucracy.

WHITE HOUSE REVEALS NEXT STEPS FOR DOGE AFTER MUSK DEPARTURE

Musk, who spent nearly $300 million in support of Trump’s 2024 White House victory, quickly became a lightening rod in the handful of off-year and special elections held early this year.

Through aligned political groups, Musk dished out roughly $20 million in battleground Wisconsin’s high-profile state Supreme Court race, in support of Trump-backed judge Brad Schimel, the conservative-leaning candidate in the election.

Musk, in a controversial move, handed out $1 million checks at a rally in Green Bay two nights ahead of the election to two Wisconsin voters who had already cast ballots in the contest and had signed a petition to stop “activist judges.”

Billionaire businessman Elon Musk arrives for a town hall wearing a cheesehead hat, on March 30, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Musk, at the rally, donned a cheesehead hat – a foam wedge which resembles a chunk of cheese – that is traditionally worn by devout Green Bay Packers football fans in Wisconsin and across the country.

However, Schimel ended up losing by 10 points to the Democratic-aligned candidate in what was supposed to be a close contest. Musk ended up getting tagged with plenty of blame in a race that partially turned into a referendum on his efforts at DOGE.

TOP FIVE WILDEST MOMENTS OF MUSK’S DOGE TENURE

Democrats repeatedly made Musk the bogeyman in their messaging in Wisconsin’s election and in other contests, and they pledged to continue to target him heading into next year’s midterm elections, when Republicans will be defending their razor-thin House majority and their modest Senate majority.

“Top of mind for voters are the pocketbook issues. Democrats are going to win by highlighting the fact that Republicans are failing at lowering costs because they are too busy pushing tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations, while making the rest of us pay for them,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee national press secretary Viet Shelton told Fox News.

Shelton emphasized that “Elon is, and forever will be, an instantly-recognizable manifestation of the fact that House Republicans don’t work for the American people, they work for the billionaires.”

So, were Musk’s potential political risks to Republicans behind his departure from the nation’s capitol?

A GOP strategist close to GOP lawmakers, when asked if Musk’s welcome was wearing out among congressional Republicans, said “yes to a point.”

“But I think the larger question about whether Musk and DOGE are liabilities in the midterms, I would say emphatically no,” added the strategist, who asked for anonymity to speak more freely.

The strategist noted that GOP lawmakers “who have talked about waste, fraud, and abuse, and have talked about the savings generated by DOGE, they’ve done quite well. It’s the folks who don’t want to message on it and have not put Democrats on defense, who are tired of Musk.”

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Additionally, veteran Republican strategist Matt Gorman disagrees with the Democrats’ argument about Musk’s lasting impact on the campaign trail.

“I don’t think that in any way Elon Musk will be a factor one way or another in the year-plus that we have until Election Day 2026,” Gorman, a veteran of numerous presidential and statewide campaigns, told Fox News.

Kentucky state Democratic Sen. Robin Webb, who represents Kentucky’s rural 18th Senate district, is switching her party affiliation to Republican after she says the Democrat Party “left me.” 

“First and foremost, I’m a mother, a rancher and a lawyer with deep personal and professional roots in Kentucky’s coal country,” Webb explained. “As the Democratic Party continues its lurch to the left and its hyperfocus on policies that hurt workforce and economic development in my region, I no longer feel it represents my values.”

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“It has become untenable and counterproductive to the best interests of my constituents for me to remain a Democrat.”

Longtime Democrat Sen. Robin Webb switches affiliation to the Republican Party. (Andy Westburry)

Webb was originally elected to the Kentucky State House after defeating Republican Ramona Gee in 1998.

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This comes as a major blow to Kentucky Democrats, who have historically held a stronghold in rural regions of the state largely due to union workers and the coal industry. 

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear told a local Louisville news outlet that he “would consider” a run as the Democratic nominee for president in 2028, and the newly elected Democratic governor and potential presidential candidate now faces an additional challenge to mobilize his state’s party ahead of the 2026 midterms. 

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear attends the Clinton Global Initiative 2024 Annual Meeting at New York Hilton Midtown on Sept. 24, 2024 in New York City. (John Nacion/Getty Images)

“Like countless other Kentuckians, [Webb] has recognized that the policies and objectives of today’s Democratic Party are simply not what they once were, and do not align with the vast majority of Kentuckians,” Republican Party of Kentucky Chairman Robert Benvenuti added.

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“I always respected that [Webb] approached issues in a very thoughtful and commonsense manner, and that she never failed to keenly focus on what was best for her constituents,” Benvenuti added. “It is my pleasure to welcome Sen. Robin Webb to the Republican Party.”

The Kentucky Capitol is seen on Jan. 14, 2020 in Frankfort, Kentucky. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)

Despite Beshear serving in the governor’s office, the attorney general’s office, secretary of state and both chambers of the state legislature have a Republican majority. 

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“While it’s cliché, it’s true: I didn’t leave the party — the party left me,” Webb said.

Fox News Digital reached out to Governor Andy Beshear’s office but did not receive a response.

Preston Mizell is a writer with Fox News Digital covering breaking news. Story tips can be sent to Preston.Mizell@fox.com and on X @MizellPreston

It was nearly 10 p.m. on a Sunday night when House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., surprised reporters in the hallway of the Cannon House Office Building.

The top House Republican was making a low-key — but high-stakes — visit to the House Budget Committee before the panel’s second meeting on President Donald Trump‘s “big, beautiful bill.” The first meeting on May 16 had blown up without resolution when four fiscal hawks balked at the legislation and voted against advancing it to the full House.

“The real debate was, is when [we] voted not to approve the budget. And the reason I did that, along with the others, was we needed to make the provisions better,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital.

“It was our opportunity to make a bill that overall was good, better. And that was the impetus to stop the budget, and then get some concessions. And then when it reached Rules Committee, there really wasn’t that much dissension.”

MEET THE TRUMP-PICKED LAWMAKERS GIVING SPEAKER JOHNSON A FULL HOUSE GOP CONFERENCE

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, left, and President Donald Trump worked together to get the reconciliation bill over the line. (Getty Images)

The committee meeting continued with little fanfare, save for Democratic objections to the bill, before one more visit from Johnson, when he signaled the deal was sealed.

“I think what is about to happen here is that every member, every Republican member, will give a vote that allows us to proceed forward, and we count that as a big win tonight,” Johnson said. 

He was right, with the legislation advancing exactly along party lines.

Fox News Digital was told that conservatives were anticipating what is called a manager’s amendment, a vehicle with wide flexibility to change legislation, before the House Rules Committee’s vote to advance the bill to the full chamber. 

The House Rules Committee acts as the final gatekeeper to most bills before a House-wide vote. Trump himself made a rare visit to Capitol Hill the morning of May 20 to urge Republicans to vote for the bill.

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House leaders again signaled confidence late on May 21, informing Republicans that they would likely vote soon after the House Rules Committee’s meeting was over. However, that meeting alone had already dragged on for hours, from just after 1 a.m. on May 21 to finally voting on Trump’s tax bill just after 2:30 a.m. on May 22. Lawmakers and reporters alike struggled to stay awake as Democratic lawmakers forced votes on over 500 amendments, largely symbolic, in a bid to drag out the process.

Meanwhile, at some point overnight, talks with GOP holdouts went south.

The House Freedom Caucus held an impromptu press conference directly after Chair Andy Harris, R-Md., met with Johnson.

House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris led his group in calling for a delay on the vote. (Getty Images)

“The leadership’s going to have to figure out where to go from here,” Harris said. “I think there is a pathway forward that we can see…I’m not sure this can be done this week. I’m pretty confident it could be done in 10 days. But that’s up to leadership to decide.”

Harris also said the Freedom Caucus had struck a “deal” with the White House, something a White House official denied. “The White House presented HFC with policy options that the administration can live with, provided they can get the votes,” the official said.

However, the manager’s amendment, which finally came out just after 11 p.m. on May 21, eased the concerns of at least several of the fiscal hawks.

It bolstered funding to states that did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), included additional tax relief for gun owners, and quickened the implementation of Medicaid work requirements, among other measures.

Meanwhile, a small group of those House Freedom Caucus members had also been meeting with a small group of conservative senators who assured them they would seek deep spending cuts in the bill when it landed in the upper chamber, Norman said.

MIKE JOHNSON, DONALD TRUMP GET ‘BIG, ‘BEAUTIFUL’ WIN AS BUDGET PASSES HOUSE

“It was our hope that the Senate would come back and even make the cuts deeper, so that the deficit could be cut,” Norman said.

The moves were not enough to ease everyone’s concerns, however. Roughly three hours after the amendment’s release, Freedom Caucus Policy Chair Chip Roy, R-Texas, was the only Republican member of the House Rules Committee to miss the key vote.

Fox News Digital inquired via text message why Roy missed the vote and was told he was “actually reading the bill…”

Nevertheless, it passed by an 8 to 4 vote — prompting House leaders to warn their members to return for what would be an all-night series of voting and debates. Democratic leaders, recognizing they would be sidelined completely if Republicans had enough support on their side, again moved to delay the proceedings.

House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar called a procedural vote to delay the measure. (Fox News Digital)

A whip notice sent to House Democrats, obtained by Fox News Digital, warned left-wing lawmakers that “House Republicans are planning to finish debate and vote on final passage of H.R. 1 late tonight.”

The notice advised that House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., would force a vote on adjourning the House and that “additional procedural votes are expected.”

In a bid to keep Republicans close to the House floor for what was an hourslong night, the speaker set up a side room with snacks and coffee for lawmakers to wait out proceedings. In the House Appropriations Committee room just down the hall, more Republicans were huddled over cigars and other refreshments. The smell of tobacco smoke wafted out as increasingly haggard lawmakers shuffled between the two rooms.

Fox News Digital even heard from several lawmakers inquiring when the final vote was expected to be — and wondering whether they had time for a nap themselves. Meanwhile, Fox News Digital spotted Harris and Roy walking the opposite way from the hullabaloo of the House floor, toward the much quieter Longworth House Office Building.

Both said they were leaving for more conversations with White House staff before the final vote.

SCOOP: HOUSE GOP MEMO HIGHLIGHTS REPUBLICAN WINS IN TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’

“The manager’s amendment gets us a little closer, but we’re still in discussions with the executive branch to see whether we can achieve the objectives that we seek, which is support the president’s goals on waste fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid and, you know, making sure that we’ve got all we can out of the Inflation Reduction Act,” Harris said.

Roy said he hoped Republicans would go further against states that drastically expanded their Medicaid populations under the ACA. He also signaled that leaders suggested at the time some further Medicaid reform could come from the White House.

“The speaker alluded to this afternoon…that there are things in the executive space, executive actions, that we think could take care of some of the concerns that we were having about — again, it’s not what we want, but it does ameliorate some of our concerns on the Medicaid expansion front,” Roy said.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and the speaker’s office for comment.

When it came time for the final vote, it appeared enough was done to get Roy on board. Harris, however, voted “present.”

Neither made themselves available for an interview for this story.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans celebrated passing President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” (Getty Images)

The final vote saw just two Republican defections — Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., long a critic of Johnson, and Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio.

“While I love many things in the bill, promising someone else will cut spending in the future does not cut spending. Deficits do matter and this bill grows them now. The only Congress we can control is the one we’re in. Consequently, I cannot support this big deficit plan. NO,” Davidson posted on X just before the vote began.

Two other Republicans, Reps. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., and Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., both fell asleep before the final vote — but both said they would have voted to pass the bill.

In the end, it advanced by a 215-214 vote — with Republicans erupting in cheers when they realized the victory was locked.

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“The media, the Democrats have consistently dismissed any possibility that House Republicans could get this done. They did not believe that we could succeed in our mission to enact President Trump’s America First agenda. But this is a big one. And once again, they’ve been proven wrong,” Johnson said during a press conference after the vote.

Now, the bill is expected to be considered by the Senate next week — when senators are already signaling they are gearing up to make changes.

“I encourage our Senate colleagues to think of this as a one-team effort as we have, and to modify this as little as possible, because it will make it easier for us to get it over the line ultimately, and finish and get it to the president’s desk by July fourth,” Johnson said.

FIRST ON FOX: Two powerful committees in the House of Representatives are opening an investigation into another Democratic official accused of blocking federal immigration authorities.

House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn., is leading a probe into Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell alongside Nashville-area Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn, Fox News Digital learned Friday.

Ogles had been petitioning leaders for weeks to look into O’Connell after the Democratic leader publicly denounced Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in his city and signed an executive order aimed at tracking ICE movements in the area.

The probe is being supported by the House Judiciary Committee, which is led by Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., chair of the subcommittee for immigration enforcement.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green is co-leading a probe into Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, right. (Getty Images)

SCOOP: HOUSE GOP MEMO HIGHLIGHTS REPUBLICAN WINS IN TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’

“The Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Homeland Security of the U.S. House of Representatives are conducting oversight of state and local jurisdictions that endanger American communities through efforts aimed at thwarting the work of federal immigration officials,” the four leaders wrote in a letter to O’Connell.

“While the state of Tennessee has outlawed sanctuary policies, recent actions from your office threaten to chill immigration enforcement in the City of Nashville and Davidson County. Accordingly, we write to request information about how your recent actions, including a directive to Nashville and Davidson County employees to disclose their communications with federal immigration officials, affects the robust enforcement of immigration law.”

The lawmakers said O’Connell’s executive order, which mandated that government employees report interactions with federal immigration authorities, “could have a chilling effect on the ability of local law enforcement to communicate freely and candidly with federal immigration employees.”

“In fact, your chief lawyer recently admitted that it was an ‘open question’ whether an individual could legally ‘announce in advance that there’s an impending enforcement activity,’” they wrote. 

MIKE JOHNSON, DONALD TRUMP GET ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL’ WIN AS BUDGET PASSES HOUSE

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell criticized ICE raids in Nashville, Tennessee, saying they are not focused on making the city safer, but instead leave the community fearing law enforcement interaction. (Getty Images)

“This statement, when viewed in context of your order requiring all Metro law-enforcement officers to report about communications with ICE personnel, raises the prospect that Metro employees may use nonpublic information to warn criminal aliens of planned ICE enforcement operations. In other words, there is the real potential that your Executive Order could have the effect of diminishing ICE enforcement operations.”

It comes after ICE agents working with the Tennessee Highway Patrol arrested nearly 200 people the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said were illegal immigrants – many of them criminals with gang affiliations or other sordid pasts.

The DHS news release targeted O’Connell by name over comments he made in early May. “What’s clear today is that people who do not share our values of safety and community have the authority to cause deep community harm.”

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., is leading a probe into Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell. (AP Photo)

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After the arrests, O’Connell signed an executive order aimed at tracking peoples’ interactions with federal immigration authorities, according to WSMV4.

He said of ICE’s work in his city, “It’s important for us to get this right, and it’s very frustrating to see a failure in the process.”

O’Connell also helped launch the Nashville government’s nonprofit, “The Belonging Fund,” to help illegal immigrants pay for urgent care needs. The fund’s website states that “donations to the fund are made possible solely by individual donors and private organizations – no government dollars are included. That means no taxpayer dollars are being used in the administration or distribution of this fund.”

Republicans, however, have questioned whether that is true.

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“The recipients of these funds are untraceable, and the purpose seems crystal clear: help illegal foreigners evade the law,” Ogles told Fox News Digital. “I refuse to sit back while our communities are overrun — while our neighborhoods are destroyed and our daughters are assaulted. And I doubly refuse to stay silent while blue city mayors aid and abet this invasion.”

O’Connell is now one of several Democratic leaders locked in an immigration fight with the Trump administration.

House Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., was charged by the Justice Department with assaulting an officer after she and two other House Democrats forced their way into a Newark ICE detention center, charges McIver has dismissed as political.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Nashville mayor’s office for comment on the letter.

A former high-ranking officer in the Venezuelan military is contesting a recent report by the U.S. intelligence community about the massive Tren de Aragua gang present throughout the country. 

Jose Arocha, who is a former lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan military, told Fox News Digital that the recent intel community report denying Tren de Aragua is linked to the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is missing a key aspect: the socialist regime’s animosity towards the United States and penchant for asymmetric warfare.

Tren de Aragua, also known simply as TdA, is a violent Venezuelan gang that has been terrorizing U.S. cities over the last several years. The group is linked to high-profile murders such as the killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and the seizure of an entire apartment building in Aurora, Colorado.

As one of his first moves back in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump directed the State Department to designate TdA a “foreign terrorist organization.”

SUPREME COURT ALLOWS TRUMP ADMIN TO MOVE ON ENDING LEGAL PROTECTIONS FOR SOME VENEZUELAN MIGRANTS

Jose Arocha, a former lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan military (El Salvador Press Presidency Office/Anadolu via Getty Images and Center for a Secure Free Society)

Speaking with Fox News Digital via Zoom, Arocha, a national security expert at the Center for a Secure Free Society, said he agrees with the Trump administration’s moves against Tren de Aragua, which he believes is an “asymmetrical warfare” tool of the Maduro regime to sow discord in the United States and other countries in the Western Hemisphere.

“The Maduro regime doesn’t need to send troops to the USA. It sends criminals instead,” he said. “TdA is a plug-and-play insurgency – assembled in prison, deployed abroad.”

Arocha’s statements, however, contrast with a new public memo released by U.S. intelligence agencies last month that denied any solid connection between the Maduro government in Caracas and the gang.

“While Venezuela’s permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,” the report states.

The report says that the intelligence community based its conclusion “on Venezuelan law enforcement actions demonstrating the regime treats TDA as a threat; an uneasy mix of cooperation and confrontation rather than top-down directives [that] characterize the regime’s ties to other armed groups; and the decentralized makeup of TDA that would make such a relationship logistically challenging.”

Arocha, meanwhile, said that “the missing point here is that the intelligence report is too narrow a lens about the TdA.”

“It’s about crime and migration, but they’re missing the warfare dimension,” he said. “They are missing that for the Maduro regime, the United States is the enemy, has been the enemy for years.”

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President Nicolás Maduro (Jesus Vargas/Getty Images)

“The TdA is not a gang,” he went on. “It’s the enabler arm of the Venezuelan regime in the hybrid warfare strategy, the asymmetrical tour of war. That’s the missing point. And that is the point that explains how a local gang is right now in more than 10 countries, including the United States. That’s incredible, and that is not possible without a state sponsor behind them.”

While the report points to law enforcement actions the Maduro government has taken against TdA, Arocha explained that in reality Venezuelan prisons, including the “Tocorón” prison where the gang started, are more like resort hotels.

“Tocorón, [which] they said is the epicenter of the crime in Venezuela, it wasn’t a prison, it was a palace for organized crime. Full equipment, we have a zoo, nightclubs and even a pool for the prisoners there,” he said.

Arocha also posited that the 2023 raid the Venezuelan government conducted on Tocorón “appears choreographed” and that key TdA leadership was able to escape through pre-made tunnels.

“While the regime gained optics of cracking down on crime, TdA’s mobility remained intact,” Arocha told Fox News Digital.

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This image shows two Tren de Aragua gang members caught at the southern border. (U.S. Border Patrol)

The intel report admitted that the escaped TdA members were “possibly assisted by low-level Venezuelan military and political leaders.” But to Arocha, the connection goes straight to the top.

He pointed to the kidnapping and murder of Venezuelan political dissident Ronald Ojeda in Chile, which, according to Reuters, is being investigated by the Chilean government as a possible Tren de Aragua operation sponsored by the Maduro government.

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Reuters reported in March that Chilean Attorney General Angel Valencia said that Ojeda’s murder “doesn’t have the characteristics of a normal crime” and “all the evidence we have at this state of the investigation lets us conclude that a cell or group linked to the Tren de Aragua that was politically motivated that originated from an order of a political nature.”

The outlet also reported that the Venezuelan government denied the accusations as baseless.

Arocha further pointed to former Maduro Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who has alleged ties to Hamas and Hezbollah, as evidence that the Venezuelan government is embedded with America’s worst enemies.

VENEZUELAN ILLEGAL ALIEN, ALLEGED TREN DE ARAGUA LEADER IN CALIFORNIA, ARRESTED ON IMMIGRATION CHARGES

In this handout photo provided by the Salvadoran government, guards escort the inmates allegedly linked to criminal organizations at CECOT on March 16, 2025, in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Salvadoran Government via Getty Images)

El Aissami was arrested on corruption charges and is currently in prison.

“He has a strong influence with Iran and China and Russia, too. Right now, he’s in prison, which means that he’s living in the palace in prison,” Arocha remarked, smiling.  

“The Venezuelan regime is a proxy of Russia, China and Iran, especially China right now,” he went on. “They use Venezuela [to] create chaos in Latin America especially … not confronting directly the United States, but indirectly, using criminals, using disinformation, using every single tool they have.”

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In response, Arocha urged the Trump administration to continue to take a whole-of-government approach in combating TdA. He urged the administration to “increase our scope” by reaching out to Latin American countries with experience with TdA, such as the Chilean government.

“They have a knowledge right now about the TdA. We have to understand what they’ve learned about, and we have to put all the pieces together to have the big picture instead of the local one,” he said. “And then I’m very sure that we are going to realize the missing and the main link is in Caracas.”

Harvard University’s lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for moving to ban foreign students at the Ivy League school could be on a fast track to the Supreme Court, reviving a longstanding debate over when justices should recuse themselves from cases.

Four Supreme Court justices attended Harvard. While being an alumnus of a university involved in litigation does not typically warrant recusal from a case, other factors, such as deeper involvement with a school, could change matters.

Professor James Sample, a constitutional law professor at Hofstra University, told Fox News Digital recusals from every case involving universities justices attended or were linked to would be “untenable,” but recusals could be appropriate in certain circumstances.

A recusal is “entirely subjectively applied by the justice in his or her own case, and, rightly or wrongly — and I’m among those who have criticized the practice — the practice on the Supreme Court is that only the justice in his or her own case, and no one else, makes that determination,” Sample said.

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Supreme Court justices attend the 60th inaugural ceremony Jan. 20, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Elena Kagan attended Harvard Law School. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson attended Harvard for both their undergraduate and law degrees. Kagan served as dean of Harvard Law School.

Ed Whelan, a legal scholar who clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, told Fox News Digital the fact that a justice “went to Harvard or loved University of Alabama football is never going to be a reason for recusal.”

Jackson’s ties to Harvard run perhaps the deepest though. The justice, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, served a six-year term on the Harvard Board of Overseers through 2022, and one of her daughters is a student there and preparing to graduate next year.

Whether Jackson should recuse herself from Harvard litigation that comes before the high court can, “legally speaking,” only be determined by her, Sample said, pointing to the open-ended language in the statute governing judicial recusal.

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Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2023 (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Harvard’s latest lawsuit, filed Friday in Massachusetts, alleges the Trump administration’s decision to ban international students at Harvard by stripping them of their visas is unconstitutional. Harvard’s attorneys made an emergency request for a restraining order, and Judge Allison Dale Burroughs, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, granted the order within hours.

The order brought the DHS’s visa operation against Harvard to a temporary halt and opened the door for the government to turn to higher courts for relief, meaning it could be on an expedited path to the Supreme Court.

In 2023, Jackson recused herself from Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, a landmark affirmative action case, while the three other justices affiliated with Harvard did not.

Some legal experts have said that in that instance it was necessary for Jackson to recuse because her tenure on the board, a governing body at the university, was current when the case hit the high court’s docket. But Harvard’s new cases could be a different story.

“The specificity of the particular nexus that connects the justice to the specific interest at stake in litigation, as that gets more specific, as that nexus gets closer and closer, the potential for an appearance of conflict increases,” Sample told Fox News Digital.

TRUMP SAYS HARVARD’S FOREIGN STUDENTS ARE FROM COUNTRIES PAYING ‘NOTHING’ FOR THEIR EDUCATION

An aerial view of Harvard University’s campus in Cambridge, Mass.  (Blake Nissen for The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Harvard’s visa case is one of two lawsuits the school has brought against the Trump administration this year. In the second, brought in April, Harvard alleged the Trump administration improperly froze grant money and contracts totaling more than $2 billion. That case is moving at a slower pace than the visa lawsuit.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s decision to recuse herslef in an unrelated case recently made headlines after the high court issued a deadlocked decision, 4-4, leaving in place a block on the creation of a religious charter school in Oklahoma. If Barrett had weighed in, the case could have had the far-reaching effect of allowing or banning public funding for religious schools across the country.

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Barrett did not explain why she recused herself, and judges are not required to. The Associated Press reported that the justice is close friends with law professor Nicole Garnett, who was connected to the case.

Last week, because of recusals, the Supreme Court declined to take up Baker v. Coates, a copyright case involving plagiarism allegations against activist Ta-Nehisi Coates. The high court noted in an order list that five justices opted not to take part in the case and that it therefore lacked a quorum to consider it. The nonpartisan group Fix the Court speculated that four of the five recused themselves because they had published or plan to publish books with Penguin Random House, whose parent company was named in the suit.

Democrats repeatedly urged conservative Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from Trump’s 2020 election subversion case because of Thomas’ wife’s work attempting to reverse the results of the election in favor of Trump, but the justice ignored those calls.

Gorsuch attended Columbia University, another school under fire from the Trump administration and involved in litigation, but he likely would not step away from cases brought by the school solely because he went there.

Chicago Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson laid into the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and President Donald Trump’s economic policies during his weekly press availability, drawing parallels between the Third Reich in Germany and Trump’s second term in the White House.

Johnson said the Windy City is the most “pro-worker” city in the U.S., but faces “hostility” from Washington.

“The fact that the President of the United States of America is cutting off food supply and medicine to working people and families across this country — that is an act of war,” Johnson fumed.

“And we’re going to need leaders who are prepared and willing to stand up for working people, because this battle has reached our front doors all across America where people are struggling and suffering. And in order to alleviate that pain and discomfort, it’s going to require bold leadership. We can’t tippy toe.”

PROPOSED CHICAGO POLICE RESOURCE CUTS COULD LAND CITY IN COURT, TOP OFFICIALS WARN

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. (AP/Charles Arbogast)

Addressing a reporter who asked how to work with the Trump administration for the benefit of the city from such an adversarial position, Johnson cited Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s State of the State address in February, which referenced how it “took the Nazi’s one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a Constitutional Republic.”

“Governor Pritzker… offered up a warning,” Johnson said. “You have a president that is cutting off medicine and food, a president that is working to erase culture. I mean, you can’t make this up. He’s doing it in plain sight.”

Pritzker had compared the rise of former German Chancellor Adolf Hitler to Trump’s popularity, in that the eventual national-socialist dictator was seen as the answer to “inflation and [the public] looking for someone to blame.” 

CHICAGO DEMOCRAT GOES OFF ON CITY’S HANDLING OF MIGRANT CRISIS

Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, left, and German Chancellor Adolf Hitler at a Nazi parade in Germany, circa 1937. (Getty)

In his remarks, Johnson noted how people have wondered how Germany could have descended into Nazism and anti-Semitism so quickly and dreadfully, saying that Trump is “carry[ing] out the playbook that was done against an entire people-group.”

“He’s doing it right here in this country, against working people, erasing Black folks from museums and the history and the culture. So, when you ask how we balance that, you have to fight it and resist it with everything that’s in you,” he said.

“The President of the United States of America is capturing the hopes and aspirations of working people and holding us hostage as he works to implement and annihilate democracy,” Johnson said, returning to comment on lawsuits the city has joined to halt DOGE-type efforts.

Chicago is party to a lawsuit filed by several municipalities, including Baltimore; Santa Clara, California; and the county that encompasses Houston, which seeks to stop DOGE’s slashing of the federal bureaucracy.

“Congress created these federal agencies. It funded them. But the president is trying to fire all these people and gut these agencies that Congress created,” Chicago Deputy Corporation Counsel Steve Kane told the city’s ABC affiliate, calling the situation unconstitutional.

DOGE-driven cuts affecting the Windy City have included the Energy Department’s 2025 Small Business Expo, originally pinned for June.

The cut came as part of billions in spending reductions for cabinet agencies, and other closures of clean-energy-centric operations have affected the city, according to reports.

Earlier in May, Chicago hired Ernst & Young, an international consulting firm, to find ways to bridge its own budget gaps, according to Bloomberg. The Trump administration has threatened to withhold funding from sanctuary cities, a definition within which Chicago falls.

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While city-specific data was not immediately available for DOGE-related cuts, the Trump administration saw the Department of Health & Human Services cut its regional office in Illinois, which served 28,000 low-income families.

Efforts to consolidate federal real estate and office space affected America’s third-largest city as well. The Federal Transit Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission, Labor Relations Authority and Civil Corps of Engineers all saw their offices there shut down. A federally-owned art collection in Chicago also sees some of its staffing on the chopping block, according to Axios.

Fox News’ Remy Numa and Patrick McGovern contributed to this report.

An Iowa congresswoman touted her support for President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill in back-to-back town halls on Wednesday, even as members of the audience jeered and disrupted her speech.

“They were booing when I was saying, you know, ‘We’re preserving tax cuts,’ and I can’t believe people would boo tax cuts for themselves,” Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, told Fox News Digital on Thursday.

“I think there are a number of people who just show up to these town halls who want to disrupt. They didn’t care what I had to say. They just want to boo and yell and be angry.”

And there were a significant number of such people at both her town halls in Elkader and Decorah on Wednesday. 

SCOOP: HOUSE GOP MEMO HIGHLIGHTS REPUBLICAN WINS IN TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’

Rep. Ashley Hinson held back-to-back town halls on Wednesday. (Getty Images)

At both events, Hinson touted her support for Trump and House Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill and promoted the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) efforts.

Both issues drew largely negative reactions from people there, save for some exceptions.

At one point in the first town hall, a woman named Linda stood on behalf of another woman, Nicole, who was in a wheelchair and had “difficulty speaking.” Nicole, who relied on federal health and food programs, was concerned about any cuts to those programs making her life more difficult, Linda said.

The crowd then cheered as Hinson pledged that Republicans were only reforming those programs, “so that people like you can continue to have access to the treatments and medications you need.”

The goodwill was short-lived, however, when the next questioner accused Republicans of cutting university funding in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy – despite Hinson pointing out the bill does not change income tax brackets.

MIKE JOHNSON, DONALD TRUMP GET ‘BIG, ‘BEAUTIFUL’ WIN AS BUDGET PASSES HOUSE

“It’s an absolute crime,” the man shouted.

The boos grew louder when Hinson accused top universities of “letting men play in girls’ sports.” People in the crowd could be heard screaming “stop it” and “stop spinning.”

At her second town hall, the crowd jeered as Hinson emphasized her support for Trump.

“The president is, I believe, fighting for you and fighting for me. I’m fighting alongside of him. I think God saved President Trump’s life in Butler,” Hinson said before briefly pausing as the boos swelled.

“I think He saved his life in Butler, Pennsylvania for a reason. I think he is helping us to save this country,” she continued.

Hinson was still unfazed by the protesters when she spoke with Fox News Digital the next day.

President Donald Trump listens to a question during an event to present law enforcement officers with an award in the Oval Office at the White House on May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

“I did exactly what I said I was going to do,” Hinson said. “I feel good about what I was able to communicate and correct the record yesterday. And I will not only defend this agenda and answer any questions any day, any time of the week, but I think it is really important that I’m out there on offense, correcting the record.”

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The congresswoman said the disruptions grew so loud that it prompted a Vietnam War veteran to address her after one of the events and tell her, “I couldn’t hear over all that, and I think that’s a shame because I wanted to hear what you had to say.”

“That’s really the disservice. Again, these people who their only intent is to disrupt, someone like that man who served our country, who wanted to come hear what I had to say, had trouble hearing me,” Hinson said. “People there want to be able to have civil discourse and ask the questions and hear my answers.”

EXCLUSIVE: A United States Military Academy mission statement swap from “duty, honor, country” to “Army Values” is coming under fire again — this time by a conservative judicial and government watchdog group who claims the school engaged in a “cover up” scheme when it altered its mission statement in 2024 as part of an effort to advance a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda. 

On March 11, 2024, West Point Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steven Gilland publicly announced that West Point would update its mission and insert the term “Army Values” in lieu of “duty, honor, country.” Even so, Gilland stressed that “duty, honor, country” would remain West Point’s motto as it has been since 1898. 

Judicial Watch obtained documents via a Freedom of Information Act request seeking all emails regarding the removal of “duty, honor, country” from the mission statement between officials at West Point. 

HEGSETH QUIPS ‘99.9%’ OF DEI INITIATIVES ARE GONE FROM THE MILITARY UNDER TRUMP’S WATCH

Among the documents Judicial Watch obtained is a document from Gilland detailing mission statement talking points for Founders Day speakers that was sent on March 23, 2024. The memo instructs speakers to “AVOID saying ‘removed,’ ‘replaced,’ ‘deleted’—just refer to the ‘updated mission statement and reinforce that the motto remains unchanged.’” 

The memo does not explicitly connect the mission statement change to any DEI initiatives. 

However, Judicial Watch argues that the talking points document it obtained implies DEI was a factor in the mission statement change because the document also contains an FAQ section that appears to downplay the role of DEI, claiming only five to eight students each year complete West Point’s Diversity and Inclusion Studies minor. 

“These records detail how the DEI agenda helped change the mission statement of West Point — and how leadership under the Biden administration tried to cover it up,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a Thursday statement to Fox News Digital. 

But in the memo outlining mission statement talking points, Gilland urged speakers to push back against the narrative that the mission statement change was done for political purposes. 

“EMPHASIZE the actual seven values as some in the audience don’t realize Army Values is a defined term and to counter the social media narrative that the Army Values change for political reasons. AVOID comparing DHC to AV—it’s not either/or,” the mission statement talking points document said. 

NAVAL ACADEMY CLOSING DEI OFFICES TO ALIGN WITH TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDERS: MEMO

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point is a selective institution that prepares students to become officers in the U.S. Army.  (iStock)

“AVOID the perception that the External Review Team was political or made the decision. The Academy selected them. They advised. Academy leadership made Decisions,” the document said. 

The term “Army Values” keeps “duty” and “honor” within its core set of values, but also includes the following: loyalty, respect, selfless service, integrity and personal courage. 

Gilland said in a statement announcing the change that “country” is reflected in the term “loyalty.” 

“The Army Values include Duty and Honor, and Country is reflected in Loyalty, bearing truth faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit, and other Soldiers,” Gilland said in an announcement about the mission statement change. 

Gilland also said that “duty, honor, country” is “foundational to the United States Military Academy’s culture and will always remain our motto.” 

An Army spokesperson directed Fox News Digital to Gilland’s original announcement where he wrote: “Our absolute focus on developing leaders of character ready to lead our Army’s Soldiers on increasingly lethal battlefields remains unchanged.”

West Point is one of several U.S. military academies that trains students to become military officers. 

Meanwhile, West Point’s mission statement has been changed nine times in the past century, and the words “duty, honor, country” didn’t make it into West Point’s mission statement until 1998. 

As of March 2024, West Point’s mission statement is: “To build, educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets to be commissioned leaders of character committed to the Army Values and ready for a lifetime of service to the Army and Nation.”

WEST POINT DISBANDS GENDER-BASED, RACE CLUBS IN TRUMP’S DEI SWEEP

West Point cadets in formation. (U.S. Military Academy)

West Point’s previous mission statement, first adopted in 2005, remained: “To educate, train and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the Nation as an officer in the United States Army.”

West Point’s superintendent at the time, Lt. Gen. William Lennox, requested the change in 2005 and then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker approved the change. 

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Meanwhile, Republicans have pushed to incorporate “duty, honor, country” back into the mission statement. For example, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, spearheaded legislation in January to add the words back to the military academy’s mission statement. 

“For centuries, the United States Army has set the global standard for military excellence because its leaders embrace a lifetime of selfless service and embody the values of ‘Duty, Honor, Country.’ West Point’s removal of these core values from its mission statement risks eroding the foundation of American military leadership,” Cruz said in a statement in January. 

Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville is showcasing his fundraising prowess as he launches his bid for Alabama governor.

Tuberville’s gubernatorial campaign on Thursday announced that it raked in $2,064,723 in fundraising during the first 24 hours after the senator declared his candidacy, “far surpassing its initial goal and shattering the previous Alabama record.”

The senator, a strong supporter and ally of President Donald Trump, is considered the frontrunner in the 2026 race to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Kay Ivey in the Republican-dominated state.

“There are two universal truths in the Yellowhammer state right now: Alabamians love President Trump and they want Coach Tuberville to be their next governor,” Jackie Curtiss Cox, fundraiser for Tuberville’s campaign, said. “I’ve never seen momentum like this in my more than 10 years in Alabama politics.”

TOMMY TUBERVILLE MAKES A MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who on Tuesday announced a 2026 bid for Alabama governor, arrives for a Senate Republican Caucus luncheon at the Capitol in Washington, DC on Apr. 2, 2025. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

And Cox spotlighted that “these were not from PAC donations — every dollar came from small business owners, entrepreneurs, workers, and retirees.”

This week’s announcement from Tuberville, a former longtime college football coach who spent 10 years as head coach at Auburn University in Alabama, ended months of speculation about his ambitions to run for governor in his home state.

WHY TOMMY TUBERVILLE IS TAKING AIM AT MAINE’S GOVERNOR 

Tuberville, launched a campaign website that touts his “conservative Alabama values.”

And in his first interview after launching his campaign, Tuberville said on Fox News’ “The Will Cain Show” that “I’m doing this to help this country and the great state of Alabama. I’m a football coach. I’m a leader. I’m a builder. I’m a recruiter, and we’re going to grow Alabama.”

TUBERVILLE SPOTLIGHTS TRUMP IN EFFORT TO SAVE COLLEGE SPORTS

A source familiar told Fox News a couple of weeks ago that an endorsement from Trump would be a “done deal” if Tuberville decided to run for governor.

And Tuberville, in his Fox News interview, said Trump was “fully supportive” of his gubernatorial run.

Then-GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump waves as he attends an Alabama Crimson Tide-Georgia Bulldogs college football game on Sept. 28, 2024, at the University of Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium. GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is seen standing on the right. (John David Mercer-Imagn Images)

He is also backed by the politically influential and deep-pocketed Club for Growth, a fiscal conservative group that takes sides in GOP primaries.

Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth, who had been expected to run to succeed Ivey, last week announced that he would not seek the office.

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Tuberville was first elected to the Senate in 2020, running as an outsider who was closely aligned with Trump.

In the Republican primary, he topped former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a longtime senator from Alabama, before resigning in 2017 to serve as Trump’s attorney general. Tuberville went on to defeat incumbent Sen. Doug Jones, who was the first Democrat elected to the Senate in Alabama in decades.

Tuberville’s move to run for governor sets up an open Senate seat in Alabama in next year’s midterm elections.

FBI Director Kash Patel said he has been forced to divert agents to investigate “copycats” of potential threats to President Donald Trump as a result of former FBI Director James Comey’s “86 47” social media post. 

Bureau officials told Fox News Digital it needs to be focused on “public safety, not cleaning up after political stunts.”

Patel sat down for an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier and revealed that the FBI has had to investigate “copycats” because of Comey’s “beachside venture.” 

FBI Director Kash Patel, right, said he has been forced to divert agents to investigate “copycats” of potential threats to President Donald Trump as a result of a social media post by former FBI Director James Comey, left. (Reuters | Getty)

FORMER FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY MEETS WITH SECRET SERVICE AFTER CONTROVERSIAL ’86 47′ POST

“Do you know how many agents I’ve had to take offline from chasing down child sex predators, fentanyl traffickers, terrorists because everywhere across this country, people are popping up on social media and think that a threat to the life of the president of the United States is a joke and they can do it because he did it?” Patel said. 

“That’s what I’m having to deal with every single day, and that’s what I’m having to pull my agents and analysts off because he thought it was funny to go out there and make a political statement,” he continued. 

An FBI official told Fox News Digital that they cannot disclose the number of “copycat” incidents due to ongoing investigations but described the number to Fox News Digital as “significant.” 

Comey met with Secret Service officials in Washington this month for an interview about his “86 47” Instagram post, two sources briefed on the meeting told Fox News.

Comey is under investigation for the now-deleted Instagram post that showed seashells arranged on a beach to read “86 47.”

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” he wrote along with the post. 

Some have interpreted the post to mean “86” – get rid of – “47,” or Donald Trump, the 47th president.

(Fox News | James Comedy/Instagram)

TRUMP ADDRESSES COMEY’S ‘8647’ MESSAGE: ‘HE KNEW EXACTLY WHAT IT MEANT’

“What people need to understand is that every copycat threat forces the FBI to divert time, agents and resources; resources that should be spent saving lives and taking criminals and deadly drugs off our streets,” an FBI official told Fox News Digital. “This kind of chaos was normalized by someone who knows better, and the director reminds lawmakers, especially in places like California and New York that have defended Comey, that we should be focused on public safety, not cleaning up after political stunts.”

Comey offered an explanation for the post after he received backlash on social media. 

“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message,” the subsequent post from Comey said. “I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.” 

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The president, in a separate May interview with Baier, didn’t accept Comey’s explanation. 

“He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant,” Trump told Baier. “If you’re the FBI director, and you don’t know what that meant, that meant ‘assassination,’ and it says it loud and clear.” 

A federal district judge on Wednesday said that the Trump administration’s effort to deport Mahmoud Khalil may be unconstitutional, but some conservative legal experts are not buying it.

Khalil is a pro-Palestine, anti-Israel activist who led protests at Columbia University. An immigration judge recently said he could be deported, but U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz for the District of New Jersey said that the order is likely to be dismissed as “unconstitutionally vague.” Still, Khalil will remain in custody.

“The district court held what we already knew: Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio’s weaponization of immigration law to punish Mahmoud and others like him is likely unconstitutional,” lawyers for Khalil said after the judge’s ruling.

FEDERAL JUDGE SAYS ATTEMPTED DEPORTATION OF ANTI-ISRAEL RINGLEADER MAHMOUD KHALIL MAY BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Anti-Israeli activist Mahmoud Khalil trashed the Trump administration’s case against him in a Washington Post column this week. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images | Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)

However, various conservative legal experts disagree with the judge.

“A judge just handed Hamas a win on American soil. Mahmoud Khalil lied his way into our country, concealed ties to a foreign regime, and then led a pro-Hamas takeover at Columbia University. Now, a judicial activist wants to block his deportation? That’s not justice — it’s national suicide. President Trump has both the constitutional authority and the moral obligation to remove threats like Khalil,” Republican attorney Mehek Cooke told Fox News Digital in a statement.

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“The Supreme Court has made this power crystal clear. In Kleindienst v. Mandel (1972), the Court upheld the executive’s broad discretion in immigration matters. That authority was reaffirmed in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), where the Court ruled that the President has sweeping power to exclude noncitizens deemed detrimental to U.S. interests,” she continued.

ANTI-ISRAEL RINGLEADER MAHMOUD KHALIL’S FREE SPEECH LAWSUIT AGAINST US GOVERNMENT MUST BE HEARD: JUDGE

Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on May 20. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

“By declaring the Immigration and Nationality Act ‘unconstitutionally vague,’ Judge Farbiarz isn’t interpreting the law — he’s rewriting it. That violates the separation of powers and dangerously ties the hands of our Commander in Chief. Citizenship is a privilege — not a sanctuary for liars and Hamas sympathizers. I am confident this will be overturned on appeal,” Cooke added.

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said it is a “ridiculous, meritless claim by a rogue federal judge,” and said that even though Kahlil is a legal resident of the U.S., he can still face consequences.

“Aliens have no constitutional right to be in the U.S. Moreover, under federal immigration law, 8 U.S.C. 1227, aliens like Khalil, including permanent resident aliens, can be removed if the alien ‘endorses or espouses terrorist activity’ or support ‘a terrorist organization.’ Khalil’s blatant support for Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, makes him immediately deportable. This is another biased, partisan judge refusing to abide by federal immigration law and interfering in the president’s constitutional and statutory authority,” he told Fox News Digital in a statement.

LAWYERS FOR COLUMBIA ANTI-ISRAEL ACTIVIST MAHMOUD KHALIL BLAST RUBIO EVIDENCE LETTER: ‘TWO PAGES, THAT’S IT’

People gather for a protest in support of Mahmoud Khalil in front of a federal courthouse in Newark, New Jersey, on March 28. (Stephanie Keith for Fox News Digital)

The White House also condemned the ruling, continuing its frequent clashes with federal judges over immigration policy.

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“Mahmoud Khalil was given the privilege of coming to America to study, but he squandered that opportunity by siding with Hamas terrorists and organizing protests that disrupted college classes and harassed Jewish-American students. Secretary of State Rubio has the right to revoke green cards or visas for any individuals who are adversarial to United States foreign policy and national security interests,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement.

Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom and Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.

The Trump administration has intensified its scrutiny of Chinese nationals studying at U.S. universities after several instances in recent years of students from the communist country engaging in alleged surreptitious activity while in the United States.

The incidents, which have involved allegations of espionage, conspiracy and accusations of misleading federal officials, occurred as a result of Chinese nationals or others with Chinese ties participating in joint education programs between the United States and China.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security plan to “aggressively revoke” student visas of Chinese nationals, “including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party.”

A Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson blasted the new policy in a statement Thursday on X, saying the move was “fully unjustified” and damaging to the United States’ reputation.

STATE DEPARTMENT SAYS IT WILL ‘AGGRESSIVELY REVOKE’ VISAS OF CHINESE STUDENTS

Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies before a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing to examine the president’s proposed budget request for fiscal year 2026 for the Department of State on Capitol Hill in Washington May 20, 2025.  (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

“Citing ideology and national security as a pretext, the move seriously hurts the lawful rights and interests of international students from China and disrupts people-to-people exchanges between the two countries,” spokesperson Lin Jian said.

Nearly 300,000 Chinese nationals have student visas in the United States. It is unclear if the State Department plans to target all of them or only some. Fox News Digital reached out to the department for clarity.

Below is a look at some recent incidents involving Chinese nationals at universities.

Five Chinese nationals involved in Camp Grayling incident

The DOJ brought charges against five University of Michigan students last year after a sergeant major encountered them at Camp Grayling in 2023.

The students had cameras with them and were discovered as the U.S. National Guard was conducting a massive training operation at the site with Taiwanese military members, according to a complaint.

They were all Chinese nationals attending the University of Michigan as part of the school’s joint program with a Shanghai-based university, an FBI official wrote in the complaint, noting some of them had taken photos of Camp Grayling’s military installations and operations.

Marco Rubio and Xi Jinping (Getty Images)

The FBI asked the court to issue arrest warrants for the students for making false statements and destroying records.

Chinese nationals breach Key West military base

Two Chinese nationals who were graduate students at the University of Michigan pleaded guilty in 2020 after they were caught illegally entering and photographing defense infrastructure at a naval air station in Key West, Florida.

University of Minnesota student

Fengyun Shi, a Chinese national studying at the University of Minnesota, was convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia last year of unlawfully using a drone to take photos of naval bases in Norfolk, Virginia.

Shi was sentenced to six months in prison and a year of supervised release, and the Biden administration revoked his visa in response to the charges. ICE announced in May that it deported him to China.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION BEGINS NEW WAVE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENT VISA REVOCATIONS: ‘NO ONE HAS A RIGHT TO A VISA’

Harvard chemistry department chair

While not a Chinese national, Charles Lieber, former chair of Harvard’s chemistry department, was convicted in 2021 of making false statements to authorities and failing to report income from his work with China’s Wuhan University of Technology and a contract he had with China’s Thousand Talents Program.

Espionage attempt

Ji Chaoqun, a Chinese national and one-time student at the Illinois Institute of Technology, was sentenced to eight years in prison after he was convicted by a jury in 2022 of attempting to commit espionage and theft of trade secrets.

Ji was found to have gathered information on defense contractors, engineers and others as part of a broader effort by high-level Chinese intelligence officials to obtain inside access to U.S. technology advancements.

Rubio’s announcement also comes after Harvard filed a lawsuit alleging the Trump administration improperly banned all foreign nationals from the Ivy League school by revoking its student visa certification. A judge temporarily blocked the administration from carrying out the ban as the case plays out in the courts.

STATE DEPARTMENT NOW SCRUTINIZING ALL VISA HOLDERS ASSOCIATED WITH HARVARD

Banners at the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Mass., Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Sophie Park/Bloomberg)

ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons told Harvard in a letter made public through court filings that the revocation was a result of the alleged prevalence of antisemitism on campus but also a result of the administration’s “serious concerns” that the university has “coordinated with the Chinese Communist Party.”

Lyons cited several examples, including Harvard accepting $151 million from foreign donors since 2020, working with “China-based academics” on projects funded by an “Iranian government agent,” partnering with Chinese universities and using public funds to do so and collaborating with people “linked to China’s defense-industrial base.”

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“This coordination is a valid and substantive reason for withdrawing Harvard University’s [Student Exchange Visitor Program] certification to enroll foreign students,” Lyons wrote.

Harvard attorneys argued during a court hearing Thursday that the Trump administration did not give the university a chance to rebut the claims about antisemitism and CCP ties before the foreign student ban was enacted. The administration agreed to give Harvard one month to respond to those claims while the ban remains on hold.

Elon Musk is finishing his official role in the Trump administration, but if President Trump’s latest Truth Social post is any indication, the billionaire isn’t going far.

“I am having a Press Conference tomorrow at 1:30 P.M. EST, with Elon Musk, at the Oval Office,” Trump posted Thursday. “This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way. Elon is terrific!”

Musk’s government service will end May 30, the legal 130-day limit for his “special government employee” designation. He was appointed in January to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), created by executive order on Inauguration Day.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR DOGE AFTER ELON MUSK’S DEPARTURE? ‘ONLY JUST BEGUN’

Elon Musk listens as President Donald Trump meets with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Oval Office of the White House Feb. 13. (AP/Alex Brandon)

“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk posted on X Wednesday. “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt emphasized Thursday “the DOGE leaders are each and every member of the President’s Cabinet and the president himself, who is wholeheartedly committed to cutting waste, fraud and abuse from our government.”

And the cuts are adding up.

According to a May 26 update on DOGE’s website, the initiative has saved $175 billion through asset sales, contract cancellations, fraud payment crackdowns and other spending cuts. That translates to about $1,087 in savings per taxpayer.

ELON MUSK DOES NOT REGRET WORK AT DOGE, SUPPORT FOR TRUMP: ‘ESSENTIAL’ FOR AMERICA TO ‘REACH GREATER HEIGHTS’

White House Senior Advisor Elon Musk walks to the White House after landing aboard Marine One on the South Lawn with U.S. President Donald Trump March 9, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

DOGE’s reach has extended across the federal government, but not without pushback.

Democrats in Congress have sharply criticized Musk’s role. During a February House Oversight hearing, Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., called his influence “reckless and illegal,” accusing Trump of “outsourcing governing to a billionaire who answers to no one.” 

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, warned Musk was acting as an “unelected official” inside the executive branch.

Despite the criticism, markets are welcoming Musk’s return to the private sector. Bloomberg reported Tesla shares rose 4.2% this week on news of his government exit.

President-elect Donald Trump greets Elon Musk as he arrives to watcg the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket Nov. 19, 2024, in Brownsville, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

In an investor call earlier this month, Musk reassured shareholders, “Starting in June, I’ll be allocating far more time to Tesla and SpaceX now that the groundwork at DOGE is in place.”

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The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Diana Stacy and Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump wrote a fiery, lengthy post on social media Thursday night in response to the intense legal battle surrounding his proposed tariffs.

On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit allowed Trump’s tariffs to temporarily remain in effect, just one day before the US. Court of International Trade on Wednesday ruled that Trump overstepped his authority over tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

On Truth Social, Trump wrote that the U.S. Court of International Trade “incredibly” ruled against the “desperately needed” tariffs, but the order was stayed by the federal court.

“Where do these initial three Judges come from? How is it possible for them to have potentially done such damage to the United States of America?” the Republican’s post read. “Is it purely a hatred of ‘TRUMP?’ What other reason could it be?”

TWELVE STATES SUE TRUMP OVER TARIFFS, CLAIMING THEY’RE ‘ILLEGAL’ AND HARMFUL TO US ECONOMY

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, May 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Trump then took aim at Leonard Leo, a chairman on the Federalist Society’s board of directors. Trump said that he used the conservative legal organization to pick out judges when he was “new to Washington.”

“It was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges,” Trump wrote. 

“I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real ‘sleazebag’ named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.”

Trump added that he was “so disappointed” in the Federalist Society “because of the bad advice they gave me on numerous Judicial Nominations.”

President Donald Trump speaks to the media alongside first lady Melania Trump as they depart the White House on April 25, 2025 in Washington, DC.  (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

DISTRICT JUDGES’ ORDERS BLOCKING TRUMP AGENDA FACE HEARING IN TOP SENATE COMMITTEE

“This is something that cannot be forgotten!” the Republican said. “With all of that being said, I am very proud of many of our picks, but very disappointed in others. They always must do what’s right for the Country!”

The president then rounded out his lengthy post by calling attention back to his pending tariffs, which he claimed would lead to a “rich, prosperous, and successful United States of America.”

“The ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade is so wrong, and so political!” Trump said. “Hopefully, the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, Country threatening decision, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY.”

President Donald Trump speaks at the White House on Tuesday, April 22. (AP/Alex Brandon)

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“The President of the United States must be allowed to protect America against those that are doing it Economic and Financial harm. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner and Bill Mears contributed to this report.

A federal judge upheld a court order blocking President Donald Trump from stripping Harvard University of its ability to sponsor international student visas. 

U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs on Thursday extended her earlier restraining order, which blocks the Trump administration from revoking Harvard’s certification under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, or SEVP. That certification allows colleges to sponsor international students for U.S. visas during their enrollment.

Burroughs, an Obama appointee, said she would preserve the status quo while both sides confer and submit either a joint proposed preliminary injunction order or individual proposed orders.

But the update from the court is not a loss for the Trump administration — at least not yet. 

TRUMP NOMINATES FORMER DEFENSE ATTORNEY EMIL BOVE FOR FEDERAL APPEALS COURT VACANCY

Banners at the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Mass., May 27, 2025. (Sophie Park/Bloomberg)

At issue is whether the Trump administration has grounds to revoke Harvard’s SEVP certification. Trump officials have accused Harvard University of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” according to a statement from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

Legal experts told Fox News Digital that foreign students have far fewer protections than U.S. citizens, which puts Harvard at the government’s mercy as long as the Trump administration satisfies certain procedural requirements. 

Experts noted that the SEVP program falls squarely under the authority of DHS and ICE, giving the Trump administration broad discretion to certify, extend or revoke a university’s participation based on the conduct of its foreign student visa holders.

STATE DEPARTMENT NOW SCRUTINIZING ALL VISA HOLDERS ASSOCIATED WITH HARVARD

While U.S. citizens have First Amendment protected free speech rights, the same is not true for foreign students studying in the U.S., whose status is sponsored by their university. 

The intersection “of First Amendment [issues] with immigration law, at least to this extent, has really become a new thing under this administration,” Robert Shibley, the special counsel for campus advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told Fox News Digital. 

“Part of the complication here is that the government does have so much more leeway on foreign policy issues,” Shibley said. “However, I think in this case, there’s a pretty clear process laid out in the regulations for stripping a school of its ability to get foreign students to attend on visas — and simply demanding a certain amount of information from the school and stripping them immediately, which is what they originally said, not the process.”

Demonstrators gather on Cambridge Common to protest Harvard’s stance on the war in Gaza and show support for the Palestinian people outside Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., April 25, 2025.  (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)

Shortly after court adjourned Thursday, the Trump administration gave Harvard 30 days to submit evidence and argue why its SEVP certification should not be revoked. It’s unclear whether that alone satisfies procedural requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act.

The court must also consider what type of conduct foreign student visa holders are engaged in and whether these student visa holders are “systemically” engaged in serial violations of immigration law or are acting in support of foreign terrorist organizations, alleged foreign terrorist organizations or foreign totalitarian governments. 

“That gives DHS stake to investigate and reevaluate on an off-cycle basis, the SEVP certification and eligibility,” said Aram Gavoor, an associate dean at George Washington University Law School and a former Justice Department attorney. In this case, he said, DHS would have “significant authorities to authorize, regulate, certify and, if necessary, decertify, the Student and Exchange Visitor Program.”

TRUMP ADMIN WORKING TO FLY BACK GUATEMALAN MIGRANT ERRONEOUSLY DEPORTED FROM US

“And, in a number of circumstances, the ability of a university to operate its own educational institution with what it teaches and how it teaches that can — in certain circumstances — come into tension with the authority of the U.S. government to regulate immigration in the context of student exchange visitors,” Gavoor added. 

Lawyers for Harvard told the court that, if enacted, the revocation of its SEVP program would affect roughly 7,000 international students at the school at the undergraduate and post-graduate level, causing irreparable harm. They also claimed the action was a breach of administrative procedure, which requires the administration to grant a certain period of notice before revoking their SEVP credentials. 

“The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence,” Harvard University President Alan Garber said Friday in a letter to the Harvard community.

In the short term, the uncertainty could lead foreign students in the visa program to flee Harvard, seeking transfers to other universities that are not targeted by the Trump administration, experts told Fox News. 

Harvard President Alan Garber acknowledges an extended round of applause during Harvard University’s commencement ceremonies Thursday, May 29, 2025 in Cambridge, Mass.  (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Student visa holders are given roughly 180 days after their status is revoked to leave the country or risk violating the law, making the case of utmost importance for thousands of students.

Legal experts noted the court is wading into largely uncharted territory. Asked how it might play out, many scholars pointed to a lack of precedent and offered no clear answer.

“As with many things that Trump does, the answer is unclear, because it hasn’t been done before,” Josh Blackman, a law professor at South Texas College of Law, said. “No president has tried to do this before, so I don’t think there’s a clear precedent on the answer.

“What I’ll say is this: Trump has basically accused Harvard of being a front for terrorism and emboldening terrorism,” he added. “And I think what they’re trying to do is determine if this institution can basically exist.”

This was echoed by Gavoor, who said things need to play out between the Trump administration and Harvard before the court can properly decide if the government followed the law. 

“I think Harvard does need to comply with the off-cycle review of DHS’s SEVP certification,” Gavoor said. 

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At the same time, he said, even if the Trump administration loses on the merits of this case, “there’s a point to be argued that it may have won as a function of policy,” he said.

“That’s because it simply creates a chilling effect for students who would otherwise be attending or apply to Harvard University to be less inclined to do so or [causes them] to make alternative plans for their education In the U.S.”

The Department of Homeland Security is warning would-be disrupters to avoid interfering with federal immigration enforcement operations after it said a demonstrator attempted to disrupt a federal immigration arrest in New York City on Wednesday.

Nearly two dozen anti-ICE protesters were also detained in another part of the city later that day. 

Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital that ICE agents contacted Federal Protective Service (FPS) on Wednesday morning and “requested assistance as their officers were conducting arrests” in the lobby of a federal immigration court building.

McLaughlin said FPS officers responded and saw several protesters filming and taking pictures of law enforcement personnel in the lobby. She said that at approximately 11:45 a.m. a person attempted to forcibly interfere with ICE agents attempting to place someone in custody.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SETS NEW GOAL OF 3,000 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ARRESTS DAILY

The Trump Department of Homeland Security issued a stark warning after it said an anti-ICE demonstrator attempted to disrupt federal authorities from carrying out an immigration enforcement arrest in New York. (Minh Connors/Anadolu via Getty Images and iStock)

McLaughlin said ICE reported the incident to FPS as “an assault on one of their officers.” The person was briefly taken into custody, issued a U.S. district court violation notice and released, according to McLaughlin.

In response to the incident, McLaughlin said, “Anyone who actively obstructs law enforcement in the performance of their sworn duties will of course face consequences which could include arrest.”

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Later that day, nearly two dozen anti-ICE protesters were detained by the New York Police Department outside a federal building in Manhattan on Wednesday night after a chaotic protest led to police struggling with demonstrators.

An NYPD spokesperson told Fox News Digital that officers responded to a 911 call for a “disorderly group” in front of a DHS building at approximately 6:35 p.m.

NYPD HUNTS FOR MAN ACCUSED OF BEATING OFF-DUTY COP AND STEALING HIS GUN, ALLEGED ACCOMPLICE ARRESTED

Hundreds of anti-ICE protesters are shown gathered outside the USCIS San Francisco Field Office on Sansome Street on April 14, 2025, as they marched to demand the release of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The spokesperson said that “upon arrival, officers observed approximately 20-30 demonstrators sitting in the roadway, blocking vehicular traffic” and that “the demonstrators were instructed verbally numerous times to vacate the roadway and did not comply.”

As a result, the spokesperson said 23 individuals were taken into custody, 18 individuals were issued criminal court summons and five individuals were arrested and charged, according to the NYPD spokesperson.

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Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said in a statement this month that assaults against ICE officers rose by more than 400% from the same time last year. He placed part of the blame on politicians who “are careless with their politically motivated rhetoric.”

Elon Musk may no longer be the top dog at DOGE, but his reforms at the State Department will remain permanently in place, a senior agency official told Fox News Digital Thursday. 

As Musk’s 130-day mandate as a “special government employee” comes to an end, the billionaire entrepreneur announced his departure from DOGE in a post on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Wednesday night.

During Musk’s time as the head of DOGE, he helped usher in big reforms at the State Department, which included an effective dismantlement of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), staff reductions, and the cancellation of various foreign aid programs due to lack of oversight, inefficiency, and other reasons.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR DOGE AFTER ELON MUSK’S DEPARTURE? ‘ONLY JUST BEGUN’

During Musk’s time as the head of DOGE, he helped usher in big reforms at the agency, which included an effective dismantlement of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), staff reductions at the State Department, and the cancellation of various foreign aid programs due to lack of oversight, inefficiency, and other reasons. (GETTY/AP)

The indication that Musk’s DOGE-related work at the State Department will continue was reinforced by a new reorganization effort at the Department of State announced by Secretary Marco Rubio on Thursday. The new reorganization plans are expected to cut or consolidate more than 300 of the State Department’s offices and bureaus as part of a massive overhaul aimed at streamlining the department, according to agency officials. 

The agency currently has about 700 offices, meaning the reorganization effort will slash, or join, more than 40% of its offices.

“We have too many godd— offices,” a senior State Department official told Fox News Digital. “We’re trying to shrink offices rather than create them.”

WHITE HOUSE DISCLOSES WHO WILL LEAD DOGE EFFORTS AFTER MUSK’S DEPARTURE

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new reorganization effort Thursday, which will continue the work DOGE began. (Reuters)

The State Department submitted a notice to Congress Thursday disclosing plans for the reorganization overhaul, which senior State Department officials said will be the largest restructuring for the agency since the Cold War.  

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt added Thursday that many DOGE employees will remain part of the Trump administration, despite Musk winding down his work. 

“Surely the mission of Doge will continue,” Leavitt told reporters Thursday. “Many Doge employees are now political employees.”

President Donald Trump and DOGE head Elon Musk sit down with Fox News host Sean Hannity for a joint interview. (Fox News)

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One of Musk’s DOGE associates, Jeremy Lewin, has recently been tapped for a top role within the State Department. In April, he was placed at State for a different role. For his part, Lewin, however, disputes that he ever did any direct work for Musk’s DOGE.

Fox News Digital’s Diana Stancy contributed to this report.

A White House official confirmed to Fox News on Thursday that in addition to billionaire Elon Musk, multiple other staffers and special government employees from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are departing.

Musk has been heading DOGE since President Donald Trump took office in January. The department was tasked with cutting $2 trillion from the federal government’s budget through efforts to slash spending, government programs and federal workforce.

Musk announced his departure from DOGE late Wednesday.

“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk said on X. “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

LESS THAN HALF OF DOGE-TERMINATED CONTRACTS CAN BE PUBLICLY TRACKED, ONLY ABOUT A QUARTER OF GRANTS: WATCHDOG

Former President Donald Trump, left, claps as Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk prepares to depart after speaking at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Along with Musk, advisor Steve Davis, advisor and spokesperson Katie Miller, and attorney James Burnham are leaving their posts within DOGE, a White House spokesperson confirmed to Fox News.

With Musk’s departure, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a briefing Thursday that Trump and members of his Cabinet will now spearhead DOGE’s efforts.

WHITE HOUSE DISCLOSES WHO WILL LEAD DOGE EFFORTS AFTER MUSK’S DEPARTURE

White House senior advisor Elon Musk walks to the White House after landing in Marine One on the South Lawn in Washington, D.C., on March 9. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

“The DOGE leaders are each and every member of the president’s cabinet and the president himself, who is wholeheartedly committed to cutting waste, fraud and abuse from our government,” Leavitt said.

“The entire Cabinet understands the need to cut government waste, fraud and abuse,” she continued. “And each Cabinet secretary at their respective agencies is committed to that. That’s why they were working hand in hand with Elon Musk. And they’ll continue to work with their respective DOGE employees who have onboarded as political appointees at all of these agencies. 

“So surely the mission of DOGE will continue, and many DOGE employees are now political appointees and employees of our government.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR DOGE AFTER ELON MUSK’S DEPARTURE? ‘ONLY JUST BEGUN’

The Congressional DOGE Caucus now has over 100 members and Elon Musk. (House of Representatives/Getty)

While DOGE was tasked with cutting $2 trillion from the budget, its efforts led to roughly $175 billion in savings due to asset sales, contract cancellations, fraud payment cuts and other ways to eliminate costs, according to an update on DOGE’s website. 

The savings translate to about $1,087 in savings per taxpayer, the website notes.

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A senior White House official told Fox News Digital previously that DOGE is now part of the “DNA” of the federal government, and it will continue to operate as it had under Musk.

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Murray and Diana Stancy contributed to this report.

Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump administration, Capitol Hill and more Fox News politics content. 

Here’s what’s happening…

–Elon Musk criticism of Trump tax bill frustrates some Republicans: ‘No place in Congress’

-Rubio spearheads massive State Department reorganization set to eliminate, merge more than 300 offices

-Federal judge says attempted deportation of anti-Israel ringleader Mahmoud Khalil may be unconstitutional

Musk Leaves DOGE

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk bid farewell to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in a Wednesday night X post, ending his tenure as the face of the agency as it shifts to a new phase in President Donald Trump‘s second term. 

“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” Musk said on X. “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”

Musk has been the public face of DOGE since Trump signed an executive order establishing the office on Jan. 20. DOGE has since ripped through federal government agencies in a quest to identify and end government overspending, corruption and fraud…READ MORE

White House

BLUE AMBITIONS: 21 Democrats who may try to succeed Trump in the 2028 presidential election

DEEP CUTS: Trump’s drastic NSC cuts spark debate: Does fighting the ‘Deep State’ put national security at risk?

JUDICIAL PUSHBACK: Federal judge orders Trump admin to resume migrant ‘parole’ applications

A side-by-side split image of protesters, seen demonstrating against Trump’s immigration crackdown and other policies, next to a photo of U.S. President Donald Trump signing an executive order at the White House. Photos via Getty Images. (Getty Images)

COURT WIN: Federal judge sides against copyright leader who claimed Trump was wrong to fire her

‘MOMENT MEANS A LOT’: Rapper thanks Trump for pardon on gun conviction

SAVED BY THE PEN: Trump commutes sentence of major political donor in latest round of clemency

World Stage

‘INFLECTION POINT’: Hamas faces ‘legitimacy crisis’ as desperate Gazans flock to US-backed aid centers

‘PATH’ FOR PEACE: Franklin Graham meets with Zelenskyy in Berlin, offers prayer amid escalating Russia-Ukraine war

Franklin Graham and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy share a conversation during a meeting in Berlin, as others observe and a camera records the moment. (Courtesy Billy Graham Evangelistic Association)

Capitol Hill

FIGHTING BACK: Former Navy Seal Jared Hudson mounts Senate bid to ‘crush the woke agenda’ as Tuberville seeks governorship

UPPER BRACKET BOOST: Here are the changes to the SALT tax deduction in the ‘big, beautiful bill’

DOCTOR DEMOCRAT: Lindsey Graham draws Democratic Senate challenger who previously lost congressional race

FUNDING FEUD: GOP rails against ‘blatantly false’ Dem claims about Medicaid reform in Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’

Rep. Erin Houchin (right) is speaking out against Democrats’ rhetoric about Medicaid cuts.  (Getty Images)

‘POLITICAL SCANDAL’: GOP push for new House committee to probe Biden decline ‘cover-up’ gains steam

CLOCK’S TICKING: 85-year-old longtime House Democrat facing primary challenger who’s making age the issue

Across America 

RED TAPE CUT: Supreme Court limits judges’ authority to block infrastructure projects over environmental concerns

SPLASH SHOWDOWN: Riley Gaines challenges ex-ESPN host to race after he says she was a ‘worse swimmer’ than she is ‘MAGA stooge’

RACE HEATING UP: Virginia gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger releases first TV ad, slams ‘political nonsense’

‘CRUSH THE WOKE AGENDA’: Former Navy Seal Jared Hudson mounts Senate bid to ‘crush the woke agenda’ as Tuberville seeks governorship

Jared Hudson  (Jared Hudson)

FAITH-BASED LEARNING: Pro-life leader praises bill requiring Ten Commandments in Texas schools: ‘A step in the right direction’

Get the latest updates on the Trump administration and Congress, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com.