A bipartisan pair of senators are calling on Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth to hand over copies of the orders issued to strike boats in the Caribbean allegedly carrying narco-terrorists.

Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Roger Wicker, R-Miss., released two letters they sent to Hegseth in recent weeks in response to the repeated strikes on suspected drug boats.

The first letter, which was issued on Sept. 23, explained the legal requirements for congressional oversight over the military’s executed orders, including that congressional defense committees must be provided copies of the orders within 15 days of being issued.

‘Unfortunately, the Department has not complied with this requirement,’ the letter reads.

The second letter, issued on Oct. 6, seeks a written opinion from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) on the domestic or international legal basis for conducting the strikes and related operations.

Reports indicate that the OLC produced a legal opinion justifying the strikes, which numerous lawmakers have been demanding in recent weeks.

The senators’ letter also asked for a complete list ‘of all designated terrorist organizations and drug trafficking organizations with whom the President has determined the United States is in a non-international armed conflict and against whom lethal military force may be used.’

‘To date, these documents have not been submitted,’ Reed’s office said in a news release on Friday.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have urged the Trump administration to release information related to the strikes.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized the administration on Thursday after it excluded Democrats from briefings on the strikes, a move he called ‘indefensible and dangerous.’

On Wednesday, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee also penned a letter demanding to review the legal justification behind the series of boat strikes they say appear to violate several laws.

‘Drug trafficking is a terrible crime that has had devastating impacts on American families and communities and should be prosecuted. Nonetheless, the President’s actions to hold alleged drug traffickers accountable must still conform with the law,’ the letter states.

The strikes have also garnered scrutiny from Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who raised concerns about killing people without due process and the possibility of killing innocent people.

Paul has cited Coast Guard statistics that show a significant percentage of boats boarded for suspicion of drug trafficking are innocent.

The senator has also argued that if the administration plans to engage in a war with Venezuela after it has targeted boats it claims are transporting drugs for the Venezuela-linked Tren de Aragua gang, it must seek a declaration of war from Congress.

In the House, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has made similar statements.

A report published on Friday suggested the U.S. military was planning to strike military installations in Venezuela, but President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the report was inaccurate.

This comes as Hegseth announced the U.S. military on Wednesday struck another boat carrying alleged narco-terrorists. The strikes were carried out in the Eastern Pacific region at the direction of Trump, killing four men on board.

That was the 14th strike on suspected drug boats since September. A total of 61 people have reportedly been killed while three survived, including at least two who were later repatriated to their home countries.

The Pentagon has refused to release the identities of those killed or evidence that drugs were on board.

President Donald Trump spent the week in Asia meeting with other global leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, while his administration ramped up its attacks against alleged drug boats in Latin America.

Trump met with Xi Thursday in South Korea, where the two hashed out a series of agreements concerning trade. Specifically, Trump said he agreed to cut tariffs on Chinese imports by 10% — reducing the rate to from 57% to 47% — because China said it would cooperate with the U.S. on addressing the fentanyl crisis.

Additionally, Trump said that he would not move forward with imposing an additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods that were expected to kick in Saturday. Trump threatened the steep hike after China announced in October it would impose export controls on rare earth magnets, which he said China had agreed to postpone by a year.

Afterward, Trump described the meeting as a massive success, and signaled that a broader trade deal between the two countries would be signed shortly.

‘Zero, to 10, with 10 being the best, I’d say the meeting was a 12,’ Trump told reporters after meeting with Xi. ‘A lot of decisions were made … and we’ve come to a conclusion on very many important points.’

From China’s point of view, Xi said afterward the two countries should work together and complete outstanding tasks from the summit for the ‘peace of mind’ of China, the U.S., and the rest of the world.

‘Both sides should take the long-term perspective into account, focusing on the benefits of cooperation rather than falling into a vicious cycle of mutual retaliation,’ Xi said, according to a state media report on the meeting.

Additionally, Trump announced on the Asia trip, which also included stops in Malaysia and Japan, that he would instruct the U.S. to revive nuclear weapons testing —upending decades of precedent on nuclear policy, as the U.S. has not conducted nuclear weapons testing since 1992. The announcement also left lawmakers, experts and military personnel wondering what he meant since no other country has conducted a known nuclear test since North Korea in 2017.

China’s and Russia’s last known tests go back to the 1990s, when Russia was still the Soviet Union.

The White House did not provide comment to Fox News Digital. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

However, experts are aligned that Trump likely meant he would instruct the U.S. to either increase its testing of nuclear-powered weapons systems or conduct tests of low-yield nuclear weapons.

Vice President JD Vance told reporters Thursday that Trump would continue to work on nuclear proliferation, but said testing would be done to guarantee weapons are working at optimal capability.

‘It’s an important part of American national security to make sure that this nuclear arsenal we have actually functions properly,’ Vance said. ‘And that’s part of a testing regime. To be clear, we know that it does work properly, but you got to keep on top of it over time. And the president just wants to make sure that we do that with his nation.’

The Trump administration also stepped up its campaign against drug cartels in Latin America, totaling at least 14 strikes against alleged drug boats in the region.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that the U.S. had conducted three strikes against four vessels in the Eastern Pacific, and Hegseth announced Wednesday another strike had also been conducted in those waters.

But the White House dismissed reports Friday that the Trump administration had identified and was poised to strike military targets within Venezuela imminently. Trump later told reporters that he hadn’t determined whether he would conduct strikes within Venezuela.

Lawmakers — including some Republicans — have pressed for more answers on the strikes, and have questioned if they are even legal. For example, Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., spearheaded a war powers resolution that would prohibit U.S. armed forces from engaging in ‘hostilities’ against Venezuela.

‘The Trump administration has made it clear they may launch military action inside Venezuela’s borders and won’t stop at boat strikes in the Caribbean,’ Schiff said in an Oct. 17 statement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump wants Senate Republicans to gut the Senate filibuster, but it’s a request that puts his quick-fix desire to end the shutdown at odds with the GOP’s long-held defense of the filibuster.

The Senate filibuster is the 60-vote threshold that applies to most bills in the upper chamber, and given the nature of the thin majorities that either party has commanded in recent years, that means that legislation typically has to be bipartisan to advance.

It has also proven to be the main roadblock in reopening the government. Despite Republicans controlling the upper chamber, they have routinely come up a handful of votes short in their 13 attempts to end the shutdown.

Three members of the Democratic caucus have broken from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and their colleagues to reopen the government, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., needs five more to hit the magic number.

Trump, in a late-night Truth Social post, said that on his return trip from Asia, he ruminated heavily over why the government had shut down despite Republicans being in control. His solution was for Senate Republicans ‘to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option.’

‘Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW,’ Trump said.

Senate Republicans have already gone nuclear this year to unilaterally change the rules to blast through Schumer’s and Democrats’ blockade of Trump’s nominees. But for many Senate Republicans, including Thune and his leadership team, nuking the filibuster is a proverbial third rail.

‘There’s always a lot of swirl out there, as you know from, you know, social media, etc., but no, we’re not having that conversation,’ Thune said earlier this month when asked about pressure to go nuclear on the filibuster.

And there isn’t much daylight between his sentiments from earlier in October to now.

‘Leader Thune’s position on the importance of the legislative filibuster is unchanged,’ Thune’s spokesperson Ryan Wrasse said in a statement.

Earlier this month during an appearance on Fox & Friends, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., shared a similar outlook as Thune when asked if the filibuster was under consideration to be on the chopping block.

‘No, that’s not going to be the case,’ he said. ‘There aren’t the Republicans that would want to support it.’

The filibuster has come under fire in the last decade from Senate Democrats, a point that Trump noted in his lengthy post.

The last time the filibuster was put to the test was when Democrats controlled the Senate in 2022. Schumer, who was majority leader at the time, tried to change the rules for a ‘talking filibuster’ in order to pass voting rights legislation.

But the effort was thwarted when then-Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., joined Republicans to block the change. Both have since retired from the Senate and become independents.

Still, the stalemate in the Senate has shown no signs of shattering as the shutdown heads into November, though bipartisan talks among rank-and-file members have been on the rise as federal food benefits career toward a weekend funding cliff.

Across the building, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also warned against turning to the nuclear option for the filibuster, even as a handful of House Republicans have demanded that the safeguard be erased.

‘Look, I’ll just say this in general, as I’ve said many times about the filibuster, it’s not my call. I don’t have a say in this. It’s a Senate chamber issue,’ Johnson said. ‘But the filibuster has traditionally been viewed as a very important safeguard. If the shoe was on the other foot, I don’t think our team would like it.’

With no deal in place to reopen the government and no action from the administration to make up for a funding shortfall in federal benefits, millions of Americans are at risk of losing food benefits starting on Saturday.

The argument raging in the Senate mirrors the same argument that has so far seen the government shutdown for 32 days.

Senate Democrats contend that with the stroke of a pen — like on expiring Obamacare subsidies — President Donald Trump could easily see the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps, funded as the shutdown drags on.

‘We don’t want to pit healthcare and food, [Republicans] do,’ Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. ‘We think you can have both.’

But congressional Republicans and the administration argue that food stamp benefits, and numerous other government programs, could be fully funded if Schumer and his caucus would unlock the votes to reopen the government.

Democrats are suing the Trump administration in part over its refusal to use the SNAP emergency fund, which they contend has about $5 billion, to fund the program. But a recent memo by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) argued there was no legal standing to use the fund and that federal SNAP funds would run dry by Nov. 1 if Democrats did not vote to end the shutdown.

A pair of federal judges ruled on Friday that the administration would have to pay out the food stamp benefits for November, either in full or partially. 

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins affirmed the memo during a Friday press conference, ‘There is a contingency fund at USDA, but that contingency fund, by the way, doesn’t even cover, I think, half of the $9.2 billion that would be required for November SNAP. But it is only allowed to flow if the underlying program is funded.’

Nothing typified the dysfunction over the benefits, which 42 million Americans rely on, more than an explosion on the Senate floor this week between Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M.

Luján tried to force a vote on his bill that would fund both food stamps and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), but was promptly blocked by an angry Thune, who argued that Democrats have had 13 chances to fund the program through the shutdown.

‘This isn’t a political game, these are real people’s lives we’re talking about,’ Thune said. ‘And you all have just figured out, 29 days in, that, oh, there might be some consequences.’

Democrats contend that Trump and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program, are actively choosing not to fund the program, given that there is roughly $5 billion in an emergency contingency fund that the administration could dip into.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., charged that it was ‘Trump’s choice.’

‘He’s got $5 billion that he could be using right now to help people, to help people feed their kids, and he’s choosing not to do that,’ he said. ‘What he’s doing is sick, deliberately making this shutdown more painful as a means to try to get Democrats to sign on to an immoral, corrupt budget.’

The argument has been much the same in the House of Representatives, which passed the GOP’s federal funding bill on Sept. 19. Both Republicans and Democrats appear worried, however.

‘I just left the local food pantry in my district and was speaking with seniors there, and they’re all very concerned,’ Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., whose district is home to more than 120,000 SNAP recipients, told Fox News Digital. ‘They agree with me that the Senate, beginning with their own senator, Senator Schumer, should vote to continue the existing funding levels that they previously voted for four times and prevent this unnecessary pain.’

There is a desire among both sides of the aisle to fund the program before the government reopens, but the likelihood of piecemeal bills, or ‘rifle-shots,’ making it to the floor was squashed by Thune during the week.

Both Luján and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., have bills that would fund food stamps, with Hawley’s bill having 29 bipartisan co-sponsors, including Schumer.

One of the co-sponsors, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital that the administration’s argument, in part, was because the $5 billion in the contingency fund was not enough to cover a month’s worth of food stamp benefits.

‘It’s hurricane season, and that’s what it’s really satisfying,’ he said. ‘But it’s not enough, either way. We’ve tried 14 times to be able to fully fund SNAP — once with an actual appropriation bill … to say, ‘let’s just fund it for the entire year,’ 13 times to do short term. It’s a little frustrating. Some of my Democratic colleagues are saying, ‘Well, find some way to fund it for a week or so, move things around.’’

But on the House side, it’s not clear if Democrats nor Republicans have the appetite for piecemeal bills during the shutdown.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has consistently said he will only call the House back into session if Senate Democrats vote to reopen the government.

Meanwhile, Fox News Digital asked Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., during a press conference on SNAP this week whether he was discussing food stamp legislation with his Senate counterparts.

‘I’m familiar with the proposals, and I know that many of my colleagues … have proposed legislation here in the House as well. Those conversations will continue,’ Neguse said. But, ‘ultimately,’ he added, ‘legislation doesn’t need to be passed in order for these funds to be released. It is the law.’

We have passed the spooky season of silly ‘No Kings’ protests and whines about White House renovations. Halloween is the start of one of our favorite times of year – eating. The three biggest food holidays land within two months – Halloween (Candyland for those of us with sweet teeth), Thanksgiving and Christmas. And the best two are still on their way – sort of like dessert before the main course. So, who better to lead that off than our friends at Peta.

1. Peta bites again

Peta, which wouldn’t exist if people didn’t eat animals or wear animals or have pets or look at animals in zoos, etc., is one of the strangest organizations around. It is so pro-animal and anti-human that it’s always good for a laugh or a gross out. (We dropped one previous item that was, well, funereal. Trust me, you are better off.) This month, it’s sort of similar, except it’s about a memorial … for some of those previously mentioned tasty animals.

According to Peta, ‘Wesleyan University, students, faculty, and alumni are coming together to build a more compassionate campus.’ No, they’re not doing charity work or going to animal shelters adopting cute puppies. That would make sense. They’re pushing for a plaque. They are ‘calling on the school to install a PETA-supported ‘Wesleyan Animal Recognition Memorial.’’ What’s that, you ask? It’s a memorial plaque ‘outside the dining hall that would commemorate the millions of chickens, cows, fish, pigs, and others who have been killed and served there as food.’

Yum. Imagine getting ready to eat your industrial, cafeteria burger or chicken fingers and pass by a memorial devoted to the dead critters you are about to eat. For what we are about to receive, thank Peta.

2. Loving those cop killers

The far-left news outlet The Nation sure does take ‘F— the police’ pretty far. The publication’s Sports Editor Dave Zirin wrote a loving piece about infamous cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal under the headline, ‘Mumia Abu-Jamal Speaks With the Clear Voice of a Free Man.’ 

News flash, he isn’t free and isn’t much of a man either. ‘Mumia,’ as his supporters call him, was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982 for murdering Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He managed to escape the death penalty, but go to almost any leftist protest in the last 40 years and a couple idiots will be carrying ‘Free Mumia’ signs.

The timing of Zirin’s latest interview (he wrote about Mumia for Rolling Stone earlier this year) came right after ‘an event commemorating the recently departed revolutionary Assata Shakur, the former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army who escaped a New Jersey prison to Cuba 46 years ago.’ 

In other words, another cop killer. According to the New York Times’ loving farewell to Shakur, she murdered ‘state trooper, Werner Foerster, [who] was killed and another, James Harper, [who] was wounded.’ 

Notice a trend? You should. Shakur died in September, or I’d dwell more on the media’s love fest for her. Watching Zirin lament the poor health of ‘the country’s best-known political prisoner’ was bad enough. For the record, I lament his health, too, just not in the same way.

3. Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow 

If you travel the back roads of the United States, you will encounter oddities – large monuments to furniture, trolls, a giant elephant and even Carhenge. (Just what you think it is. Stonehenge is better.) Count wacky museums in that list. But we are losing one, Leila’s Hair Museum in Missouri. Alas, Leila Cohoon died at 92 and now they are, ‘rehoming the collection of more than 3,000 pieces to museums across the country,’ according to the Associated Press.

AP describes the hair art coming from, ‘from past presidents, Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe and even Jesus.’ (That last one, I kind of doubt.) 

Hair art used to be how people remembered loved ones or captured keepsakes of famous people. The museum also drew the attention of celebrities from comedian Phyllis Diller to Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne. It’s good to see other museums taking on these unusual memories, but that’s one less cool roadside stop.

4. When You’ve Lost the Washington Post… 

Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre made the news in October and not in a good way. She should be used to that after an inauspicious term in her role covering for President Joe Biden’s obvious dementia. ‘KJP,’ as she is sometimes called, has a new book out, ‘Moving Forward: A Story of Hope, Hard Work, and the Promise of America.’ In World Series terms, she whiffed on all three. Don’t wait to buy your copy.

Even the Washington Post had unkind words for it. Book critic Becca Rothfeld wrote a lede 190 words long with six semicolons and two em dashes. She complained that KJP had only given up on the Democratic Party because it helped ‘usher a doddering Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race.’ 

The piece called KJP a ‘devoted apparatchik’ and ‘revealingly blinkered.’ She’s ‘an artifact of an age that looks recent on paper but feels prehistoric in practice — the age of pantsuits, the word ‘empowerment,’ the musical ‘Hamilton,’ the cheap therapeutic entreaties to ‘work on yourself’ and ‘lean in’ to various corporate abysses.’

Rothfeld guts the author and the book, noting, ‘It is incredible — and emblematic of the Democrats’ total aesthetic and intellectual driftlessness — that someone who writes in such feel-good, thought-repelling clichés was hired to communicate with the nation from its highest podium.’ I wouldn’t recommend KJP send her resume to the Post just yet.

5. Democrats Don’t Know What a Woman Is

It takes MSNBC to complain about misogyny in a governor’s race … between two women. Yep, the bright lights of ‘Morning Joe,’ the same show that told you demented Biden was ‘intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever,’ now whine that voting against Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger was sexist. One small problem with that, the Republican candidate is Winsome Earle-Sears, who also happens to be a woman.

Co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Jonathan Lemire had an epic exchange on why female Democrats are struggling. ‘They’ve nominated women two of the last three elections for the presidency — lost both. There are some who say, ‘Well, we can’t do that again. The stakes are too high.’ But, of course, that does fall into the same misogynistic trap,’ said Lemire. To which Brzezinski replied, ‘Other countries have no problem electing women.’ 

Earle-Sears had the last laugh until Election Day, tweeting, ‘Who wants to tell them?’

Rap superstar Nicki Minaj recently thanked President Donald Trump for shedding light on the persecution of Christians in Nigeria.

‘Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter,’ Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Friday. ‘The United States cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria, and numerous other countries. We stand ready, willing, and able to save our great Christian population around the world!’

Minaj is open about her Christian faith and said that the president’s statement made her ‘feel a deep sense of gratitude.’

‘Reading this made me feel a deep sense of gratitude. We live in a country where we can freely worship God. No group should ever be persecuted for practicing their religion. We don’t have to share the same beliefs in order for us to respect each other,’ Minaj wrote.

‘Numerous countries all around the world are being affected by this horror [and] it’s dangerous to pretend we don’t notice. Thank you to the president [and] his team for taking this seriously. God bless every persecuted Christian. Let’s remember to lift them up in prayer,’ she added.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz thanked Minaj for ‘using your platform to speak out in defense of the Christians being persecuted in Nigeria.’

‘We cannot allow this to continue,’ Waltz added. ‘Every brother and sister of Christ must band together and say, ‘Enough!”

The situation for Christians in Nigeria has become dire as entire villages have been burned to the groups, worshippers have been murdered at Sunday services and thousands have been displaced by Islamist groups sweeping through the country.

‘Even being conservative, it’s probably 4,000 to 8,000 Christians killed annually,’ Mark Walker, Trump’s ambassador-designate for International Religious Freedom, told Fox News Digital. ‘This has been going on for years — from ISWAP to Islamist Fulani ethnic militias — and the Nigerian government has to be much more proactive.’

Trump said he has directed Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., and members of the House Appropriations Committee to investigate the situation and report their findings to him.

The president also said that he would designate Nigeria a ‘country of particular concern’ (CPC). According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), in countries with that designation, the government has ‘engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom,’ which is defined as ‘systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.’ This comes from the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act.

‘Nigeria is the most dangerous nation on Earth to follow Christ,’ the House Appropriations Committee said in a statement. ‘For simply practicing their faith, Christians are actively being kidnapped, attacked, and slaughtered. With President Trump announcing he will be redesignating Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, the United States is making clear in one resolute voice: religious persecution will not be tolerated. The scourge of anti-Christian violence and oppression of other religious minorities by radical Islamic terrorists is an affront to religious freedom. This is a critical step in mobilizing leadership and attention to confront evil extremism.’

The committee vowed that once the government shutdown is over, its members will ‘continue moving full-year appropriations across the finish line to uphold your priorities. We know you’ll be ready at your desk with a pen in hand.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Minaj’s representative for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter and Sophia Compton contributed to this report.

Staggering revelations came out this week concerning Operation Arctic Frost, the Biden Justice Department’s weaponization campaign against Republicans predicated on the non-crime of objecting to a presidential election.

Democrats lodged similar objections in 1969, 2001, 2005 and, most infamously, in 2017 when they cited the discredited Steele Dossier to attempt to overturn President Trump’s victory. Yet, none faced charges. Objecting to electors is protected by the First Amendment and the Electoral Count Act of 1887. It was eminently reasonable for Members of Congress—the arbiters of whether to certify election results—to lodge inquiries about the fairness of the 2020 election.

There is no evidence that the Arctic Frost targets participated in any crimes that occurred at the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Still, Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, former FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Special Counsel Jack Smith went on a fishing expedition targeting President Trump, his aides, the Republican Attorneys General Association, Members of both chambers of Congress, and many other Trump allies.

Thanks to the stellar leadership of FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley—an oversight bulldog for more than half a century—was able to deliver a powerful presentation to the media that detailed the horrific abuse of power by the Biden administration. For no valid reason, Jack Smith and his henchmen sought phone records for nine senators, all Republicans.

Even more alarmingly, Smith subpoenaed AT&T to tap the office line of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. AT&T declined to do so on the advice of counsel but could not disclose Smith’s astonishing request thanks to an order from radical D.C. Obama Judge James Boasberg. Boasberg preposterously asserted that disclosure could lead to evidence destruction and witness intimidation. As former top Senate attorney Michael Fragoso pointed out, Boasberg’s secret snooping likely violated a clear federal statute that requires disclosure to the Senate when spying on a senator.

Boasberg deserved impeachment even prior to this revelation based on his grossly irresponsible order to turn planes full of Tren de Aragua terrorists around while they were flying over the ocean, lawlessly exposing an ongoing military operation and endangering American and allied lives. The House more than ever needs to impeach this renegade judge.

People are understandably outraged at the Democrats’ weaponization of law enforcement, and many are upset that, in their view, not enough is being done. This sentiment ignores the reality of our legal system. Earlier this month, Miami U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones sought and obtained permission to empanel two new grand juries in January—including in Fort Pierce, Florida. It takes several months to prepare for a grand jury because prospective grand jurors need sufficient notice to respond to summonses. Anyone who has received a jury duty summons understands this process. Hopefully, this grand jury will investigate the unprecedented Mar-a-Lago raid as part of a broader probe into a conspiracy against the rights of President Trump, his aides, and his allies pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 241.

Criminal charges also are time-consuming because defendants can delay the process. Former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Leticia James, for instance, have moved to dismiss their charges on the grounds of vindictive prosecution. They also claim that Lindsey Halligan, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, is serving pursuant to a constitutionally invalid appointment. If the leftist judge rules in their favor, the government will appeal, but this is time-consuming, especially if the case reaches the Supreme Court. Jack Smith tried to rush President Trump’s D.C. criminal case to trial, attempting to bypass the D.C. Circuit during the appeal of the presidential immunity issue. The Supreme Court rightly rebuffed Smith’s politically-motivated effort, and Smith’s blatant attempt to rush provided plenty of ammunition for his critics. As one federal judge wisely summarized the right course of action in criminal cases, it is better to do it right than to do it twice.

Patel and Bongino are not sitting on the sidelines while the criminal process plays out under the superb leadership of Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Over ten ringleaders and more than five case agents involved in the Arctic Frost case have been fired so far. Many of these agents, such as Walter Giardina, are suing over their terminations. These suits will take time to play out, as will more firings.

Patel and Bongino have done far more than investigate weaponization. Congress had been demanding documents concerning the shooting that nearly killed House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and more than a dozen other lawmakers by a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter nearly a decade ago. Shortly after assuming office, Patel and Bongino delivered the documents. The FBI also has been at the forefront of drug seizures, taking enough fentanyl off the streets to kill 127 million innocent Americans. The government also has seized more than 190,000 kilos of cocaine and more than 8,000 kilos of methamphetamine. In addition, the Trump administration has taken more than 6,000 illegal weapons off of our streets. Violent crime arrests are up 100%, and gang arrests are up over 200%. Arrests of child predators are up 10%, and human trafficking arrests are up 15%. Four of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted have been captured; no captures occurred in 2024.

Justice is coming for those responsible for the lawfare; Bondi, Blanche, Patel, and Bongino are working diligently to make it happen. They were the targets of the weaponization they are investigating; they have no reason to drag their feet in exposing it and holding its architects accountable. Patience is a virtue, and the coming justice for the individuals who engaged in Republic-ending lawfare surely will be worth the wait. We will make sure of it.

When New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani stepped to the microphone outside the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx last week near Yankee Stadium, his voice broke as he spoke about ‘the memory of my aunt who stopped taking the subway after Sept. 11 because she did not feel safe.’

Behind him, a Yemeni-American educator in sunglasses named Debbie Almontaser nodded. Almost two decades ago, in 2007, she was forced to resign as principal of a city school after defending a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Intifada NYC.’ City officials viewed it as a call to violence. She said it was benign. Her case became a rallying cry for Muslim American activists who cast her as a victim of ‘Islamophobia.’

Now, Almontaser was back, this time as a senior advisor to Emgage Action and a board member of Yemeni American Merchants Association Action, two of 110 political nonprofits, community groups and political action committees backing Mamdani as he alleges ‘islamophobia’ against him. Recently, when critics questioned Mamdani’s ties to hardline Brooklyn Imam Siraj Wahhaj, she sprang to action, helping to organize a protest to defend Wahhaj. 

That rapid, coordinated response captured the modus operandi of a network of political operatives and clerics intertwined with the shared mission of catapulting Mamdani into the mayor’s office.

Mamdani’s background diverges from many of his co-religionists. In an interview, he said he is a Khoja Shia Muslim, part of a small, relatively liberal sect with roots in India. Many of his New York-area allies are religiously strict Sunni Muslims who practice more conservative interpretations of the faith. But they find common ground in politics.

‘It’s a sophisticated fusion of religion, politics and identity,’ said Mansour Al-Hadj, a Washington-based researcher on Muslim political movements and extremism. ‘The same networks that once focused on community services are now mobilizing voters and producing candidates. This is how political Islam adapts inside democracy.’

Mamdani’s God Squad includes about a few dozen key players who specialize in painting any critique as an attack on their faith, accusing critics of Islamophobia even as many of them have engaged in strident rhetoric against the U.S., Israel and capitalism.

Mamdani set off a firestorm on Oct. 7 when he walked into Masjid At-Taqwa in Brooklyn and later posted a photo of himself beaming beside the mosque’s imam, or prayer leader, Siraj Wahhaj.

The imam’s checkered past goes back decades. In a 1992 talk, he said American Muslims should elect an ’emir’ rather than choose between George Bush and Bill Clinton. Soon after, he served as a character witness in the trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called ‘Blind Sheikh’ convicted for plotting the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people. 

‘You know what this country is?’ Wahhaj said in 1995. ‘It’s a garbage can. Filthy. Filthy and sick.’

In 2018, three of Wahhaj’s children were arrested after authorities found 11 malnourished children in a New Mexico compound tied to his family; a grandchild had died in what authorities described as an attempted exorcism. He told local news reporters, ‘Whatever they did wrong…it’s not acceptable to us.’

In New York, the Muslim American Society recently signed onto a letter to challenge ‘unmistakably Islamophobic, anti-Black, and xenophobic’ attacks on Mamdani. Signatories included CAIR National, the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ New York chapter, Islamic Circle of North America’s New York chapter, the Islamic Center of Five Towns, Muslim American Society of New York, Muslim Community Network, Rockaway Islamic Center, and a ‘Syosset Muslim Community.’

Members of the Muslim American Society have long been quick to accuse others of Islamophobia even as they unabashedly call for violence against their perceived enemies.

At an Eid celebration earlier this year, a cleric at the Muslim American Society, cast Muslims as victims worldwide. Mohammad Badawi, youth director at the Muslim American Society, declared the local community’s joy would only be complete when Muslims are ‘victorious worldwide,’ adding they would celebrate ‘after the destruction of the illegitimate Zionist occupiers,’ Israel.

He regularly organizes anti-Israel protests in a campaign against ‘injustice and oppression.’ At one protest, Badawi urged youth to ‘fight back’ against injustices ‘by any means necessary.’

The Street Protester: ‘Globalize the intifada’

Abdullah Akl, a charismatic organizer with the Muslim American Society Youth Center, leads many protests under the banner of ‘Within Our Lifetime,’ with founder Nerdeen Kiswani. Mamdani joined them before his run for mayor.

Akl calls the street protests ‘sacred activism,’ a mix of faith and resistance that will ‘free Palestine.’ Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, the Muslim American Society Youth Center has organized prayer protests on Wall Street outside the New York Stock Exchange, street protests for ‘Nakba Day,’ calling the day Israel was created a ‘catastrophe’ and youth-led demonstrations outside BlackRock.

Akl turned a subway car into a protest zone with chants: ‘Globalize the intifada… There is only one solution: intifada revolution.’

When the New York Police Department arrested Akl and other activists, the Council on American-Islamic Relation’s New York chapter sent out a press release demanding their release.

On Oct. 7 protests this year against Israel, Akl shouted, ‘We did not act enough! We will show up, stronger than we did the first October 7th!’ In response to criticism, he posted a message on social media, doubling down and saying, ‘Saying we didn’t act enough to stop a full blown genocide against palestinians [sic] is incitement?? Saying we need to be louder and protest more and continue to speak up for gaza [sic] is a crime? Zionist tears once again for the most documented genocide in modern history.’

CAIR: ‘We will teach these folks a lesson’

For decades, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has served as an aggressive and litigious watchdog for a host of Muslim figures and causes, often at the forefront of fighting legitimate bigotry. But CAIR has also courted controversy. Federal prosecutors named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal terrorism-financing case against the Holy Land Foundation, a nonprofit based in Texas. In 2008, five Holy Land leaders were convicted of funneling $12.4 million to Hamas. Ultimately, no CAIR officials were charged in connection with the case.

Years ago, Mamdani recorded rap lyrics celebrating the ‘Holy Land Five,’ urging listeners, ‘My love to the Holy Land Five. You better look ‘em up.’ 

Basim Elkarra, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations California chapter and one of the founders of a new 501(c)(4) nonprofit, CAIR Action Inc. now seems to be pursuing a new and entirely legal means of financing causes, taking a page from the powerful pro-Israel political action committee AIPAC. He told a meeting of the Islamic Circle of North America:  ‘AIPAC has had the run for 60 years, but it is over now.’

‘We will teach these folks a lesson … we are coming.’

‘…The game has changed. AIPAC has been around since 1961…and now they have a formidable foe!’

The Former Al-Jazeera Host: ‘Make American Planes Crash Again’

This summer, Mehdi Hasan, a former host at Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV network, sat down with Mamdani for a sympathetic interview. As the campaign heated up, Hasan became a full-time defender on social media, swatting at critics and framing Mamdani as the right kind of provocateur, a ‘once in a generation political talent.’

Hasan’s own record includes sermons likening non-Muslims to ‘animals’ and comparing gay people to ‘sexual deviants.’ He has said his views have become more progressive since then.

After a series of plane crashes earlier this year, Hasan wrote on social media, ‘Make American Planes Crash Again.’ 

He deleted the message amid criticism and said, ‘I deleted this sarcastic quote-tweet because MAGA and Islamophobic folks are clipping it out of context and trying to ridiculously suggest I’m inciting violence. I was obviously mocking the MAGA slogan ‘Make America… Again’ slogan and highlighting the shocking number of plane crashes under Trump and the FAA cuts. But this tweet was in poor taste, poorly worded, and has allowed people in bad faith to call me a terrorist…’

The Global Imam: Read ‘The Hoax of the Holocaust’

Yasir Qadhi, a high-profile American imam and founder of the AlMaghrib Institute and MuslimMatters.com, selling the puritanical Salafi interpretation of Islam, literally wrote the book on ‘Understanding Salafism.’ Recently, he posted a two-part thread on X endorsing the idea of Mamdani’s win as a ‘civilizational victory.’

He urged Muslim Americans to move beyond ‘naive’ religious critiques of politicians who are more socially progressive than they are comfortable.

Meanwhile, Qadhi once mocked European Jews as ‘white, crooked nose, blonde hairs’ and ‘not a Semitic people.’ In the same lecture, he recommended a book, ‘The Hoax of the Holocaust.’

Most recently, he has backed the controversial Muslim housing development outside Dallas, called ‘EPIC City.’ He noted in his Instagram post: ‘open to non-Americans as well.’

He touted some of its features: ‘Islamic schools, college, masjid.’

The Popular Chaplain: Build ‘Our Own Space’

Imam Khalid Latif is a popular chaplain at the Islamic Center of New York City, a $22 million project to build a hub and ‘our own space’ on Sixth Avenue for young Muslim professionals. He endorsed Mamdani earlier this year and has been an ardent supporter. He has called him ‘a bearer of compassion in a time where it is far too rare.’

In 2012, Latif led a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia that included Omar Mateen, who would later murder 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the deadliest anti-LGBTQ attack in U.S. history. He has denied radicalizing Mateen and he hasn’t faced the same type of allegations that surround other imams.

After the backlash to Mamdani’s meeting with Wahhaj, he posted: ‘Happy birthday to my brother Zohran… Keep showing them who we are by showing them who you are.’ 

He invoked the divine to bless Mamdani’s mission, revealing the fusion of religion and politics for the Mamdani God Squad: ‘May your 34th year be one of clarity, courage, and closeness — to your purpose, your people, and your Creator,’ ending with the Arabic word for amen, ‘Ameen.’

On Monday, Latif posted a sassy video from the Muslim Democratic Club of New York with a narration, ‘The name is Mamdani, M-a-m-d-a-n-i,’ with Latif mouthing the part where the narration turns to, ‘You should learn how to say it.’

That day, Latif delivered a speech to support Mamdani, pivoting to allege Mamdani was now a victim of ‘anti-Black racism,’ saying, ‘Anti-Muslim sentiment is always’ a symbol of ‘anti-Black racism.’

The ‘Home Girl in a Hijab’ from Brooklyn: ‘I wish I could take their vagina away’

In a glowing portrait, The New York Times called Palestinian American political organizer Linda Sarsour a ‘Brooklyn home girl in a hijab.’ Over almost a decade, she has been a political mentor to Mamdani, inviting him into the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, which she cofounded. She later endorsed his race for the New York General Assembly, which he won.

All the while, she has been a polarizing figure, once saying about two critics, author and ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali and activist Brigitte Gabriel, ‘I wish I could take their vagina away  – they don’t deserve to be women.’ Ali is a survivor of female genital mutilation, a practice that involves cutting the clitoris of a young girl with the idea that it will inhibit sexual promiscuity.

As a co-founder of the Women’s March, Sarsour stepped down amid criticism for alleged ant-semitism and not welcoming Jewish feminists who support the state of Israel, or ‘Zionists.’

At a rally on Sunday night with Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Imam Latif told 13,000 people: ‘This is our city. This is our moment.’

Some Muslims beg to differ. 

‘It’s not our moment,’ said Al-Hadj. 

‘Across the boroughs, the Mamdani God Squad is banging a drumbeat of grievance after grievance, from Staten Island to Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Long Island,’ he said. ‘Across the city’s Muslim institutions, you hear the same drumbeat: They smeared us. They silenced us. They fear us.’.

He added, ‘In that rising volume, something is lost: Muslim pluralism. The God Squad does not speak for every Muslim in New York—nor for every Shia, every Sunni, every immigrant family, or every second-generation kid trying to thread faith and freedom. It speaks for a coalition committed to illiberal ends, with socialist capture of city politics on the one hand and puritanical religious rhetoric on the other. They insist that to oppose them is to betray the community, so they actually push their own tyranny.’ 

Win or lose next week, Al-Hadj said, the Mamdani God Squad had actualized the words that had gotten Almontaser into so much trouble years ago: ‘Intifada NYC.’

The United States and China plan to establish military-to-military communications channels ‘to deconflict and deescalate’ potential problems, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Saturday after talking with his Chinese counterpart.

In a post on X, Hegseth said he had a ‘positive meeting’ with Admiral Dong Jun, China’s Minister of National Defense, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

During their talk, the two defense leaders agreed that the best path forward for the U.S. and China involves ‘peace, stability, and good relations.’

‘Admiral Dong and I also agreed that we should set up military-to-military channels to deconflict and deescalate any problems that arise. We have more meetings on that coming soon. God bless both China and the USA!’ Hegseth wrote, in part.

Earlier Saturday, Hegseth attended a separate meeting in Malaysia with defense leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), where he urged them to push back against Beijing’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea.

‘China’s sweeping territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea fly in the face of their commitments to resolve disputes peacefully,’ Hegseth said at the meeting, according to The Associated Press. 

‘We seek peace. We do not seek conflict. But we must ensure that China is not seeking to dominate you or anybody else,’ he added.

The South China Sea remains volatile with Beijing, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei all claiming overlapping territories. 

China’s maritime fleet has frequently clashed with the Philippines in the disputed waters, with Chinese officials recently describing the country as a ‘troublemaker’ for staging naval and air drills with the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.

Hegseth defended the U.S. ally during the Saturday meeting by saying Beijing’s designation of the Scarborough Shoal – a territory seized from the Philippines in 2012 – as a ‘nature reserve’ ‘yet another attempt to coerce new and expanded territorial and maritime claims at your expense.’

The War Secretary then urged ASEAN to finalize the Code of Conduct with China and proposed creating a ‘shared maritime domain awareness’ network and rapid-response systems to deter provocations – measures he said would ensure that any member facing ‘aggression and provocation is not alone.’

Hegseth also welcomed plans for an ASEAN-U.S. maritime exercise in December aimed at strengthening coordination and safeguarding freedom of navigation.

President Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. would revive nuclear weapons testing — which the U.S. has not done since 1992 — left experts, lawmakers and military personnel scratching their heads Thursday.

The president announced, just before his high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he is instructing the Pentagon to start testing nuclear weapons on an ‘equal basis’ as Russia and China, and that the process for testing these weapons would begin immediately.  

‘They seem to all be nuclear testing,’ Trump later told reporters on Air Force One. ‘We don’t do testing — we halted it years ago. But with others doing testing, it’s appropriate that we do also.’

It’s unclear exactly what Trump meant, since no country has conducted a known nuclear test since North Korea in 2017. The last known tests for China and Russia date back to the 1990s, when Russia was still the Soviet Union.

The White House did not provide comment to Fox News Digital. And the Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment. 

However, those dissecting the president’s comments say Trump may have been referring to ramping up testing of nuclear-powered weapons systems or conducting covert, low-yield nuclear weapons testing.

Andrea Stricker, the deputy director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ nonproliferation and biodefense program, described the announcement as a ‘power move’ from Trump ahead of Xi’s meeting, and said that one option the president may be considering is authorizing low-yield nuclear explosive testing that would go above the zero-yield threshold outlined in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty from 1996, which bans all nuclear explosions.

Although ratification from the U.S. and several other countries is necessary in order for the treaty to take effect, the pact established no nuclear testing as a worldwide norm and the U.S., Russia and China have since maintained a moratorium on full-scale nuclear testing.

However, Stricker said that the U.S. has detailed in multiple reports that it suspects that Russia and China may have conducted low-yield type tests for years, despite the moratorium laid out in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. For example, now-retired Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley Jr. said in 2019, while serving as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, that the U.S. believes Russia isn’t adhering to the nuclear testing moratorium ‘in a manner consistent with the zero-yield standard.’

As a result, Stricker said that Trump’s comments indicate he will match near-peer adversaries’ actions.

‘The president’s statement implies reciprocity: he will increase testing as they do, which puts the onus on Moscow and Beijing to rein in their efforts,’ Stricker said in a Thursday email to Fox News Digital. ‘Trump may also be seeking to engage both countries in arms control talks with the remaining nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia, New START, set to expire in February 2026 and China refusing such talks.’

Meanwhile, Navy Vice Adm. Richard Correll, who Trump nominated to lead U.S. Strategic Command, told lawmakers Thursday during his confirmation hearing that although he didn’t have insight into Trump’s thinking, the president may have been discussing testing nuclear-powered weapon delivery systems, like ballistic and cruise missiles.

Correll said that since neither China nor Russia has conducted a nuclear test to his knowledge, he’s ‘not reading anything into it or out of it’ when lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee asked about the president’s statement. However, Correll said he’d be prepared to carry out the president’s directive if he is confirmed.

U.S. Strategic Command is a combatant command that oversees nuclear deterrence for the U.S. military.

Matthew Kroenig, the vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, told Fox News Digital that Russia’s recent missile test also ‘gives credence’ to the possibility that Trump meant testing these nuclear-powered weapon delivery systems.

Russia announced Sunday that it had successfully tested its new, nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, which NATO has dubbed ‘Skyfall.’ The announcement came after the Trump administration imposed stringent sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies.

Kroenig, who previously worked on nuclear and defense policy at the Pentagon and helped craft the 2018 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, also said Trump’s statement could signal an end to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. 

Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, told reporters Thursday that it’s paramount the president respond accordingly to actors, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, who have nuclear weapons.

‘When you have a madman that has nuclear weapons like Putin does and he starts rattling his saber, it’s important for the president to respond,’ Risch said. ‘And he responded in a way that is reasonable.’

Democrats had a different take. The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said that Trump ‘has it wrong’ on nuclear weapons policy, and said resuming nuclear weapons testing could upend decades of nonproliferation efforts.

‘Breaking the explosive testing moratorium that the United States, Russia, and China have maintained since the 1990s would be strategically reckless, inevitably prompting Moscow and Beijing to resume their own testing programs,’ Reed said in a statement Thursday. ‘Further, American explosive testing would provide justification for Pakistan, India, and North Korea to expand their own testing regimes, destabilizing an already fragile global nonproliferation architecture at precisely the moment we can least afford it.

‘The United States would gain very little from such testing, and we would sacrifice decades of hard-won progress in preventing nuclear proliferation,’ Reed said. 

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance told reporters Thursday that while the president would continue to work on nuclear proliferation, that testing would be done to ensure weapons are functioning at optimal capability.

‘It’s an important part of American national security to make sure that this nuclear arsenal we have actually functions properly,’ Vance said. ‘And that’s part of a testing regime. To be clear, we know that it does work properly, but you got to keep on top of it over time. And the president just wants to make sure that we do that with his nation.’

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.