Lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee met with stakeholders and law enforcement to address the rise of antisemitic violence in the U.S., during a closed-door congressional roundtable on July 22, Fox News Digital has learned. 

The roundtable comes amid growing concerns about antisemitic violence months after recent attacks in Boulder, Colorado, and Washington, D.C., along with growing fears surrounding the potential election of Zohran Mamdani, who has espoused anti-Israel viewpoints, as New York City mayor. 

‘Jewish communities across the country are living in fear, and I am committed to standing with them. This roundtable comes at a critical moment: a far-left activist who has defended the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’ is inching closer to leading a city home to one of the world’s largest Jewish populations,’ Rep. August Pfluger, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee’s counterterrorism and intelligence subcommittee, said in his opening statement, obtained by Fox News Digital. 

‘Antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric is becoming dangerously mainstream. We must act now to expose and combat this vile hatred wherever it is spread,’ Pfluger said. 

The roundtable focused on improving interagency coordination, intelligence sharing, training, and enforcement to better prevent and respond to antisemitic violence, according to a House Homeland Security Committee aide.

In particular, the meeting addressed ways to bolster communication between the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, along with state and local law enforcement, according to Michael Masters, the CEO of the Secure Community Network, a non-profit organization focused on the safety of the Jewish community in North America. 

This interagency coordination is absolutely paramount as the Secure Community Network has flagged 500 credible threats to life this year – which all have required immediate law enforcement intervention, according to Masters. 

‘Bad guys don’t respect orders. Bad actors don’t respect jurisdictions, and that means that our intelligence can’t be siloed,’ Masters told Fox News Digital on Monday. 

Additionally, the roundtable’s discussion highlighted how extremist rhetoric can spread, especially on college campuses and via social media, the aide said. Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, student protests have erupted across college campuses in the U.S., including at Columbia University in New York. 

Likewise, those participating in the roundtable addressed the prevalence of homegrown and foreign-influenced extremism, when one participant highlighted instances where anti-Israel terrorist organizations have disseminated tool kits and talking points aimed at promoting attacks in the U.S., the committee aide said. 

The discussion is expected to inform legislative priorities centered around bolstering officer training, improving data collection, and ensuring ‘robust prosecution’ of antisemitic offenses, the committee aide said. 

Those who participated in the roundtable included representatives from the Secure Community Networks; the Anti-Defamation League, an organization dedicated to stopping the defamation of the Jewish people; the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis; and law enforcement officials. 

Pfluger, a Republican from Texas, has spearheaded legislation that would bar any visa holders backing Hamas or other designated terror groups from staying in the U.S. 

He also led a hearing last month on the rise of antisemitic violence in the U.S., following a May shooting that killed two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington and a terrorist attack in Colorado targeting a grassroots group advocating for the release of Israeli hostages.

Antisemitic violence reached a new high in 2024, according to the Anti-Defamation League. 

The group recorded 9,354 antisemitic instances of harassment, assault, and vandalism in the U.S. in 2024 – a 5% increase from the 8,873 incidents recorded in 2023 and a 344% increase in the past five years. Likewise, the number of incidents is the highest the group has recorded since 1979, when the group first started tracking these cases. 

Incidents of antisemitic violence in 2024 were highest in the state of New York, where Mamdani is currently a state assemblyman. 

Mamdani has attracted scrutiny, including from Democrats, for initially failing to condemn the term ‘globalize the intifada,’ a phrase used to back Palestinian resistance against Israel. However, he has since said he will not use the term and will discourage others from using it as well. 

Still, concerns remain over what his potential leadership as mayor could mean for the Jewish community in New York City. Roughly 1.4 million people in the Greater New York Area identified as Jewish in 2023, according to UJA-Federation of New York. 

‘There’s a lot of fear in the Jewish community if this guy becomes mayor,’ New York City Republican councilwoman Inna Vernikov told Fox News Digital. 

‘This is a guy who wants to globalize the intifada,’ Vernikov said. ‘We’ve never seen anything close to this in New York City. We have the largest Jewish population in America, and I’ll tell you Jews are telling me they’re going to run away from New York City, and Jews have contributed a lot to the city and to this country, and the idea that they are now afraid to live here – it’s unacceptable and unprecedented really, this has never happened here.’

Fox News’ Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after his first choice struggled to gain support.

Susan Monarez, a longtime fixture in Washington who has taken on leadership positions in a number of government public health roles, was confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday, crossing yet another position off the lengthy and growing number of nominees awaiting confirmation.

Monarez was confirmed on a 51to 47party line vote.

Across her roughly two-decade career in D.C., she has served as deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health within the Department of Health and Human Services and in roles at the White House, including at the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Security Council.

She is the first CDC director to undergo the Senate confirmation process after a new law changed the requirement in 2023. Prior to her confirmation, Monarez had served as the acting director of the CDC since the beginning of this year.

But Monarez, who has a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology, was not Trump’s first pick to lead the public health agency, which is tasked with protecting Americans from public health threats.

Trump tapped Monarez in March shortly after withdrawing his nomination of Dr. David Weldon, a former House member, after it was clear that he couldn’t get enough votes from Senate Republicans to make it across the finish line.

He lauded Monarez’s credentials, and charged that Americans had ‘lost confidence’ in the CDC.

‘Dr. Monarez will work closely with our GREAT Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr,’ he said on social media at the time. ‘Together, they will prioritize Accountability, High Standards, and Disease Prevention to finally address the Chronic Disease Epidemic and, MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN!’

But questions also linger on how well Monarez and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might work together.

During her confirmation hearing last month, Senate Democrats grilled Monarez over whether she agreed with Kennedy’s positions on vaccines. Kennedy has long been outspoken about his skepticism regarding vaccines, particularly COVID-19 vaccines.

The CDC has been hit with thousands of staff cuts and resignations and subject to changes in vaccine policy — notably Kennedy’s decision to remove the COVID-19 from the vaccine schedule for pregnant women and healthy children — in the last six months. 

‘I think vaccines save lives. I think that we need to continue to support the promotion of utilization of vaccines,’ Monarez said during her confirmation hearing.

Her confirmation also comes as Kennedy, in his budget request for the HHS, seeks a slash in funding to the CDC of nearly 50%, or from about $9.2 billion to $4.2 billion, for the upcoming fiscal year.

But Kennedy made clear in an X post at the time of her nomination that he supports Monarez to take on the position.

‘I handpicked Susan for this job because she is a longtime champion of MAHA values, and a caring, compassionate and brilliant microbiologist and a tech wizard who will reorient CDC toward public health and gold-standard science,’ he said. ‘I’m so grateful to President Trump for making this appointment.’

And an HHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital, ‘Once Dr. Monarez is confirmed, the Secretary looks forward to working with her to advance common-sense policies that will Make America Healthy Again.’

The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee Emil Bove as a federal judge Tuesday, handing a controversial leader at the Department of Justice a lifetime role on a powerful appellate court.

Bove was narrowly confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in a 50-49vote with no support from Democrats. His confirmation followed a contentious weeks-long vetting process that included three whistleblower complaints and impassioned outside figures voicing both support and opposition to his nomination.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said from the Senate floor before the vote that he supported Bove and believed the nominee had been the target of ‘unfair accusations and abuse.’

‘He has a strong legal background and has served his country honorably. I believe he will be a diligent, capable, and fair jurist,’ Grassley said. 

Bove’s ascension to the appellate court marks a peak in his legal career.

He started out as a high-achieving student, college athlete and Georgetown University law school graduate. He went on to clerk for two federal judges and worked for about a decade as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, leading high-profile terrorism and drug trafficking cases through 2019.

Alongside Todd Blanche, now a deputy attorney general, Bove led Trump’s personal defense team during the president’s criminal prosecutions. Blanche told Fox News Digital in an interview last month that Bove was a ‘brilliant lawyer’ who authored the vast majority of their legal briefs for Trump’s cases. In a letter to the Senate, attorney Gene Schaerr called Bove’s brief writing ‘superb.’

Bove will leave behind his job as principal associate deputy attorney general at the DOJ. Attorney General Pam Bondi congratulated him in a statement.

‘This is a GREAT day for our country,’ Bondi wrote on X. ‘I cannot thank Emil enough for his tireless work and support at @TheJusticeDept. He will be missed — and he will be an outstanding judge.’

Two Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, voted against Bove.

Democrats and some who crossed paths with Bove during his time in New York and at DOJ headquarters fiercely opposed his nomination and said he was unqualified.

One whistleblower, Erez Reuveni, had become a successful prosecutor at the DOJ over the last 15 years when he was fired under Bove’s watch. Reuveni said he was party to a meeting in March in which Bove floated defying any court orders that would hinder one of Trump’s most legally questionable deportation plans, a claim Bove denies. Reuveni also said the culture at the DOJ, particularly during the most intense moments of immigration lawsuits, involved misleading federal judges and was like nothing he had experienced during his tenure, which included Trump’s first term.

Two other anonymous whistleblowers emerged at the eleventh hour during the confirmation process and vouched for Reuveni’s claims.

A spokeswoman for Grassley told Fox News Digital the third whistleblower only brought claims to Senate Democrats and did not attempt to engage with Grassley. Grassley’s staff eventually met with the whistleblower’s lawyers after the chairman’s office reached out, the spokeswoman said.

Grassley said his staff interviewed more than a dozen people to vet the initial whistleblower claims and could not find evidence that Bove urged staff to defy the courts.

‘Even if you accept most of the claims as true, there’s no scandal,’ Grassley said. ‘Government lawyers aggressively litigating and interpreting court orders isn’t misconduct—it’s what lawyers do.’

While in New York, Bove also alienated some colleagues. In 2018, a band of defense lawyers said in emails reported by The Associated Press that Bove could not ‘be bothered to treat lesser mortals with respect or empathy.’ Another lawyer who had interactions with Bove in New York told Fox News Digital he was a ‘bully’ who browbeat people. 

A group that opposes Bove’s nomination, Justice Connection, published a letter signed by more than 900 former DOJ employees calling for the Senate to reject Bove’s nomination.

Among their concerns was that Bove led the controversial dismissal of Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ federal corruption charges. Several DOJ officials resigned in protest over Bove’s orders to toss out the charges. In the letter, the former employees said Bove has been ‘trampling over institutional norms’ and that he lacked impartiality.

Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats, in an unusual move, staged a walkout at a hearing on Bove before a recent vote to advance his nomination. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called him a ‘henchman,’ a description Democrats have widely adopted for him.

‘He’s the extreme of the extreme,’ Schumer told reporters. ‘He’s not a jurist. He’s a Trumpian henchman. That seems to be the qualification for appointees these days.’

Bove defended himself against critics during his confirmation hearing.

‘I am not anybody’s henchman. I’m not an enforcer,’ Bove said. ‘I’m a lawyer from a small town who never expected to be in an arena like this.’

Fox News’ Alex Miller contributed to this report.

From Gaza to Greenland, French President Emmanuel Macron appears to be taking increasingly bolder diplomatic stabs at President Donald Trump’s foreign policy even though such gestures don’t ‘carry weight’ as Trump pointed out last week after the French leader declared his intention to recognize a Palestinian state.

‘French Presidents from Charles de Gaulle onwards have reveled in the idea that they are a natural counterweight to U.S. foreign policy on the international stage,’ Alan Mendoza, executive director of the U.K.-based Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital Monday.

Charles de Gaulle was France’s long-serving leader in the 1950s and 1960s and was famously resistant to U.S. global dominance, withdrawing his country from NATO’s military command structure in a bid to increase its military independence and criticizing U.S. policies in Eastern Europe and Vietnam.

Such contrarian actions, Mendoza said, ‘have in many ways defined the French Fifth Republic, with larger-than-life characters thrusting their views onto the world stage.

‘The difference now is that France matters far less globally than it did 60 years ago,’ he said, adding that a weakening of the European country’s economy and its military might ‘means that where once de Gaulle could roar, now Macron whimpers.’ 

‘What was once a sign of French strength and confidence now therefore looks more like a desperate attempt to escape irrelevance,’ said Mendoza.

In a dramatic announcement last week, Macron said that at the United Nations General Assembly in September France intends to declare its recognition of a Palestinian state, even as Palestinian terror groups continue to battle Israel in the Gaza Strip. 

The statement drew condemnation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said such a move ‘rewards terror.’ 

It was also criticized by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called the decision ‘reckless’ and ‘a slap in the face to the victims of October 7th.’ He said the U.S. strongly rejected such a plan. 

Trump merely dismissed Macron’s Gaza move, telling reporters at the White House Friday ‘what he says doesn’t matter.’ 

‘He’s a very good guy. I like him, but that statement doesn’t carry weight,’ the president said.

This is not the first time the president has discounted Macron as inconsequential.

Last month, after the French president speculated about Trump’s reasons for leaving the G7 summit in Canada early and returning to Washington, the president wrote on his Truth Social platform, ‘Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that. Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong. Stay Tuned!’ 

In the same post, Trump said Macron was ‘publicity seeking.’ 

The disparaging comments came after Macron directly contradicted Trump’s foreign policy by stopping on his way to the summit in the semi-autonomous Arctic territory of Greenland, which Trump has said he wishes to acquire. 

‘Greenland is not to be sold, not to be taken,’ Macron declared in a diplomatic stab at Trump’s foreign policy and seemingly an attempt to rally support from other European countries to stand up to the U.S. 

Asked about Trump’s ambitions for Greenland, Macron, according to Reuters, said, ‘I don’t think that’s what allies do. …  It’s important that Denmark and the Europeans commit themselves to this territory, which has very high strategic stakes and whose territorial integrity must be respected.’

In February, the French president paid his first visit to the White House since Trump’s return to power, and while the meeting appeared to be warm, it also came amid tension over the U.S. approach to the Russia-Ukraine war.

Hours before the meeting, the U.S. voted against a United Nations resolution drafted by Ukraine and the European Union condemning Russia for its invasion.

Tensions between Macron and Trump are not personal, said Mendoza, but they are also not totally ideological. 

They stem from Macron’s ‘desire to be relevant and to stand for something,’ he said. ‘The French are famous contrarians, but they do it for the sake of being contrarian.’

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Washington, D.C., think tank, said Macron was no ‘different from most European leaders. … Trump just isn’t their cup of tea.’

‘Most view Trump as a convulsive, hostile force who views America’s historic relationship with Europe as transactional,’ he said.  

‘Macron, like most French leaders, defines himself in part against the U.S.,’ Gerecht added, explaining that, traditionally, France and America ‘had a ‘mission civilisatrice’ or a competitive enlightenment mission.’ 

‘The American way has been enormously appealing in Europe since World War II, but it has come in part at the expense of the French, who have culturally lost a lot of ground to the Anglophones, especially the Americans,’ he said. ‘Consequently, many Frenchmen have a love-hate relationship with the U.S.’   

On Macron, Gerecht added, ‘He is part of the French elite. They are a bright lot who punch way above their weight, but, educationally, temperamentally, they are nearly the opposite of Trump.’