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Year: 2025

Trump’s third term trial balloon gets resounding response in new poll

Trump’s third term trial balloon gets resounding response in new poll

President Donald Trump has repeatedly teased a 2028 run for a third term in the White House, which is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. Now a new poll indicates Americans are far from thrilled with the prospect. “It will be the greatest honor of my life to serve, not once but twice or three times or four times,” Trump said at rally in Nevada in late January, less than a week after his inauguration to his second term as president. TRUMP TEASES A THIRD TERM: ‘NOT JOKING’ After joking that his comment would make headlines, Trump clarified that “no, it will be to serve twice.” But Trump’s comments were far from a one-off, as he’s continued to flirt with a 2028 re-election run. HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS POLLING  The president said in an interview late last month that he is “not joking” about making another run for the Oval Office.  “A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump told NBC News in a phone interview. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.” POLL POSITION: HOW TRUMP’S APPROVAL RATINGS COMPARE TO HIS PRESIDENTIAL PREDECESSORS Standing in Trump’s way is the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution, which was ratified in 1951. The amendment prevents individuals from serving more than two terms as president. It was ratified after Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected as president for four terms.  Public opinion is also clear. Three-quarters of respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos national survey conducted April 16-21 and released on Monday said Trump should not run for a third term. And while the Republican president’s grip over the GOP is stronger than ever, even a majority of Republicans questioned in the poll, 53%, said Trump shouldn’t seek a third term. The poll, which questioned 4,306 U.S. adults, had an overall sampling error of plus or minus two percentage points. Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report

Democrats’ El Salvador trip lampooned by Senate GOP group in faux tourism ad: ‘¡Bienvenidos!’

Democrats’ El Salvador trip lampooned by Senate GOP group in faux tourism ad: ‘¡Bienvenidos!’

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) lampooned Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador to aid deportee and alleged gang member Kilmar Garcia in an ad Tuesday, while appearing to foreshadow more potential trips from members of the upper chamber’s minority party. “¡Bienvenidos a El Salvador Senate Dems!,” the NRSC said in a statement. “Democrats should feel free to make their trip to hang out with MS-13 gangbangers one-way.” In the ad, a video mimicking a typical beachy tourism ad plays as the narrator begins, “Welcome to El Salvador.” NOT A MARYLAND MAN: GOP BLASTS DEMOCRAT SENATOR FIGHTING FOR RETURN OF SALVADORAN NATIONAL “Home to breathtaking sunsets, world-class surf breaks – and gangbanger Kilmar Abrego Garcia.” The narrator goes on to call the country “THE destination (emphasis theirs) for Democrats seeking the thrill of bringing violent criminal illegal aliens back to America.” Van Hollen had sought to negotiate the release of Garcia so he could accompany the lawmaker back to Maryland, where his family lives. Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen. “Come witness Trump Derangement Syndrome in its purest form,” the narrator adds. “From Chris Van Hollen to Cory Booker; you may even see Jon Ossoff.” KILMAR GARCIA NOW GETS 5 TOTAL DEM PROPONENTS IN EL SALVADOR Booker did not respond to requests for comment both last week and on Monday after the ad was released.  A spokesperson for Ossoff told Fox News Digital: “Sen. Ossoff has not traveled and is not traveling to El Salvador.” The ad continued: “So what are you waiting for, Senate Democrats? Join your colleagues, and step into the rhythm of rescue today,” the ad concludes with “Rhythm of Rescue” in wavy blue text superimposed on a coastal scene. Nearby Colombia recently utilized the tourism slogan “Feel the Rhythm.” Since Van Hollen returned to the U.S. without Garcia, four Democratic House members: Reps. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, Maxine Dexter of Oregon, Robert Garcia of California, and Maxwell Frost of Florida made a joint trip to San Salvador. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Homeland Security released new documents this week that it says definitively prove Abrego Garcia, who is imprisoned in El Salvador after his deportation from the U.S., is a member of the notorious MS-13 gang, which his lawyers deny. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said at the White House earlier this month it would be “preposterous” to send Garcia to the U.S., which he did not originally enter legally.

Rubio overhauling ‘bloated’ State Department in sweeping reform

Rubio overhauling ‘bloated’ State Department in sweeping reform

The Trump administration has announced it is overhauling the State Department and shuttering more than 130 offices around the world in order to streamline operations and align the department more closely with the administration’s foreign policy objectives. The move was announced on Tuesday by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said region-specific functions will be consolidated to increase functionality and redundant offices will be shut down. Programs that are misaligned with America’s core national interests will be shuttered too, he said. Rubio said the State Department had become bloated, bureaucratic and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission in a new era of great power competition.  RUBIO ANNOUNCES CLOSURE OF STATE DEPARTMENT EFFORT THAT ‘WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD ALREADY’ “Over the past 15 years, the Department’s footprint has had unprecedented growth and costs have soared,” Rubio wrote. “But far from seeing a return on investment, taxpayers have seen less effective and efficient diplomacy. The sprawling bureaucracy created a system more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America’s core national interests.” Rubio wrote that an example of an out-of-control department is the Global Engagement Center (GEC) that he shuttered last week.  He said the office engaged with media outlets and platforms to censor speech it disagreed with, including that of President Donald Trump. The GEC has been accused by conservatives of censoring them too and had a budget of around $61 million with 120 people on staff.  Despite Congress voting to shutter it, the GEC simply renamed itself and continued operating as if nothing had changed, Rubio wrote.  The shake-up announcement comes days after a New York Times report outlining a State Department overhaul via a leaked draft executive order. Rubio’s plans announced Tuesday, which were accompanied by a State Department reorganization chart, included the shuttering of several embassies and consulates in sub-Saharan Africa and reducing diplomatic operations in Canada. Rubio’s plans include reducing the number of agency offices from 734 to 602, effectively closing 132 offices, a 17% reduction. Offices related to human rights and democracy promotion are among those targeted for closure. He said activists redefined “human rights” and “democracy” to pursue their projects at the taxpayers’ expense, “even when they were in direct conflict with the goals of the Secretary, the President, and the American people.” RUBIO SAYS US READY TO ‘MOVE ON’ WITHIN DAYS IF NO PROGRESS MADE ON RUSSIA-UKRAINE PEACE DEAL He said that the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor became a platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against “anti-woke” leaders around the world who transformed their hatred of Israel into policies such as arms embargoes.  The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, he said, funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to international organizations and NGOs that facilitated mass migration around the world and at the southern border. The proposed changes also include all non-security foreign assistance being consolidated in regional bureaus to ensure that every bureau and office under the State Department has a clear responsibility and mission, Rubio said.  For instance, if something concerns Africa, the Bureau of African Affairs will handle it. Additionally, programs not aligned with core national interests, such as certain diversity and inclusion initiatives, will be discontinued. Rubio said the changes are necessary to deliver on Trump’s America First foreign policy and bring the State Department into the 21st century. Rubio’s announcement did not say whether any consulates would shut. Separately, under secretaries at the State Department are also being instructed to present plans to reduce their U.S. personnel in individual departments by 15% within 30 days, according to a report by The Free Press, citing a senior State Department official. Rubio shared the report on X. These include six top offices employing thousands of people, the outlet reported. “The American people deserve a State Department willing and able to advance their safety, security, and prosperity around the world, one respectful of their tax dollars and the sacred trust of government service,” Rubio wrote. “Starting this week, they will have one.”

Gorsuch, Roberts side with left-leaning Supreme Court justices in immigration ruling

Gorsuch, Roberts side with left-leaning Supreme Court justices in immigration ruling

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday sided with left-leaning justices in an immigration appeals case, a narrow ruling that could portend the court’s future thinking amid a flurry of legal cases centered on immigration. The 5-4 ruling in Monsalvo Velazquez v. Bondi centered on the government’s interpretation of a 60-day “voluntary departure” deadline, which authorities can use to allow certain immigrants deemed to be of “good moral character” to depart the U.S. on their own terms within that timeframe. The Supreme Court ruled, with the backing of Roberts and Gorsuch, that any voluntary departure deadlines for immigrants under the 60-day departure time frame that fall on a weekend or on a legal holiday in the U.S. should be extended to the next business day.  FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS HALT TO TRUMP ADMIN’S CFPB TERMINATIONS Writing for the majority, Gorsuch noted that this interpretation of the 60-day period aligns with long-standing administrative practices, including in immigration law.  “When Congress adopts a new law against the backdrop of a ‘long-standing administrative construction,’ the Court generally presumes the new provision works in harmony with what came before,” Gorsuch said. “Since at least the 1950s, immigration regulations have provided that when calculating deadlines, the term ‘day’ carries its specialized meaning by excluding Sundays and legal holidays (and later Saturdays) if a deadline would otherwise fall on one of those days,” Gorsuch added, noting that the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act passed by Congress uses the same reading.   Gorsuch was joined in the majority decision by Roberts, and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.  The court’s ruling overturns the decision of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Board of Immigration Appeals, which had voted to reject that interpretation in the case of Monsalvo Velázquez, a 32-year-old Colorado resident targeted for removal in 2019.  And while the case in question centers largely on the technicalities of certain immigration proceedings, the slim majority ruling could offer early signs of the court’s thinking as justices gear up for a flurry of high-profile immigration cases – including cases centered on due process protections for migrants, and on nationwide injunctions that block Trump’s birthright citizenship ban from taking force. SUPREME COURT TO HEAR ORAL ARGUMENTS IN BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP CASE Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett dissented, noting that, in their view, the court lacked jurisdiction to weigh in on the matter. While Thomas said he would have remanded the case back to the lower circuit court to consider other outstanding issues, and Barrett took issue with the nature of the appeal filed by Monsalvo, Alito said in a separate dissenting opinion that he viewed the court’s interpretation as a whole as incorrect.  In his view, the 60-day period imposed by the government is straightforward, and should include weekends.  “There will always be a sympathetic pro se alien who is a day or two late,” Alito said. “Unless the Court is willing to extend the statutory deadline indefinitely, it would presumably be forced to say in such cases that a day too late is just too bad.” “For this reason, sympathy for petitioner cannot justify the Court’s decision,” he said. The narrow ruling comes just weeks before May 15, when justices are slated to hear oral arguments in a case challenging President Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship in the U.S. The case is considered one of the most highly anticipated ones to be reviewed by the high court since Trump took office.

The Endgame

The Endgame

People & Power examines whether the forced transfer of Palestinians is Israel’s ultimate goal. As soon as he came to power, United States President Donald Trump echoed calls for the Palestinians’ massive displacement outside their homeland. Israel’s war on Gaza has displaced nearly two million Palestinians since October 2023. And with calls by some Israeli politicians to permanently expel Palestinians from the Strip, fear is growing of yet another forced population transfer. An Israeli minister has even called the current war the “Gaza Nakba”, referring to the forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948-49. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army and settlers are waging a less visible but equally dangerous shadow war. People & Power delves into the history of Palestinian displacement and asks whether population transfer is Israel’s ultimate goal. Adblock test (Why?)

Palestinians in distress after Israeli attack in Khan Younis

Palestinians in distress after Israeli attack in Khan Younis

NewsFeed “Let them drop nuclear weapons on us so we can die all at once.” At least eleven Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a residential building, as a result of a fire caused by the strikes. Neighbours of the victims in Khan Younis expressed their distress. Published On 22 Apr 202522 Apr 2025 Adblock test (Why?)

Israeli attacks kill 28 in Gaza, destroy bulldozers for recovering the dead

Israeli attacks kill 28 in Gaza, destroy bulldozers for recovering the dead

UNRWA says Gaza has become ‘a land of desperation’ as Israel continues to pound the strip and block humanitarian aid. Israeli forces have killed at least 28 Palestinians in Gaza since dawn, including 11 people who burned to death inside their home in Khan Younis, and carried out air strikes that destroyed equipment used to retrieve the dead from under rubble. Seven members of a family were also killed on Tuesday by an air raid on the home where they were sheltering in western Gaza City. Three civilians, including two girls, were killed when Israeli warplanes targeted a group of people in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, warned that more than two million people – mostly women and children – were being collectively punished. “Gaza has become a land of desperation,” he said on X. Nearly 3,000 trucks of UNRWA supplies and humanitarian aid remained stuck outside Gaza, unable to enter while food and medicine inside the strip are quickly running out. “Hunger is spreading,” Lazzarini warned. “Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip – a weapon of war.” Advertisement The UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, warned that withholding humanitarian aid constitutes a war crime. “This action would further aggravate conditions of life calculated to destroy the Palestinian population of Gaza.” Hamas slammed Israel’s ongoing blockade, which began on March 2. “The Gaza Strip is facing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” the group said in a statement, citing severe shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine. It added that the siege as well as daily attacks on shelters, hospitals and residential areas amount to a “premeditated crime” by the Israeli leadership. Hamas also blamed the situation on a “political, moral, and humanitarian failure” on the part of the international community and called on the UN and other institutions to pressure Israel to lift the blockade on aid. ‘Eradicating entire families’ Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said: “The situation is unfolding rapidly here on the ground. What we are seeing is truly extraordinary in terms of very huge momentum of air strikes and artillery bombardments that have been seen over the course of the past 24 hours.” “What we understand is that the Israeli military has launched huge and heavy waves of air strikes with the latest targeting a group of Palestinians – three were confirmed killed in the strike, including two girls under the age of 14,” he added. “It has been quite obvious that these attacks are focused on eradicating entire families (as in Khan Younis attack) – we’re talking about four generations being wiped out – and also a more systematic escalation has been taking place on targeting heavy machinery that has been allowed to enter Gaza during the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal,” Abu Azzoum said. Advertisement Bulldozers used to recover the dead destroyed Gaza’s Civil Defence said Israel also targeted bulldozers used in humanitarian operations, including rubble removal and the recovery of bodies. Nine bulldozers brought into Gaza from Egypt during a six-week ceasefire that Israel ended on March 18 were destroyed in Israeli attacks on the Jabalia al-Nazlh municipality garage in northern Gaza, according to Civil Defence official Mohammed el-Mougher. “An agreement had previously been reached with the Egyptian-Qatari committee regarding the location of the bulldozers’ shelters,” he said, noting that their coordinates had been shared with Israel. “The targeting of municipal headquarters by Israeli occupation aircraft and the bombing of heavy equipment designated for rescue and rubble removal, including bulldozers and other machinery, is a criminal continuation of the war of extermination,” the group added in a statement. The Israeli army claimed heavy equipment destroyed in overnight attacks on Gaza was used “for terror purposes”. Thirty rights groups including Oxfam, Medical Aid for Palestinians and ActionAid issued a statement saying Israel has intensified its violence in Gaza and the occupied West Bank despite the UN General Assembly having demanded in September an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory within 12 months. World leaders must act urgently to “uphold their legal and moral responsibilities”, the statement said. Adblock test (Why?)