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US President Donald Trump said he thinks Vladimir Putin wants peace. Ukraine and its European allies don’t believe he does, while the Russian leader himself said he wants peace but then refused to sign up to it when presented with the option.

What Putin really wants, though, is much, much bigger.

The Russian president has made no secret of the fact that he believes Ukraine should not exist as an independent state and he has repeatedly said he wants NATO to shrink back to its Cold War-era size.

But more than anything, he wants to see a new global order — and he wants Russia to play the starring role in it.

Putin and several of his most trusted allies emerged from the remnants of the KGB, the Soviet-era intelligence agency. They have never forgotten the humiliation of the fall of the Soviet Union and are not happy with the way the world has turned out since then.

Putin rose to power during the chaos of the 1990s, when the Russian economy collapsed and had to be rescued by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – another humiliation for the former superpower.

But from 2000, when Putin became president, steadily rising oil prices made Russia and many Russians richer than ever before. And Russia had a voice. It was invited into the G7 group of the world’s largest economies – renamed the G8 after it joined.

“Putin was happy to throw all that away on behalf of his citizens because of higher geopolitical aims,” Berzina said. Russia was expelled from the G8, sanctioned by the West and ostracized on the global stage because of its aggression against Ukraine.

Berzina said it was never good enough for Russia to be “the eighth in the G7.”

“That doesn’t work within Russia’s understanding of its own exceptionalism. It is the largest country in the world, the richest in (natural) resources, so how can it simply be one of the players?” she said.

To understand what Putin wants from the current talks with the US, it’s key to remember that the two sides are talking because the United States made a policy U-turn under Trump — not because of a fundamental change in Russian thinking.

Trump wants the war in Ukraine to end as soon as possible, even if it means further territorial losses for Ukraine.

This means Putin has little to lose from talking.

Trump has claimed that “Russia holds all the cards” in the war with Ukraine, but the battlefield has been mostly stalled for the past two years.

While Russia is making some incremental gains, it is definitely not winning – though this could change if the US was to stop supplying arms and intelligence to Ukraine.

For Putin and the people around him, Trump’s push for a ceasefire simply presents an opportunity to secure quick wins while keeping an eye on the long-term goals, he said.

“Putin is an opportunist. He likes creating dynamic, chaotic situations, which throw up a whole variety of opportunities. And then he can then just pick which opportunity appeals to him, and he can change his mind,” Galeotti said.

Long term plan

Putin and his aides have made it very clear that their long-term goals have not changed. Even as they talk about wanting peace, Russian officials have continued to insist that the “root causes” of the conflict in Ukraine must be “eliminated.”

In the Kremlin’s view, these “root causes” amount to Ukraine’s sovereignty and its democratically elected President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as NATO’s expansion to the east in the past 30 years.

Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to force a regime change in Kyiv, planning to install a pro-Moscow government. His goal was to turn Ukraine into a vassal state like Belarus and prevent it from joining the European Union and NATO in the future.

He has not achieved that goal by using military force, but that doesn’t mean he has abandoned it.

Instead, he might try to achieve it by other means.

“The easiest way for Russia to attain what it wants in a different country is not through military means, but through interference and electoral process,” Berzina said, adding that it is possible – even likely – that this is what Moscow would try to do after a ceasefire was in place.

This is likely why Russia keeps questioning Zelensky’s legitimacy and pushing for an election – and why Kremlin was delighted when Trump adopted this narrative and called the Ukrainian leader “a dictator without elections.” Ukraine’s martial law – imposed because of Russia’s aggression – prohibits elections from taking place while the conflict is ongoing.

Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, have rejected the idea that Ukraine could join NATO any time soon and Putin has asked for a US commitment that this will not happen to be part of any ceasefire agreement.

But Berzina said that Ukraine’s European allies are not buying Putin’s promises that he would stop fighting if Ukraine became – as he called it – neutral.

“No matter what Trump and Putin think they can arrange this week or this year, many people in Europe now find Putin fundamentally untrustworthy,” she said.

“Could there be a desire for Russia to try its hand again militarily? Sure. And that is why the Europeans are very clear-eyed on the potential for future military engagement.”

It’s all personal

Andrei Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist and security expert who lives in exile in London, said Putin and his aides believe they can “try to get something out of Trump right now.”

“They think they can win some tactical battles but that he would not give them what they really want, which is a complete rearrangement of security arrangements in Europe,” he said.

Russia’s wariness of the US goes far back.

“It’s very personal to them because they were all young KGB officers back then, and they lost their social standing, they lost a place in Russian society, they lost the country as they describe it now, and it was extremely humiliating,” Soldatov said.

“They really believe that the West has been after the complete destruction and subjugation of Russia for centuries. It’s not just propaganda, they really, really believe in this.” But Putin has also framed his plan for Ukraine within his own – inaccurate — interpretation of history, which goes well beyond the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin has often argued that Ukraine is not a real country because Ukraine and Ukrainians are part of a larger “historical Russia”

Experts say this is, of course, nonsense.

“What he’s talking about is the fact that Russia and Ukraine and Belarus share a political ancestor called Rus … but it’s very much not the same thing as any modern country. It was an early to late medieval political entity and to say that Ukraine doesn’t have a right to exist because of this shared ancestor — no country looks the same as in the 10th century,” said Monica White, an associate professor in Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Nottingham.

Putin has also often turned to Russia’s religious identity in support of his plan. The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, is one of the loudest supporters of the war.

“After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia lost its connection with the ancestral Orthodox lands and I think part of Putin’s project is to try to bring back that thread connecting 10th century Rus with this pure orthodox continuity,” White said. “What he’s doing is actually not so different from some of the early Romanov Tzars who kept trying to get back the Orthodox lands that were under either Ottoman or Catholic rule, and they eventually did.”

Putin’s overwhelming desire is to return Russia to the global stage with a bang, she suggests – by creating a wedge between Europe and the US and teaming up with the West’s other adversaries.

“Russia wants to be at all the important tables – so whatever comes next, maybe it doesn’t have to mean territorial conquest in Europe, but I think it does have to be in a starring role in the more powerful bloc, if it sees that to include China or Iran or others, a bloc that is defined by its willingness to disrupt and destabilize,” White added.

Putin clearly believes that Russia – the largest country in the world by area – should be involved in running the world. He might have a like-minded man in the White House. Trump has made it clear that he believes the biggest and most powerful countries should get what they want – whether it’s Greenland, the Panama Canal, or a chunk of Ukraine.

“I think that the fundamental point is that, as far as Trump is concerned, Ukraine is a bought and paid for vassal state and has to understand its place and accept that, essentially, America will work out some kind of a deal with Russia and then bring it back to Ukraine,” Galeotti said.

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Flights returned to normal at London’s Heathrow Airport on Saturday following a power outage and shutdown that sparked global travel chaos.

The first flights of the day took off as scheduled from 6 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET), after authorities said operations at one of the world’s busiest airports would return to normal.

“Flights have resumed at Heathrow following yesterday’s power outage,” read a statement on Heathrow’s X account, adding that it apologized for the disruption.

The first three flights that left the tarmac were a TAP Air Portugal flight to Lisbon, an Austrian Airlines flight to Vienna, and a Swiss Airlines service to Zurich.

Some flights also took off Friday night as the west London airport, brought to a complete shutdown when fire engulfed a nearby electrical substation, partially reopened.

“We expect to be back in full operation, so 100% operation as a normal day,” Heathrow Airport CEO Thomas Woldbye had said late Friday.

But airlines have warned of delays for days to come, with aircraft and cabin crew having been diverted to different airports, posing deployment problems.

The UK flag carrier British Airways said it expects to operate at around 85% capacity on Saturday, despite normal service resuming at Heathrow.

“To recover an operation of our size after such a significant incident is extremely complex,” it said in a statement, warning customers about possible delays.

“This incident will have a substantial impact on our airline and customers for many days to come, with disruption to journeys expected over the coming days,” said chairman and CEO Sean Doyle.

British utility company National Grid said Saturday morning that power had been restored to “all customers connected to” the affected substation.

Heathrow was the world’s fourth-busiest airport in 2023, according to the most recent data. Last year, a record-breaking 83.9 million passengers passed through. Spread across four terminals, it usually runs at 99% capacity, with every major airline crossing the hub.

The substation blaze happened in the town of Hayes, just a few miles from the airport, which disrupted the local power supply, throwing more than 1,000 flights into disarray and forcing pilots to divert their journeys in midair.

The debacle also raised questions as to why such an important international transit hub appears to lack better contingency plans, including back-up electricity.

A Heathrow Airport spokesperson said “repatriation flights” for passengers diverted to other airports across Europe would be among the first to leave Friday.

Authorities have launched an investigation into the cause of the substation blaze. So far, there are no signs of foul play, according to police.

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Taliban hostage George Glezmann landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Friday after more than 800 days in captivity in Afghanistan, where he received a ‘champion’s welcome.’

‘I feel born again,’ Glezmann told Fox News. ‘I have no words. 

‘President Trump is amazing,’ he added before thanking Secretary of State Marcon Rubio, national security advisor Mike Waltz and hostage envoy Adam Boehler. 

‘A free American individual…abducted because of my U.S. passport.’

‘I’ve got no words to express my gratitude for my liberty,’ Glezmann added.

His wife, Aleksandra, arrived shortly after her husband landed, and the two embraced after she got out of the car for the first time since his Dec. 5, 2022, capture in Kabul. 

Ryan Corbett, who was released in January after nearly 900 days in Taliban captivity greeted Glezmann upon arrival.

Both Glezmann and Corbett were held together in Afghanistan.

News of Glezmann’s release was first revealed to Fox News Digital on Thursday after he departed from the Kabul International Airport headed for Doha, Qatar.

His release was secured after Boehler and Qatari officials engaged in direct communications with the Taliban in Afghanistan.  

Boehler met Glezmann in Kabul before the former captive flew from Doha to the Maryland base located just outside of Washington, D.C.

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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is joining President Donald Trump this weekend at the NCAA men’s wrestling championships, a source familiar with his plans tells Fox News Digital.

The White House confirmed Friday that Trump would attend the event with Jordan and Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa.

McCormick previously confirmed that Trump would be in attendance at the event in the senator’s home state of Pennsylvania.

‘I’m thrilled to be in Philadelphia this weekend with [Trump] for the [NCAA Wrestling] Championship,’ McCormick wrote on X. ‘I grew up wrestling in small towns across PA and at West Point. It taught me grit, resilience, and hard work.’

Jordan himself was a noted wrestling champion during his time in high school and later at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he won the NCAA Division I men’s wrestling title twice. 

He was later an assistant coach at Ohio State University’s wrestling program from 1987 to 1995.

Fox News Digital emailed Jordan’s office for comment but did not immediately hear back.

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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has canceled hundreds of National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grants—worth over $350 million—funding projects related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and gender ideology, according to a department official.

The cuts included slashing projects studying ‘multilevel and multidimensional structural racism,’ ‘gender-affirming hormone therapy in mice’ and ‘microaggressions,’ among others. 

In total, there were more than 500 research grants related to DEI and progressive gender ideology that the administration terminated.

‘HHS is taking action to terminate more than $350 million in research funding that is not aligned with NIH and HHS priorities,’ HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement. ‘The terminated research grants are simply wasteful in studying things that do not pertain to American’s health to any significant degree, including DEI and gender ideology. As we begin to Make America Healthy Again, it’s important to prioritize research that directly affects the health of Americans.’ 

One of the grants cut included nearly $1 million to scientists at the University of Maryland-Baltimore for a research project titled, ‘Assessing intersectional multilevel and multidimensional structural racism for English- and Spanish-speaking populations in the US.’ The project included work to create an ‘intersectional, multilevel, and multidimensional Structural Racism Measure’ in order to ‘eliminate health disparities and discrimination’ for racial minorities.

‘There is an urgent public health need to collect valid and reliable data on structural racism before effective interventions to reduce structural racism can be designed,’ the project’s description stated. 

Multiple projects studying transgender medical treatments in mice were also among those cut. One of those grants provided close to $1 million to Emory University researchers to study how transgender hormone treatments impact the skeletal maturation of mice, titled, ‘Microbiome mediated effects of gender affirming hormone therapy in mice.’ Another project worth roughly $50,000 worked to understand ‘how chromosomal makeup and cross-sex hormone administration’ impacts wound healing in mice.

A separate research project that did not use mice got nearly $1 million ‘to study possible genomic associations with gender identity.’ 

Grants focused on recruiting scientists based on their race or ethnicity were also slashed by the Trump administration. A grant worth more than $5 million to researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center to help ‘achieve more racial and ethnic diversity among our scientific research faculty,’ included a commitment to hire at least 18 tenure-track faculty ‘from minoritized racial and ethnic groups.’

Soon after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, he directed federal agencies, including HHS, to temporarily freeze the issuance of new federal grants. The action was to ensure each agency’s funding was in compliance with Trump’s new policies and requirements, including those around getting rid of DEI and progressive gender ideology in the public sector.

A judge subsequently issued an order temporarily blocking the administration’s funding freeze, and shortly thereafter, the Trump administration rescinded its memo directing the funding halt. A short time after that, the NIH resumed important meetings and travel associated with the agency’s grant-review process.  

In addition to reviewing NIH’s grant funding to ensure it aligns with the president’s policies, Trump also implemented a 15% cap on facilities and administrative costs included in research grant awards.

The administration’s actions targeting NIH research have generated widespread backlash. Earlier this month, Trump’s pick to be the next NIH director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, was peppered with questions from Democrats during his confirmation hearing over whether he would step in to prevent the president from slashing what they deemed critically important research projects. 

Bhattacharya would not explicitly say he disagreed with the cuts, or that, if confirmed, he would step in to stop them. Rather, he said he would ‘follow the law,’ while also investigating the impact of the cuts and ensuring every NIH researcher doing work that advances the health outcomes of Americans has the resources necessary to do their work. 

Bhattacharya also laid out what he called a new, decentralized vision for future research at NIH that he said will be aimed at embracing dissenting ideas and transparency, while focusing on research topics that have the best chance at directly benefiting the health outcomes of Americans. Bhattacharya said that he wants to rid the agency’s research portfolio of other ‘frivolous’ efforts that he says do little to directly benefit health outcomes.

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has ‘no business’ conducting affairs at the Pentagon, amid reports Musk would receive secret information from top military officials Friday about military contingency plans should a war break out with China.  

While The New York Times reported that Musk was set to receive military plans about any potential China conflict, the Pentagon and White House pushed back and said Musk’s briefing wouldn’t cover China. 

‘Elon Musk is an unelected, self-interested billionaire with no business anywhere near the Pentagon,’ Gillibrand said in an X post Friday morning with a photo of the Times story, just after Musk arrived at the Pentagon. Gillibrand is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. 

The possibility of Musk receiving information on China raises a possible conflict of interest, given the fact that Musk has financial interests in China stemming from Tesla, and SpaceX is working with the U.S. federal government on military space capabilities. 

However, the Trump administration swiftly pushed back on the Times’ reporting, and Trump issued a post on social media discrediting the story as ‘completely untrue.’

‘They said, incorrectly, that Elon Musk is going to the Pentagon tomorrow to be briefed on any potential ‘war with China.’ How ridiculous?’ China will not even be mentioned or discussed,’ President Donald Trump said in a Thursday night Truth Social post. 

A former Obama administration official also sounded the alarm about Musk’s visit to the Pentagon. 

Xochitl Hinojosa, who previously served as a spokesperson for former Attorney General Eric Holder and communications director for the Democratic National Committee, said that career officials must have disclosed the information about the meeting to the press because they were concerned about what would be shared with Musk. 

‘What is happening here, and everyone needs to be scared, is Pentagon officials are sounding the alarm,’ Hinojosa said in an interview with CNN Thursday night. ‘This doesn’t just happen on its own. This has happened because career officials in the Pentagon are terrified. And they believe there is a conflict of interest. That is why it is in the New York Times. Because I am sure they took it to the senior most people within the White House and within the Pentagon and they didn’t do anything about it.’

Hinojosa said that during her time at the Justice Department, career officials would sound the alarm if they became aware of any unethical behavior at the agency. 

‘That is exactly what is happening here,’ Hinojosa said. 

Hinojosa could not be reached for comment by Fox News Digital. 

The New York Times published a story Thursday evening claiming that Musk’s visit to the Pentagon would involve discussing plans in the event of a potential war with China. Specifically, the Times reported that the briefing involved a presentation with 20 to 30 slides on how the U.S. would combat China, various Chinese targets to strike and how the Pentagon would share these plans with Trump. 

The Times also reported the meeting would occur in the so-called Tank, a secure conference room that the Joint Chiefs utilize for meetings, along with other senior staff and visiting combatant commanders. 

Meanwhile, the Times report also noted that Musk may have needed to know information about plans for China as he eyes cutting the Pentagon’s budget amid his efforts leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

Pentagon war plans are highly confidential for operational security purposes. Should details regarding the U.S. military’s strategy to combat an enemy be shared or leaked in any way, it would jeopardize U.S. forces and undermine the success of the military campaign.

Hegseth also weighed in on the matter, and said the meeting with Musk would primarily center around innovation. 

‘But the fake news delivers again — this is NOT a meeting about ‘top secret China war plans.’ It’s an informal meeting about innovation, efficiencies & smarter production. Gonna be great!’ Hegseth said in a post on X late Thursday evening. 

In response to Hegseth’s post, Musk responded: ‘Exactly. Also, I’ve been to the Pentagon many times over many years. Not my first time in the building.’ 

Musk also said in a separate post he looks ‘forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to NYT. 

‘They will be found,’ he said. 

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

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Gal Dalal has spent nearly a year and a half fighting for the release of his brother, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, who was kidnapped by Hamas from the Nova music festival during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel. 

Dalal wants the world to know who his brother was before he was a face on a poster and why getting Guy out of Gaza is urgent.

‘So, my brother is the most warm-hearted man I know. He’s a very, very funny guy,’ Dalal told Fox News Digital. ‘For me, he’s actually my best friend. We share the same interests and hobbies and we do everything together.’

On Oct. 7, 2023, Guy was in the middle of experiencing his first-ever spiritual festival with his friends when Gal, a more seasoned festival goer, joined the group at approximately 6:15 a.m., less than 15 minutes before the attack began.

Dalal told Fox News Digital that when he arrived at the festival, an excited Guy ran up to hug him before pulling out his phone to take a selfie for their mother.

‘That’s the only reason I went there [to the Nova music festival] was to watch over him. And, you know, the fact that I came back without him, I think that’s the worst part of it for me,’ Dalal told Fox News Digital.

Neither of the Dalal brothers could have known what was coming next. As the sirens began to sound, Dalal told Fox News Digital that he suggested that the group go to his apartment, and they agreed. While Dalal went in his own car, Guy decided to go with his friends. Dalal estimates that Guy and his friends took an additional 10 minutes before leaving the festival area. At this point, they were not alarmed despite the rocket sirens blaring.

‘We [are] used to these alarms. We [are] used to missiles attack and no one thought it’s going to be a terror attack in this kind of scale,’ Dalal told Fox News Digital.

Safety protocol for rocket attacks is widely known in Israel. There are designated amounts of time to seek shelter depending on the location’s distance from Gaza. Many at the Nova festival ran to shelters on the side of the road, which would later turn out to be deadly. Hamas terrorists used the shelters to carry out mass killings. They would throw grenades into groups of people, many of whom did not survive.

Dalal told Fox News Digital that outside the festival, he sat in traffic for about 20 minutes before he heard shooting. From there, he spent hours running for his life. He was too far to go back for Guy, but the two were able to talk on the phone one last time before Guy was taken hostage.

The Dalal family found out on Oct. 7 that Guy and his best friend, Evyatar David, were taken hostage. Hamas published a video of the two kidnapped men already in Gaza. Guy and Evyatar went to the festival with two other friends, both of whom were killed.

Dalal and his family have spent the last 17 months advocating for the release of all the hostages, including Guy. 

‘I always say that in one hand, we are so tired. We are literally on the edge. This fight is taking so much out of us, and the only thing that we really care about is my brother seeing him again, knowing that he’s well and protecting him. Hug him. Help him to heal. We miss him so much, I miss him so much,’ Dalal told Fox News Digital.

Recently, the Dalal family received a sign of life, but it was not a relieving sight. Guy and Evyatar were forced to take part in a Hamas propaganda video, in which they were forced to sit in a van and watch hostages be released only to have the door slammed in their faces.

Dalal told Fox News Digital that the video brought him back to Oct. 7 and showed the ‘psychological torture’ the families of hostages endure. He says it’s clear that his brother and Evyatar are being ‘starved to death.’

‘It scares me that this negotiation can take more time, and Guy doesn’t have the time,’ Dalal told Fox News Digital. However, he believes that President Donald Trump and the U.S. have the power to bring the hostages home.

In his fight for his brother’s freedom, Gal traveled to the U.S. and met with members of both the Biden and Trump administrations. He said that meeting the Trump officials felt ‘different’ and that they understood that time is not on their side.

‘I think that the only one who can really put the pressure and bring these hostages back and make sure that they will return to their families is President Trump and United States as a nation, you have the power of that, the power and the support that we need to make sure the hostages will return and will come back home,’ Dalal told Fox News Digital.

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: President Donald Trump is considering lifting sanctions on and resuming the sale of fighter jets to Turkey after a conversation with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 

Trump expressed an intent to help finalize the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey and is open to the idea of selling Turkey its true prized goal, F-35 jets, if the two sides can come to an agreement that renders Turkey’s Russian S-400 system inoperable, two sources confirmed to Fox News Digital. 

That agreement could look like partially disassembling the machinery or moving it to a U.S.-controlled base in Turkey. 

Congress approved the $23 billion sale of 40 F-16s and modernization kits for 79 in its current fleet to Turkey last year, but there are ongoing negotiations between Turkey’s defense ministry and Lockheed Martin, which builds the jet. 

Trump’s team has asked for legal and technical analysis of how it could avoid finding Turkey in violation of Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) sanctions, according to one source familiar with the request. 

The State Department and National Security Council could not be reached for comment. 

The U.S. agreed to extend a waiver allowing Turkey to buy Russian natural gas until May, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. 

Trump and Erdogan spoke by phone on Sunday, and the Turkish government is looking to firm up plans to bring Erdogan to the U.S. to visit with Trump in the near future. 

The Turkish embassy pointed to a readout of the call from Erdogan’s office which said the president had expressed to Trump, ‘in order to develop cooperation between the two countries in the field of defense industry, it is necessary to end CAATSA sanctions, finalize the F-16 procurement process and finalize Türkiye’s re-participation in the F-35 program.’

Erdogan asked the U.S. to lift sanctions on Syria, where a new governing force, HTS, overthrew Bashar al-Assad with Turkish backing. The U.S. side did not provide a readout of the call. 

Turkey was kicked out of the F-35 program following its purchase of a Russian S-400 mobile missile-to-air system due to spying concerns associated with having a Kremlin-operated system so close to a high-level U.S. technology like the F-35.

‘The F-35 cannot coexist with a Russian intelligence collection platform that will be used to learn about its advanced capabilities,’ the White House said in 2019, adding that the purchase would have ‘detrimental impacts’ on Turkey’s participation in NATO. 

Ankara, Turkey’s capital, had brokered the $2.5 billion deal with Russia for the S400s in 2017, despite U.S. warnings that there would be political and economic consequences. In an effort to deter Turkey, the U.S. offered to sell them the Patriot system, but Ankara wanted the system’s sensitive missile technology along with it, and the U.S. declined. 

The U.S. considerations come after the United Kingdom offered a price proposal to Turkey to purchase 40 of its Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets last week. 

A move to sell Turkey F-35s would prove controversial, and prompt concern from U.S. allies like Israel, where Turkey cut off all relations due to the Gaza war last year, and Greece due to disputes over Cyprus and the surrounding waters.

Experts describe the F-35 as a ‘status symbol.’ ‘The F-35 club is really for trusted allies,’ said Jonathan Schanzer, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

‘This is a Turkey that supports the Houthis, which President Trump is bombing and supports Hamas and supports Hezbollah,’ said Endy Zemenides, executive director of the Hellenic American Leadership Council. ‘We know that they don’t want to be a customer, they want to be a competitor in the arms market.’ 

However, isolating Turkey, which has the second-largest standing military after the U.S. in NATO, could push them to go to Russia and China for weapons supplies. 

‘Trump’s about making a business deal here, right? We don’t need Turkey with nearly one million soldiers on the other side and leaning more towards Russia and China, right?’ said Jonathan Bass, Argent LNG CEO and international trade expert.

‘Turkey is an unresolved thorn in the side of the NATO alliance,’ said Schanzer, ‘It certainly seems to be a priority right now for the Trump administration to try to bring them back into the fold.’

However, he added, ‘There’s the democracy deficit and the autocratic tendencies of Erdogan. All of these things are creating a very cloudy picture for U.S. engagement. So it’s buyer beware.’ 

‘Turkey is a major economy. We need them to come down on the right side of the fence. We need them from a supply chain standpoint,’ countered Bass. 

He added that the U.S. needs to partner with Turkey on mining for rare earths minerals. ‘Turkey has a lot more mining infrastructure,’ he said. ‘They can help us with mining operations in Africa. We don’t have the people willing to do that.’

‘If you don’t give Erdogan a seat at the table, he’s going to make his own table,’ Bass warned. 

‘He wants to be respected as he should. He’s got 80 million people that he represents. But we need to give him clear lines of engagement.’ 

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President Donald Trump said former Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, contributed to the Democrats’ loss in the 2024 election. 

Trump’s comments came in response to statements Walz provided in a podcast with California Gov. Gavin Newsom that aired on Tuesday, in which Walz predicted he could kick the ‘a–‘ of most Trump supporters. 

‘Well, he’s a loser. Yeah. No, I think so. He lost an election,’ Trump said Friday in the Oval Office of the White House. ‘He played a part. You know, usually a vice president doesn’t play a part. They say. I think Tim played a part. I think he was so bad that he hurt her. But she hurt herself. And Joe hurt them both. They didn’t have a great group, but I would probably put him at the bottom of the group.’ 

A spokesperson for Walz did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

 

Walz’s comments originated during a discussion with Newsom about toxic masculinity. While Newsom discussed why he has brought on conservative figures like Charlie Kirk on his podcast because he believes one shouldn’t write someone off for having different views, Walz questioned how to challenge Trump backers. 

‘How do you fight it? I think I could kick most of their a–. I do think that,’ Walz said in response. ‘But I don’t know if we’re going to fall into that place where we want to— okay, we challenge you to a WWE fight here type thing.’

Walz also told Newsom he believes ‘I scare them a little bit’ and that he’s received scrutiny from Republicans, prompting Newsom to laugh. 

‘No, I’m serious, because they know I can fix a truck, they know I’m not bulls—-ing on this,’ Walz said. 

 

Meanwhile, Walz received some criticism for his comments on the podcast. 

Caitlyn Jenner, a trans woman formerly known as Bruce Jenner and former Olympic gold-medal decathlete, joked in an X post of being more ‘masculine’ than Walz. 

Vice President JD Vance also addressed Walz’ comments in an interview with The Daily Caller’s Vince Coglianese that aired Thursday. 

‘I have to say, Vince, I was never physically intimidated by Tim Walz,’ Vance said. 

Vance also addressed speculation that Walz may attempt to run for the U.S. Senate, following his bid as Harris’ running mate in the 2024 election.

‘I’m not too worried about Tim Walz as a political talent,’ Vance said. 

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President Donald Trump called the U.S.-Canada border an ‘artificial line’ while also declining to say whether Canada would lean right or left if it were to become a state. 

Trump’s Friday comments were made during a press conference in the Oval Office amid controversy over the president speaking of Canada as the ’51st state.’

Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked the president whether he would be ‘concerned’ about whether Canada ‘would be a very, very blue state.’

‘It’s just an artificial line that was drawn in the sand or in the ice,’ Trump said. ‘You add that to this country – what a beautiful landmass. The most beautiful landmass anywhere in the world. And it was just cut off for whatever reason.’

‘It would be great,’ he continued. 

Trump circumvented the question, saying, ‘I don’t care who winds up there.’

‘Frankly, [it] probably would do better with the liberal than the conservative, if you want to know the truth,’ he responded. 

Trump referenced former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the exchange, whom he has notably called ‘Governor Trudeau.’

Trudeau resigned as leader of the Liberal Party and the country’s prime minister in early January, following increased pressure and criticism from within his own party and threats levied by then-President-Elect Trump. 

Former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership earlier this month, replacing Trudeau. 

‘I think Canada is a place like a lot of other places – if you have a good candidate, the candidate’s going to win,’ Trump said. 

Canadian MP Charlie Angus recently claimed the Trump administration had committed an ‘act of war’ over Trump repeatedly referring to Canada as the U.S.’ ’51st state’ and for leveling tariffs on the nation. 

‘Well, I think Marco Rubio probably needs to be sent back to school, because when you say that someone doesn’t have a right to have a country, that’s an act of war. When you rip up, arbitrarily, trade agreements and threaten and say you’re going to break a country, that’s an act of war. And Canadians have responded in kind,’ Angus said during an interview earlier this week with the MeidasTouch Network.

Trump leveled a 25% tariff on all imports of steel and aluminum from other nations in early March, while Canada specifically is set to face a 25% tax on all imported goods beginning April 2. The tariffs have sparked boycotts of U.S. goods. 

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report. 

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