: A top former spokesperson for former President Joe Biden blasted President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress for proposing potential judicial impeachments as the administration encounters court-imposed obstacles in enacting its agenda. 

Former White House spokesperson Andrew Bates now advises a group known as Unlikely Allies, which says it is working to create ‘cross-partisan support for the needs and interests of all Americans.’

‘Radical, corrupt attacks on judges are putting our Constitution and the freedom of every single American in danger from government overreach,’ Bates told Fox News Digital on the group’s behalf. ‘For the first time in history, our president and members of his party in Congress are colluding to impeach any federal judge who stops the most powerful person in the world from breaking the law.

‘The president has also called for making dissent illegal, which would trample the First Amendment and threaten the fundamental right of any American to disagree with his agenda — whether it’s cutting taxes for the rich or raising the prices he falsely promised to lower.’ 

According to the group, Unlikely Allies ‘is made up of everyday citizens, families, communities, and organizations who are committed to solving our toughest problems, together.’

‘Driven by the values that unite us, our goal is to create unified, cross-partisan support for the needs and interests of all Americans. This isn’t about left or right, Republican or Democrat — it’s about American values and holding our government accountable,’ a description of the organization says. 

The White House responded to Bates’ statement, with deputy press secretary Anna Kelly telling Fox News Digital, ‘Biden communications alum Andrew Bates has no credibility after lying to the world about Biden’s cognitive decline. Just like these judges, Bates is a left-wing activist masquerading as a nonpartisan as he works to destroy the separation of powers and subvert the will of the American people.’ 

The dispute comes as federal judges across the country continue to impose restrictions on Trump actions until further review and legal determinations. 

Recently, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg granted an emergency order to temporarily halt the administration’s deportation flights of illegal immigrants.

The judge granted an order to review the 1798 wartime-era Alien Enemies Act being invoked by the administration to immediately deport Venezuelan nationals and alleged members of the violent gang Tren de Aragua.

This only further angered the president, who appeared to call for Boasberg’s impeachment.

‘This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!’ Trump said on Truth Social.

Republicans in general have appeared to scrutinize the ability of federal district judges to make blanket nationwide orders in recent days. 

‘Federal judges aren’t there to replace presidential policy choices,’ Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wrote on X. ‘Nor is it their job to neuter presidents by delaying presidential decisions.

‘Their job is to resolve disputes about what the law says.’ 

Lee also said he is working on a bill to address the issue. 

In the House, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., has a measure that would prevent federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions. Multiple sources told Fox News Digital Trump has shown interest in Issa’s bill. Top White House aides shared as much with senior Capitol Hill staff this week, explaining that ‘the president wants this.’

The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo sent a letter to President Donald Trump offering a minerals deal in exchange for a security agreement with the U.S. that would remove violent rebels from the war-torn nation. 

‘Your election has ushered in the golden age for America,’ President Félix Tshisekedi wrote in February to Trump, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. ‘Our partnership would provide the U.S. with a strategic advantage by securing critical minerals such as cobalt, lithium, copper and tantalum from the Democratic Republic of Congo.’

The Congo has over $20 trillion worth of minerals available, according to the Congo-based Panzi Foundation, including gold and copper. The African country is also the world’s largest producer of cobalt, which is essential for defense and aerospace applications, and a main component in the batteries of many electric vehicles and cellphones.

Tshisekedi seeks to strike a ‘formal security pact’ so Congo’s army can defeat a Rwandan-backed rebel group called M23 in exchange for a minerals deal, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

The letter did not provide details on what a potential security pact would look like or operate. 

Congo ‘is interested in partnering with the Trump administration to end the conflict and stop the flow of blood minerals via Rwanda,’ a Tshisekedi spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal. 

‘It is in both our interests that American companies – like Apple and Tesla – buy minerals direct from source in the DRC and unlock the engine of our mineral wealth for the benefit of all the world,’ she added. 

Congo and Rwanda are neighboring nations and have been involved in conflict for decades, including the First Congo War from 1996 to 1997, the Second Congo War between 1998 and 2003, and the most recent ongoing conflict that began in 2022. The current conflicts are rooted in gaining access to resources, such as minerals, and claims M23 will protect ethnic minorities from the Congolese government. 

The rebels seized Goma – the country’s largest city of the North Kivu province – in January as fighting between the Rwanda-backed rebels and government intensified, which included the deaths of 13 U.N. peacekeepers and foreign soldiers. 

Tshisekedi joined Fox News’ Bret Baier Wednesday to discuss the potential minerals deal with the U.S., explaining he wants to build jobs in his nation through the extraction of the minerals, while simultaneously building a partnership with the U.S. to ensure lasting peace in the nation. 

‘We want to extract these minerals but also process them, as this would create a lot of jobs,’ Tshisekedi told Baier. ‘And we want a partnership that will provide lasting peace and stability for our countries, which we need.’ 

China has a large presence in Congo, and it runs the country’s cobalt mine, Fox Digital previously reported. Tshisekedi brushed off concerns that China’s presence could complicate any potential deal with the U.S. during his interview with Baier. 

‘Nature abhors a vacuum, as the saying goes,’ he told Baier. ‘It’s not that China is waxing in Africa. It’s more that America is waning in Africa… and we would be very happy to have our American friends here, who used to be more present than China in the ‘70s and ’80s.’ 

Tshisekedi is also in negotiations with Erik Prince, the founder of private military firm formerly known as Blackwater and a Trump ally, to potentially aid the Congo’s government amid the war, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on the deal offer, but did not immediately receive a reply. 

The offer comes after the Trump administration worked to strike a minerals deal with Ukraine, which is rich in resources such as lithium and copper, in an effort to recoup the cost of aid sent to Ukraine amid its war with Russia. 

The deal, however, was put on ice after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s tense Oval Office meeting with Trump and Vice President JD Vance in February. 

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

TEMPE, Ariz. – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont – champions of the left – repeatedly targeted President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk as they kicked off a three-day swing through three electorally important western states.

But Sanders, and especially Ocasio-Cortez, also trained some of their fire on the Democratic Party, with the best-known member of the so-called ‘Squad’ of diverse and progressive House members urging her own party to have ‘the courage to brawl’ against Republicans.

Trump has been on a tear since returning to the White House two months ago, flexing his political muscles to expand presidential powers as he’s upended longstanding government policy and made major cuts to the federal workforce through a flurry of executive orders and actions. 

And Sanders and Cortez took to the stage at their first stop in Las Vegas, Nevada, while Trump signed an executive order to begin the longstanding conservative goal of demolishing the Department of Education at a White House ceremony.

Ocasio-Cortez accused Trump and his GOP allies of ‘lying to and screwing over working and middle-class Americans so that they can steal our health care, social security and veterans benefits in order to pay for their tax cuts for the billionaires and bailouts for their crypto friends.’

And Sanders charged that ‘every day Trump is trying to take power away from Congress. He is trying to take power away from the judiciary.’

‘We have a message for Mr. Trump and that is, we will not allow you to move this country into an oligarchy,’ Sanders emphasized.’We’re not going to allow you and your friend Mr. Musk and the other billionaires to wreak havoc on this country.’

But the inability of Democrats in Congress, who are out of power in the White House as well as the House and Senate, to stop the majority Republicans is causing tensions within the party amid increasing calls for leaders to come up with a stronger strategy to resist Trump.

‘This isn’t just about Republicans,’ Ocasio-Cortez told the crowd in Arizona. ‘We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us. That means each and every one of us choosing and voting for Democrats and elected officials who know how to stand for the working class…I want you to look at every level of office around and support Democrats who fight, because those are the ones who can actually win against Republicans.’

The Sanders-Ocasio-Cortez stops are drawing large crowds. The fire marshal in Tempe, Arizona said 11,300 packed the Mullett Arena on the campus of Arizona State University, with thousands in an overflow section outside the arena. 

The tour, dubbed by Sanders as ‘Fighting Oligarchy,’ continues Friday in Denver and Greeley, Colorado and concludes Saturday with a rally in Tucson, Arizona.

It comes as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the chamber, is facing increasing fire from his own party for his support last week for a Republican-crafted federal funding bill that averted a government shutdown.

Neither Ocasio-Cortez nor Sanders mentioned Schumer during their speeches in Las Vegas or Tempe. 

And Sanders, an independent who has long caucused with the Democrats and who is part of Schumer’s leadership team in the Senate, declined in an interview with Fox News Digital ahead of the Tempe rally, to answer whether he agreed with calls for Schumer to step down from his leadership position.

‘That’s kind of inside the Beltway stuff,’ Sanders said.

But it was on the minds of some of those attending the rallies.

There were chants of ‘primary Chuck’ directed at Ocasio-Cortez at the Las Vegas rally.

And in Tempe, Cindy Garman and Pat Robinson, both of Prescott, Arizona, told Fox News that they were ‘really disappointed’ with Schumer’s move. 

And Amanda Ratloff of Gilbert, Arizona, said Schumer ‘is not the leader we need right now. We need somebody that will actually fight back and fight for the American people and not just give in to Elon Musk and Donald Trump.’

Sanders, in his speech, vowed to fight.

‘We are going to fight Trump and his oligarchy friends,’ he emphasized. ‘From the bottom of my heart I am convinced that they can be defeated.’

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said wasteful spending is over as he signed a memo to cancel over $580 million in Department of Defense (DoD) contracts.

‘We’re back with another quick update on our efforts to cut wasteful spending and cut it quickly at the Department of Defense,’ Hegseth announced in a post on X.

‘Today, I’m signing a memo directing the termination of over $580 million in DoD contracts, in grants that do not match the priorities of this president or this department. In other words, they are not a good use of taxpayer dollars.’

Hegseth said that they owe Americans transparency, sharing details on some of the contracts and grants that have been canceled.

‘There’s an HR software effort that was supposed to take a year and cost $36 million, but instead it’s taken eight years and is currently $280 million over budget, not delivering what it was supposed to. So that’s 780% over budget. We’re not doing that anymore,’ Hegseth vowed.

Hegseth added that they uncovered another batch of DoD grants, totaling $360 million worth, that decarbonizing emissions from Navy ships – part of the Obama-Biden Green agenda. 

‘That’s 6 million bucks, $5.2 million on something that would diversify and engage the Navy by engaging underrepresented Bipoc students and scholars. Another $9 million at a university to approach equitable AI and machine learning models. I need lethal machine learning model, not equitable machine learning models,’ Hegseth explained.

On this third point, Hegseth said Thursday’s other cuts included wasteful spending on external consulting services. 

’30 million bucks in contracts with Gartner and McKinsey. That’s IT purchasing unused licenses. So when you add it all up, $580 million in DoD contracts and grants DOGE is helping us cut today,’ Hegseth said.

When added up all together, Hegseth said that over $800 million in wasteful spending has been canceled over the first few weeks, as DoD partners with DOGE ‘to make sure that our warfighters have what they need by cutting the waste, fraud, and abuse.’

‘They’re working hard. We’re working hard with them. We appreciate the work that they’re doing, and we have a lot more coming. So stay tuned,’ Hegseth said. 

‘So, might as well not waste any more time right now, just sign this thing. How about that? So this makes it official. We’re going to keep going for you guys,’ Hegseth said while signing the orders. 

‘Have we ever seen this level of transparency? Amazing, thank you @SecDef,’ Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., commented on Hegseth’s post.

Back in February, Hegseth committed to cooperating with DOGE to cut wasteful spending at the Department of Defense.

‘We will partner with them. It’s long overdue. The Defense Department’s got a huge budget, but it needs to be responsible,’ Hegseth previously told Fox News. 

As of Thursday afternoon, 239 ‘wasteful’ contracts with a ‘ceiling value’ of $1.7 billion have been terminated over a two-day period, DOGE announced. 

Fox News Digital’s Deirdre Heavey and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.

Stepheny Price is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. She covers topics including missing persons, homicides, national crime cases, illegal immigration, and more. Story tips and ideas can be sent to stepheny.price@fox.com

Vice President JD Vance took a shot at former Vice President Kamala Harris, suggesting her alcohol habits were responsible for her ‘word salads.’ 

Vance’s remarks came as he described the difference between how he and Harris have handled the role as vice president, and he speculated about the relationship dynamic between Harris and former President Joe Biden. 

‘Well, I don’t have four shots of vodka before every meeting,’ Vance said in an interview with radio host and Daily Caller editor Vince Coglianese in an interview that aired Thursday. ‘That’s one way I think that Kamala really tried to bring herself into the role, is these word salads. I think I would need the help of a lot of alcohol to answer a question the way that Kamala Harris answered questions.’ 

Vance then shared his suspicions that Harris and Biden didn’t have the same level of trust he and President Donald Trump share, noting his opinion was based on ‘guesswork’ since he doesn’t speak to either Biden or Harris frequently. 

‘My sense is that there wasn’t a level of trust between Biden and Harris,’ Vance said. ‘She was just less empowered to do her job. Luckily, I’m in a situation where the president trusts me, where if he asks me to do something, he believes it’s going to happen. … I feel empowered in a way that I think a lot of vice presidents haven’t been, but that’s all in the service of accomplishing the president’s vision.’ 

Harris routinely faced scrutiny for comments in which she jumbled words, including when she said, ‘I grew up understanding the children of the community are the children of the community’ in September 2024. 

Harris, who previously served as a senator from California, is now a speaker with CAA Speakers, which represents high-profile celebrities. CAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

A spokesperson for Vance confirmed the vice president made the remarks on the podcast but did not provide additional comment to Fox News Digital. Coglianese did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Meanwhile, Vance also poked fun at himself in the interview Thursday. 

Vance, who has become the source of thousands of memes circulating the internet after the heated Oval Office meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February, said he finds the memes entertaining. 

In particular, he said he enjoys one based off Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the television from the 2019 film ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,’ and another swapping his face with members of the band Van Halen. 

‘I’m a personal fan of Vance Halen, but that’s because I really like the band Van Halen,’ Vance said. ‘So that’s just my personal preferences. I don’t know how it happened or where it came from, but it’s been very, very funny to watch your own face become this meme. It’s made the job a lot more fun, so I encourage people to keep doing it.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Alexander Hall contributed to this report.

A liberal Canadian member of Parliament claimed the Trump administration has committed an ‘act of war’ over President Donald 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,’ Canadian MP Charlie Angus, who is a member of the country’s liberal New Democratic Party, said Monday during an interview with the MeidasTouch Network. 

Angus was reacting to a clip of Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking with reporters during his recent trip to Canada for the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. Rubio was repeatedly asked by the press to weigh in on Trump referring to Canada as the U.S.’ ’51st state.’ 

‘The president has made his argument as to why he thinks Canada would be better off joining the United States… for economic purposes,’ Rubio said on March 14 when asked about Trump’s ’51st state’ comments, explaining the issue was not addressed during the G7 meeting. ‘There’s a disagreement between the president’s position and the position of the Canadian government. I don’t think that’s a mystery coming in, and it wasn’t a topic of conversation, because that’s not what this summit was about.’

Rubio further explained that the origin of the ’51st state’ rhetoric was born during a meeting between Trump and former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump began using the ’51st state’ title for Canada in November 2024, following his election win. 

Trump was meeting with Trudeau, ‘and Trudeau basically says that if the U.S. imposes tariffs on Canada, Canada couldn’t survive as a nation-state, at which point the president said, ‘Well, then you should become a state.’ And that’s where this began,’ Rubio recounted of the Trump–Trudeau meeting. ‘He made an argument for why Canada would be better off joining the United States from an economic perspective and the like. He’s made that argument repeatedly, and I think it stands for itself.’

Trudeau announced his resignation as the country’s prime minister in January after nine years in the position. Mark Carney was sworn-in as the nation’s next prime minister on March 14 after he was elected the new leader of Canada’s Liberal Party earlier in the month.  

During his interview, Angus said that Canada’s boycott of U.S. products over tariffs leveled on the nation would be ‘punishing’ to the U.S.

‘The boycott that Canada has launched against the United States is punishing. We were told in January a 10% drop in Canadian travel to the United States would cost 140,000 jobs,’ he continued. 

Trump leveled a 25% tariff on all imports of steel and aluminum from other nations on March 12, 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. 

Trump joined Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Tuesday, where he railed against how the U.S. has subsidized ‘Canada by $200 billion a year.’

‘Here’s my problem with Canada,’ Trump said on Fox News. ‘Canada was meant to be the 51st state because we subsidize Canada by $200 billion a year. We don’t need their cars, we don’t need their lumber, we have a lot of lumber. … We don’t need their energy, we don’t need anything, we certainly don’t want their automobiles… millions of automobiles are sent in, I’d rather have them made in Michigan, I’d rather have them made in South Carolina.’

Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump sent a warning late Thursday night to those who have been involved in recent attacks on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and factories nationwide since CEO Elon Musk became a part of the Trump administration.

‘People that get caught sabotaging Teslas will stand a very good chance of going to jail for up to twenty years, and that includes the funders,’ the president wrote on Truth Social. ‘WE ARE LOOKING FOR YOU!!!’

Musk has taken a lot of heat for heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Trump, and his closeness with the president has made Tesla vehicles and properties the target of dozens of protests and vandalism, and even a couple of shootings.

Trump’s warning comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi announced federal charges on Thursday against three people who used Molotov cocktails to attack Tesla properties in South Carolina, Oregon and Colorado in separate instances. Bondi described their actions as acts of ‘domestic terrorism.’

‘The days of committing crimes without consequence have ended,’ Bondi said. ‘Let this be a warning: if you join this wave of domestic terrorism against Tesla properties, the Department of Justice will put you behind bars.’ 

All three suspects face a minimum of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted.

Bondi told Will Cain on his show Wednesday, ‘They’re targeting Elon Musk who is out there trying to save our country and it will not be tolerated. We are coming after you.’

This week alone, attacks were reported in Las Vegas and Kansas City, Missouri. 

Investigators in Kansas City were looking into a suspected arson case after two Cybertrucks caught on fire at a dealership on Monday, while authorities in Sin City reported at least five vehicles were damaged and two were set on fire at a Tesla collision and sales center on Tuesday.

A website called ‘DOGEQUEST’ was also activated this week and claims to have a list of Tesla owners, their addresses, phone numbers and email addresses in an apparent effort to dox them.

The site also contains a map of Tesla dealerships and charging stations.

Fox News Digital’s Peter D’Abrosca and Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report.

A former special envoy to Haiti blames what he views as former President Joe Biden’s absentee approach to decision-making for the current woes afflicting the Caribbean nation.

Daniel Foote served as special envoy to Haiti in 2021 but resigned in protest over what he said was the administration’s failed approach of supporting unpopular and unelected leaders.

‘All of the governments that the U.S. has backed or anointed or imposed in the last 110 years have not represented the Haitian people,’ Foote said. He said the Biden administration backed the then-unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry solely for his unwavering loyalty despite lingering questions about how Henry rose to power.

Foote has been involved with Haiti since the devastating 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people. He now believes the country has descended into near-total collapse.

‘It’s a thousand times worse now because we broke whatever weak social contract there was between the people and the government. And there has been no government since basically 2012. It’s a failed state.’

A recent U.N. report revealed that more than 1 million people have been displaced due to gang violence in Haiti, nearly 10% of the population. Another report indicated that 85% of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, is under gang control.

Foote said he never met Biden while serving as envoy, claiming that by then, Biden had ‘deteriorated to the point that they didn’t want him to see a lot of people.’ Instead, he said, Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for political affairs, and U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Michele Sison devised the plan to support Henry.

Foote said he recalled a remark that Biden allegedly made as a senator in 1994: ‘If Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean, or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot in terms of our interests.’

‘That explains Joe Biden’s approach to Haiti,’ Foote said.

Biden’s spokesperson and Sison did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

Nuland rejected Foote’s accusations, calling them ‘completely false’ and referred Fox News Digital to former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian Nichols.

‘What I observed that there was intense coordination, and there was not one person or two people who would make a significant decision on the policy,’ Nichols said, noting that he got the job roughly a week before Foote resigned on Sept. 21 and so was not involved in earlier decisions. ‘All issues were debated extensively internally at multiple levels, all the way up to the principals, that’s the Cabinet secretary level.’

Foote said that in the past he felt no need for security while walking around Haiti because Americans were widely welcomed. Things are not the same anymore.

‘Now the Haitians are looking at China, looking at Russia,’ he said. ‘They’re like, ‘Somebody help us. The Americans just keep screwing us over,’ yet they still want the Americans to help them.’

The Biden administration committed around $600 million to fund an international security force, known as the multinational security support mission (MSS), composed of personnel from countries like Bangladesh, Kenya, Chad and Guyana. But Foote said he sees the MSS strategy as a waste of taxpayer money.

‘They don’t have the security backbone to take on the gangs,’ he said. ‘They need help. And that help is not 5,000 random police officers from a mishmash of 10 different developing countries led by the Kenyans, who have never led a security mission in history.’

Nichols defended the MSS, declaring their efforts ‘incredibly heroic.’

‘Having seen them on the ground in Haiti, it’s an extremely professional force, extremely courageous and one committed to the mission,’ he said.

Foote recommends that President Donald Trump send 60 U.S. special forces personnel to train an elite anti-gang unit in Haiti and reestablish a signals intelligence program to monitor gang communication. Without such action, he said, the consequences would extend far beyond Haiti’s borders.

‘It’s just going to continue to create chaos right off the U.S. shores and create a massive surge in migration,’ he said. ‘Because if you walk down the street in Port-au-Prince, you look around and think, ‘I can understand why people leave. Humans can’t live in these conditions.”

Jack Brewer, who played in the NFL before founding a global foundation that has been in Haiti since the devastating 2010 earthquakes, echoed Foote’s assessment.

‘People are being burned alive, police officers are getting their heads bashed into the pavement – bloody, torturous deaths,’ Brewer said. ‘One of my doctors had five of his close friends and relatives murdered. This all just happened this week.’

Brewer said that any real change can come only from within Haiti.

‘I’m talking about a culture that doesn’t accept stealing and doesn’t accept corruption,’ he said. ‘Right now, culturally, it’s acceptable to steal, and that has to change. Until you fix the moral fabric of a nation and reinstate law and order, it doesn’t matter what America does.’