President Donald Trump floated a joint meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, claiming he wants all countries to move toward denuclearization. 

Trump on Thursday told reporters he plans to advance these denuclearization talks once ‘we straighten it all out’ in the Middle East and Ukraine, comments that come as the U.S., Russia and Ukraine are actively pursuing negotiations to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. 

‘There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many,’ Trump said Thursday at the White House. ‘You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.’

‘We’re all spending a lot of money that we could be spending on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more productive,’ he said.

The U.S. is projected to spend approximately $756 billion on nuclear weapons between 2023 and 2032, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released in 2023. 

Additionally, Trump said that he was aiming to schedule meetings with Xi and Putin early on in his second term and request that the countries cut their military budgets in half. The president said he believes ‘we can do that,’ and remained indifferent about whether he traveled to Xi or Putin, or if they visited the White House. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. has dramatically reduced its nuclear arsenal since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. 

The U.S. maintains 3,748 nuclear warheads as of September 2023, a drop from the stockpile of 22,217 nuclear warheads in 1989, according to the Department of Energy. The agency reported the U.S. owned a maximum of 31,255 nuclear warheads in 1966. 

In comparison, Russia has an estimated stockpile of roughly 4,380 nuclear warheads, while China boasts an arsenal of roughly 600, according to the Federation of American Scientists. 

Trump’s remarks build on previous statements he made in January at the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland, where he signaled interest in talks on denuclearization with both Russia and China. 

‘Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear, and the destructive capability is something that we don’t even want to talk about today, because you don’t want to hear it,’ Trump said on Jan. 23. 

Previous talks between the U.S., Russia and China fell through in 2020 during Trump’s first administration after he refused to sign an extension of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia to impose limits on each country’s nuclear arsenals. The treaty ultimately was renewed under the Biden administration and now expires in 2026, but Russia suspended its participation. 

On Thursday, Trump accused these negotiations of falling apart due what he called the ‘rigged election’ in 2020. 

Trump also said on Thursday that Putin wants peace after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, comments that followed back-to-back calls with the Russian leader and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also traveled to Kyiv on Wednesday. 

Trump, who met with Zelenskyy in New York in September 2024, urged Putin to cease the war — or face sanctions — in a post on Truth Social on Jan. 22. 

‘Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE,’ Trump wrote. If we don’t make a ‘deal’, and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.’

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday her government was deciding whether to initiate a lawsuit against Google for renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America on Google Maps. 

‘We are going to wait. We are already seeing, observing what this would mean from the perspective of legal advice, but we hope that they will make a revision,’ Sheinbaum said, according to Reuters. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Google. 

Google renamed the body of water after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to change it. Now, Google Maps users in the United States will see ‘Gulf of America’ in the app, and users outside the U.S. and Mexico see both terms, the company said.

‘We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. That covers a lot of territory,’ Trump said Tuesday. ‘The Gulf of America. What a beautiful name. And it’s appropriate.’

Sheinbaum has decried the move, saying the Gulf of Mexico name has long been recognized internationally.

‘All we are asking of Google is to look at the decree that the White House released and that President Donald Trump signed. You’ll see in that decree that it does not refer to the whole gulf,’ Sheinbaum said.

‘If necessary, we will file a civil suit,’ she added. ‘Our legal area is already looking into what that would mean, but we hope that (Google) reconsiders.’

Aside from Google, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sent out a charting notice confirming that its systems were in the process of updating the name, in addition to updating the newly named Mount McKinley in Alaska, formerly known as Denali.

‘Please be advised that the FAA is in the process of updating our data and charts to show a name change from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and a name change from Denali to Mount McKinley. This will be targeted for the next publication cycle,’ the notice said.

Europe must reinstate harsh United Nations sanctions on Iran, U.S. lawmakers insisted in a new resolution that accused Tehran of repeated violations of the 2015 nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration.  

The bipartisan legislation calls on the U.K., France and Germany to invoke ‘snapback’ sanctions on Iran through the UN Security Council immediately – and follow the U.S.’s lead under President Donald Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ executive order to isolate Iran over its nuclear activity. 

‘Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism, and their actions have led to the murder of American servicemembers,’ said Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., the number two Republican on Senate Foreign Relations Committee and lead sponsor of the bill, which has 11 cosponsors in the Senate. 

‘Iran’s possession of a nuclear weapon would threaten our security and the security of our allies. Snapback sanctions are key to ensuring that President Trump’s maximum pressure campaign is successful.’ 

Reps. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., issued companion legislation in the House. 

Under the 2015 Iran deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran evaded U.N., U.S. and E.U. sanctions in exchange for promises not to pursue a nuclear weapon. But Iran eventually cut off independent inspectors’ access to its sites and resumed nuclear activities. 

A ‘snapback’ provision of the agreement said that any of the nations privy to the deal – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, U.S. or Germany – could demand the export controls, travel bans and asset freezes be reimposed. 

But the U.S. pulled out of the nuclear deal entirely under President Donald Trump’s first administration and imposed its own ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions regime. The Biden administration subsequently issued sanctions waivers and toyed with the idea of returning to a nuclear deal with Iran, but ultimately those efforts faltered.

Tenney urged the European nations to invoke the snapback sanctions before the deal expires in October 2025. 

‘Invoking snapback sanctions will restore all the UN sanctions on Iran that were lifted by the Obama administration’s failed Iran nuclear deal,’ she said. 

Iran is ‘dramatically’ accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, below the 90% needed for a nuclear weapon, according to U.N. nuclear watchdog Rafael Grossi. Western states have said there is no civilian use for 60% uranium. 

Britain, France and Germany told the U.N. Security Council in December they were ready to trigger the snapback of all international sanctions on Iran if necessary. 

Trump himself said he was ‘torn’ over a recent executive order that triggered harsh sanctions on Iran’s oil sector, adding that he was ‘unhappy to do it.’

‘Hopefully, we’re not going to have to use it very much,’ Trump told reporters.

But he reiterated, ‘We’re not going to let them get a nuclear weapon.’

Trump suggested first trying a ‘verified nuclear peace agreement’ over military escalation. ‘I would much rather do a deal that’s not gonna hurt them,’ the president told Fox News on Monday, adding that ‘I’d love to make a deal with them without bombing them.’

Iran viewed the president’s remarks as a threat and took negotiations off the table. 

​​’No problem will be solved by negotiating with America,’ said Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khameni, citing past ‘experience.’ 

He called for the country to further develop its military capabilities. 

‘We cannot be satisfied,’ Khamenei said. ‘Say that we previously set a limit for the accuracy of our missiles, but we now feel this limit is no longer enough. We have to go forward.’

‘Today, our defensive power is well known, our enemies are afraid of this. This is very important for our country,’ he said.

Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts blasted Elon Musk on Wednesday and argued that his DOGE efforts are undermining the ‘values’ of the United States, and promised to ‘fight’ against them. 

Elon Musk has probably never stepped into a public school, his kids will get private tutors, he doesn’t understand it, he has no idea what this is all about,’ McGovern, who represents the 2nd Congressional District of Massachusetts, told Fox News Digital after a rally against DOGE cuts to the Department of Education.  

‘Our teachers do an incredible job. They deserve to be respected. The Department of Education is more than just a line item,’ he continued. ‘It represents real people, and it represents our future. And so, yeah, I’m pissed.’

McGovern explained that ‘not a single’ Democrat protesting is upset about cutting fraud or waste, but said that education is not the place to start. 

‘I use colorful language because I can’t believe we’re at this moment, and I’m really pissed at my Republican colleagues who are sitting there twiddling their thumbs, afraid to say anything because they’re afraid they might get a primary challenge,’ the House Democrat continued. ‘But you know what? Being in Congress is about helping people, not screwing people. And it’s about time they grew a backbone and came out here and joined us and pushed back against this nonsense.’

McGovern argued that the Department of Education is ‘not a line item’ and that it ‘represents real people’ who could lose important funding for their children in schools. 

‘I’d like to start with the Department of Defense first, McGovern said, ‘where I can tell you there’s tons and tons of waste. They’ve never been audited successfully. All these other departments and agencies have been audited. But here’s the deal. This is not about rooting out fraud, waste, or abuse. This is about them shutting down important agencies of departments so they can have money to give billionaires and big corporations a tax break, and I’m just sick and tired of the well-off and the well-connected to this country, getting whatever the hell they want while everybody else gets screwed. We can’t stand for that.’

‘I mean, when is the last time Musk ever walked into a public school?’ McGovern said. ‘When’s the last time you walked into a supermarket? When’s the last time he actually talked to, like, real people? And as far as this DOGE thing, I don’t even know what kind of clearances Musk has or the young minions that he has around him.’

‘I don’t know what kind of clearances they have going through all this stuff. But we should be worried. They’re undermining our democracy here. They’re undermining, you know, our values. And as I said, if they want to fight, I’ll give them a goddamn fight. We’re ready for this fight.’

When asked whether he wants Musk to answer questions before Congress, McGovern said he’d like to see the Tesla and Space X CEO testify under oath.

‘I do, I want him to come before Congress. I want them to be sworn in. So he can’t lie. I mean, I saw that press conference, and It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I mean, these guys, this is. You can’t make this stuff up.’

DOGE’s spending cuts have drawn the ire of numerous Democrats in recent weeks prompting rallies where lawmakers have pledged to fight Musk’s efforts.

The Department of Education, which Trump pledged to eliminate when he was on the campaign trail, has been a particularly heated subject, and Trump recently suggested that he still intends to get rid of it and send education decisions to the states.

‘Oh, I’d like it to be closed immediately. Look at the Department of Education. It’s a big con job,’ Trump said this week. ‘They ranked the top countries in the world. We’re ranked No. 40, but we’re ranked No. 1 in one department: cost per pupil. So, we spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, but we’re ranked No. 40.’

Several senior Justice Department officials resigned in protest Thursday rather than comply with an order to drop a bribery case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. 

The resignations came amid President Donald Trump’s effort to overhaul the agency, which he said has been weaponized against political opponents.

The six resignations include Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, Trump’s pick to temporarily lead the office prosecuting Adams, who resigned her post on Thursday, according to the memorandum by Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, a Trump appointee.

‘I remain baffled by the rushed and superficial process by which this decision was reached,’ Sassoon wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

Adams, a Democrat who said he was targeted by the Biden administration, has been willing to work with the Trump administration crackdown to curb illegal immigration. Adams pleaded not guilty to charges that he accepted bribes from Turkish officials. 

‘Rather than be rewarded, Adams’s advocacy should be called out for what it is: an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal of his case,’ Sassoon wrote to Bondi. 

Adams’ lawyer Alex Spiro said in an email to Reuters that the charges against his client are a ‘sham.’

‘If SDNY had any proof whatsoever that the mayor destroyed evidence, they would have brought those charges—as they continually threatened to do, but didn’t, over months and months,’ Spiro wrote. ‘This newest false claim is just the parting shot of a misguided prosecution exposed as a sham.’

In his Thursday memo, Bove wrote that Sassoon had refused to comply with what he called his office’s finding that the case against Adams amounted to weaponization of the justice system. 

‘Your resignation is accepted…you lost sight of the oath that you took when you started at the DOJ,’ he wrote. 

‘Your office has no authority to contest the weaponization finding,’ wrote Bove, Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer. ‘The Justice Department will not tolerate the insubordination.’

After Sassoon refused to dismiss the case, the Trump administration directed John Keller, the acting head of the Justice Department’s public corruption unit, to do so, according to people familiar with the matter.  

Keller also resigned on Thursday, two people familiar with the matter said, as well as Kevin Driscoll, a senior official in the department’s criminal division. 

Three other deputies in the Justice Department’s public corruption unit – Rob Heberle, Jenn Clarke, and Marco Palmieri – also resigned on Thursday over the Adams case, a person familiar with the matter said.

A Justice Department official confirmed Keller’s and Driscoll’s resignations, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the other three.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House. Since taking office in January, Trump has fired more than a dozen federal prosecutors who pursued cases against him.

In a statement to Fox News, Bove said he concluded that the prosecution against Adams had to be dismissed in order to ‘prioritize national security and public safety over continuing with a case that has been tainted from the start by troubling tactics.’

‘There is no room at the Justice Department for attorneys who refuse to execute on the priorities of the Executive Branch – priorities determined by the American people,’ he said. ‘I look forward to working with new leadership at SDNY on the important priorities President Trump has laid out for us to make America safe again.’

Fox News’ David Spunt contributed to this report. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as the new secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), hours after being confirmed in the Republican-controlled Senate Thursday by a close vote of 52-48 that was almost entirely along party lines.

Kennedy stood in the Oval Office alongside his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, and accompanied by his children, while he placed his hand on a Bible and swore the oath of office. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch swore in Kennedy.

After the ceremony, Kennedy told attendees about his first visit to the Oval Office. 

‘My first time in this Oval Office was in … 1962. I came here, and I had a meeting with my uncle who was president then, where we talked about the environment. He was involved very deeply, as we all know, in restoring physical fitness in this country.

‘For 20 years, I got on my knees every morning and prayed that God would put me in a position where I could end the childhood chronic disease epidemic in this country,’ Kennedy said.

‘On Aug. 23 of last year, God sent me President Trump. He’s kept every promise he’s made to me. He’s kept his word in every account and gone way beyond it. … I’m so grateful to you, Mr. President.’ 

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against Kennedy’s nomination. McConnell, the former longtime GOP Senate leader, had polio as a child and is a major proponent of vaccines.

Kennedy, the well-known vaccine skeptic and environmental crusader who ran for the White House in 2024 before ending his bid and endorsing Trump, needed a simple majority to be confirmed by the Senate.

‘I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles,’ McConnell said after the Kennedy vote.

Kennedy, whose outspoken views on Big Pharma and the food industry have also sparked controversy, has said he aims to shift the focus of the agencies he would oversee toward promotion of a healthy lifestyle, including overhauling dietary guidelines, taking aim at ultra-processed foods and getting to the root causes of chronic diseases.

The push is part of his ‘Make America Healthy Again’ campaign.

Trump regularly criticized Kennedy during his independent presidential bid, accusing him of being a ‘radical left liberal’ and a ‘Democrat plant.’

Kennedy fired back, claiming in a social media post that Trump’s jabs against him were ‘a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims.’

However, Kennedy made major headlines again in August when he dropped his presidential bid and endorsed Trump. 

Kennedy had long identified as a Democrat and repeatedly invoked his late father, former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and his late uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, who were both assassinated in the 1960s. Kennedy in recent years built relationships with far-right leaders due in part to his high-profile vaccine skepticism.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a page from President Donald Trump’s playbook during a joint press conference Thursday, saying he wants to make India great again, or ‘MIGA.’

Modi met with Trump at the White House, where the world leaders discussed a range of issues, including trade, the economic relationship between India and the United States and military sales. 

During a press conference, Modi said Indian people were focusing on their heritage and ways to ensure his nation is developed by 2047. 

‘Borrowing an expression from America, our vision for a developed India is to make India great again, or MIGA,’ he said through a translator. ‘When America and India work together, that is, when it’s MAGA plus MIGA, it becomes a mega partnership for prosperity.

‘And it is this mega spirit that gives new scale and scope to our objectives.’ 

At the beginning of the press conference, Trump announced the United States would be providing India F-35 fighter jets and increasing military sales to the country by billions of dollars. 

Trump also said his administration approved the extradition of Tahawwur Rana, a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin, one of the plotters of a deadly 2008 terrorist attack that killed 160 people. 

‘I’m pleased to announce that my administration has approved the extradition of one of the plotters and one of the very evil people of the world having to do with the horrific 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack to face justice in India,’ Trump said. 

In addition, Modi said India would accept illegal Indian immigrants in the United States who are deported back home. 

‘Anybody who enters another country illegally,’ Modi said, ‘they have absolutely no right to be in that country.

‘And as far as India and the U.S. is concerned, we have always been of the same opinion. And that is that any verified Indian who is in the U.S. illegally, we are fully prepared to take them back to India.’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is getting a tough job done.

‘Senate Republicans have been committed to getting President Trump’s nominees through,’ Thune, who’s been on the job steering the Senate for six weeks, told Fox News in an exclusive national digital interview.

Thune was interviewed ahead of Brooke Rollins’s confirmation as secretary of agriculture, which brought to 16 the number of Trump nominees approved by the Senate.

Only 11 Cabinet nominees were approved by this date eight years ago during Trump’s first term in the White House.

And on this date four years ago, the Senate had confirmed only seven of then-President Biden’s Cabinet nominees.

Rollins’ confirmation followed the confirmations of two of Donald Trump’s most controversial nominees: former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services.

Gabbard and Kennedy were confirmed on near party-line votes in a chamber the GOP controls with a 53-47 majority.

‘I think that the Senate Republicans have proven that we are united,’ the South Dakota Republican said.

Thune, a two-decade Senate veteran who served in GOP leadership the past few years before succeeding longtime leader Sen. Mitch McConnell as the top Republican in the chamber, emphasized the team effort.

‘What you try and do is just try and make the people around you better,’ Thune said. ‘We’ve got a lot of talent in the Senate, people who … we want to deploy and utilize and let them use their gifts and talents [to] get things done around here that need to be done.’

The senator pointed to his father, a former college athlete and coach, who he said would advise him to ‘make the extra pass if somebody’s got a better shot. So what we’ve been trying to do is look for an opportunity to make the extra pass. And I think that it does really utilize the great talent we have here in the Senate.’

Thune says he’s been meeting ‘fairly regularly’ with the president, in person, on the phone and through text.

‘It’s a regular pipeline,’ he said. ‘His team has been really good, too, about working with our team here. I think we’ve had a very constructive working relationship. And I tell people, our incentives are aligned. We all want to get to the same destination.’

Thune hasn’t always had a constructive relationship with the often unpredictable Trump.

Trump was critical of Thune in the years after his first term and briefly considered backing a primary challenge against the senator as he ran for re-election in 2022.

Thune said that ‘like a lot of people,’ he’s had ‘differences with the president in the past.’

‘But I think right now, we understand the things that we want to get done in the course of his term and the opportunity that we have, which is rare in politics, to have unified control of the government, House, Senate and White House. We need to maximize that, and in order to do that, we’ve got to have a very constructive relationship in which there’s regular communication,’ Thune emphasized.

McConnell was the only Senate Republican to vote against confirming Kennedy and Gabbard. McConnell, who suffered from polio as a child and is a major proponent of vaccines, was critical of Kennedy’s history of high-profile vaccine skepticism.

‘I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles,’ McConnell said after the Kennedy vote.

Trump, who’s long criticized McConnell, took aim again.

‘I have no idea if he had polio. All I can tell you about him is he shouldn’t have been a leader. He knows that. He voted against Bobby. He votes against almost everything. He’s a very bitter guy,’ Trump charged.

Thune, interviewed after Gabbard’s confirmation and ahead of the final vote on Kennedy, said the 82-year-old McConnell is ‘still active up here and still a strong voice on issues he’s passionate about, including national security.’

‘So when it comes to those issues, he has outsized influence and a voice that we all pay attention to,’ Thune said. ‘He’s got views on some of these nominees that maybe don’t track exactly with where I or other Republicans have come down, but we respect his positions on these, some of these noms, and I know that on a lot of big stuff ahead of us, he’s going to be with us. He’s a team player.’

Thune added, ‘I’ve had plenty of consultations with him through the years and in recent months and weeks, and we’ll continue to reach out to him when we think it makes sense to get a lay of the land that, based on his experience, he can help us navigate.’

While he’s enjoyed a slew of confirmation victories this week, Thune is realistic.

‘I feel good about how it’s gone so far, but we’ve got some really hard sledding ahead. We know that, and we just have to keep our heads down and do the work,’ he cautioned.

While confirming Trump’s Cabinet is currently job No. 1, Thune is juggling numerous tasks.

‘Obviously, most of our time has been occupied moving the president’s team and getting his nominees confirmed, and we’ll continue to do that. But as we go about that process, we’re looking for windows, too, to move important legislation,’ he said.

He pointed to the Laken Riley Act, quickly passed by the Senate and the House and signed into law by Trump.

The controversial measure, which is named after a nursing student who was killed by an illegal immigrant while jogging on the University of Georgia’s campus, requires federal immigration authorities to detain illegal immigrants found guilty of theft-related crimes.

Thune pointed out that the legislation grabbed bipartisan support, but he added that it’s ‘a bill that was responsive to the election mandate, and it was a bill that divided Democrats and united Republicans.’

He also chastised his predecessor as Senate majority leader, Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York.

Thune argued that during Schumer’s tenure ‘the floor would get bogged down. You know, votes would take forever. We’re just trying to make more efficient use of people’s time and get this place kind of operating on a schedule again. We’re going to continue to do that and getting back to regular order.’