President Donald Trump, speaking from the Oval Office Thursday, downplayed an upcoming nuclear summit in Beijing between Iran, Russia, and China, three chief adversaries of the U.S.

The discussions, first confirmed by the Chinese foreign ministry Thursday and which come just days after Iran rebuffed Trump’s push to engage in nuclear negotiations, will coincide with a United Nations Security Council meeting regarding Tehran’s expansion of near-weapons-grade uranium. 

Trump suggested perhaps Beijing, Moscow and Tehran will be having their own discussions on ‘de-escalation.’

‘Well, maybe they’re going to talk about non-nuclear problems. Maybe they’re going to be talking about the de-escalation of nuclear weapons,’ Trump told reporters.

Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin once engaged in ‘strong’ talks about nuclear weapons and said he believes, had he won the 2016 election, further Russian denuclearization would have been on the table. 

‘I think I would have made a deal with Putin on de-escalation, denuclearization,’ Trump said. ‘But we would have de-escalated nuclear weapons because the power of nuclear weapons is so great and so devastating.’

The president also claimed that China would ‘catch us in five years’ because of its rapid development of its nuclear stockpiles, though this would be far sooner than other experts have warned. 

The Pentagon in 2024 assessed that China is believed to have 600 nuclear weapons, up from the low 200s in 2020. But, in a report Wednesday, experts with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said claims that China will be a ‘peer’ or ‘near peer’ with the U.S. in the near future were a ‘gross exaggeration.’ 

‘There is no evidence that China’s ongoing nuclear expansion will result in parity with the U.S. arsenal,’ the report said. ‘Even the worst-case 2023 projection of 1,500 warheads by 2035 amounts to less than half of the current U.S. nuclear stockpile.’

Russia is believed to have 5,580 nuclear weapons, and the U.S. is reported to have 5,225, while China comes in at a distant third, according to the Arms Control Association. 

Concerns over North Korea’s largely unchecked nuclear program have also continued to mount in recent years, particularly after Pyongyang formed closer ties with Moscow after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

‘It would be a great achievement if we could bring down the number,’ Trump said. 

‘You don’t need them to that extent,’ he added, noting the immense destruction even one nuclear weapon could inflict. 

North Korea is estimated to have 50 nuclear weapons, which Trump noted is ‘a lot.’

But he also pointed to the positive relationship he had with Kim Jong Un during his first presidency and suggested that relationship could extend during his second term. Trump appeared to suggest there could be room for nuclear negotiations. 

‘I have a great relationship with Kim Jong Un, and we’ll see what happens,’ Trump told reporters. ‘But certainly he’s a nuclear power.’

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte lauded President Donald Trump’s efforts to push NATO allies to increase defense spending, amid efforts to end the war in Ukraine. 

Trump has long advocated for NATO allies to ramp up defense spending to between 2% and 5% gross domestic product — and has made it clear that European nations need to shoulder greater responsibility for the security of their continent. 

‘You’re starting to hear the British prime minister and others all committing to much higher defense spending,’ Rutte told reporters Thursday at the White House. ‘We’re not there. We need to do more, but I really want to work together with you . . . to make sure that we will have a NATO which is really reinvigorated, under your leadership. And we are getting there.’ 

‘When you look at Trump 47, what happened the last couple of weeks is really staggering,’ Rutte said. 

Rutte’s comments come as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put forth an $841 billion proposal on March 4 for European Union nations to bolster defense spending. 

Likewise, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged in February to boost his country’s defense spending to 2.5% of its gross domestic value. That is an increase from the 2.3% the U.K. currently spends, and amounts to a nearly $17 billion increase. 

Still, Rutte emphasized the need to strengthen the defense industrial base in both the U.S. and Europe, and cautioned they were falling behind Russia and China in defense production. 

As of 2023, the U.S. spent 3.3% of its GDP on defense spending — totaling $880 billion, according to the nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based Peterson Institute for International Economics. More than 50% of NATO funding comes from the U.S., while other allies — like the United Kingdom, France and Germany — have contributed between 4% and 8% to NATO funding in recent years.

NATO comprises more than 30 countries and originally was formed in 1949 to halt the spread of the Soviet Union.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also encouraged NATO allies to beef up defense spending during a trip to Brussels in February. 

‘NATO should pursue these goals as well,’ Hegseth said. ‘NATO is a great alliance, the most successful defense alliance in history, but to endure for the future, our partners must do far more for Europe’s defense.’ 

Pledges from European and allied nations to increase defense spending coincide with negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. 

Nations including the U.K. and France have proposed deploying troops to ensure that Ukraine is protected from future Russian aggression under a peace negotiation. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

A new report from the conservative Heritage Foundation calling for the U.S. to phase out direct aid to Israel in favor of a ‘strategic partnership’ is facing backlash from pro-Israel advocates.

But the report’s authors tell Fox News Digital they’ve been misunderstood. The ‘best thing’ for Israel would not be to leave them at the mercy of U.S. policymakers who can choose to withhold direct aid, they say. 

‘Our goal is actually to reduce U.S. leverage over Israel. I don’t want to force them to do stuff,’ said Victoria Coates, deputy national security advisor to President Donald Trump during the first administration and co-author of the report.

‘We want them to do stuff because we have a strong partnership and they have confidence that the United States is their best partner, but we don’t want that to be because we bought and paid for them,’ she explained in an interview with Fox News Digital. 

A current memorandum of understanding [MOU] signed in 2016 stipulates that the U.S. provides Israel $3.8 billion in foreign military financing per year until 2028. Congress allocated a supplemental $9 billion in 2024 for Israel’s war against Hamas.

The memorandum must be renegotiated in 2026, which Heritage argues will allow Israel’s relationship with the U.S. to evolve from ‘primarily a security aid recipient’ to that of a ‘true strategic partnership.’

The Heritage plan calls for a new MOU that increases Israeli aid to $4 billion from fiscal year 2029-2032, and requires all of it be spent on equipment made in the U.S., before decreasing that number by $250 million per year until it ends in FY 2047. 

But the call to wind down military aid raised some eyebrows when it was first reported by Jewish Insider on Tuesday.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said it was, ‘wrong, dangerous, and gives comfort to those who seek [Israel’s] destruction.’

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast, R-Fla., and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter had been slated to headline an event at the Heritage headquarters Wednesday to discuss the report, but they abruptly withdrew the day before. An Israeli embassy spokesperson said the ambassador would not be able to attend due to a ‘miscommunication regarding the format for the event,’ but ‘looks forward to future engagement’ with Heritage.

Still, the idea of reorienting the Israeli relationship got the backing of Jonathan Schanzer, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish pro-Israel think tank.

‘It’s a legitimate debate that I think needs to unfold,’ Schanzer told Fox News Digital. ‘What happened over the last year with the Biden administration withholding military assistance to Israel… must not happen again.

‘I believe that is the impetus for the discussion that is now taking place. There does need to be discussion about making sure that America’s closest ally in the Middle East does not find itself in a position where it’s begging for the assistance that it expects.’ 

Biden halted arms transfers to Israel last year amid frustrations over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war on Gaza. 

‘There is a legitimate debate about whether this is healthy for Israel to continue down the path of total reliance on the U.S.,’ Schanzer asserted. 

‘Some are trying to cast us as alt-right isolationists. It’s so disingenuous as to be laughable,’ said Coates, who last year authored a book entitled ‘The Battle For The Jewish State: How Israel – And America – Can Win.’ 

She claimed the plan was ‘non-controversial’ among the Israeli officials Heritage had circulated it to.

‘The Biden administration used their control of Israeli resupply to try to coerce their behavior,’ she said. 

Once Trump leaves office, ‘we can’t assume we’ll have another friendly president to this alliance, and if we have started a process like this now, we’ll be all the further along to having a more equal footing between Israel and the United States.’

Coates said the goal was for the U.S. to have the same sort of relationship it has with Israel as it does the United Kingdom.

‘We want to continue to invest in joint programs, the way we do with the U.K. Do joint exercises, station stuff in the country which gives them a lot of confidence, but not necessarily direct aid.

‘Given the scale of their economy, they don’t actually need $4 billion a year from us.’ 

The report also calls for an increase in spending on U.S.-Israeli joint programs, like developing missile, rocket, and projectile defense capabilities for both nations, to $2.25 billion. 

Beginning in 2039, the plan calls for a $250 million per year increase in the amount of weapons the U.S. sells to Israel, until Israel is buying $2.25 billion worth of U.S.-made defense goods by 2047. 

Heritage also calls for an increase in intelligence sharing and joint counterterrorism measures, establishing a cybersecurity partnership, loosening export controls and establishing ‘high-level economic dialogue.’

It also said the U.S. should condition aid to Palestinians on ‘robust deradicalization and disengagement programming in Palestinian territories to undo decades of antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda.’

In response to the backlash against the report, Coates added: ‘The outburst of antisemitism here in the United States, you know, the attacks on Israel, showed that there’s a lot of work to do here.’

‘Rather than trying to tear us down for contributing, you know, maybe, maybe we should look more to getting after the substance of these issues, instead of instituting a circular firing squad.’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., says he will vote to keep the government open, warning that a shutdown has worse consequences for Americans and would only empower President Donald Trump and Elon Musk further.

‘I believe it is my job to make the best choice for the country to minimize the harms to the American people. Therefore, I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down,’ Schumer said while speaking on the Senate floor on Thursday. 

Democrats have criticized Republicans for their hesitation to pass government funding legislation, while their own party is currently on the brink of allowing a federal shutdown.

On Wednesday, Schumer said that his party would oppose the spending bill that Republicans drafted and passed through the House, as the Friday midnight deadline looms for Congress to take action to avoid a government shutdown. 

Schumer called for a one-month spending bill to keep the government open until April 11 so that Democrats can better negotiate a deal. The continuing resolution, which passed through the House on Tuesday on a nearly party-line vote of 217-213, would keep the government open for the next six months, for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace 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

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., his staff and family have been the target of harassment and death threats, according to a memo released by his office on Thursday afternoon. 

Voicemails shared by Tillis’ team, which were filled with profanity and fueled by discontent with President Donald Trump, reveal a frightening new reality. The senator’s senior advisor, Daniel Keylin, said ‘the volume of threats and harassment directed at members of Congress and their staff is the new normal.’ 

‘Yeah, Thom Tillis, afraid of death threats? Then get the f— out of office,’ one caller said in a voicemail. 

Keylin said Tillis’ office in Greenville, North Carolina, received a handwritten and unsigned letter postmarked in Greensboro last month calling his staff members ‘sacrificial lambs’ and insisting they ‘signed up to be his shield.’ The anonymous writer, while reiterating ‘in no way is this a threat,’ said people are going to start ‘coming in filled with rage.’

The voicemails released by Tillis’ office express outrage over Trump’s policies and include violent threats to Tillis and his staff.

‘You are not going to destroy my country,’ one woman said. Another caller told Tillis he is ‘not one of the good guys anymore’ and said to ‘get the f— out of government.’

‘…When things get really bad, people are going to stop calling and writing. They’re going to start coming in, and they’re going to be coming in filled with rage… And you signed up to be his shield. Resign, please resign, or find a Groupon for self defense class because America’s transition to oligarchy is going to be a wild ride for us peons,’ reads the anonymous letter sent to Tillis.

The anonymous writer references ‘America’s transition to oligarchy,’ a term that has been used by the left to describe the alleged rising power of the billionaire class.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has drawn thousands of supporters to his ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ rallies across the country, with stops in Michigan and Wisconsin this past weekend. The events are billed as an opportunity to ‘discuss how we take on the greed of the billionaire class and create a government that works for all and not just the few.’

Democrats were outraged by Trump inviting billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg to sit behind him at his inauguration inside the U.S. Capitol. Former President Joe Biden also used the term ‘oligarchy’ in his farewell address to the nation. 

‘Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead,’ Biden told Americans on Jan. 13. 

Two weeks after Tillis’ office received the letter, Indivisible Guilford County, a local arm of a progressive political action group, organized a protest at Tillis’ Greensboro office. While the protest’s press release encouraged peaceful signs and ‘solidarity,’ Keylin said the protesters attempted to break into Tillis’ office.

‘They angrily yanked and attempted to open the office’s locked door, yelling at Tillis’ staff to open it: ‘Come back, we see you! Open the door!’ and reminding the staff they had no way to exit their office,’ Keylin said in the memo. 

Keylin said Tillis’ office received several media inquiries questioning if Tillis would attend the protests or town halls planned in Republican-held districts. Outlining years of targeted threats that have only escalated since Trump returned to office, Keylin said, ‘I imagine anyone with a modicum of sanity would understand what a silly question that is.’

The memo says that ‘out of an abundance of caution,’ law enforcement has directed the senator’s office to work from home on the days protests are planned. 

‘We will not make any apologies for prioritizing the safety and security of our staff,’ Keylin said. 

The memo outlines two more instances in which the North Carolina senator was subject to death threats. 

‘Senator Tillis, his staff, and even his family have long been subject to threats, harassment, attempted intimidation, and verbal abuse from unstable individuals who don’t agree with his political view,’ Keylin said. 

A U.S. citizen living abroad was arrested for threatening to kill Tillis and cut off the hands of his staffers in 2023, and a Minnesota man was indicted in 2022 for threatening to kill Tillis, the memo confirmed. 

Protests have shut down town halls and disrupted local legislative offices in the past two months, and Republicans have opted for tele-town halls instead of in-person town halls as a result. Democrats have accused Republicans of ignoring their constituents’ concerns by avoiding in-person town halls. 

Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., will host town halls on Friday in Republican-held congressional districts in Iowa and Nebraska ‘to lend a megaphone to the people.’ Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has reportedly started planning her own rallies in Republican-held congressional districts as well. 

MoveOn.org, which has accepted millions of dollars from billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Policy Center, announced in a press release last month that it was mobilizing resources as part of a ‘Congress Works for Us, Not Musk’ initiative ‘aimed at pressuring lawmakers to fight back against the Trump-Musk agenda.’ The group planned protests at congressional-led town halls and congressional offices.

Fox News Digital’s Julia Johnson and Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

A second judge late Thursday ordered the Trump administration to reinstate probationary workers who were let go in mass firings across multiple agencies.  

In Baltimore, U.S. District Judge James Bredar, an Obama appointee, found that the administration ignored laws set out for large-scale layoffs. Bredar ordered the firings halted for at least two weeks and the workforce returned to the status quo before the layoffs began.

He sided with nearly two dozen states that filed a lawsuit alleging the mass firings are illegal and already having an impact on state governments as they try to help those who are suddenly jobless.

The ruling followed a similar one by U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who found Thursday morning that terminations across six agencies were directed by the Office of Personnel Management and acting director, Charles Ezell, who lacked the authority to do so.

Alsup’s order tells the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy, the Interior and the Treasury to immediately offer job reinstatement to employees terminated on or about Feb. 13 and 14. He also directed the departments to report back within seven days with a list of probationary employees and an explanation of how the agencies complied with his order as to each person.

The temporary restraining order came in a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions and organizations as the Republican administration moves to reduce the federal workforce.

The Trump administration has already appealed Alsup’s ruling, arguing that the states have no right to try and influence the federal government’s relationship with its own workers. Justice Department attorneys argued the firings were for performance issues, not large-scale layoffs subject to specific regulations.

Probationary workers have been targeted for layoffs across the federal government because they’re usually new to the job and lack full civil service protection. Multiple lawsuits have been filed over the mass firings.

Lawyers for the government maintain the mass firings were lawful because individual agencies reviewed and determined whether employees on probation were fit for continued employment.

Alsup, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, has found that difficult to believe. He planned to hold an evidentiary hearing on Thursday, but Ezell did not appear to testify in court or even sit for a deposition, and the government retracted his written testimony.

There are an estimated 200,000 probationary workers across federal agencies. They include entry-level employees but also workers who recently received a promotion.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Trump administration unveiled new sanctions on Wednesday against an Iranian-linked Swedish gang that coordinated an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm in January 2024, according to the Treasury Department. 

The sanctions freeze assets for members and those affiliated with the Foxtrot Network, a transnational criminal organization that the Treasury Department said is one of the most ‘prominent’ drug trafficking organizations in the region. The sanctions also single out and target the group’s fugitive leader, Rawa Majid. 

‘Iran’s brazen use of transnational criminal organizations and narcotics traffickers underscores the regime’s attempts to achieve its aims through any means, with no regard for the cost to communities across Europe,’ Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said in a Wednesday statement. ‘Treasury, alongside our U.S. government and international partners, will continue to hold accountable those who seek to further Iran’s thuggish and destabilizing agenda.’

In addition to trafficking drugs, the Foxtrot Network is a criminal organization that conducts violent acts, including shootings, contract killings and assaults, and is responsible for increased violence in Sweden. It is notorious for employing teenagers to conduct these violent acts, according to the Treasury Department. 

Iran has increasingly utilized criminal networks to conduct attacks targeting the U.S. as well as attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe, the Treasury Department said. 

For example, the agency accused Iran of colluding with the Foxtrot Network to conduct an attack on the Israeli Embassy in 2024 after Swedish officials identified a ‘dangerous object’ believed to be an explosive device at the embassy. While security forces neutralized the device, Sweden’s security police moved to investigate the attack as a ‘terrorist crime,’ according to Reuters. 

The Treasury Department also said on Wednesday that Majid has coordinated with the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, which is already under U.S. sanctions, and faces charges in Sweden pertaining to narcotics and firearms trafficking. 

The White House referred Fox News Digital to the Treasury and State Department’s statements on the sanctions. 

The sanctions against Majid and the Foxtrot Network align with President Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran, which he reinstated in February through a series of sanctions aimed at sinking Iran’s oil exports.

Trump signaled Friday a nuclear deal with Iran could emerge shortly, and he revealed that he sent a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to push for Tehran to agree to a nuclear agreement. Otherwise, he said Tehran could count on facing military consequences. 

‘I would rather negotiate a deal,’ Trump told Fox Business in an interview Sunday. ‘I’m not sure that everybody agrees with me, but we can make a deal that would be just as good as if you won militarily.’ 

‘But the time is happening now, the time is coming up,’ he said. ‘Something is going to happen one way or the other. I hope that Iran, and I’ve written them a letter saying I hope you’re going to negotiate, because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing for them.’