Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard announced the release of the first batch of Robert F. Kennedy assassination files on Friday after teasing the news earlier this month. 

‘Nearly 60 years after the tragic assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, the American people will, for the first time, have the opportunity to review the federal government’s investigation thanks to the leadership of President Trump,’ Gabbard said in a statement released. ‘My team is honored that the President entrusted us to lead the declassification efforts and to shine a long-overdue light on the truth. I extend my deepest thanks for Bobby Kennedy and his families’ support.’

Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in the same statement that releasing the files was ‘a necessary step toward restoring trust in American government.’

‘I commend President Trump for his courage and his commitment to transparency. I’m grateful also to Tulsi Gabbard for her dogged efforts to root out and declassify these documents,’ he continued. 

Likewise, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reacted to the files’ release on X on Friday morning, writing, ‘RFK Files have been released. Promises Made. Promises Kept.’

During a Friday morning appearance on ‘FOX and Friends,’ Gabbard said 10,000 pages had been released — none of which had previously been digitized or publicly viewed. Gabbard said the files included documents regarding the government’s investigation of the assassination and ‘questions and theories’ as the investigation played out, as well as State Department conversations and insight. 

‘The significance of this is huge,’ Gabbard said. ‘It’s been nearly 60 years since Senator Kennedy was assassinated. We’re obviously not stopping here.’

Gabbard also said that ‘just the other day, we discovered over 50,000 additional pages solely around Senator Kennedy’s assassination,’ saying she had ‘over 100 people at National Archives’ scanning through the documents in anticipation of a second release. 

‘Nearly six decades have passed since the tragic assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and these historic files have been hidden from the American people all this time — until now,’ a White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital. ‘In the name of maximum transparency, President Trump has released over 10,000 pages of the RFK files with more to come. There has never been a more transparent president in the history of our country than President Donald J. Trump. Another promise made and promise kept.’

Gabbard had previously mentioned the files’ drop on April 10 during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, saying at the time that more than 100 people had been ‘working around the clock’ scanning paperwork related to both the Martin Luther King Jr. and RFK assassinations and subsequent investigations. 

‘These have been sitting in boxes in storage for decades,’ Gabbard told President Donald Trump. Kennedy was also present during the meeting. 

‘They have never been scanned or seen before. We’ll have those ready to release here within the next few days,’ Gabbard said. 

The RFK files’ release comes as a result of Trump’s declassification executive order issued shortly after he started his second term. The order specifically seeks to declassify files on the assassinations of former President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert and civil rights icon King.

Trump had previously promised to declassify the documents while on the campaign trail, saying at the time, ‘When I return to the White House, I will declassify and unseal all JFK assassination-related documents. It’s been 60 years, time for the American people to know the truth.’

According to the order, the director of national intelligence and other officials were expected to submit their proposed release plans for the RFK and MLK files on March 9. 

DNI and the attorney general were previously given a Feb. 7 deadline to submit their release plans for the JFK files. 

The Justice Department saw a fallout in late February after releasing a batch of Jeffrey Epstein files. Many of the documents publicized then had already been released during the federal criminal trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former lover and convicted accomplice. 

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

The Trump administration rolled out a revamped COVID.gov website Friday showing the ‘true origins’ of the coronavirus, while admonishing Democrats and the media for discrediting the theory the virus leaked from a lab and alternative health treatments, and for imposing strict mandates. 

‘This administration prioritizes transparency over all else,’ a senior administration official told Fox News Digital Friday. ‘The American people deserve to know the truth about the Covid pandemic and we will always find ways to reach communities with that message.’ 

The website, which previously had focused on promoting the coronavirus vaccine to Americans, now walks readers through evidence supporting the lab leak theory, how former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci promoted the idea that COVID-19 originated naturally, former President Joe Biden pardoning Fauci for ‘any offenses against’ the U.S. he may have committed, and providing details on the origin of the ‘social distancing’ rules and mask mandates. 

”The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2′ publication — which was used repeatedly by public health officials and the media to discredit the lab leak theory — was promoted by Dr. Fauci to push the preferred narrative that COVID-19 originated naturally,’ the site states, before launching into five bullet points on the origins of the virus. 

The new site outlines that a biological characteristic found in the virus was not found in nature, bolstering the lab leak theory, while noting that Wuhan, China, where the first coronavirus case was found, is also home to China’s ‘foremost SARs research lab’ and that ‘if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn’t.’

The Trump administration’s CIA reported earlier in 2025 that a lab leak was the likely origin of the COVID-19 virus, which had been passed off by media outlets and scientists as a likely conspiracy theory during the early days of the pandemic. The Department of Energy under the Biden administration and former FBI Director Christopher Wray in 2023 also said evidence indicated the coronarius was the result of a lab leak. 

The website also walks readers through the origins of COVID-era rules, such as mask mandates and social distancing. 

‘The ‘6 feet apart’ social distancing recommendation — which shut down schools and small business across the country — was arbitrary and not based on science,’ it states. ‘During closed door testimony, Dr. Fauci testified that guidance ‘sort of just appeared.’ 

The website says of mask mandates: ‘There was no conclusive evidence that masks effectively protected Americans from COVID-19. Public health officials flip-flopped on the efficacy of masks without providing Americans scientific data — causing a massive uptick in public distrust.’ 

The website notes that content on the page was sourced directly from the House Oversight Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. 

‘Public health officials often mislead the American people through conflicting messaging, knee-jerk reactions, and a lack of transparency,’ the website states under a portion called ‘COVID-19 misinformation.’ ‘Most egregiously, the federal government demonized alternative treatments and disfavored narratives, such as the lab leak theory, in a shameful effort to coerce and control the American people’s health decisions.’ 

Many media outlets dismissed Trump in 2020 when he said he had seen evidence that the virus originated in a Wuhan, China, lab, before U.S. intelligence officials such as Wray and the Department of Energy reported that the virus likely originated there. 

Many outlets have since published articles showing the theory is credible, including the New York Times running a March column claiming the scientific community ‘badly misled’ the public in an effort to suppress theory, even after the paper’s own science writer called the theory ‘racist.’ 

A young girl collapsed near the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office while President Donald Trump spoke during a Friday swearing-in ceremony for former heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, who rushed over to assist the child. 

A White House official confirmed to Fox News Digital that the girl was a family member of Oz’s who fainted during the ceremony and that she has recovered. 

Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. swore in Oz to oversee the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Senate confirmed Oz on April 3, and he is now tasked with managing nearly $1.5 trillion in federal healthcare spending. 

In addition to leading the Medicare and Medicaid services, he will oversee the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). He will be responsible for issuing decisions on how the government will cover procedures, hospital stays and medication. 

At the ceremony, Oz laid out his priorities in the role to advance the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement that Kennedy is spearheading, and instituting reform for Medicare and Medicaid. 

‘Healthy people don’t consume healthcare resources,’ Oz said in regard to the so-called ‘MAHA’ movement. ‘The best way to reduce drug spending is to use less drugs, because you don’t need them.’ 

‘Next big thing we want to focus on is modernizing Medicare and Medicaid,’ Oz said. ‘That’s how Americans will get the care that they want, need and deserve. Need to empower patients and providers, both the doctors and the patients, both have to be equipped with better tools.’ 

Lastly, Oz said he would seek to weed out any fraud or abuse within the Medicare and Medicaid systems. 

Medicare is a government healthcare program that provides coverage to roughly 65 million Americans aged 65 or older, according to the Center for Medicare Advocacy. Medicaid is a federal assistance program for approximately 72 million low-income Americans, according to Medicaid.gov. 

Oz received medical and business degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and became a household name during television stints that include ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show,’ and 13 seasons of ‘The Dr. Oz Show.’

Fox News’ Alec Schemmel contributed to this report. 

A Washington, D.C.-based federal judge on Friday temporarily halted the Trump administration’s planned mass layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protections Bureau (CFPB), shortly after an appeals court narrowed her earlier injunction.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s order temporarily blocks the terminations, which would have slashed the bureau’s workforce by roughly 90%, as she weighs whether the planned layoffs violate her earlier injunction. 

Her order comes after plaintiffs in the case, which include the CFPB Employee Association and other labor entities, accused the government of violating her earlier injunction. The plaintiffs alleged these layoffs would take place on Friday evening.

Jackson noted on Friday that the agency was slated to carry out a reduction in force, or RIF, of roughly 1,400 employees — which would have left just several hundred in place. 

Jackson said that within several days of an appeals order narrowing her initial injunction, CFPB employees were told the agency would do ‘exactly what it was told not to do,’ which was to carry out a RIF. 

‘I’m willing to resolve it quickly, but I’m not going to let this RIF go forward until I have,’ she said during the Friday hearing, noting that she is ‘deeply concerned, given the scope and scope of action.’

Justice Department lawyers had sought to appeal Jackson’s order earlier this year, arguing in a filing that the injunction ‘improperly intrudes on the executive [branch’s] authority’ and goes ‘far beyond what is lawful.’

Jackson blocked the administration from moving forward with any layoffs or from cutting off employees’ access to computers at the bureau until she has time to hear from the officials in question later this month.

‘We’re not going to disperse’ more than 1,400 employees ‘into the universe… until we have determined that is lawful or not,’ Jackson said.

She proceeded to then set an April 28 hearing date to hear testimony from officials slated to carry out the RIF procedures. 

The plaintiffs in the suit filed their legal challenge in D.C. district court in early February seeking a temporary restraining order after the Trump administration moved to severely downsize the bureau. 

The court issued a preliminary injunction in late March, finding that the plaintiffs would likely succeed on the merits.

The order directed the government to ‘rehire all terminated employees, reinstate all terminated contracts, and refrain from engaging in reductions-in-force or attempting to stop work through any means.’ 

The Trump administration appealed the order shortly thereafter.

The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit stayed Jackson’s order only in part, staying the provision dictating that the government must rehire the terminated employees. 

The appeals court also stayed the provision of the order prohibiting the government from ‘terminating or issuing a notice of reduction’ to employees the administration deemed ‘to be unnecessary to the performance of defendant’s statutory duties.’

President Donald Trump on Friday said the U.S. will ‘just take a pass’ at peace efforts for Ukraine if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to agree to ceasefire terms. 

‘If for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say ‘you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re going to just take a pass,’ Trump told reporters. ‘But hopefully we won’t have to do that.’

The president’s comments echoed those made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio early Friday morning following a meeting in Paris with special envoy Steve Witkoff and French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as officials from Ukraine, Germany and the U.K. — the first meeting of its kind, which signaled greater European involvement in U.S. efforts to secure a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire.

While Ukraine has agreed to both full and interim ceasefire proposals, Russia has delayed any agreement for weeks, though it is for the most part still believed to be adhering to a 30-day ceasefire on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

‘If we’re so far apart this won’t happen, then the president is ready to move on,’ Rubio told reporters in Paris following his talks, which he described as ‘very positive.’

‘We’re not going to continue to fly all over the world and do meeting after meeting after meeting if no progress is being made,’ Rubio said. ‘We’re going to move on to other topics that are equally if not more important in some ways to the United States.’

It remains unclear where the U.S. would stand in not only aiding Ukraine, should Russia refuse to end its illegal invasion, but whether Trump would go through with his previous threats to enact more sanctions on Russia. 

Last month, during an interview with NBC News, Trump said he was ‘very angry’ and ‘pissed off’ after Putin first showed signs of being unwilling to engage in a ceasefire with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

‘If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,’ he said.

‘That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States,’ he added. ‘There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.’

Trump would not comment on the ‘specific number of days’ Russia has before he determines whether it’s serious about ending the war, but he told reporters on Friday it needs to happen ‘quickly — we want to get it done.’

Saturday’s talks in Rome between the Trump administration and the Islamic Republic of Iran over the rogue regime’s failure to dismantle its illicit nuclear weapons program have raised pressing questions about whether Tehran will adhere to a new deal.

Speaking on ‘The Story with Martha MacCallum,’ retired Gen. Jack Keane, a Fox News senior strategic analyst, said Iran is reintroducing its ‘playbook’ that [was] used to secure the JCPOA from Obama and termed its strategy a ‘bold-faced lie’ that led to the ‘disastrous 2015’ agreement.

Keane said Iran is repackaging the lie that it will reduce highly enriched uranium down to a low percentage and not use it for a nuclear weapon. Instead, it will employ it for civilian commercial nuclear power. Kean added that the Iranians ‘think the Trump administration is going to buy this. After all, in 2018, Trump pulled out of that very deal.’

In 2018, President Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the formal name for the 2015 nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration, because, he argued, it failed to stop Iran’s ambitions to construct an atomic bomb. 

Fox News Digital sent a detailed press query to the State Department regarding the Islamic Republic’s history of cheating and lying when dealing with its previous pledges to not build a nuclear weapon.

A spokesperson for the State Department told Fox News Digital, ‘This, along with many other issues, will be decided at the negotiating table. The president has been clear: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon or enrichment program. As we continue to talk, we expect to refine a framework and timetable for working towards a deal that achieves the president’s objectives peacefully.’

Speaking Friday, President Trump told reporters, ‘I’m for stopping Iran very simply from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon.’

Enrichment of uranium is the key process that enables Iran’s regime to advance its work on a deliverable nuclear weapon. 

‘Iran’s enrichment is a real, accepted matter,’ Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Wednesday. ‘We are ready to build confidence in response to possible concerns, but the issue of enrichment is non-negotiable.’
 

Mark Wallace, the CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and a former U.N. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, told Fox News Digital, ‘Under the Bush administration, zero enrichment was enshrined in U.N. Security Council resolutions. The Obama administration changed that position, allowing enrichment up to 3.67%, and this paved the way for the failed JCPOA that has allowed Iran to extort the international community ever since.’

The Obama administration’s concession to Iran to permit it to enrich uranium to 3.67% has created new problems for Trump to halt Tehran’s drive to build a weapon. Iran has exploited the right to enrich uranium to speed up its weapons program. The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency announced in February that Iran has produced dramatically more uranium that can be used in six atomic bombs and stressed that Tehran has made no progress on resolving outstanding issues.

Trump said in late March he would launch military strikes against Iran if it failed to agree to his demands for a new nuclear pact.

Prior to Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA, Fox News Digital reported in 2017 that Iran tried to obtain illicit technology that could be used for military nuclear and ballistic missile programs, raising questions about a possible violation of the 2015 agreement intended to stop Tehran’s drive to become an atomic armed power, according to three German intelligence reports.

The Trump administration has outlined a two-month framework to reach a deal with Iran, John Hannah, asenior fellow at JINSA, said during a briefing about Iran’s nuclear weapons program Thursday.

Hannah served in senior advisory roles with former Vice President Dick Cheney and was intimately involved in developing U.S. strategy toward talks with Iran over Afghanistan, Iraq and the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program throughout President George W. Bush’s two terms in the White House.  

Traditionally, military pressure has influenced the Islamic Republic of Iran’s recalcitrant and anti-American leaders to make concessions. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 reportedly compelled the clerical regime’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, to briefly pause his country’s work on nuclear weapons.  

Khamenei feared American military action at the time.

Hannah said Trump’s ‘military threat is what brought Supreme Leader Khamenei to the table’ because it ‘put his own regime at risk.’ Hannah outlined what dismantlement ‘with a capital D’ would mean for Iran. He said ‘all of their enriched uranium leaves the country,’ and the centrifuges are destroyed and taken out of the country. Hannah said Iran’s secretive underground Fordow nuclear fuel enrichment plant and Natanz nuclear site were where Iran was caught digging tunnels in the mountains.

Hannah’s organization, JINSA, released an infographic Wednesday that focused in on Trump administration officials’ comments on verification and dismantlement.

According to a Reuters report, a senior Iranian official said Friday that Iran told the United States in talks last week it was ready to accept some limits on its uranium enrichment but needed watertight guarantees President Donald Trump would not again ditch a nuclear pact.

Tehran’s red lines ‘mandated by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’ could not be compromised in the talks, the official told Reuters, describing Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity.

He said those red lines meant Iran would never agree to dismantle its centrifuges for enriching uranium, halt enrichment altogether or reduce the amount of enriched uranium it stores to a level below the level it agreed in the 2015 deal that Trump abandoned.

It would also not negotiate over its missile program, which Tehran views as outside the scope of any nuclear deal.

Top U.S. negotiator Steve Witkoff, in a post on X on Tuesday, said Iran must ‘stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment’ to reach a deal with Washington.

Reuters contributed to this report.

President Trump on Friday said that career government employees working on policy matters for the administration will be reclassified ‘Schedule Policy/Career,’ – or at will employees – and will be fired if they don’t adhere to his agenda.

‘Following my Day One Executive Order, the Office of Personnel Management will be issuing new Civil Service Regulations for career government employees,’ the president wrote on Truth Social Friday afternoon. 

He added, ‘Moving forward, career government employees, working on policy matters, will be classified as ‘Schedule Policy/Career,’ and will be held to the highest standards of conduct and performance.’

This comes as the Trump administration continues to fire federal employees in an effort to shrink the government. 

The administration’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) estimated the rule change in Trump’s executive order ‘Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce’ would affect around 50,000 employees or 2% of the federal workforce, the White House said in a Friday memo. 

The regulations for civil service employees ‘with important policy-determining, policy-making, policy-advocating, or confidential duties’ will now be considered ‘at-will’ employees, ‘without access to cumbersome adverse action procedures or appeals, overturning Biden Administration regulations that protected poor performing employees.’ 

Trump added in his post: ‘If these government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the President, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job. This is common sense, and will allow the federal government to finally be ‘run like a business.’ We must root out corruption and implement accountability in our Federal Workforce!’ 

The White House said the ‘rule empowers federal agencies to swiftly remove employees in policy-influencing roles for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles.’

The employees aren’t required to personally support the president, but ‘must faithfully implement the law and the administration’s policies.’

The proposed rule won’t change the status of affected employees’ jobs until another executive order is issued, the White House said.