U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said a ‘coward hiding behind a keyboard’ was arrested this week for allegedly sending a threatening letter to conservative influencer Benny Johnson in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. 

George Isbell Jr., 69, was taken into custody on Tuesday in San Diego, California. He will be federally charged with mailing a threatening communication, according to Bondi. On his website, Johnson said he resides in Tampa, Florida, where the announcement of the arrest was made Friday.

‘Benny is a well-known media personality, carrying a message very similar to Charlie’s. Grounded largely in faith and love of country. Just days after Charlie’s assassination, Benny received a letter at his home where he and Kate are raising their beautiful, beautiful young family,’ Bondi said. ‘The author of this letter made it very clear that he hated Benny because of his views, and he wanted Benny dead.’ 

‘This was a coward hiding behind a keyboard who thought he could get away with this. That’s why we’re standing up here today. You are not going to get away with threatening people in this way. And I’m proud to announce that we have arrested the author of this letter,’ Bondi added. 

She said earlier that, ‘we’ve been living through a horrific cycle of political violence in this country.’ 

‘We are going to catch you if you think you can do something like this,’ Bondi declared. ‘We don’t care if you’re across the country in California, we will find you. We will arrest you, we will extradite you, and we will bring you to justice. We cannot allow this political violence to continue any longer. This arrest will serve as a reminder to many — do not do this. We will find you.’ 

U.S. Attorney Gregory Kehoe for the Middle District of Florida told reporters Friday that Johnson ‘immediately contacted’ the Tampa Police Department after receiving the letter. The FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement assisted in the investigation, while the U.S. Postal Service determined the letter originated from San Diego, California, Kehoe added. 

Fingerprints that were obtained from the letter led investigators to Isbell, according to Kehoe. 

‘According to the complaint, on or about Sept. 18, Isbell mailed a letter from San Diego threatening to injure his victim, a media personality located in Tampa, Florida, and telling his victim that the victim needed ‘to be exterminated,’’ the Justice Department said in a statement Friday.

‘In the letter, he referenced one of the victim’s friends, Mr. Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist who had recently been killed during a public engagement on a college campus. After writing that he hoped that the American flag ‘strangles the life out of you,’ the letter went on to state: ‘Maybe someone will blow your head off!!! We can hope! Planning any public engagements? Love to see your head explode and your blood stain the concrete red. What a sight!’’ the Justice Department added.

If convicted, Isbell could face a maximum sentence of five years.

Johnson told Fox News Digital on Friday afternoon, ‘The major question here is, how many of us need to die? And, you know, until people take it seriously?’

Speaking alongside Bondi in Florida, Johnson said, ‘I don’t want political violence. I want peace in my nation.’ 

‘I love this country. I want to be able to debate like Charlie did. I want to be able to raise my family in peace. That is our birthright. But you cannot make peace with evil as a Christian. You cannot unite with people who want you dead. I want unity in this nation,’ he added. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., declared the House of Representatives out of session for a third straight week in a bid to keep pressure on Senate Democrats in Washington.

The speaker appears to be raising the stakes on lawmakers across the aisle, who keep refusing the GOP’s plan to fund government agencies on a short-term basis in favor of making demands on healthcare that Republicans are calling unreasonable.

The government shutdown is poised to roll into a third week after Senate Democrats sunk the GOP’s federal funding bill seven times, most recently on Thursday.

The House passed the bill on Sept. 19 and has not been in session since. The measure, called a continuing resolution (CR), is aimed at keeping the government funded at current levels through Nov. 21, in order for congressional negotiators to have more time to strike a longer-term deal for fiscal year (FY) 2026.

Democrats, furious at being sidelined in federal funding discussions, have been withholding their support for any spending bill that does not also extend COVID-19 pandemic-era enhanced Obamacare subsidies that are due to expire at the end of this year.

Johnson’s decision was made public on Friday afternoon during a brief pro forma session in the House. Under rules dictated by the Constitution, the chamber must meet for brief periods every few days called ‘pro forma’ sessions to ensure continuity, even if there are no formal legislative matters at hand.

Pro forma sessions can also be opportunities for lawmakers to give brief speeches or introduce legislation that they otherwise would not have. 

Johnson’s decision comes after he canceled votes on Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 in an effort to press the Senate to take up the House’s CR. He canceled votes the following week as well.

The House GOP leader told fellow Republicans on a private call Thursday that he would give them 48 hours’ notice before they needed to return to Washington.

Johnson has suggested multiple times in public and in private that he would reopen the House when Senate Democrats relented on the CR.

In the meantime, he’s asking House Republicans to remain in their districts to drive home the effects of the government shutdown on everyday Americans.

The strategy has gotten pushback from some members of his conference, including those who are pushing for a standalone vote on legislation ensuring the military is paid during the shutdown.

Without action by Congress or the White House, active duty service members who are made to work during the shutdown — as well as others on the federal payroll — are set to miss paychecks on Oct. 15 if the standoff continues.

At least three House Republicans have also suggested they want the House to return to its business next week — Reps. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Julie Fedorchak, R-N.D., said so on the Thursday call, while Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., made his concerns public on X.

But tensions ran high among the few lawmakers who were in Washington this week, with two Senate Democrats confronting Johnson and Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., getting into a screaming match with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., over Obamacare subsidies.

Asked about the conflicts, Johnson suggested it was part of the reason House lawmakers should remain out of Washington until the shutdown ends.

‘I’m a very patient man. But I am very angry right now because this is dangerous stuff. And so, is it better for them to be physically separated right now? It probably is,’ he said on Thursday.

‘Frankly, I wish that weren’t the case. But we do have to turn the volume down. The best way to turn the volume down is to turn the lights back on and get the government open for the people.’

Venezuelan opposition leader and newly minted Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado dedicated the award on Friday to both President Donald Trump and the ‘suffering people of Venezuela.’

Machado, a leading figure in the resistance against Venezuela’s ruling party, took to X to acknowledge the honor and to praise Trump for his support.

‘This recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans is a boost to conclude our task: to conquer Freedom,’ Machado said. ‘We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve Freedom and democracy. 

She added, ‘I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!’

Machado has previously been outspoken in her support for the Trump administration’s actions against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s regime and the country’s narco-trafficking network.

Last month, following reports that a U.S. strike killed 11 alleged Tren de Aragua narco-terrorists transporting drugs from Venezuela, Machado appeared on ‘Fox & Friends’ to discuss Maduro’s leadership, saying it was time for him ‘to go.’

‘On behalf of the Venezuelan people, I want to tell you how grateful we are to President Trump and the administration for addressing the tragedy that Venezuela is going through,’ Machado said at the time. ‘ … Maduro has turned Venezuela into the biggest threat to the national security of the U.S. and the stability of the region.’

Trump has also been a vocal critic of Maduro, and the U.S. is among several countries that do not recognize Maduro’s government as legitimate, according to Reuters.

In last year’s election, Machado rallied millions of Venezuelans to reject Maduro. She was described as a ‘brave and committed champion of peace’ by Joergen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

‘She is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,’ Frydnes said.

Trump was also among the contenders for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, awarded annually to an individual or organization that has made significant contributions to global peace, in the wake of his brokering a historic deal between Israel and Hamas. 

Fox News Digital’s Rachel Wolf and Elizabeth Pritchett contributed to this report.

Russian President Vladimir Putin praised President Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate peace deals around the world, specifically citing his work brokering a truce between Israel and Hamas.

‘He’s really doing a lot to resolve such complex crises that have lasted for years and even decades,’ Putin said at a summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where he met with leaders of nations once part of the former Soviet Union.

The remarks came in response to a question about whether he felt Trump had been passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The award was given Friday morning to Venezuelan opposition leader and democracy activist María Corina Machado.

‘There have been cases where the committee has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to people who have done nothing for peace,’ Putin said. ‘A person comes — good or bad — and [gets it] in a month, in two months — boom. For what? He didn’t do anything at all.

‘In my view, these decisions have done enormous damage to the prestige of this prize,’ he continued.

In September, Trump alluded to the likelihood that he would again be passed over for the Nobel Prize despite helping to end several conflicts.

‘If this works out, we’ll have eight — eight in eight months. That’s pretty good,’ Trump said during remarks to dozens of top generals and admirals in Quantico, Virginia. ‘Nobody’s ever done that. Will you get the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not.

‘They’ll give it to some guy that didn’t do a damn thing,’ he continued. ‘They’ll give it to the guy who wrote a book about the mind of Donald Trump and what it took to solve the wars. The Nobel Prize will go to a writer.’

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Friday announced that the Department of War (DOW) is establishing a new counter-narcotics Joint Task Force in the Caribbean Sea. 

Hegseth said the task force’s aim would be to ‘crush the cartels, stop the poison, and keep America safe. The message is clear: if you traffic drugs toward our shores, we will stop you cold.’

The task force is launching at the direction of President Donald Trump, he said, in the SOUTHCOM area, which covers the Caribbean and Latin America. 

The U.S. Southern Command said in a release that the task force was being launched under the II Marine Expeditionary Force on Friday ‘to synchronize and augment counter-narcotics efforts across the Western Hemisphere.’

‘Transnational criminal organizations threaten the security, prosperity, and health of our hemisphere,’ Admiral Alvin Holsey, the commander of SOUTHCOM, said in a statement. ‘By forming a JTF around II MEF headquarters, we enhance our ability to detect, disrupt, and dismantle illicit trafficking networks faster and at greater depth – together with our U.S. and partner-nation counterparts.’

This comes as the administration has begun strikes against boats in the Caribbean it says are linked to drug trafficking networks.

The administration has conducted a series of fatal strikes against four small boats believed to be carrying drugs over the last few months.

It said 21 people were killed in the strikes.  

The attacks have alarmed Democratic lawmakers as the administration hasn’t detailed what evidence it had against the targeted boats or their passengers. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un displayed a new long-range intercontinental ballistic missile at a military parade in Pyongyang that included foreign leaders on Friday. 

The yet-to-be-tested Hwasong-20 was described by the state-owned Korean Central News Agency as having the ‘most powerful nuclear strategic weapons system.’

The government also displayed shorter-range ballistic, cruise and supersonic missiles at the military parade, which marked 80 years since the founding of the Worker’s Party.

Kim said at the parade that the military ‘must continue to evolve into an invincible force that eliminates all threats.’

The foreign dignitaries at the parade included Chinese Premier Li Qiang, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and Vietnam’s Communist Party chief To Lam. 

Kim also met with Medvedev on Friday, who praised the sacrifice of North Korean soldiers fighting with Russia in Ukraine. 

Kim said he hoped to strengthen ties with Russia and work together toward common goals. 

Last summer, Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong warned the U.S. to not attempt to restart talks centered around denuclearization, adding that Pyongyang would view any attempt to pressure North Korea to denuclearize as ‘nothing but a mockery.’ 

‘If the U.S. fails to accept the changed reality and persists in the failed past, the DPRK- U.S. meeting will remain as a ‘hope’ of the U.S. side,’ Kim Yo Jong said, referring to the nation by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump is in ‘excellent overall health,’ the president’s doctor said in a memorandum after a follow-up evaluation at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday. 

Earlier this week, the White House announced that Trump, 79, would undergo a ‘routine’ semiannual physical on Friday. 

The president also met with troops while at the hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. 

‘President Donald J. Trump successfully completed a scheduled follow-up evaluation at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center,’ Navy Capt. Sean P. Barbabella, the physician to the president, wrote in a memorandum to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. 

Barbabella said that the visit was part of an ongoing health maintenance plan that included ‘advanced imaging, laboratory testing and preventative health assessments conducted by multidisciplinary team of specialists.’ 

He added, ‘Comprehensive laboratory studies performed in conjunction with the visit were exceptional, including stable metabolic, hematologic and cardiac parameters.’

In his summary, Barbabella said Trump, ‘remains in exceptional health, exhibiting strong cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, and physical performance.’ 

Barbabella also said Trump also received updated COVID-19 and flu shots in preparation for international travel. 

‘President Trump continues to demonstrate excellent overall health,’ he wrote, adding that his cardiac age was found to be ‘approximately 14 years younger than his chronological age. He continues to maintain a demanding daily schedule without restriction.’ 

The medical checkup will be Trump’s second this year. He had a similar exam in April, during which his physician stated that he ‘remains in excellent health.’

In July, the president was diagnosed with a vein condition known as chronic venous insufficiency. At the time, Leavitt said Trump had noticed ‘mild swelling’ in his lower legs and was evaluated by the White House medical unit.

Chronic venous insufficiency occurs when veins in the legs struggle to allow blood to flow back up to the heart.

Leavitt attributed the bruising on the president’s hand to ‘frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin.’

The government shutdown is poised to enter a third week, and Democrats still appear to be struggling in the search for a cohesive messaging strategy.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., received a barrage of GOP-led attacks on Thursday after he told Punchbowl News, ‘Every day gets better for us’ in reference to the shutdown dragging on.

Meanwhile, House Democrats’ group selfie taken on Sept. 29, just before the shutdown, received criticism from both sides of the aisle. Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who’s become a fierce critic of the GOP since leaving office, wrote on X, ‘These selfie things need to stop guys. Honestly, the democrats were great at social media but social media moved on from them. The kitschy, goofy ‘choose your fighter’ type stuff needs to stop.’

Democrats have been fighting to center the discussion on healthcare, and their argument that any deal to reopen the federal government must at least include an extension of COVID-19 pandemic-era enhanced Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of this year.

And while polls show that Americans overwhelmingly do support extending the subsidies, surveys taken of the government shutdown have been more mixed, with a significant number of Americans blaming both parties.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday showed 67% of Americans believe Republicans deserve ‘a fair amount or a great deal of blame’ for the shutdown, compared to 63% for Democrats.

A New York Times/Siena poll taken on the eve of the shutdown showed that Democrats had a similarly thin edge over the GOP in the shutdown fight, but that 65% of people did not believe Democrats should shut down the government if their demands were not met.

‘Democrats keep choosing the wrong fights, including the shutdown fight. At best, the shutdown will give them a political draw where the public will blame both parties,’ Julian Epstein, a former Democratic staffer for the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital.

‘But they will not get a game change out of this conflict, and the risk for them is the longer it goes on, the public will see it’s the Democrats who are narcissistically voting to shut down the government after losing the election.’

During an appearance on ‘Real Time With Bill Maher’ earlier this month, CNN political commentator and former Obama administration appointee Van Jones said Democrats ‘do the wrong thing at the wrong time for the right reason.’

Jones said he was in favor of extending the Obamacare subsidies but argued that it may have been folly for his party to pick that fight over the shutdown before people even got notice of their premiums potentially rising.

‘I get it, the base is upset … ’Please do something, do anything,’ but the ‘something’ probably shouldn’t be throwing a bunch of people out of work in the federal government and crushing the American government’s ability to function right before the pain was about to start,’ he said.

And it’s not yet clear if Democrats have an agreed-upon roadmap for how to navigate the shutdown yet.

Late last week, just before Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced that the House would be out of session for another week while Republicans’ funding bill stalled in the Senate, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., unequivocally told Fox News Digital that ‘yes,’ he would call all House Democrats back to Washington to draw a contrast between the two sides.

He walked that back somewhat on Monday, however. When asked by Fox News Digital if he would still call the full caucus back, Jeffries said, ‘We have a caucus meeting at 6 p.m. today. We’ll have a House Democratic Caucus leadership meeting, that’s the full leadership, tomorrow. And I expect a strong presence of House Democrats throughout here in Washington.’

What he did not specify, however, was that the 6 p.m. caucus meeting was virtual.

At another press conference this week, Jeffries called a one-year Obamacare subsidy extension compromise bill ‘laughable’ despite it getting support from 11 members of his own Democratic caucus.

He walked those comments back again, ‘If anything is presented to us, of course, the caucus will consider it in good faith.’

But Republicans have also garnered their share of public criticism for shutdown messaging as well.

President Donald Trump’s aggressive rhetoric on federal employee layoffs put congressional Republicans in a difficult position earlier this month, though Trump has since softened his language and not yet carried out those firings.

The White House’s depiction of Jeffries in a sombrero on multiple occasions has also been panned as racist by critics.

Mike Nellis, a Democratic strategist and founder of campaign consulting firm Authentic, said Democrats were doing the right thing in focusing on health care while criticizing Republicans’ messaging.

‘I think that focusing on the health care subsidies, which are undeniably popular, has been a really smart thing for Democrats to do,’ Nellis told Fox News Digital.

‘I think that the Republicans have played right into their worst tendencies on this, which is, much of their messaging is aggressively online-focused. The sombrero stuff is mildly funny. But then they went all in on it, and they don’t have a good answer to the health care subsidies.’

Nellis also argued that Republicans’ touting of a ‘landslide’ electoral victory has set them up for a larger share of the blame.

‘When you create the conditions where you talked about the mandate that you have and the government shuts down on your watch, you’re responsible for the government shutdown,’ he said.

Still, he said he would grade Democrats with a ‘B, B minus’ on their messaging, adding that it’s ‘not perfect.’

‘Maybe the answer is … Republicans are losing the shutdown fight, rather than Democrats are winning it,’ Nellis said. ‘But I mean, I just think we’ve got a lot more right than a lot more wrong, which is the first time you can say that in quite a while.’

The sudden announcement that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a U.S.-brokered ceasefire Wednesday night reignited a once-far-fetched question in world politics: could President Donald Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize?

If the ceasefire holds, it would signify a landmark achievement months in the making for a president who has branded himself a global peacemaker. Trump has long insisted he deserves the prize but doubts the committee would ever give it to him.

‘I’m not politicking for it,’ Trump said when asked about the prospect during the Aug. 8 signing of a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House. ‘I have a lot of people that are.’

Indeed, many have nominated him — often with public fanfare.

Nominations and deadlines

The deadline for this year’s nominations was January 31. Some proposals for Trump came in before then, but many arrived after the cutoff date. If he does not win when the prize is announced Friday, he could be considered again next year.

Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., said she nominated Trump, along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for their work on the 2020 Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab states.

According to the Nobel Committee, 338 candidates were nominated this year — 244 individuals and 94 organizations.

Global push for Trump’s nomination

International support for Trump’s candidacy has come from a range of leaders. On June 20, Pakistani officials said they would recommend him for ‘decisive diplomatic intervention and pivotal leadership’ during a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between India and Pakistan.

A trio of Republican lawmakers nominated him after the Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, though that has not yet produced a ceasefire in Ukraine. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., quipped that he would be ‘the Democrat leading’ the charge for Trump to win if he could broker peace in that conflict as well.

Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., nominated Trump in June following the Israel-Iran ceasefire agreement. Netanyahu said he submitted his own nomination in July, while Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet announced their nominations after separate U.S.-brokered peace agreements in their regions.

According to Oddspedia, Trump currently leads betting markets for the prize, followed by Sudan’s emergency response rooms and Russian opposition figure Yulia Navalnaya, widow of the late Alexei Navalny. Other contenders — such as Greta Thunberg, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the International Criminal Court — represent causes often at odds with Trump’s policies.

Trump: ‘The people know’

Trump has expressed little faith that the Nobel Committee will recognize him, despite his flurry of diplomatic initiatives.

‘No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do — including Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be,’ he wrote on Truth Social in June. ‘But the people know, and that’s all that matters to me.’

Inside the Nobel Committee

The Oslo-based Norwegian Nobel Committee is made up of five members appointed by Norway’s parliament to uphold Alfred Nobel’s will, awarding the prize to whoever has done ‘the most or the best work for fraternity between nations.’

The current committee includes Jørgen Watne Frydnes, secretary general of the Utøya Foundation; Asle Toje, a foreign-policy scholar linked to the right-leaning Progress Party; Anne Enger, a former Centre Party leader; Kristin Clemet, head of Civita, a center-right think tank that promotes free-market and democratic values; and Gry Larsen, secretary general of CARE Norway.

The panel’s composition suggests long odds for Trump. With most members rooted in Norway’s center-left and centrist traditions — and only Toje aligned with the right-leaning Progress Party — the committee tends to favor humanitarian, consensus-driven peace efforts over Trump’s deal-oriented diplomacy. It is generally seen as cautious and establishment-leaning, unlikely to reward his unconventional style even amid short-term progress in Gaza.

The Obama precedent

The Nobel Committee last faced this level of scrutiny when it awarded President Barack Obama the Peace Prize just nine months into his first term in 2009, citing his promotion of nuclear nonproliferation and a ‘new climate’ in international relations.

Obama was deeply popular in Europe at the time, but by the end of his presidency U.S.-Russia relations had sunk to a post-Cold War low, and American forces were still fighting in Afghanistan and Syria — a reminder that the Nobel Peace Prize can be as politically fraught as it is symbolic.