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In a move that brings the fate of the Gaza ceasefire even closer under his personal control, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is appointing a close political ally to lead talks over phase two of the current ceasefire in Gaza, replacing Israel’s previous chief negotiator.

Dermer replaces David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, who led talks in January that resulted in the current deal. The Israeli government has not confirmed whether Barnea will stay on as part of the Israeli negotiating team.

Talks on phase two of a ceasefire, which would see the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza and the release of all living hostages, were supposed to have begun more than two weeks ago. Even as Netanyahu says that the talks will now begin, it is unclear how committed the prime minister is to seeing them succeed. His finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has promised to withdraw from the government coalition if Israel does not return to war in Gaza when the current ceasefire expires on March 1.

The reshuffle in Israel’s negotiating approach comes as Hamas said that it would release the bodies of four hostages on Thursday, including the two youngest Israelis held by the group, Kfir and Ariel Bibas. The militant group is expected to release six living hostages on Saturday, and a further four bodies next week – all in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Removing Barnea sidelines Israel’s security establishment, with whom Netanyahu has frequently clashed.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said that phase two could be delayed if they believe there is “a constructive dialogue with a possible horizon of getting to an agreement.” He also said that if Israel believes that “negotiations are not leading anywhere,” the military would resume the war in Gaza.

Hamas negotiators in Cairo have appeared to accelerate delivery of their side of the 42-day phase one agreement, laying out a timeline for the return of the last remaining 14 hostages of the 33 agreed to be released in phase one – all to be completed by next week.

It was a shift by the terror group, which only last week threatened to derail talks completely, saying they would no longer hand over hostages and alleging Israel had failed to meet terms of the agreement, including by allowing prefabricated housing and heavy machinery to enter Gaza.

Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday said that it had “approved bringing only a small amount of caravans and heavy equipment into Gaza,” saying that it would “not in any way change the feasibility of implementing the Trump plan for voluntary immigration and creating another Gaza – to which Prime Minister Netanyahu is fully committed.”

US President Donald Trump has proposed that the United States “own” Gaza, and that 2.1 million Palestinians living there move to “beautiful sites” in Middle Eastern countries. The proposal has been welcomed by Netanyahu, but derided by Palestinian and Arab leaders alike, who characterize it as ethnic cleansing.

It is unclear what changed Hamas’s calculus to recommit to the hostages’ release in the coming days. US President Donald Trump had threatened that “all hell is going to break out” for Hamas unless they release all hostages by this past Saturday – a deadline that came and went without incident.

Trump’s envoy Witkoff outlined the challenges facing Netanyahu. “It just is a little bit more intricate and complicated in terms of how we bring the two sides together on this, because phase two contemplates an end of the war, but it also contemplates Hamas not being involved in the government and being gone from Gaza. So we’ve got to we’ve got to square those two things,” he told Fox News on Sunday.

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Argentine President Javier Milei has defended himself for promoting a cryptocurrency whose value collapsed within hours of its launch, likening those who invested in the token after his endorsement to gamblers at casinos.

“The reality is if you go to the casino and lose money, I mean, what is the claim if you knew that it had those characteristics?” he said during an interview with the TN news channel that aired on Monday night.

Milei said he promoted the little-known crypto coin $LIBRA in a tweet on X last week because he believed it would encourage economic growth by funding small businesses.

“I am spreading the word that this is to fund Argentines who do projects and who do not have access to financing,” he told TN.

The price of the coin soared after the president’s endorsement then quickly collapsed, leading to losses for thousands of investors.

Milei deleted his tweet hours after posting it, saying he had doubts about the matter.

Critics have called for Milei’s impeachment and filed multiple criminal complaints against the president, including at least one to the US Department of Justice, alleging an illicit association to commit “an indeterminate number of frauds.”

One complaint against the president, the developers of the cryptocurrency and other named individuals was filed by the Popular Unity political party and others. It alleged that “The biggest MEGA scam in history in this sector was carried out through an operation known as ‘Rugpull’ which occurs when the developers behind a project launch a token and attract investors to increase its value, then abruptly withdraw and take the money.”

The plaintiffs said Monday that a judge has been appointed to look into the complaint.

On Saturday, the firm behind the launch, Kelsier, rejected claims that the project’s backers were scammers.

Asked if he thought he had made a mistake, Milei told TN, “No, because I also acted in good faith.”

Milei insisted that anyone who invested in the coin did so voluntarily, despite his tweet.

“I did not promote it. What I did was I spread it,” he said, adding that he did not benefit from the crypto coin.

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Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has been charged in connection with an alleged coup plot to overturn the results of the 2022 election and keep his opponent from taking power, according to documents filed by prosecutors Tuesday evening.

Bolsonaro was among 34 people facing charges including those of armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état, and damage qualified by violence.

Prosecutors allege that the plot began in 2021, with an effort to undermine public trust in electronic voting machines.

In 2022, Bolsonaro allegedly met with ambassadors and diplomatic representatives to discuss the accusations of voting fraud “in an attempt to prepare the international community for disrespecting the popular will in the presidential elections,” a statement from the Attorney General’s Office read.

Despite finding no evidence of election fraud, the defendants allegedly continued their campaign to discredit the electoral system, prosecutors said.

They also allege that Bolsonaro approved a plan to carry out the coup, which they say included the death of the elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his vice president.

Prosecutors said the last attempt to overturn the election happened on January 8, 2023, when defendants allegedly encouraged groups of Bolsonaro supporters to mobilize in Brasília, where they stormed and vandalized the three seats of government.

In November, Bolsonaro and 36 others were indicted as part of an investigation into the alleged coup plot.

The charges, brought before the Supreme Court in Brasília, could set the stage for a high-profile trial. If the charges are formally accepted by the Supreme Court, those charged will formally become defendants.

To prevent the case from influencing Brazil’s 2026 presidential elections, Supreme Court justices are pushing to conclude the trial before the end of 2025, but it is unlikely the court will announce its decision on whether to take on the case or schedule preliminary hearings before early March.

In the 844-page November indictment, federal police accused Bolsonaro of having “full knowledge” of the alleged coup plan to prevent Lula from taking office, adding that the former president “planned, acted in, and led directly and effectively” the plan.

Bolsonaro denies involvement, telling the Brazilian magazine Veja he “never agreed to any plan.”

In 2023, Bolsonaro was banned from public office for eight years after a separate investigation into alleged abuse of power found him guilty of spreading misinformation about the integrity of the Brazilian election apparatus to foreign governments.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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More than 150 whales are stranded off the coast of Tasmania, Australia, according to local authorities.

The state’s Marine Conservation Program said Tuesday a total of 157 animals had become stranded near the town of Arthur River on the west coast of the island and that initial observations showed at least 90 of them were still alive.

“We are currently assessing the situation to plan an appropriate response,” the agency said.

The animals appear to be false killer whales, according to Tasmania’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment.

The Marine Conservation Program said it was working with Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service in response to the “mass whale stranding” and urged the public not to approach the animals.

“Stranding response in this remote area is complex. If it is determined there is a need for help from the general public, a request will be made through various avenues,” it said.

The government agency said all whales are protected species even when deceased and reminded the public that interfering with a carcass is an offense.

Animal behaviorists and marine scientists say that survival rates for beached whales is low, and the animals “can only survive for around six hours on land before they start to deteriorate.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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A Chinese military helicopter flew within 10 feet (3 meters) of a Philippine patrol plane over the South China Sea on Tuesday, in what observers said was the second incident of potentially catastrophic behavior by the People’s Liberation Army against foreign aircraft in a week.

Tuesday’s incident was witnessed by an Associated Press reporter aboard the single-engine Cessna Caravan plane operated by the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources as it patrolled near Scarborough Shoal, an uninhabited rock about 140 miles (222 kilometers) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon.

Scarborough Shoal, which sits amid rich fishing grounds, has been effectively controlled by China since 2012 despite its location inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.

The AP report said during the approximately 30-minute encounter, the pilot of the Philippine plane warned the Chinese helicopter, “You are flying too close, you are very dangerous and endangering the lives of our crew and passengers.”

The ambassador of the United States, a defense treaty ally of Manila, condemned the “dangerous” maneuvers of the Chinese helicopter.

In a post on X, Ambassador MaryKay Carlson also called on China “to refrain from coercive actions and settle its differences peacefully in accordance with international law.”

A statement from the PLA’s Southern Theater Command said the Chinese helicopter “expelled” the Philippine plane from “China’s territorial airspace,” while saying Manila “has seriously violated China’s sovereignty.”

Tuesday’s incident followed another last week over the South China Sea between an Australian military P-8 reconnaissance jet and PLA fighter planes, during which Australia said the Chinese jets fired flares within 100 feet (30 meters) of its aircraft.

If ingested into the P-8’s jet engines, the flares could have caused catastrophic damage, analysts said.

“They could have hit our P-8 and had that occurred it would have done significant damage to our aircraft and that obviously puts in danger the lives of our personnel,” Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said on Friday.

Like the latter incident with the Philippines, the Chinese military said it expelled a foreign aircraft that was intruding into Chinese airspace, in this case over the Xisha Islands, also called the Paracel Islands.

Beijing claims “indisputable sovereignty” over almost all of the 1.3-million-square-mile South China Sea, and most of the islands and sandbars within it, including many features that are hundreds of miles from mainland China. As well as the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan also hold competing claims.

Potentially dangerous incidents between Chinese and foreign aircraft over the South China Sea are nothing new, with several reported over the past several years between not only Australian and Philippine craft but also those of the US and Canada, who all say they operate in international airspace.

But the two latest incidents in less than a week are raising fears Beijing may be becoming more assertive in enforcing its disputed claims while the attention of the US – a defense treaty ally of the Philippines, Australia and Canada – is focused on the war in Ukraine and tensions in the Middle East.

“China sees that the Trump administration is focused on other theaters and calculates that this is the time to turn the ratchet up in East Asia while America is distracted elsewhere,” said Ray Powell, director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project at Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation.

“Beijing is following a familiar pattern of gradual escalation,” Powell said.

“Its goal is to normalize its aggressions at ever-greater levels, so that over time they become accepted and discounted as the normal cost of doing business in contested areas.”

Adm. Samuel Paparo, the head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told a forum in Hawaii last week that China is using similar “gray zone” tactics around the democratic island of Taiwan, which is claimed by Beijing, and which Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed to bring under the Communist Party’s control.

Numerous Chinese military aircraft and maritime vessels operate around Taiwan daily.

“Their aggressive maneuver around Taiwan right now are not exercises, as they call them. They are rehearsals. They are rehearsals for the forced unification of Taiwan to the mainland,” Paparo told the Honolulu Defense Forum last week.

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In the 10th row of Delta Flight 4819, Pete Carlson rested in the window seat just before landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday afternoon, thinking about friends he would see at a paramedics conference where he was scheduled to speak.

John Nelson, another passenger in the 10th row of the CRJ900 twin-jet aircraft, remembered the flight and descent over Canada’s largest city as typical except for “super gusty” winds blowing snow over the runways.

The Delta flight, on a trip from Minneapolis, was cleared for Runway 23 under a westerly wind, with gusts up to 38 miles per hour. “Might be a slight bump in the glide path,” an air traffic controller said. “There will be an aircraft in front of you.”

“Clear to land, Endeavor 4819,” the pilot responded, referring to Delta’s Endeavor Air, the subsidiary which operated the regional jet arriving about 2:15 p.m local time Monday on the snow-covered runway. The wind sent snow swirling into the air, limiting visibility to five miles.

Then everything changed.

The jet came down hard and fast. Flames erupted around the rear landing gear, followed by a growing fire ball shrouded by a rising trail of black smoke, according to video from the scene. The right wing was sheared off as the plane rolled on its back along a tundra-like landscape.

In seconds, the lives of the 80 people on board would be upended – literally – with passengers hanging upside down, their seatbelts preventing them from crashing down. Jet fuel cascaded like rain over the windows. Somehow, all those on board survived, though 21 people were taken to hospitals with injuries.

‘We were upside down, hanging like bats’

Pete Koukov, another passenger, said he “didn’t know anything was the matter” until the hard landing.

He took video showing some passengers, still strapped to their seats, on the overturned jet.

Nelson called it “mass chaos.”

“I was upside down. The lady next to me was upside down,” he said. “We kind of let ourselves go and fell to hit the ceiling – which was a surreal feeling. And then everybody was just like, ‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’ We could smell like jet fuel.”

The two flight attendants had never landed a plane upside down, according to Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. But they had trained for many scenarios, including evacuating passengers within 90 seconds – which they did during Monday’s emergency.

“They were heroic,” Nelson said.

A mix of black smoke and powdery snow rose over the tarmac.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no!” said a person who took a video of the crash, watching from another plane near the runway.

“Airplane just crashed (runway) 2-3,” a pilot on another flight can be heard saying on recordings of air traffic control transmissions, which also picked up audio of a medevac helicopter that was already in the area.

“We got it in sight,” the helicopter pilot said of the downed jet.

“LifeFlight 1, medevac, just so you are aware there are people outside walking around the aircraft there,” an air traffic controller said.

“Yeah, we’ve got it. The aircraft is upside down and burning,” the medevac pilot responded.

Outside the plane, passengers shot video and photos with cellphone cameras as firefighters tried to douse the flames.

Carlson remembered the powerful sound created by the crash of tens of thousands of pounds of metal against snow-covered concrete.

“The absolute initial feeling is, ‘Just need to get out of this,’” he told CBC.

He unfastened his seatbelt and crashed down onto the plane’s ceiling, now the floor. He didn’t sense panic or fear around him. Instead, Carlson said, everyone on the plane “suddenly became very close” – helping and consoling each other.

“What now?” he remembered thinking. “Who’s leading?”

Row by row, passengers and crew members checked on one another. They made sure people would not fall on others once their seatbelts were unfastened. As a father and a paramedic, Carlson said, he instinctively focused on getting a young boy and his mother who were sitting on the ceiling safely off the plane. The smell of fuel grew stronger.

“You can listen to the preflight all you want but when you’re suddenly upside down, rolled over, everything kind of goes out the door,” he told CBC. Hours after the flight, he still reeked of plane fuel. He wasn’t sure how he got a gash on his head.

‘It’s amazing that we’re still here’

Carlson stepped outside the plane. He recalled marveling at the “amazing” response of police officers, firefighters and paramedics on the scene.

It felt like he was “stepping out onto the tundra,” Carlson told CBC, as he and others helped passengers onto the snow-swept tarmac. The injured were taken away by bus. A triage area was set up at a safe distance from the plane.

“There was a wing there before and when we went out that exit, there was no wing to be found,” he recalled.

In fact, the wing breaking free likely kept the fire out of the passenger cabin, said Joe Jacobsen, an aerospace engineer who has worked for Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration.

When a wing rips off entirely on impact, it ditches potentially explosive fuel, said Michael McCormick, an associate professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, noting that fuel used to be stored in the belly of the aircraft.

Other design factors came into play as well. Most modern commercial aircraft are required to have 16G seats – meaning they can withstand 16 times the force of gravity, McCormick said. The seats, designed for durability rather than comfort, are less likely to come apart in an accident.

Carlson was thankful to walk away from the crash.

“I didn’t care how cold it was,” Carlson told CBC. “I didn’t care how far I had to walk, how long I had to stand. All of us wanted to just be out of the aircraft.”

At one point, Carlson removed his coat and put it over the shoulders of the mother with the young son. He snapped a photo of the overturned plane with his phone, and sent a copy to a paramedic friend, who was at the airport to pick him up.

“I simply sent it, saying this is my reality right now,” he said. “Down on the tarmac but alive, which, again, is really amazing.”

The friend and colleague, Renfrew County, Ontario, Paramedic Chief Mike Nolan, saw a huge plume of black smoke rise from the center of the runway and immediately texted Carlson, the keynote speaker at the conference in Toronto this week.

In the end, Carlson said, it was “just people – no countries, nothing … together helping each other.”

Koukov said he felt lucky and happy. He gave a big hug to the person who had been sitting next to him on the flight – as he did when greeted by friends who picked him up at the airport.

Said Nelson, “It’s amazing that we’re still here.”

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The U.S. and Russia on Tuesday took steps to improve diplomatic ties after Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with top officials from Moscow in a move to find an end to the war in Ukraine. 

Speaking to reporters following the 4.5-hour meeting held in Saudi Arabia between Rubio and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, the secretary of state said the first move would be in reestablishing the ‘functionality of our respective missions in Washington and in Moscow.’

‘For us to be able to continue to move down this road, we need to have diplomatic facilities that are operating and functioning normally,’ Rubio said. 

Rubio said there were three additional steps the U.S. planned to pursue, which included establishing a ‘high-level team’ to help negotiate the end of the war in Ukraine – though he did not mention if this would be headed by the special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. General Keith Kellogg.

The Trump administration will also be looking to expand geopolitical and economic relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. 

Rubio did not go into detail on how or when the U.S. would agree to lift the heavy sanctions put on Russia following its illegal invasion, but said that at some point ‘the European Union (EU) is going to have to be at the table’ because they too have strict sanctions in place.   

Concerns over EU involvement in negotiating a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia have been mounting as the Trump administration increasingly takes on Moscow. 

Reporters questioned Kellogg about EU involvement following the Munich Security Conference that concluded Monday, but he would not confirm whether an EU representative will be officially included at any negotiations, despite direct concerns over European security. 

Rubio responded to questions regarding concerns that the EU and Ukraine are being abandoned by the Trump administration and said, ‘No one is being sidelined here.’

‘But President Trump is in a position – that he campaigned on – to initiate a process that could bring about an end to this conflict, and from that could emerge some very positive things for the United States, for Europe, for Ukraine, for the world,’ the secretary said. 

Rubio confirmed the final agreement to come out of the lengthy meeting on Tuesday was that the five men involved in the meeting – which included Rubio and Lavrov, as well as Trump’s national security advisor, Michael Waltz, special Mideast envoy Steven Witkoff and Putin’s foreign affairs advisor, Yuri Ushakov – would remain ‘engaged’ to ensure negotiations continue to progress in a ‘productive way.’

Neither the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy nor the EU immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s questions regarding their reactions to the day’s meeting.

Zelenskyy, who was supposed to arrive in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, canceled his trip on Tuesday, which according to a Reuters report, was a move to counter any ‘legitimacy’ of the U.S.-Russia talks that were held without a Ukrainian delegation. 

Kellogg’s team confirmed for Fox News Digital that he is set to meet with Zelenskyy this week during his trip to Kyiv. 

Zelenskyy, like some EU leaders, has said he will not accept any ceasefire negotiations that are not made through coordinated efforts with Kyiv. 

‘Ukraine and Europe – in the broad sense, including the European Union, Turkey and the United Kingdom – must be involved in discussions and the development of necessary security guarantees together with the United States, as these decisions shape the future of our part of the world,’ he said in an address following a meeting with Turkish President Reccep Erdoğan on Tuesday.

Reports on Tuesday also indicated that European leaders were looking to reconvene at a ‘second emergency Ukraine summit’ to discuss Ukraine and Europe’s security.

The State Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s questions. 

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Seven House Republicans have been named to a new task force dedicated to weighing the declassification of some of the U.S.’ most infamous ‘secrets.’

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., as expected, will lead the explosive panel – formally known as the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets. It will operate under the House Oversight Committee and its chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky.

The list, though short, signals House GOP leaders are letting the conference’s conservative wing take the wheel on this investigation.

In addition to Luna, the task force will also include members of the often rebellious House Freedom Caucus such as Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Eli Crane, R-Ariz., and Eric Burlison, R-Mo.

Also on the panel is Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who has made headlines on several culture war issues over the last year.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who frequently collaborates with Luna on issues relating to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) in Congress, is on the panel as well, as is first-term Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas.

‘Bad day to be a classified government secret,’ Mace wrote on X.

Burlison wrote on the site, ‘A Government cloaked in secrecy has been a tool for control.’

Luna pledged to seek ‘truth and transparency’ in a written statement announcing the task force last week. 

She pledged to ‘give Americans the answers they deserve’ on the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jeffrey Epstein’s client list, COVID-19, UAPs, and the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Luna said when announcing the list of members, ‘We have assembled a team of dedicated leaders who have consistently fought for transparency and full disclosure.’

‘Our mission is simple: to ensure these documents are released swiftly and in their entirety, giving the American people the truth they deserve,’ Luna said.

Comer said of the list, ‘Ensuring government transparency for the American people is a core mission of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.’

‘The Republicans on Rep. Luna’s task force are steadfast champions of transparency, and I am confident they will vigorously pursue and deliver the truth on critical issues,’ Comer said.

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President Donald Trump issued an unsmiling warning to bureaucrats on Tuesday, ordering that leaders of government agencies begin to be ‘radically transparent’ about spending.

The White House published a memo entitled ‘Radical Transparency About Wasteful Spending’ on Tuesday afternoon, directed at the heads of executive departments and agencies.

The memo begins by arguing that the American government ‘spends too much money on programs, contracts, and grants that do not promote the interests of the American people.’

‘For too long, taxpayers have subsidized ideological projects overseas and domestic organizations engaged in actions that undermine the national interest,’ the note continues. ‘The American people have seen their tax dollars used to fund the passion projects of unelected bureaucrats rather than to advance the national interest.’

‘The American people have a right to see how the Federal Government has wasted their hard-earned wages.’

Trump continued the memo by ordering that all heads of executive departments and agencies must ‘take all appropriate actions to make public, to the maximum extent permitted by law…the complete details of every terminated program, cancelled contract, terminated grant, or any other discontinued obligation of Federal funds.’

‘Agencies shall ensure that such publication occurs in accordance with all applicable laws, regulations, and the terms and conditions of the underlying contract, grant, or other award,’ Trump continued.

The memo came as Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) commission continues to audit government agencies with a mission to reduce waste. On Monday night, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared on ‘Hannity’ to express support for DOGE’s audits.

‘[L]isten to the words from those Democrat politicians, you would think you are listening to President Trump, Elon Musk and our entire administration, who are saying the exact same things that Democrat politicians promised the American people they would do for decades,’ Leavitt said. ‘President Trump is just the first president in our lifetimes to actually do it.’

‘And now you see the Democrat Party and the mainstream media spiraling out of control about a very simple promise: rooting out waste, fraud and abuse from our federal bureaucracy,’ she continued. ‘This is a promise President Trump campaigned on. He is now delivering on it.’

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other fertility treatments through the reduction of out-of-pocket costs.

IVF has become unaffordable for many Americans, and Trump’s executive order directs the Domestic Policy Council to find ways to make IVF and other fertility treatments more affordable.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted about the order shortly after it was signed.

‘PROMISES MADE. PROMISES KEPT: President Trump just signed an Executive Order to Expand Access to IVF!’ she wrote on X. ‘The Order directs policy recommendations to protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health plan costs for such treatments.’

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., expressed gratitude on X after learning the president had expanded access to IVF.

‘Thank you, @POTUS! Yet another promise kept,’ Britt wrote. ‘IVF is profoundly pro-family, and I’m proud to work with President Trump on ensuring more loving parents can start and grow their families.’

Trump pledged on the campaign trail that if he won a second term, he would mandate free in vitro fertilization treatment for women.

‘I’m announcing today in a major statement that under the Trump administration, your government will pay for — or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for — all costs associated with IVF treatment,’ Trump told the crowd at Alro Steel in Potterville, Michigan,  back in August. ‘Because we want more babies, to put it nicely.’

IVF treatments are notoriously expensive and can cost tens of thousands of dollars for a single round. Many women require multiple rounds, and there is no guarantee of success.

Trump’s announcement, which was short on details, came after he faced intense scrutiny from Democrats for his role in appointing Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, sending the issue of abortion back to the states. 

Trump has tried to present himself as moderate on the issue, going as far as declaring himself ‘very strong on women’s reproductive rights.’

Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

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