A federal judge on Tuesday said he was ‘inclined to deny’ a bid to force the Trump administration to halt construction of the White House ballroom but warned officials not to undertake any irreversible work before a January hearing that could still stop the project.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said he will hold another hearing during the second week in January and hinted he may still order a pause.

‘Any below ground construction’ in the coming weeks that dictates above-ground work should be avoided, Leon said, adding, ‘be prepared to take that down.’

Lawyers for the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the U.S. argued the case is not about the need for a ballroom but about the need to follow the law.

They said any construction on federal land requires congressional approval.

Lawyers representing the National Park Service countered that President Trump has authority to direct construction at the White House, saying ‘work must continue for national security issues.’

‘See you in January,’ Leon said as he warned the government not to pursue anything irreversible.

Attorney General Pam Bondi weighed in Tuesday evening.

‘Today @TheJusticeDept attorneys defeated an attempt to stop President Trump’s totally lawful East Wing Modernization and State Ballroom Project,’ she wrote on X. ‘President Trump has faced countless bad-faith left-wing legal attacks – this was no different. We will continue defending the President’s project in court in the coming weeks.’

On Monday, the Trump administration argued in a court filing that pausing construction would undermine national security, citing a Secret Service declaration warning that halting work would leave the site unable to meet ‘safety and security requirements’ necessary to protect President Donald Trump.

The declaration said the East Wing, demolished in October and now undergoing below-grade work, could not be left unfinished without compromising essential security measures.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued last week to stop the project, arguing the government had to follow federal review procedures before any irreversible work began.

The group said the proposed 90,000-square-foot addition, now estimated at more than $300 million, would overwhelm the Executive Residence and permanently alter the White House’s historic design.

The administration countered that the lawsuit was premature, noting regulatory reviews were still coming and above-grade construction was not scheduled to begin until April 2026.

The National Trust said early intervention was necessary, citing warnings from architectural historians who said the ballroom would mark the most significant exterior change to the White House in more than 80 years.

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan contributed to this report.

Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that the U.S. mission in Venezuela must end with Nicolás Maduro removed from power, arguing that leaving the embattled leader in place after a major U.S. show of force would be a ‘fatal mistake to our standing in the world.’

‘If after all this, we still leave this guy in power… that’s the worst possible signal you can send to Russia, China, Iran,’ Graham, R-S.C., told reporters after a classified all-senator briefing with War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Trump administration officials did not say whether a series of narco-strikes in the Caribbean could escalate into direct strikes against Venezuelan territory or a broader campaign to oust Maduro. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital the briefing was ‘absent of specificity and detail’ and left ‘more questions than answers.’

‘I want to reassert, again, you cannot allow this man to be standing after this display of force, and I did not get a very good answer as to what happens,’ Graham said. ‘What I want is some clarity going forward. Is that in fact the goal?… If it’s not the goal, it is a huge mistake.’

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said he heard from briefers that there is a ‘very good process of determining if something’s a target or not’ before striking narco-trafficking boats, but the administration did not clarify its broader strategy toward the Maduro regime. 

‘Right now the focus has been on the boats,’ Bacon said. ‘I don’t know what we’re doing yet with Venezuela writ large.’

Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., said the classified session also failed to address core questions. 

‘I actually think that was, for me, more of an exercise in futility. I really have no answers. Really didn’t gain anything more than what the public already has gotten,’ he said. He added that there was ‘really no conversation about why… we got 15,000 troops there,’ arguing the deployment ‘doesn’t seem to be just about narcotics trafficking.’ 

Meeks said briefers provided ‘no real rational decision or real answers’ about whether the U.S. is preparing for ‘a war in Venezuela,’ raising what he described as a pressing war powers issue. He said he plans to bring forward legislation this week addressing the recent strikes ‘in the Pacific, in the Caribbean’ as well as any potential move by Trump ‘to go into Venezuela.’

Rubio told reporters the mission is ‘focused on dismantling the infrastructure of these terrorist organizations that are operating in our hemisphere, undermining the security of Americans, killing Americans, poisoning Americans.’

Hegseth told reporters the War Department would not release video footage of the Sept. 2 narco-strikes — in which Adm. Frank Bradley ordered a ‘double tap’ strike to kill survivors — to the public. The video will instead be shown to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

Graham dismissed the footage as ‘the least of my concerns’ but said he urged Hegseth to release it so Americans could ‘make your own decisions.’

Hegseth and Rubio’s briefing came as the U.S. undertakes its largest military buildup in the region in decades: 15% of all naval assets are now positioned in the Southern Command theater. Graham cited the deployment as evidence that anything short of Maduro’s removal would undermine U.S. credibility. 

‘It got, yeah, 15% of the Navy pointed to this guy,’ he said.

Graham also pointed to historical precedent, arguing the U.S. has acted similarly when confronting hostile or destabilizing regimes. 

‘We have legal authority, in my view, to do in Venezuela what we did regarding Panama and Haiti,’ he said, recalling that in 1989 the U.S. ‘literally invaded Panama… took the president in power and put him in jail.’

He said he believes Trump intends a comparable outcome. 

‘Every indication by President Trump is that the purpose of this operation is to shut down the (Maduro) regime and replace it with something less threatening to the United States,’ Graham said.

Pressed on whether he meant regime change or lethal force, Graham replied: ‘I don’t care as long as he leaves.’

The public is now waiting to see whether the Trump administration will turn to direct strikes on Venezuelan territory as a means of pressuring Maduro to leave power — a step Graham argued is necessary for the operation to succeed.

President Donald Trump isn’t offended by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’ comments in Vanity Fair describing him as someone with ‘an alcoholic’s personality.’

On Tuesday, Vanity Fair published the first part of a two-part story about Wiles and the second Trump administration — which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed featured comments that were ‘wildly’ taken out of context. 

In response, Trump and his allies have come to dish out praise for Wiles, following the publication of a story where Wiles issued some unsavory remarks about Trump and others in his orbit. Hours after the Vanity Fair story was published, Trump told the New York Post that he wasn’t insulted by Wiles’ description of his personality. 

‘No, she meant that I’m — you see, I don’t drink alcohol. So everybody knows that — but I’ve often said that if I did, I’d have a very good chance of being an alcoholic. I have said that many times about myself, I do. It’s a very possessive personality,’ Trump told the Post. 

‘I’ve said that many times about myself. I’m fortunate I’m not a drinker. If I did, I could very well, because I’ve said that — what’s the word? Not possessive — possessive and addictive type personality,’ Trump said. ‘Oh, I’ve said it many times, many times before.’

The White House referred Fox News Digital to the Post’s reporting when asked for comment. 

Included in the Vanity Fair story were several quotes from Wiles describing others within Trump’s orbit in an unflattering manner. In addition to the remarks about Trump, Wiles was quoted claiming that Vice President JD Vance has been a ‘conspiracy theorist for a decade,’ and that Attorney General Pam Bondi ‘completely whiffed’ how she handled the release of documents pertaining to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

Likewise, she described the Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought as ‘a right-wing absolute zealot,’ and claimed that SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who headed up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was an ‘odd duck’ and an ‘avowed ketamine (user).’ 

Even so, Wiles was also quoted praising Trump’s Cabinet, claiming that they are ‘a world-class Cabinet, better than anything I could have conceived of.’

In response to the story, Wiles claimed that the story was a ‘disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history.’

‘Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story,’ Wiles said in a post on X Tuesday. ‘I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team.’ 

Meanwhile, other members of the Trump administration also swiftly came to Wiles’ defense — including some of those who were mentioned in an unfavorable way. 

Vance dismissed Wiles’ comments during an event in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he claimed that he and Wiles have privately joked that the vice president is a conspiracy theorist. 

‘Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true,’ Vance said. 

Bondi also issued some praise for Wiles, and asserted that ‘any attempt to divide this administration will fail.’

‘Any attempt to undermine and downplay President Trump’s monumental achievements will fail,’ Bondi said in a post on X Tuesday. ‘We are family. We are united.’ 

Vought, who also served as director of the Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term, said that Wiles is an ‘exceptional’ chief of staff and that this is the most seamless era he’s experienced in his two terms working for Trump. 

‘In my portfolio, she is always an ally in helping me deliver for the president,’ Vought said about Wiles. ‘And this hit piece will not slow us down.’

Meanwhile, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth claimed the piece was a playbook from the left to ‘trash & smear our best & most effective people.’ 

‘They do it to President Trump daily — and now to Chief Susie Wiles. Susie is the most TRUSTED, most PROFESSIONAL & most EFFECTIVE Chief of Staff of my lifetime,’ Hegseth said in a post on X Tuesday. ‘Absolutely nobody better!’ 

United Nations Ambassador Mike Waltz, who previously served as the national security advisor at the White House, said he’d known Wiles for over a decade and that she ‘exemplifies integrity & dedication to our incredible President and country.’

‘The Queen of Florida politics – the architect of multiple successful governor’s and Presidential campaigns – she’s calm under fire, forthright, & results focused. Period,’ Waltz said in a post on X on Tuesday.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also weighed in, describing Wiles as ‘the single most effective operator whom I have ever met.’ 

‘Susie is an exceptional Chief of Staff, and her tireless dedication, loyalty, and commitment to the President are beyond reproach,’ Bessent said in a post on X on Tuesday. ‘Powerful leadership often works quietly – never seeking credit and always relentlessly driving results. Our Chief exemplifies that.’

‘No one is more insightful, effective, and loyal,’ Bessent said. ‘She never loses sight of the big picture while managing the daily agenda.’ 

Bessent also challenged Vanity Fair’s portrayal of the Trump administration in the piece, claiming that the faulty characterization is ‘precisely why the insular chattering classes in America lose their minds as we notch victory after victory for the American people.’

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Conde Nast, which owns Vanity Fair, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

President Donald Trump’s eldest son and namesake, Donald Trump Jr., is engaged to Bettina Anderson.

‘President Trump just announced at the White House that his son @DonaldJTrumpJr and his girlfriend Bettina Anderson are getting married! They just got engaged. Congratulations to them both,’ Laura Loomer wrote in a Monday night post on X. 

She shared a video of the couple delivering remarks. In a footage, Donald Trump Jr. thanked his bride-to-be ‘for that one word: yes.’ 

Anderson said she feels ‘like the luckiest girl in the world.’

Her Instagram profile says, ‘I’m just your typical stay at home mom… only I don’t do household chores… or have a husband… or have kids.’

Donald Trump Jr. was previously engaged to Kimberly Guilfoyle. Last year, the president announced Guilfoyle as his pick for U.S. Ambassador to Greece. 

Trump Jr. is a divorcee who had five children with his first wife, including his oldest child, Kai Trump, who spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

President Donald Trump will give an address to the nation live from the White House on Wednesday night, he announced on Tuesday.

Trump teased the address in a statement on social media, saying the speech will take place at 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday. He has not clarified a topic for the address.

‘My Fellow Americans: I will be giving an ADDRESS TO THE NATION tomorrow night, LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE, at 9 P.M. EST. I look forward to ‘seeing’ you then. It has been a great year for our Country, and THE BEST IS YET TO COME!’ Trump wrote.

Trump last formally addressed the nation in November after two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot in the nation’s capital.

The Trump administration has touted its economic agenda throughout the closing months of the year. Trump himself has highlighted his tariff agenda and pushed last month for Americans to receive payment checks funded by tariff revenues. He vowed that ‘hundreds of millions of dollars in tariff money’ would be distributed as dividends by mid-2026.

‘We’ve taken in hundreds of millions of dollars in tariff money. We’re going to be issuing dividends probably by the middle of next year, maybe a little bit later than that,’ Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

The president first floated the idea in early November, saying he would use tariff revenue to send $2,000 payments to low- and middle-income Americans, with any remaining funds directed toward paying down the nation’s soaring debt.

With the nation’s debt hovering just north of $38 trillion, revenue from tariffs amount to little more than a rounding error: billions collected against trillions owed.

The proposal comes at a pivotal moment, with tariff receipts climbing and the Supreme Court reviewing the legality of Trump’s trade measures.

Since Trump announced his ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs in April, tariff revenues have climbed sharply from $23.9 billion in May to $28 billion in June and $29 billion in July. 

Total duty revenue reached $215.2 billion in fiscal year 2025, which ended Sept. 30, according to the Treasury Department’s Customs and Certain Excise Taxes report.

Fox News’ Amanda Macias contributed to this report.

Vice President JD Vance brushed off a report from Vanity Fair that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles called him a ‘conspiracy theorist’ on Tuesday.

Vance made the comments while taking questions from the press in Pennsylvania, leaning in on his conspiratorial side and suggesting Wiles didn’t intend the comment to be critical.

‘Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true,’ Vance told reporters. ‘Susie and I have joked in private and in public about that for a long time. For example, I believed in the crazy conspiracy theory back in 2020 that it was stupid to mask three-year-olds at the height of the COVID pandemic, that we should actually let them develop some language skills. You know, I believed in this crazy conspiracy theory that the media and the government were covering up the fact that Joe Biden was clearly unable to do the job.’

‘So, at least on some of these conspiracy theories, it turns out that a conspiracy theory is just something that was true six months before the media admitted it,’ he added.

Vance went on to defend Wiles more generally, saying that she is an extremely effective chief of staff whose loyalty to President Donald Trump is guaranteed.

‘I’ve never seen Susie Wiles say something to the president and then go and counteract him. Or subvert his will behind the scenes. And that’s what you want in a staffer. Because as much as I love Susie, the American people didn’t elect any staffer. They elected the president of the United States,’ Vance said. ‘Susie Wiles, we have our disagreements. We agree on much more than we disagree. But I’ve never seen her be disloyal to the president of the United States, and that makes her the best White House chief of staff that I think the president could ask for.’

Wiles herself blasted the Vanity Fair article in her own statement on social media, arguing it was ‘disingenuously’ framed and lacked ‘significant context.’

The article quotes Wiles as saying Vance was a conspiracy theorist and that he had begun supporting Trump out of political expediency rather than true support. She was also quoted giving frank descriptions of other White House officials, including saying Trump has ‘an alcoholic’s personality.’

‘The article published early this morning is a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history,’ Wiles wrote on X Tuesday.

‘Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story. I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team,’ she continued.

‘The truth is the Trump White House has already accomplished more in eleven months than any other President has accomplished in eight years and that is due to the unmatched leadership and vision of President Trump, for whom I have been honored to work for the better part of a decade,’ she added.

Lawyers for the Trump administration and a historic preservation group are slated to appear in court Tuesday afternoon in a bid to halt — at least temporarily — President Donald Trump’s plan to continue building out a $300 million White House ballroom on the site of the now-demolished East Wing. 

‘No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever — not President Trump, not President Biden, and not anyone else,’ the National Trust said in its lawsuit, filed late last week with U.S. District Judge Richard Leon.

The group argued that Trump’s project has already caused ‘irreversible damage’ to the White House, and asked Leon to grant both a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to block the Trump administration from commencing or continuing further work on the ballroom project until the necessary federal commissions have reviewed and approved the plans.

The suit alleges violations of multiple statutes, including the Administrative Procedure Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, and says the ballroom cannot move forward without authorization from Congress, the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. Trump fired all six members of the CFA in October; the panel remains vacant.

Meanwhile, lawyers for the Justice Department argued in a separate filing on Monday that Trump does have the statutory authority to modify the structure as president.

‘The President possesses statutory authority to modify the structure of his residence, and that authority is supported by background principles of Executive power,’ the Justice Department told the court on Monday in a separate filing. 

They cited Trump’s personal involvement in the project, and noted that he has regularly taken part in meetings and discussions ‘regarding design and footprint and personally selecting the architect for the project,’ among other things. 

Lawyers for the Trump administration also argued that abruptly halting construction on the project would create ‘security concerns’ at the White House, an argument it is expected to seize on further during Tuesday afternoon’s hearing. 

They also included a declaration from Secret Service deputy director Matthew Quinn that said improvements to the site ‘are still needed before the Secret Service’s safety and security requirements can be met.’

‘Any pause in construction, even temporarily, would leave the contractor’s obligation unfulfilled in this regard and consequently hamper the Secret Service’s ability to meet its statutory obligations and protective mission.’

Trump in July first announced his plans to proceed with constructing the sprawling, 90,000-square-foot ballroom, which he estimated at the time would cost around $200 million. Trump has insisted it will be funded ‘100% by me and some friends of mine.’

One Senate Republican is making the case that lawmakers aren’t using all the tools at their disposal to tackle affordability in the United States.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., wants Republicans to take another crack at budget reconciliation, the grueling, monthslong process used earlier this year to pass President Donald Trump’s crowning legislative achievement of 2025, and one that tested the unity of congressional Republicans.

Kennedy wants to see the process used to eat into the cost of living in the country, which has proven a thorny issue for the GOP after Trump’s promises on the campaign trail to hack away at skyrocketing inflation that proved politically fatal, among other issues like immigration, for Democrats in last year’s election.

But it’s a Pandora’s box that lawmakers have been hesitant to reopen after narrowly advancing the colossal tax package over the summer.

‘I have been preaching as persuasively as I can for months now that we need to do another reconciliation, and in that bill, we need to address things like rules and regulations, which add about $2 trillion to the cost of goods and services,’ Kennedy said.

He acknowledged that the process could be tricky, given that it is governed by the Byrd Rule, which nixes any provisions that don’t have a budgetary impact, but noted that lawmakers have at least two more attempts to take advantage of the process while Republicans still control both chambers of Congress.

‘And I am at a loss to understand why our leadership will not agree to another reconciliation,’ he said. ‘If you went to Senator [Chuck] Schumer right now and said, ‘Schumer, Senator Schumer, you have the chance to pass anything you want to pass today within the parameters of Byrd, without having to depend on a single Republican vote,’ what do you think Chuck would do? He’d take a dozen, and I just don’t understand why we are not doing that.’

Affordability and the cost of living have become a central focus for many on the Hill, particularly after dueling partisan proposals to tackle the impending hike to healthcare premiums and expiring Obamacare subsidies went down in flames last week.

Lawmakers are still searching for a path forward on that front, with a bipartisan group led by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, meeting on Monday night to build a consensus between the parties.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., one of the architects of Senate Republicans’ healthcare proposal that failed last week, told reporters, ‘The calendar precludes getting something done this week,’ but was still optimistic about finding a way to deal with rising costs on the healthcare front.

‘But, still, a commitment to work together is a lot of progress,’ he said.

Still, Kennedy was ardent that lawmakers had spent little time since passing Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ taking advantage of their majority in Congress.

‘Yes, we passed the ‘one big, beautiful bill,’ that was July 1, five months ago, now, almost six months ago,’ he said. ‘We need to act. And I’m hoping that after the holidays, my friend, Senator [John] Thune, and he is a friend, and I think he’s doing a great job, but I think Senator, I hope Senator Thune will relent and agree to another reconciliation bill that addresses the cost-of-living issue.’