President Donald Trump on Thursday appointed Alice Marie Johnson, a woman he pardoned during his first term, as ‘pardon czar.’

The announcement came during a Black History Month event at the White House.

The ‘pardon czar’ will be responsible for making recommendations about who should be granted clemency.

The New York Times first reported Trump was thinking about naming Johnson ‘pardon czar.’

Johnson was convicted of nonviolent drug trafficking in Memphis, Tennessee, and after serving 21 years, her life sentence was commuted by Trump.

Reality television star Kim Kardashian West met with Trump at the White House a week prior to her release to discuss the great-grandmother’s case.

She was arrested in 1993 and convicted of drug conspiracy and money laundering in 1996.

A series of unfortunate events, including the death of her son, financial troubles and a divorce, led her to involvement with cocaine dealers.

‘Back in the 1990s, I was a single mother about to lose my house,’ Johnson wrote in a Fox News Digital opinion article. ‘In a desperate moment, I made a life-altering bad decision to become a low-level player in a drug operation. When law enforcement authorities broke up the drug operation, I was prosecuted and sentenced to life in prison.’

While Johnson claims she never ‘touched, saw or sold a single drug,’ she admitted to assisting in communications. 

While in prison, she worked in the prison hospice, volunteered in the prison church, became an ordained minister, and started writing and directing plays.

After being pardoned, she remained under federal supervision for five years.

She became a champion for overburdened case officers and has fought against unnecessary supervision post-incarceration.

Her work on criminal justice reform led her to launch ‘Taking Action For Good,’ which advocated for clemency and pardons for over 100 people.

She also published a book and partnered with the philanthropic organization, Stand Together.

Fox News Digital’s Kaitlyn Schallhorn, Emma Colton and Alice Marie Johnson contributed to this report.

The Trump administration is increasing pressure on Ukraine to broker a peace deal ending the conflict with Russia as President Donald Trump grows increasingly irritated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to the White House. 

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on Thursday admitted that Trump’s patience with Zelenskyy is running thin, and said that discussions Wednesday between U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg and Ukrainian officials focused on assisting Kyiv ‘understand’ the war must come to a halt. 

‘President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with President Zelenskyy, the fact that he hasn’t come to the table, that he hasn’t been willing to take this opportunity that we have offered,’ Waltz told reporters Thursday in a White House press briefing. ‘I think he eventually will get to that point, and I hope so very quickly.’ 

‘It certainly isn’t in Russia’s interest or in the American people’s interest for this war to grind on forever and ever and ever,’ Waltz said. ‘So a key part of his conversation was helping President Zelenskyy understand this war needs to come to an end.’ 

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday also defended the Trump administration’s decision to meet with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia, despite frustration from Ukraine that it was absent from those meetings. Vance stressed that communicating with Russia is key to advancing a deal, and said he believes Europe is on the ‘cusp of peace’ for the first time in three years. 

‘How are you going to end the war unless you’re talking to Russia?’ Vance said at the Conservative Political Action Conference near the nation’s capital. ‘You’ve got to talk to everybody involved in the fighting. If you actually want to bring the conflict to a close.’ 

Meanwhile, U.S. officials also have met with Ukrainian officials about a peace deal, and Kellogg said Wednesday in a post on X that the U.S. remains committed to ending the war and finding ways to establish ‘sustainable peace.’ 

The increased pressure on Ukraine to agree to a deal comes on the heels of several tense days between Trump and Zelenskyy, as each hurled insults back and forth toward one another after the meetings between U.S. and Russian officials. 

While Zelenskyy accused Trump of perpetuating Russian ‘disinformation’ on Wednesday, Trump took a jab back and labeled Zelenskyy a ‘dictator’ who has failed his country and suggested Ukraine initiated the war. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Waltz met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs advisor, Yuri Ushakov, to hash out ways to end the conflict. 

Zelenskyy said Ukraine didn’t receive an invitation to the meeting and told reporters Tuesday in Turkey that ‘nobody decides anything behind our back,’ after stressing in recent days that Kyiv will not agree to a peace negotiation without Ukraine’s input.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has signaled interest in giving way to some of Russia’s demands for a peace agreement in recent days, and Trump told the BBC on Wednesday that he believes Russia is the one that has ‘the cards a little bit, because they’ve taken a lot of territory.’ 

As of January, Russia has taken control of approximately 18% of Ukraine’s territory, according to the Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Brookings Institution. Trump’s Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Feb. 12 that it wasn’t realistic for Ukraine to regain its pre-war borders with Russia, prompting criticism that Ukraine is being forced to give into concessions. 

‘Putin is going to pocket this and ask for more,’ Brett Bruen, director of global engagement under former President Barack Obama, told Fox News Digital on Feb. 13. 

Additionally, the U.S. has suggested it backs holding an election in Ukraine — a key condition for Russia to agree to a peace deal. 

Nearly a year after Zelenskyy’s five-year term was slated to end, he has remained in his position leading Kyiv because the Ukrainian constitution bars holding elections under martial law. Ukraine has been under martial law since February 2022.

However, Russia wasn’t the only one exerting pressure to force Ukraine to hold an election, Trump said Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.  

As a result, Zelenskyy’s hands may be tied and he may have no other option but to give in to the concessions, according to Trump’s former deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland. 

‘If President Zelenskyy is going to walk away from this and somehow say, ‘I’m against any deal with Russia, I’m against any deal with America.’ Really?’ McFarland said Thursday in an interview with FOX Business Network’s ‘Mornings with Maria.’ 

‘Well, how does he plan to keep this country safe for the next 20, 30, 40 years?’ McFarland said. 

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and Trump vowed on the campaign trail in 2024 that he would work to end the conflict if elected again.

Fox News’ Morgan Phillips contributed to this report. 

Donning his ‘Dark Gothic MAGA’ hat, a black coat and sunglasses, and wielding a chainsaw, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief Elon Musk made a surprise appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Thursday evening.

Musk spoke on a wide range of topics, including the latest DOGE updates, the Democratic and media hatred towards him and the importance of reducing waste and abuse in the federal government.

He also mentioned that he is in talks with President Donald Trump about issuing tax refunds to U.S. citizens from the money saved by DOGE.

At the start of his speech, the DOGE chief was joined by Argentinian President Javier Milei, who is also known for dramatically slashing the size of government in his country. The two men wielded a chainsaw hearkening back to a viral video of Milei and symbolizing their shared goals of cutting down government waste.

‘I wasn’t really that interested in being political. It’s just like there was at a certain point no choice,’ Musk explained. ‘The actions that we’re taking, with the support of the president and the support of the agencies, is what will save Medicare, what will save Social Security.’ 

‘That’s the reason I’m doing this,’ he said. ‘Because I was looking at the big picture here and it’s like, man, it’s getting out of control.’ 

‘A country is no different from a person,’ he went on. ‘[A] Country overspends, a country goes bankrupt in the same way as a person who overspends usually goes bankrupt. So, it’s not like optional to solve these things, it’s essential.’

Musk confirmed he is in talks with the president about the possibility of issuing ‘DOGE dividends’ to U.S. taxpayers from the savings from cutting government waste.

‘I talked to the president, and he’s supportive of that and so it sounds like, you know, that’s something we’re going to do,’ he said. ‘So, as we’re finding savings, that’s going to translate directly to reductions in tax.’

He also criticized the Biden administration and entrenched government bureaucrats for what he called a ‘very obvious’ scheme to use taxpayer dollars for their own ideological agenda, which he said included importing voters through mass immigration.

‘You don’t actually have to assume some grand conspiracy, you just need to look at basic incentives,’ he said. ‘If the probability [is] that an illegal is going to vote Democrat at some point … then the incentive is to maximize the number of illegals in the country. That is why the Biden administration was pushing to get in as many illegals as possible and spent every dollar possible to get as many [as they could] because every one of them is a customer.’

Since Trump returned to the White House, Musk has been the center of much of Democratic and media vitriol because of his role with DOGE and work gutting wasteful government programs, many of which have been rooted in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and other favorite liberal causes.

DOGE claims that it has already cut $44 billion in previously wasted taxpayer dollars. 

‘People ask me, what’s the most surprising thing that you’ve encountered when you got to DC?’ he said. ‘Well, the most surprising thing is the scale of the expenditures and actually, how easy it is to – when you add caring and competence where it was absent before – you can actually save billions of dollars sometimes in the span of an hour. Like it’s wild.’

‘It just shows that they really lack empathy for the average taxpayer who’s working hard, paying taxes and then and then they say: ‘Oh: ‘$1 million doesn’t matter.’ I’m like: ‘I think it matters a lot to people.’’

He made light of the widespread criticism against him from the media and the left.

‘They’re always saying like ‘threat to our democracy.’ But if you just replace democracy with bureaucracy, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It makes perfect sense, big threat to the bureaucracy,’ he said laughing. 

Musk also explained some of his personal motivations for caring about fixing government overspending. 

‘I grew up in South Africa, but my morality was informed by America. I read comic books, you know, played Dungeons and Dragons and I watched American T.V. shows, and it seemed like America cared about being the good guys, you know? About doing the right thing,’ he said. ‘So, I was like, yeah, you want to be on the side of good, you want to care about what’s right.’ 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., signaled he was not a fan of a proposal to send Americans stimulus checks with the money saved by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and that he believed the funding was better directed toward the national debt.

‘Well, look, I mean, politically, that would be great for us, you know, because that gives everybody a check,’ Johnson said during a Q&A session at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday.

‘But if you think about our core principles, right, fiscal responsibility is what we do as conservatives. That’s our brand. And we have a $36 trillion federal debt.’

Johnson added there was a ‘giant deficit’ — which is over $838 billion for fiscal year 2025 so far, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center — the U.S. was grappling with as well.

‘I think we need to pay down the credit card. That’s what I think we need to do,’ Johnson said.

It comes after President Donald Trump said he was considering giving 20% of DOGE-led savings back to U.S. taxpayers during a speech on Wednesday at the FII Priority Summit in Miami.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who is leading DOGE, said Tuesday on X that he would ‘check with the president’ about the proposal after it was first floated by Azoria investment firm CEO James Fishback.

DOGE’s stated goal under Musk is to cut federal spending by $2 trillion.

During his sit-down remarks with Newsmax on Thursday, Johnson also warned that Americans could see the ‘largest tax increase in U.S. history’ if Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was not extended before measures expired at the end of this year.

Congressional Republicans are currently trying to use their majorities to extend Trump’s tax cuts and pass his priorities on defense and the border via a massive bill using the budget reconciliation process.

Under reconciliation, both the Senate and House operate under simple majorities, allowing the party in power to pass a massive budget bill without help from the opposition. Normally, the Senate’s threshold for passage is two-thirds.

‘We’re going to take a blowtorch to the regulatory state, get the bureaucracy back in check — lots of details, lots of subcategories under all that. But it’s going to be a big, beautiful bill. And it has to be by necessity, because that gives us the highest probability of success. Remember that I have a small margin in the House,’ Johnson said. ‘I have one vote for much of this.’

Extending Trump’s tax cuts alone is expected to cost upwards of $4.5 trillion.

: The cafeteria in a top federal department resembles a ghost town after remaining empty and closed for years under the Biden administration, Fox News Digital has learned.

‘You have federal workers showing up to protest President Trump’s plan to make government work for the people on a federal holiday, but they refuse to show up to work when they are collecting a paycheck courtesy of American taxpayers. It’s just nuts,’ a source close to the situation told Fox News Digital.

The Department of Interior (DOI) cafeteria was initially closed during the coronavirus pandemic, but the lunchroom remained shut down for several years because the Biden administration did not require federal employees to work in person.

A photo taken on Feb. 20, 2025, reveals that five years after the pandemic, the lunchroom remains empty and unmanned, which ‘shows you exactly what’s wrong with the mindset of far too many federal workers,’ the source tells Fox.

‘President Trump is keeping his promise to the American people about having a government that works hard and responsibly for the people. Under the Biden administration, there were so few people in the Interior office that the cafeteria closed!’ Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement. 

‘The American people elected President Trump because they want results,’ the secretary said. ‘Getting the workforce back to the office will help accelerate America’s sprint to Energy Dominance.’

President Donald Trump, in January, took aim at Biden’s policies on remote work, warning that federal employees must return to in-person work by early February or ‘be terminated.’

 Burgum is requiring that all federal employees return to the office to comply with the return to work order issued by the president.

‘It’s understandable that the cafeteria would close during the pandemic, but the pandemic has been over for years,’ the source told Fox. ‘Why did the Biden administration let everyone continue to work from home when there is real work to be done for the country?’ 

Fox News Digital also recently found that the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) headquarters in Washington, D.C., was left relatively untouched since the first Trump administration, with an official saying it felt like a ‘taxpayer-funded ‘Spirit Halloween” store.

The Trump administration has been conducting a sweep of federal departments over the past month, slashing spending, as well as making cuts to the workforce in an effort to downsize the government.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management offered more than two million federal civilian employees buyouts in January to leave their jobs or be forced to return to work in person. 

About 75,000 federal employees have accepted Trump’s deferred resignation program and will retain all pay and benefits and be exempt from in-person work until Sept. 30.

Fox News’ Emma Colton and Diana Stancy contributed to this report.

Elon Musk is set to deliver his debut speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday afternoon. 

CPAC organizers made a surprise announcement that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) chief and close President Donald Trump confidant would give a surprise address to attendees on Thursday afternoon. 

Other CPAC speakers this year include President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, immigration czar Tom Homan and many of the nation’s leading conservative politicians and influencers. At the conference’s opening ceremony, Vance addressed a packed house and touted many of the Trump administration’s accomplishments in its first full month. 

Since Trump returned to the White House, Musk has been the center of much of Democratic and media vitriol because of his role with DOGE and work gutting wasteful government programs, many of which have been rooted in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and other favorite liberal causes.

DOGE claims that it has already cut $44 billion in previously wasted taxpayer dollars. 

Amidst a war of words between President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Sen. Josh Hawley is pitching legislation that would install a special inspector general for Ukraine aid.

Hawley, R-Mo., is reintroducing legislation he sponsored along with Vice President J.D. Vance, when Vance was in the Senate, for an independent watchdog to audit the more than $174 billion that Congress has appropriated for Ukraine aid.

The Special Inspector General for Ukraine Assistance Act was voted down by the then-Democratic-controlled Senate when Hawley first introduced it in 2023. But with Republican control of both chambers of Congress and President Donald Trump’s increasing frustration over Ukraine aid, Hawley believes it now has a chance of becoming law. 

‘American taxpayers shouldn’t have to wonder where their billions in aid to Ukraine went and what they’re funding there now. They deserve an accounting of every penny Congress shipped over there,’ Hawley said in a statement. 

The watchdog would be similar to those created for Afghanistan reconstruction, known as SIGAR, and one created to investigate CARES Act fraud during the COVID-19 pandemic, known as SIGPR, and another created after the 2008 financial crisis to audit the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP). 

Under Hawley’s bill, an inspector general’s office for Ukraine would conduct oversight of aid programs run by the Department of Defense, State Department, and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). 

The legislation would siphon dollars from the Ukraine Economic Assistance Fund for the office, and the inspector general would be required to submit quarterly reports to Congress on the office’s findings. 

And as Congress hashes out a budget blueprint, Hawley has issued a warning to Senate leaders not to try to ‘slip in’ Ukraine aid. ‘We shouldn’t be giving a dime more to Ukraine. We should be auditing the billions we’ve already given them,’ he said. 

Hawley’s action comes as tensions between Trump and Zelenskyy reached a fever pitch this week after Trump called the Ukrainian leader a ‘dictator’ who ‘never should have started’ the war. 

Zelenskyy in turn said Trump is operating in a ‘​​disinformation space.’ 

This week, Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz sat down with their Russian counterparts and agreed to increase their diplomatic presences in each other’s nations. 

Hawley, while veering away from calling Zelenskyy a ‘dictator,’ backed up Trump’s assertion that Ukraine needed to hold elections, even in a time of war. 

‘We held elections during World War II,’ Hawley said. ‘If they’re a democracy, they should hold elections. I don’t think that’s difficult.’ 

‘[Zelenskyy] is the elected leader of the country,’ said Hawley. ‘But, you know, at a certain point you’ve got to hold elections.’

Trump has been pushing Zelenskyy to pay up for past U.S. support. Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent traveled to Ukraine to hand the Ukrainian president a draft deal entitling the U.S. to hundreds of billions worth of its minerals. 

National security adviser Mike Waltz said on Thursday that Ukraine needs to ‘tone it down’ and sign the mineral deal. 

‘We presented the Ukrainians really an incredible and historic opportunity to have the United States of America co-invest with Ukraine, invest in its economy, invest in its natural resources and really become a partner in Ukraine’s future in a way that’s sustainable, but also would be – I think – the best security guarantee they could ever hope for, much more than another pallet of ammunition,’ he said.