PHOENIX, Ariz. – While it is true that Erika Kirk is head of one of the nation’s leading conservative groups, at one point this weekend at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, she made it clear that she holds an even more important title: mother.
After two days of infighting at the conference between some of its top stars, Kirk smiled on stage Friday night and said, ‘Well, say what you want about AmFest, but it’s definitely not boring. Feels like a Thanksgiving dinner where your family’s hashing out the family business.’
This is the best and most positive way to look at the squabbling in Phoenix between Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and other right-wing celebrities. It has been mostly over Israel, and it was a sideshow few attendees expected or particularly wanted.
Brent, in his 50s and from Oklahoma City, came to AmFest with his two sons.
‘I was in there the night Ben and Tucker went at each other, at one point, I told my wife, I’m going out for some air, I just felt like I needed to escape to the real world, you know?’ he told me over a smoke.
I did know.
Along with sniping over Israel and antisemitism, the question of what a ‘heritage American’ is, or if it is a thing at all, also spurred division. Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told the crowd, ‘I think the idea of a heritage American is about as loony as anything the woke left has actually put up,’ adding ‘There is no American who is more American than somebody else.… It is binary. Either you’re an American or you’re not.’
This would have been Civics 101, even for conservatives, not long ago, but Ramaswamy is right to mention wokeness, because proponents of the concept that a genealogy that leads back to nation’s founding is something special is mainly driven by such people being told for decades now that it is actually the only lineage that is not special, or something to be proud of.
I asked Dennis, who is the fourth-generation owner of a farm in South Dakota, which sounds pretty heritage-y to me, what he made of it all.
‘I don’t think much about that,’ he said. ‘If you love the country and follow the laws, you can be an American.’
Dennis was much more interested in, and comfortable talking about soybeans and sugar beets. I asked how the tariffs were affecting him, and he told me, ‘It’s hurt, but I look at the big picture and I think it will be good in the long run.’
It was tempting after speaking, not just with Dennis, but with many attendees, old and young, who are most focused on prices, to think, ‘It’s the economy, stupid, knock it off with the identity politics stuff.’ But Erika Kirk made a good point: These might be fights the right needs to have before settling into next year’s midterm elections.
TPUSA spokesman Andrew Kolvet posted on X with this very message.
‘If we force conformity without uncomfortable debates, there can be no winning consensus,’ he wrote. ‘There’s no civil war. This is the necessary work of a conservative coalition defining its dominant center ahead of the coming battles. We’re not hive-minded commies. Let it play out.’
It should also be noted how much better hashing all of this out at an actual live event is than endless sniping on social media where nobody is ever really forced to contend with ideas they oppose. The mere act of shaking hands with someone you disagree with can be a powerful calming influence.
On Sunday, the big finale of AmFest will be Vice President JD Vance’s speech to the assembled. As of 4 a.m., there was already a line for it.
Sarah, a college freshman told me, ‘I wasn’t old enough to vote for Trump, but I will get to vote for Vance, and I’m excited about that.’ This is good news for Vance, but it’s also a lot of pressure. Can he be the force that mends the wounds opening this weekend at AmFest?
Erika Kirk is right, families sometimes fight. In fact, sometimes they have to. But the question is always what happens after the blowup, after the tears and recriminations?
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., told the crowd this weekend, ‘You may not like Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Steve Bannon or me. Guess what: If the radical left wins, we all hang together.’
This seems correct, and even after AmFest’s nasty internecine fighting, it is still a goal well within reach of TPUSA and the conservative movement. It is also almost certainly what Charlie Kirk would have wanted.
As this report goes to press, 14 of the 24 components of the Business Conditions Monthly lack published data beginning in September or October 2025. Where updates have occurred, releases are often incomplete and may reflect imputation or other estimation methods rather than finalized observations. Based on current agency release estimates, the earliest realistic timeframe for fully restoring the BCM is early 2026, once a complete and continuous post-shutdown data set becomes available.
Discussion, November — December 2025
Recent inflation data from both the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) deflator point to a broad deceleration in price pressures, even as measurement issues complicate interpretation. Averaged across October and November, headline CPI rose just 0.10 percent per month and core CPI only 0.08 percent, pulling year-over-year inflation down to 2.7 percent and core inflation to 2.6 percent by November. Price declines were widespread across tariff-exposed goods (apparel, electronics, toys, and recreational items) suggesting that earlier tariff pass-through is fading and that discounting tied to holiday promotions is now dominant. Food inflation slowed sharply, with grocery prices falling modestly and egg prices dropping by double digits over two months. Core services inflation also eased markedly, led by slower shelter costs and outright declines in discretionary categories such as hotels, airfares, and recreation, consistent with softer consumer demand around the government shutdown. On a three-month annualized basis, more than half of the CPI basket is now running below the Federal Reserve’s two-percent target, indicating that inflation momentum is waning even beyond a few volatile categories.
At the same time, the Fed’s preferred PCE measure shows a slower, but still incomplete, return to price stability. Core PCE inflation eased modestly in September to 2.8 percent year over year, with one- and three-month annualized rates drifting lower as service-sector inflation, particularly financial services and housing-related costs, moderated. Supercore inflation, which strips out housing, also slowed, reinforcing the signal that underlying service prices are cooling. Importantly, this disinflation is occurring alongside a loss of demand momentum: real personal spending stalled in September, goods spending fell outright, and the personal savings rate remained historically low, suggesting limited consumer capacity to absorb renewed price increases. While inflation remains above the Fed’s comfort zone and some CPI components, especially the perennially-confounding shelter component, are noisy due to data gaps and imputation following the shutdown, the combined CPI and PCE evidence points to a cooling inflation backdrop paired with softening real activity. That mix strengthens the case for policy easing ahead, with inflation trends increasingly aligned with a gradual path toward rate cuts rather than renewed tightening.
The finally-released labor market data for October and November point to a sharper-than-expected slowdown, largely validating the Federal Reserve’s December rate cut and strengthening the case for further easing ahead. Headline nonfarm payrolls fell by 105,000 in October and rose only 64,000 in November, with much of October’s decline driven by a one-time drop in federal employment as deferred-resignation workers rolled off payrolls following the government shutdown. Private-sector job growth remained positive but modest, averaging roughly 75,000 over the past three months, and was narrowly concentrated in health care, education, and construction tied to data-center and AI-related investment. Most other industries shed jobs in both months. The unemployment rate rose to 4.56 percent in November, driven mainly by workers re-entering the labor force and an increase in temporary layoffs, conditions that, if October household data had been collected, could plausibly have triggered the Sahm Rule recession indicator. Taken together, the data suggest a labor market that is no longer broadly expanding and is increasingly dependent on a small group of sectors for job creation.
At the same time, secondary indicators point to cooling momentum rather than outright collapse. Initial and continuing jobless claims remain relatively low, signaling limited layoffs, while aggregate labor income continued to grow modestly, supported more by longer average workweeks than by wage gains, which slowed sharply in November. However, sentiment measures weakened: consumer perceptions of job availability deteriorated during the shutdown period, and surveys of chief financial officers point to restrained hiring plans heading into 2026. Against this backdrop of softer employment growth, rising unemployment, and narrowing hiring breadth, Bloomberg Economics now expects roughly 100 basis points of Federal Reserve rate cuts in 2026. The overall picture is one of a labor market losing resilience and breadth, reinforcing the Fed’s pivot toward accommodation even as outright recession signals remain just below formal thresholds.
US manufacturing conditions remained in contraction in November, highlighting weakening demand and labor utilization even as output and input prices moved in opposing directions. The ISM Manufacturing PMI slipped to 48.2, while the employment sub-index fell sharply to 44.0, signaling continued job losses despite earlier indications of stabilization in regional surveys. New orders declined at a faster pace and order backlogs shrank, pointing to a thin pipeline of future demand, while export orders improved only modestly. Production briefly returned to expansion and inventory destocking slowed, suggesting firms adjusted operations even as demand softened — an imbalance unlikely to persist if orders remain weak. Input costs accelerated, driven by higher steel and aluminum prices and tariff-related pressures spreading through supply chains. Faster supplier deliveries weighed on the headline index, though this signal is distorted by trade-policy shifts rather than demand strength. Overall, the manufacturing data present a worrisome mix of softening demand and employment alongside cost pressures, conditions likely to keep policymakers focused on growth risks rather than near-term inflation noise.
In contrast, services activity expanded at a solid but unspectacular pace in November as projects restarted following the government reopening and firms pushed through year-end work. The ISM Services index rose to 52.6, beating expectations, with business activity improving and new orders remaining in expansion, albeit at a slower rate than in October. Respondents cited still-elevated capital project activity, providing near-term support, but labor conditions remained weak, with the employment index stuck in contraction as hiring stayed cautious. Pricing pressures eased from October’s peak, though the prices-paid index remained elevated, reflecting ongoing tariff-related uncertainty and inconsistent supplier pricing. Service-sector commentary remained uneasy, emphasizing difficulties in sourcing and planning amid trade-policy volatility. Taken together, services are holding up better than goods, supported by backlog clearing and capital spending, but fragile hiring and persistent tariff uncertainty point to steady rather than accelerating growth, reinforcing expectations for a more accommodative policy stance.
US consumer sentiment improved modestly in December but remains deeply depressed by historical standards, reflecting persistent affordability pressures and growing anxiety about the labor market. The University of Michigan’s sentiment index rose to 52.9, below expectations and nearly 30 percent lower than a year earlier, while the current-conditions gauge fell to a record low. Consumers reported the weakest buying conditions on record for big-ticket items, underscoring how high prices and borrowing costs continue to weigh on household decision-making even as inflation has cooled. Although expectations improved slightly and near-term inflation expectations eased to 4.2 percent, nearly two-thirds of respondents still expect unemployment to rise over the next year. That concern is grounded in reality: payroll growth has been sluggish, the unemployment rate has climbed to 4.6 percent, and economists expect labor-market improvement to be limited in 2026. While Federal Reserve rate cuts are intended to support employment and spending, divided policymakers and lingering cost-of-living stress leave consumers cautious, posing a downside risk to household demand that has so far remained resilient.
Sentiment among small business owners and entrepreneurs presents a more conflicted picture. Headline optimism has improved, but underlying financial stress is mounting. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Optimism Index rose to a three-month high in November, driven by a sharp increase in sales expectations and a pickup in hiring plans, with nearly one-fifth of owners expecting to add jobs. At the same time, inflation pressures are intensifying at the firm level: more than one-third of small businesses reported raising prices, the highest share since early 2023, and inflation ranks just behind labor quality as their top concern. Beyond surveys, balance-sheet strain is becoming more visible. Small-business bankruptcies under Subchapter V are up nine percent this year, loan delinquencies have climbed to multiyear highs, and owners report being squeezed by high interest rates, tariff-related input costs, and increasingly price-sensitive customers. This divergence — relative optimism in forward-looking surveys alongside rising defaults and bankruptcies — highlights the growing gap between entrepreneurial sentiment and operating reality, especially compared with large public companies that continue to post strong earnings results.
US retail spending stalled in October, with headline sales flat after a modestly revised September gain, largely reflecting a sharp pullback in auto purchases following the Sept. 30 expiration of federal electric-vehicle tax credits. Motor vehicle and auto parts sales fell about 1.6 percent, subtracting roughly 30 basis points from overall retail activity, while gasoline sales also weighed modestly on the headline. Excluding autos and gasoline, however, underlying demand was firmer: core retail sales rose about 0.45 percent, and the retail control group — which feeds directly into GDP — jumped a robust 0.8 percent. Consumers continued to prioritize value, driving strong gains in online sales, clothing, furniture, electronics, and other discretionary goods, aided by promotions and early holiday discounting. At the same time, spending at restaurants and bars, which remains a key proxy for discretionary services consumption fell 0.4 percent: consistent with growing sensitivity to high prices and softer labor-market conditions. Overall, the delayed October data suggest the government shutdown had little direct impact on spending, but they also reveal a more selective consumer: households are still spending, particularly on discounted goods and e-commerce, yet pulling back in interest-sensitive categories and discretionary services. Job growth is slowing, unemployment is rising, and affordability pressures persist heading into the critical holiday season.
US industrial production edged up just 0.1 percent in September, but the underlying details point to a softer manufacturing backdrop than the headline suggests. Overall manufacturing output was flat, with gains in business equipment and materials merely offsetting a broad decline in consumer goods production. Consumer goods output fell 0.6 percent, led by a sharp 1.7 percent drop in durable goods as vehicle production was weighed down by supply-chain disruptions tied to shifting trade relationships. Business equipment production rose, supported in part by a rebound in aerospace output following intermittent labor disruptions, but this strength was not enough to lift the factory sector as a whole. Instead, nearly all of the month’s increase in total industrial production came from a 1.1 percent surge in utilities output, masking weakness elsewhere. Taken together, the report suggests that demand-sensitive manufacturing activity remains under pressure, particularly in autos and consumer durables, even as headline production was temporarily boosted by volatile utilities data. The combined October through November 2025 industrial production and capacity utilization reports will be released on December 23.
The latest Beige Book portrays a US economy that is broadly flat to slightly softer, with activity little changed across most regions and pockets of modest weakness outweighing limited areas of growth. Consumer spending continued to slow, particularly at the lower end of the income spectrum, while higher-income households remained more resilient; auto sales weakened further following the expiration of electric-vehicle tax credits, and discretionary spending showed signs of caution amid lingering uncertainty from the government shutdown. Manufacturing activity improved modestly in several regions, helped in some cases by investment linked to data centers and AI, but tariff uncertainty remained a persistent headwind. Nonfinancial services revenues were generally flat to down, residential construction softened in parts of the country, and commercial real estate showed only tentative improvement. Agriculture and energy conditions were largely stable but constrained by low commodity prices, while community organizations reported rising demand for food assistance tied to disruptions in public benefits. Overall outlooks were little changed, though contacts increasingly cited downside risks to growth in coming months.
Labor markets showed mild cooling rather than abrupt deterioration, with employment edging lower as firms relied more on hiring freezes, attrition, and adjustments to hours worked rather than widespread layoffs. Employers reported improved labor availability, though shortages persisted in select skilled occupations and in areas reliant on immigrant labor, while some firms noted that artificial intelligence reduced demand for entry-level hiring. Wage growth remained modest overall, with pockets of firmer pressure in sectors such as manufacturing, construction, and health care, compounded by rising health insurance costs. Price pressures stayed moderate but uneven: input costs rose broadly, driven in part by tariffs and higher expenses for insurance, utilities, technology, and health care, while weak demand and delayed tariff implementation held down prices for some materials. Firms’ ability to pass through higher costs varied widely, leading to margin compression in some industries, and forward-looking price plans remained mixed. Taken together, the report depicts an economy losing momentum at the margins, with softer demand, easing labor tightness, and persistent but contained inflation pressures shaping a cautious business outlook.
Recent US data depict an economy that is cooling unevenly beneath the surface, even as policy stimulus and financial conditions remain unusually supportive. Inflation momentum has clearly faded: CPI and PCE measures show broad-based disinflation across goods and services, with tariff-exposed categories now experiencing outright price declines and core services inflation easing as discretionary demand softens. More than half of the CPI basket is running below a two-percent annualized pace, and real consumer spending has stalled, signaling limited capacity for households to absorb renewed price pressures. At the same time, labor-market conditions have deteriorated more than expected, with payroll growth slowing sharply, unemployment rising toward levels that would normally raise recession alarms, and job creation increasingly concentrated in a narrow set of sectors such as health care and AI-linked construction. Manufacturing remains in contraction, new orders are weakening, and consumer-facing activity (ranging from retail to restaurants) recording growing selectivity and price sensitivity. Against this backdrop, the Federal Reserve has pivoted decisively toward accommodation, not only through rate cuts but via renewed balance-sheet expansion that amounts to a form of “quantitative easing lite,” reinforcing easier financial conditions even as real momentum fades.
What complicates the outlook is an extraordinary degree of policy uncertainty layered atop late-cycle asset valuations. Fiscal stimulus remains substantial, combining new tax cuts under the so-called Big Beautiful Bill with the ongoing flow of spending authorized under Biden-era packages, helping sustain corporate revenues and household cash flow despite weakening fundamentals. Equity markets sit at lofty levels supported by still-solid earnings, yet forward expectations, particularly where prospects for artificial intelligence innovation are considered, remain uncertain. Meanwhile, unresolved legal and geopolitical risks loom large: uncertainty surrounding a potential Supreme Court ruling on IEEPA authority clouds the durability of current tariff regimes, while proposals associated with the Mar-a-Lago Accord, including restructuring US Treasuries and deliberately weakening the dollar, continue to inject uncertainty at levels not seen in decades into global capital markets.
Taken together, the past year can be characterized as one of slowing inflation but eroding economic breadth held aloft by policy support. The year ahead points to cautious, conditional optimism largely dependent on whether easing financial conditions can offset policy uncertainty without reigniting inflation or destabilizing confidence.
We also break down next week’s catalysts to watch to help you prepare for the week ahead.
In this article:
This week’s tech sector performance
US stocks advanced this week amid key economic data releases, with tech leading gains after Micron Technology’s (NASDAQ:MU) results release and easing artificial intelligence (AI) sector pressures.
The S&P 500 (INDEXSP:.INX) rose 0.02 percent on the week, closing Friday (December 19) at 6,834.5.
However, tech stock losses earlier in the week kept gains in check. The Nasdaq Composite (INDEXNASDAQ:.IXIC) lost 0.1 percent for the week to close at 23,307.62 on Friday.
3 tech stocks moving markets this week
1. Micron Technology (NASDAQ:MU)
Micron Technology reported earnings for its first fiscal quarter of 2026 on Thursday (December 18), showing strong results driven by surging high-bandwidth memory sales for AI data centers
Revenue reached US$13.64 billion, up 93 percent from last year and higher than the company’s September revenue projection of US$12.8 billion. Adjusted earnings per share were US$4.78, beating estimates of US$3.95. The company generated strong free cashflow and declared a US$0.115 per share dividend payable on January 14, 2026.
Looking ahead, Micron adjusted its profit guidance for the upcoming quarter to US$8.42 per share, higher than Wall Street’s US$4.78 consensus, due to continued AI boom momentum.
Investors responded to the results by sending Micron shares up 10 percent post-earnings. Momentum carried into Friday’s trading session, spilling over into other tech stocks, which have come under pressure in recent weeks over lofty valuations and funding concerns. The company ended the week 0.58 percent higher.
2. Trump Media & Technology Group (NASDAQ:DJT)
Trump Media & Technology Group rose nearly 30 percent before Thursday’s opening bell after the company announced plans to merge with fusion power company TAE Technologies.
The all-stock deal is reportedly valued at more than US$6 billion. Devin Nunes, chair and chief executive of Trump Media, and Dr. Michl Binderbauer, CEO and director at TAE, are set to serve as co-CEOs.
TAE is a private company with backing from Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and other companies. The merger is slated to create one of the first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies. “We’re taking a big step forward toward a revolutionary technology that will cement America’s global energy dominance for generations,“ Nunes said.
Shares of Trump Media closed the week with a gain of 39.53 percent.
3. Oracle (NYSE:ORCL)
Oracle shares dropped 5.4 percent on Wednesday (December 17) after a Financial Times report claimed data center investor Blue Owl Capital pulled out of a US$10 billion financing round for one of the AI data centers Oracle is constructing for OpenAI in Michigan. Talks reportedly stalled due to concerns over project delays, tougher debt terms, Oracle’s rising debt load and lease arrangements, per sources cited by the news outlet.
Oracle disputed the report’s implications, stating that Michigan negotiations are “on schedule” without Blue Owl.
The company said its project development partner, Related Digital, has chosen “the best equity partner from a competitive group of options, which in this instance was not Blue Owl.” Still, the company finished the week with its share price ahead by 2.18 percent as tech stocks staged an end-of-year comeback.
Oracle, Micron Technology and Trump Media performance, December 15 to 19, 2025.
Chart via Google Finance.
Top tech news of the week
Tech ETF performance
Tech exchange-traded funds (ETFs) track baskets of major tech stocks, meaning their performance helps investors gauge the overall performance of the niches they cover.
This week, the iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXX) declined by 0.94 percent, while the Invesco PHLX Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SOXQ) saw a loss of 0.66 percent.
The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ:SMH) also decreased by 0.61 percent.
Tech news to watch next week
Markets will be closed mid-week next week, with low trading volumes likely keeping movement calm.
Watch for year-end selling in tech stocks, a potential rotation into safer sectors and light data like factory orders and home sales reports. Any comments on future interest rates could move markets somehwat, but expect mostly flat trading unless big news like policy changes breaks through.
Securities Disclosure: I, Meagen Seatter, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
The silver price was on the rise once again this week — it surged past the US$67 per ounce level on Friday (December 19), hitting a new record before pulling back.
As for gold, it spent much of the period around the US$4,330 per ounce level, although it rose as high as US$4,360 on Thursday (December 18), approaching its own all-time high.
Investors were eyeing November US consumer price index (CPI) data, which came out on Thursday. It was up 2.7 percent year-on-year, while core CPI was measured at 2.6 percent.
Those figures were quite a bit lower than analysts’ estimates, and data collection issues caused by the US government shutdown have left market participants questioning the results.
Notably, Bureau of Labor Statistics officials had to make ‘certain methodological assumptions’ because the October CPI report was canceled entirely. The bureau also started November data collection later than usual, driving concerns about a rebound in numbers for December.
US jobs data for both October and November came out this week as well, showing that the unemployment rate for last month rose to 4.6 percent, the highest since 2021.
While 64,000 jobs were added in November, 105,000 were lost in October, and revisions took 33,000 jobs away from the months of August and September.
Outside US economic data, it’s worth noting that for silver there’s still a lot of focus on behind-the-scenes actions that could be impacting the price.
Here’s what Substack newsletter writer John Rubino had to say about that:
‘A lot of the discontinuities that we’re seeing in the silver market right now are due to the fact that the big exchanges like Comex may not have enough silver to satisfy the demands of futures contract holders.
‘In other words, there are a lot more people out there with long futures contracts that could come in and demand silver than there is silver to satisfy that demand. And the number of people who are standing for delivery on futures contracts is rising, and the amount of silver in these exchanges is shrinking.’
Bullet briefing — Platinum beats gold, copper hits new record
Platinum price on the move
I’d be remiss if I didn’t also take a moment to mention platinum.
While gold and silver have been making headlines, platinum’s 2025 rise has been quiet, but significant — it’s up over 100 percent year-to-date and nearly hit US$1,980 per ounce this week.
Platinum is somewhat similar to silver in that they both have precious and industrial sides, and they’ve both seen persistent deficits in recent years.
Platinum’s deficit has definitely helped it rise this year, but looking forward to next year the World Platinum Investment Council is expecting a balanced market. When I saw that, I wondered if that would mean lower prices in 2026. But that may not necessarily be the case.
Edward Sterck said there are a couple of nuances in the council’s outlook — for example, it’s anticipating profit taking from exchange-traded funds, but if that doesn’t happen, then the platinum deficit may persist. He also noted that balance in 2026 wouldn’t erase years of deficits:
‘A balanced market doesn’t solve for the fact we’ve had three years of deficits. It doesn’t in any way, I suppose, rebuild aboveground stocks. And it’s the shortage of aboveground stocks that seems to be one of the major catalysts behind this price action and behind the market tightness.’
Copper price hits new high
It’s not only precious metals that have been hitting new highs this year.
The price of copper has been climbing as well, hitting a new all-time high of close to US$12,000 per metric ton last week on the London Metal Exchange.
It’s pulled back slightly since then, but market watchers agree the copper outlook remains strong as rising demand meets constrained supply. In fact, I’ve been asking experts what they think the top-performing asset of next year will be, and copper has been a popular pick.
Lobo Tiggre of IndependentSpeculator.com chose the base metal as his highest-confidence trade of 2025, and he said he’s sticking with it next year.
Here’s what he had to say about copper:
‘Top pick for 2026 is copper. Similar reasons to 2025 —the copper price has been kicked around, up and down by what I think of as sort of extraneous issues. But the fundamentals mean the demand scenario just looks phenomenal, and the supply has been really constrained.’
Securities Disclosure: I, Charlotte McLeod, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
FBI Director Kash Patel said Saturday the agency is ramping up its use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to counter domestic and international threats.
In a post on X, Patel said the FBI has been advancing its technology, calling AI a ‘key component’ of its strategy to respond to threats and stay ‘ahead of the game.’
‘FBI has been working on key technology advances to keep us ahead of the game and respond to an always changing threat environment both domestically and on the world stage,’ Patel wrote. ‘Artificial intelligence is a key component of this.
‘We’ve been working on an AI project to assist our investigators and analysts in the national security space — staying ahead of bad actors and adversaries who seek to do us harm.’
Patel added that FBI leadership has established a ‘technology working group’ led by outgoing Deputy Director Dan Bongino to ensure the agency’s tools ‘evolve with the mission.’
‘These are investments that will pay dividends for America’s national security for decades to come,’ Patel said.
A spokesperson for the FBI told Fox News Digital it had nothing further to add beyond Patel’s X post.
The FBI uses AI for tools such as vehicle recognition, voice-language identification, speech-to-text analysis and video analytics, according to the agency’s website.
Earlier this week, Bongino announced he would leave the bureau in January after speculation rose about his departure.
‘I will be leaving my position with the FBI in January,’ Bongino wrote in an X post Wednesday. ‘I want to thank President [Donald] Trump, AG [Pam] Bondi, and Director Patel for the opportunity to serve with purpose. Most importantly, I want to thank you, my fellow Americans, for the privilege to serve you. God bless America, and all those who defend Her.’
President Trump is rightfully angry that some of his top choices for U.S. attorneys in Democrat-controlled states are being blocked by Democrats and their leftist allies in the judicial branch. But the recent attacks from some supporters of the president against Sen. Chuck Grassley, Trump’s most effective ally in the Senate, are misplaced.
To start, remember who Grassley is. He’s a dignified statesman but also a shrewd legislator, fearless investigator and Senate workhorse. He doesn’t chase the limelight but quietly puts one win after the other on the scoreboard for Trump and his MAGA agenda.
This isn’t bluster. Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices, and two were carried squarely on the shoulders of Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. He stopped former President Barack Obama from filling a Supreme Court seat with Merrick Garland, Joe Biden’s anti-Trump lawfare-supporting AG, enabling Trump to install Justice Neil Gorsuch instead. And when Democrats tried to ruin Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s life and derail his nomination, it was Grassley’s steady hand that guided Kavanaugh through the partisan spectacle, shut down the lies and got him confirmed.
Grassley’s done more than anybody in Congress to expose partisan lawfare against Trump. It’s thanks to Grassley that we know of the existence of Arctic Frost, Jack Smith and the Biden FBI’s demented campaign to put Trump behind bars and make any Republican that so much as breathed a subject of a criminal investigation.
Whistleblowers at the FBI knew they could only trust one man to bring these damning details to light: Chuck Grassley. Now we know the Biden Justice Department and complicit judges spied on Republican members of both the House and the Senate and sought records for hundreds of other MAGA patriots, many of whom are a part of Trump’s administration today, like Dan Scavino, Peter Navarro and Harmeet Dhillon, who Grassley led to confirmation as Judiciary Committee chairman.
In fact, Grassley is literally breaking his own records when it comes to Senate confirmations. He’s processing and confirming judges at a rate faster than in Trump’s first administration, when Grassley was also Judiciary chairman. He navigated the vicious onslaught to confirm Judge Emil Bove, flipping the 3rd Circuit to majority Republican appointees. He bulldozed opposition and confirmed Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and other Justice Department leaders.
He’s also processing U.S. attorneys through his committee faster than Democrats did during the Biden administration. And he’s doing it all while leading the charge against judicial activism and unconstitutional universal injunctions. And the billions of dollars the administration received in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill to secure our border and lock up dangerous criminals? Those border security provisions were written by none other than — you guessed it — Chuck Grassley.
We’re on pace to see the same number of attorney confirmations by year’s end as in Biden’s first year. But a few of his top choices — friends of mine and fellow warriors like Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan— have been stopped by Democrats using a century-old ‘blue slip’ rule.
Sideline commentators and keyboard warriors seem to think Grassley could just bang his chairman’s gavel and make the blue slip go away. But is Grassley, the man who’s done so much for Trump, really sandbagging these nominees? The answer, for those who care to actually do their homework, is no.
The blue slip should go, but Grassley can’t just make it happen alone. He needs votes to advance nominees, and he doesn’t have them without blue slips. Months ago, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., stated unequivocally on the Senate floor he wouldn’t confirm nominees without one. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., echoed this. That ends the conversation. Without the vote of either of these two members of the Judiciary Committee, nominees fail, regardless of Grassley’s actions.
And Tillis and Kennedy are hardly alone. Senators, both Republican and Democrat, won’t soon give up this power. All 100 senators prioritize having a say in who gets to be a judge or prosecutor in their state over letting the president decide who serves in other states. That’s why Democrat Dick Durbin couldn’t get rid of the blue slip when he chaired the Judiciary Committee during the Biden administration, even though progressive activists and their media allies begged him to do it.
Senators also won’t get rid of the blue slip because they know it benefits them when they’re in the minority. Republicans used the blue slip to block Biden from appointing nearly 30 district judges, and, so far, Trump has nominated 15 bold constitutionalist judges to fill the seats that Republicans held open.
I don’t like blue slips, but I live in the real world. I can count votes, and I know blue slips aren’t going away. As the Senate Judiciary Committee’s chief counsel for nominations, working for Grassley in Trump’s first term, I helped end blue slips for circuit judges because their jurisdictions cover multiple states and therefore their fates obviously shouldn’t be determined by a single state’s senators. That was a major achievement, but the limit of what was possible for now.
Democrats will stop at nothing to evade accountability, and Trump shouldn’t let them. His administration should use every tactic to overcome obstruction and pursue lawfare perpetrators. He’s right to want the blue slip’s end. But the Senate simply won’t deliver it this Congress as the votes don’t exist, and the president’s public outrage unfortunately hasn’t moved the needle yet.
As I’ve said before, to abolish the blue slip, the administration must build support by securing commitments from at least 50 Republican senators, including every Senate Judiciary Republican, to vote for nominees without blue slips. Grassley wants Trump’s nominees to succeed and knows the votes currently aren’t there for nominees who don’t have blue slips. Trump should trust his most effective Senate ally’s judgment. Grassley is a workhorse, not a showhorse. And Grassley has delivered more for Trump than any other senator.
A woman whose concerns about Jeffrey Epstein were brushed off by the FBI three decades ago was vindicated Friday after the Department of Justice finally made her complaint public.
Maria Farmer’s complaint was buried in the thousands of files related to Epstein’s and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking cases that the DOJ published as part of its obligations under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
The document was dated Sept. 3, 1996, more than 10 years before Epstein first faced prosecution for sex crimes involving girls. In it, Farmer accused Epstein of stealing and selling photos of her young sisters. Farmer worked as an artist for Epstein and has long been outspoken about what she said was his abusive behavior.
Farmer has said the photos of her sisters cited in the 1996 complaint included nudity, and the complaint is labeled as a possible ‘child pornography’ case.
Names on the complaint were redacted, but The New York Times confirmed with Farmer that she was the one who filed it. Farmer told the outlet she felt ‘vindicated.’
‘I’ve waited 30 years. … I can’t believe it. They can’t call me a liar anymore,’ she said.
The complaint noted that Farmer was a professional artist whose work included the images of her then 12- and 16-year-old sisters.
‘Epstein stole the photos and negatives and is believed to have sold the pictures to potential buyers,’ the complaint stated. ‘Epstein at one time requested [redacted] to take pictures of young girls at swimming pools. Epstein is now threatening [redacted] that if she tells anyone about the photos he will burn her house down.’
Farmer and her sister Annie brought separate lawsuits in 2019 alleging Epstein and Maxwell sexually assaulted them, but the suits were dropped as part of a settlement involving accepting compensation from Epstein’s estate.
Farmer also sued the DOJ in July, alleging the Clinton administration FBI ‘chose to do absolutely nothing’ with her complaint in 1996, and that in the years since, Epstein was able to victimize more women. Farmer said she also complained again to the FBI in 2006 during the Bush administration.
Farmer’s complaint was among the tens of thousands of documents related to Epstein and Maxwell that the DOJ released on Friday, the transparency bill’s deadline. Other accusers, such as Marina Lacerda, have spoken out about their dissatisfaction with the file release, observing that it was incomplete and contained heavy redactions. The department has said more files are coming within the next two weeks.
Preparations for the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire plan are underway, according to U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff. The announcement comes after representatives from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey participated in high-level U.S.-led talks in Miami.
‘In our discussions regarding phase two, we emphasized enabling a governing body in Gaza under a unified Gazan authority to protect civilians and maintain public order,’ Witkoff wrote on X. ‘We also discussed regional integration measures, including trade facilitation, infrastructure development, and cooperation on energy, water, and other shared resources, as essential to Gaza’s recovery, regional stability, and long-term prosperity.
‘We reviewed next steps in the phased implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Plan for Gaza, underscoring the importance of sequencing, coordination, and effective monitoring in partnership with local Gazan institutions and international partners.’
In addition to looking forward to the next phase, the group reflected on the implementation of the first part of the ceasefire, which Witkoff said ‘yielded progress.’
During the first phase, humanitarian aid went into the Gaza Strip, hostilities were reduced and there was a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces. Additionally, all living hostages and most deceased hostages were released. The last remaining hostage is Ran Gvili, an Israeli police officer killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
The U.S.-led talks on the second phase of the plan were proceeded by a similar meeting in Cairo, which reportedly included Turkey and Egypt’s intelligence chiefs, as well as Qatar’s prime minister.
‘During the meeting, [they] also agreed to continue strengthening coordination and cooperation with the Civil Military Coordination Center to eliminate all obstacles to ensure the continuity of the ceasefire and to prevent further violations,’ a Turkish source told Reuters, adding that they also discussed countering alleged Israeli ceasefire violations.
The second phase of the deal involves the deployment of an international stabilization force and the development of an international body to govern Gaza. It also includes the disarmament of Hamas. Additionally, Israel will move further from the so-called ‘yellow line’ ahead of the international force taking over, according to The Times of Israel.
A bipartisan Obamacare fix remains out of reach in the Senate, for now, and lawmakers can’t agree on who is at fault.
While many agree that the forthcoming healthcare cliff will cause financial pain, the partisan divide quickly devolved into pointing the finger across the aisle at who owns the looming healthcare premium spikes that Americans who use the healthcare exchange will face.
Part of the finger-pointing has yielded another surprising agreement: Lawmakers don’t see the fast-approaching expiration of the Biden-era enhanced Obamacare subsidies as Congress failing to act in time.
‘Obviously, it’s not a failure of Congress to act,’ Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s a failure of Republicans to act. Democrats are united and wanting to expand subsidies. Republicans want premium increases to go up.’
Senate Republicans and Democrats both tried, and failed, to advance their own partisan plans to replace or extend the subsidies earlier this month. And since then, no action has been taken to deal with the fast-approaching issue, guaranteeing that the subsidies will lapse at the end of the year.
A report published last month by Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit healthcare think tank, found that Americans who use the credits will see an average increase of 114% in their premium costs.
The increase can vary depending on how high above the poverty level a person is. The original premium subsidies set a cap at 400% above the poverty level, while the enhanced subsidies, which were passed during the COVID-19 pandemic, torched the cap.
For example, a person 60 years or older making 401% of the poverty level, or about $62,000 per year, would on average see their premium prices double. That number can skyrocket depending on the state. Wyoming clocks in at the highest spike at 421%.
In Murphy’s home state of Connecticut, premiums under the same parameters would hike in price by 316%.
‘When these do lapse, people are going to die,’ Murphy said. ‘I mean, I was talking to a couple a few months ago who have two parents, both with chronic, potentially life-threatening illnesses, and they will only be able to afford insurance for one of them. So they’re talking about which parent is going to survive to raise their three kids. The stakes are life and death.’
Both sides hold opposing views on the solution. Senate Republicans argue that the credits effectively subsidize insurance companies, not patients, by funneling money directly to them, and that the program is rife with fraud.
Senate Democrats want to extend the subsidies as they are, and are willing to negotiate fixes down the line. But for the GOP, they want to see some immediate reforms, like income caps, anti-fraud measures and more stringent anti-abortion language tied to the subsidies.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who produced his own healthcare plan that would convert subsidies into health savings accounts (HSAs), argued that congressional Democrats ‘set this up to expire.’
But he doesn’t share the view that the subsidies’ expected expiration is a life-or-death situation.
‘I’m not taxing somebody who makes 20 bucks an hour to pay for healthcare for somebody who makes half a million dollars a year, that’s what they did,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘All they did was mask the increase in healthcare costs. That’s all they did with it.’
Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., similarly scoffed at the notion, and told Fox News Digital, ‘The Democrat plan to extend COVID-era Obamacare subsidies might help less than half a percent of the American population.’
‘The Republican plan brings down healthcare costs for 100% of Americans,’ he said. ‘More competition, expands health savings accounts. That needs to be the focus.’
Democrats are also not hiding their disdain for the partisan divide between their approaches to healthcare.
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, told Fox News Digital that the idea that this ‘is a congressional failure and not a Republican policy is preposterous.’
‘They’ve hated the Affordable Care Act since its inception and tried to repeal it at every possible opportunity,’ he said, referring to Obamacare. ‘The president hates ACA, speaker hates ACA, majority leader hates ACA, rank-and-file hate ACA. And so this is not some failure of bipartisanship.’
While the partisan rancor runs deep on the matter of Obamacare, there are Republicans and Democrats working together to build a new plan. Still, it wouldn’t deal with the rapidly approaching Dec. 31 deadline to extend the subsidies.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., predicted that the Senate would have a long road to travel before a bipartisan plan came together in the new year, but he didn’t rule it out.
‘It’s the Christmas season. It would take a Christmas miracle to execute on actually getting something done there,’ he said. ‘But, you know, I think there’s a potential path, but it’ll be heavy lift.’
From a distance, Margarita Island looks like a Caribbean escape. Palm-lined beaches, duty-free shops, and resort towns sell the image of a tropical playground just off Venezuela’s northeastern coast. But U.S. officials say the Venezuelan outpost has become something else entirely: Hezbollah’s most important base of operations in the Western Hemisphere, strengthened by Iran’s growing footprint and the Maduro regime’s protection.
That threat, U.S. officials warn, reflects a broader security challenge emerging from the region. ‘The single most serious threat to the United States from the Western Hemisphere is from transnational terrorist criminal groups primarily focused on narcotrafficking,’ Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at an end-of-year press conference at the State Department on Friday.
‘Margarita Island might be of significance to the U.S. because of its location and the security dynamics around it,’ Melissa Ford Maldonado, director of the Western Hemisphere Initiative at the America First Policy Institute, told Fox News Digital. ‘It is close to Trinidad and Tobago and Grenada, in an oil-rich part of the Caribbean along key maritime routes, and it has long had a reputation for being a major drug-trafficking hub, possibly because it’s off the mainland and there’s not a lot of law enforcement there.’
The island’s isolation, she said, has made it attractive to ‘irregular armed groups, foreign intelligence actors and criminal networks that use it as a departure point for boats carrying illicit shipments out of Venezuela.’
Marshall Billingslea, the former assistant secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes in the U.S. Treasury Department, said Margarita Island now serves as Hezbollah’s key foothold in the Western Hemisphere.
‘From what I have seen and what I have been told, there is a wide range of activities that Hezbollah and to some extent Hamas are engaged in,’ Billingslea told Fox News Digital. ‘Margarita Island is really the center of gravity for their activities.’
In written testimony submitted to the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control for an Oct. 21 hearing, Billingslea traced the island’s transformation back more than two decades. Under Hugo Chávez, he wrote, Venezuela ‘opened its doors to Hezbollah, allowing the group to establish a major footprint, including a paramilitary training site, on Margarita Island.’
‘When Nicolás Maduro seized power,’ Billingslea added, ‘the breadth and depth of Hezbollah’s presence in Venezuela dramatically expanded, as did their ties to the narco-terrorist regime and the Cartel de los Soles.’
‘The relationship is very close with the Cartel de los Soles, and it has been so for many, many years,’ Billingslea said, referring to the network of senior Venezuelan officials accused by the United States of drug trafficking.
Billingslea said Hezbollah has embedded itself into Margarita Island’s economy, exploiting the island’s duty-free status and cross-border access to Colombia to generate revenue through smuggling and drug importation. He said the group operates a wide range of companies on the island and also maintains several training camps there.
His testimony also detailed how Venezuela’s state apparatus helped embed Hezbollah inside the country. He wrote that former senior official Tareck El Aissami, while overseeing Venezuela’s passport and naturalization agency, ‘was instrumental in furnishing passports and citizenship documents to Hezbollah operatives as well as a large number of people from Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.’ Between 2010 and 2019, Venezuelan authorities issued more than 10,400 passports to individuals from those countries, according to the testimony.
A May 27, 2020, Justice Department announcement alleged that Diosdado Cabello directed Venezuelan lawmaker Adel El Zabayar to travel to the Middle East to obtain weapons and recruit members of Hezbollah and Hamas for training at clandestine camps inside Venezuela. The filing also describes a subsequent weapons delivery at a hangar controlled by Maduro at the country’s main international airport.
Recent developments in the Middle East have only increased Margarita Island’s importance, Billingslea said. Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon has damaged the group’s military leadership and financial infrastructure, forcing it to rely more heavily on overseas networks.
‘Israeli successes against Hezbollah in Lebanon in particular, including their strikes on the financial infrastructure Al-Qard al-Hassan that operates in Lebanon, are going to have two effects,’ he said. ‘The first is that it is making the fundraising and the revenue generation that comes out of Latin America even more important to the terrorist group. Secondly, we have seen indications that Hezbollah actually has been relocating fighters from Lebanon, several hundred from Lebanon to Venezuela in particular.’
Asked whether that shift moves the threat closer to the United States, Billingslea said Hezbollah is now operating ‘close to the U.S. and further away from the Israelis.’
He said Iran’s role in Venezuela has deepened alongside Hezbollah’s. ‘There is a substantial Iranian footprint in Venezuela related to the trade of weapons and drones, in particular, for gold,’ he said. After suffering losses in the Middle East, he added, ‘the Iranians find themselves even more dependent on that supply of gold in exchange for drones and weapons.’
He said Washington faces a strategic choice. ‘I think the United States has positioned sufficient forces in the Caribbean at this time to take care of the Hezbollah threat,’ he said. ‘But obviously, when you have a terrorist group that has merged into the local population, highly precise intelligence is needed. I believe the Venezuelan opposition possesses a great deal of that intelligence, though it is not clear to me that the United States government is making the best use of that access.’
For Billingslea, the conclusion is cleaner — eliminating Venezuela’s narco-terrorist regime would significantly strengthen U.S. national security.
