As the GOP’s ‘big beautiful bill’ heads to the Senate next month, one provision legislators from both parties should keep their sights squarely set on is no tax on overtime, because in my travels talking to working Americans, no policy comes up more often.

It is not hyperbole to suggest that, if successfully implemented, vastly reducing overtime tax on America’s workers would be the most politically significant measure in the bill, and could easily help Republicans sweep the midterms.

It is very rare, when I’m out talking to people on the road, for person after person to keep mentioning something I never even brought up. A clear example in the last election was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Secretary of Health and Human Services, who I couldn’t get people to shut up about, even when the media wasn’t focused on him.

In the end, RFK Jr. played a vital role in putting President Donald Trump over the top.

For the past couple of months, the thing I have heard over and over again from workers and employers is how much they desperately want no tax on overtime.

Regular readers of this column will recall the coal miner in Columbiana, Ohio who told me, ‘taxes are killing the working man,’ or Doug and Danny in Jeffersonville, Indiana, a steel cleaning plant owner and his foreman who also weighed in.

Doug told me it will ‘encourage [younger workers] to give up their time, away from loved ones and produce for customers that we have, that need steel, that they want that we did not produce Monday through Friday and get it done.’

From Ohio, to Texas, to West Virginia, no tax on overtime has created excitement for the people the news media never seem to get around to talking to.

A major reason that no tax on overtime has been largely ignored compared to its more popular cousin, no tax on tips, is that almost nobody who produces news has ever held a job that includes traditional overtime, while many likely had tipping jobs in college.

This also explains exactly why the overtime provision is a much bigger deal. There are a handful of tipped jobs that one can raise a family on, but most are stepping stones. There are millions of jobs you can raise a family on that involve overtime.

For the men and women who work these jobs in plants, mines and forges, a reduction in overtime tax is far more meaningful than any stimulus check could be. A stimulus check is like a winning scratch-off lottery ticket. No tax on tips is a raise. You can plan on it, build around it.

This brings us around to the midterms. If by the fall of 2026, American workers have been keeping more of their money, not receiving largesse from the state, but keeping more money they worked for, then every GOP candidate will point at every Democrat incumbent in Congress and say, ‘they voted against it.’

One of Donald Trump’s political superpowers is to find the issues American voters deeply care about that the media largely ignores. He did it by fighting wokeness, he did it opposing foreign interventionism, he did it by focusing on our kids’ health.

I don’t know how he does it. I know how I do it. I spend hours and hours traveling and talking to people. Maybe Trump talks to the working-class people he employs, maybe he just judges based on crowd reactions at rallies, but however he does it, finger meets pulse.

With no tax on overtime, Trump has done it again. Every Republican who is running for Congress outside of Silicon Valley and the Upper East Side would be wise to lead their campaign with, ‘President Trump and I promised no tax on overtime and we delivered.’

There seems to be some surprise that Trump’s poll numbers are recovering after a brief dip occasioned by universal freakouts over his tariff policy. But there is a very good reason for it: On almost every policy the president is doing exactly what he told voters he would do.

Once workers start seeing that bump in their weekly check they can start saving for a better vacation, put more money away for their kids, or even buy their girl an engagement ring. These are the riches of the working class.

Senate Democrats should tread cautiously as the big beautiful bill lands in the upper chamber. They should decide if they really want to look their constituents in the eye and say, ‘You know that raise my opponent’s party and President Trump gave you? I want to take it away.’

No tax on overtime may be Donald Trump’s baby, but come the midterms, it could be a big bundle of joy for the Republican Party.

A group of House Republicans are requesting Fiscal Year 2026 spending bills to include language prohibiting federal funding for transgender experiments on animals. 

Republican Reps. Paul Gosar, Elijah Crane, Abraham J. Hamadeh of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Brandon Gill of Texas, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Pete Stauber of Minnesota and Troy E. Nehls of Texas are urging the chairman and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies to prohibit transgender experiments on animals in its FY2026 appropriations bill. 

House Republicans have requested the committee include the following language: ‘None of the funds made available by this or any other Act thereafter may be used for research on vertebrate animals for the purpose of studying the effects of drugs, surgery, or other interventions to alter the human body (including by disrupting the body’s development, inhibiting its natural functions, or modifying its appearance) to no longer correspond to its biological sex.’

The letter, addressed to Chairman Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., and Ranking Member Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., points to the dozens of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants issued during former President Joe Biden’s administration that are funding ‘wasteful and disturbing experiments to create ‘transfeminine’ and ‘transmasculine’ lab animals using invasive surgeries and hormone therapies.’

‘The transgender animals are then wounded, shocked, injected with street drugs and vaccines, and subjected to other disturbing procedures,’ the House Republicans said in the letter, as Fox News Digital reported earlier this year. 

‘President Trump has personally criticized these experiments on several occasions, and the Department of Government Efficiency has canceled millions in NIH grants funding transgender animal testing. However, many of these NIH grants funding gender transitions for lab animals are still active,’ House GOP members said. 

President Donald Trump condemned transgender animal experiments during his joint address to Congress in March. The White Coat Waste Project, a government watchdog group that testified about transgender animal experiments on Capitol Hill earlier this year, told Fox News Digital there are still ’29 active taxpayer-funded grants that have been used to fund transgender animal tests.’

‘We urge you to include the language above in the FY26 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill to ensure no more taxpayer dollars are wasted to fund transgender animal tests,’ the Republicans said in the letter. 

The White Coat Waste Project, in a statement to Fox News Digital, touted their role in halting taxpayer-funded ‘transgender animal tests,’ and celebrated the House Republicans’ bill, led by Gosar, to stop more federally funded experiments. 

‘Thanks to White Coat Waste’s viral investigations and collaboration with Rep. Paul Gosar and others in Congress, the Trump Administration has slashed spending on wasteful experiments that subject lab animals to invasive surgeries and hormone therapies to crudely mimic gender transitions in kids and adults and then wound, shock and inject the animals with vaccines and overdoses of sex party drugs,’ Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President of White Coat Waste Project, said. 

‘These Trump cuts have already saved thousands of lab animals and millions of tax dollars, but dozens more NIH grants that funnel tax dollars to disturbing transgender animal tests are still active. Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to foot the bill for wasteful and cruel transgender animal tests, and Rep. Gosar’s commonsense effort to permanently defund them will ensure they won’t have to.’

Earlier this year, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uncovered $4.7 trillion in untraceable Treasury Department payments. 

Prior to the discovery, Treasury Account Symbol (TAS) identification codes were optional for $4.7 trillion in Treasury Department payments, so they were often left blank and were untraceable. The field is now required to increase ‘insight into where the money is actually going,’ the Treasury Department and DOGE announced in February. 

‘Of the 1.5 billion payments that we send out every year, they are required to have a TAS, a Treasury Account Symbol. We discovered that more than one third of those payments did not have a TAS number,’ Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government earlier this month. 

Fox News Digital asked Republican senators on Capitol Hill to respond to the approximately 500,000 in untraceable payments made by the Treasury Department each year. 

‘I’m not surprised at all, unfortunately,’ Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, said before adding, ‘They were leaving complete fields undone when they were filling out their financials, so this is a common theme. I’m not surprised.’

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, called for an investigation into where those payments actually went. 

‘There’s so much waste. There’s so much fraud, There’s so much abuse in our government,’ Schmitt told Fox News Digital. ‘I’m glad there was a laser-like focus on it. We ought to make many of those reforms permanent, but there probably ought to be some investigations here about where this money actually went. I mean this is taxpayer money. People work hard.’

After DOGE and the Treasury Department uncovered $4.7 trillion in untraceable funds, Marshall and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida introduced a bill in March requiring the Treasury Department to track all payments. 

The Locating Every Disbursement in Government Expenditure Records (LEDGER) Act seeks to increase transparency in how the Treasury Department spends taxpayer money. 

‘When you hear about this story that they didn’t know where the money was going, it makes you mad because this is somebody’s money, this is taxpayers’ money when we have almost $37 trillion in debt, so this makes no sense at all,’ Scott said. 

The Congressional Budget projects that interest payments on America’s national debt will total $952 billion in fiscal year 2025. That’s $102 billion more than the United States’ defense budget at $850 billion. 

‘We paid out more last year on our debt, $36 trillion in debt, with $950 billion in interest going to bondholders all over the world, including in China. That $950 billion didn’t go to build a bridge or an F-35. We paid more on the interest on debt than we did to fund our military,’ said Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. 

‘That is an inflection point that when most countries hit, you look at history, that’s when great powers start to decline. So we have to get those savings.’

In his famed 1953 ‘Atoms for Peace’ speech, President Eisenhower proclaimed that ‘the United States knows that peaceful power from atomic energy is no dream of the future.’ That dream was soon realized, as America built more than one hundred reactors over the next twenty-five years. But today, the promise of nuclear energy and innovation does indeed seem like a dream of the future.

Through a series of executive orders signed this week, President Trump is taking action to usher in an American nuclear renaissance. For the first time in many years, America has a path forward for quickly and safely testing advanced nuclear reactor designs, constructing new nuclear reactors at scale, and building a strong domestic nuclear industrial base.

Our stagnation was not for a lack of ingenuity or desire to innovate among America’s great scientists and technologists. By the end of the 1970s, dozens of nuclear reactors were planned or under construction. In the past 30 years, however, only three commercial nuclear reactors have been built, and many more have been shuttered. We know America can accomplish great feats in nuclear energy, so what happened?

In the wake of the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, public opinion began to sour on nuclear energy, and the effects of a decade of new federal bureaucracies began to set in. Overly burdensome regulations stifled our ability to even test, let alone deploy, new nuclear technologies. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) set the gold standard for safety regulation when it was established in 1975, but it soon transformed into a lead curtain for innovation. Onerous environmental requirements and long, uncertain regulatory timelines have killed industry’s willingness to fund new technologies.

Similarly, the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Labs—which once led the world in the development and demonstration of advanced nuclear technologies—shuttered nuclear development programs, shifting focus to other priorities.  All but three of fifty-two reactors at Idaho National Laboratory have been decommissioned, and it has been almost half a century since the Army Nuclear Power Program was shut down. These decisions eroded our domestic nuclear supply chain, undermined our national security, and left us having to relearn what we once pioneered.

President Trump wisely recognizes that the time is ripe for an American nuclear renaissance and is acting to deliver on the promise of nuclear energy for the American people. Across the country, American entrepreneurs and engineers are launching a new generation of nuclear companies featuring innovative reactor designs and scalable manufacturing techniques that can make nuclear safe, efficient, and economic. The Trump Administration will clear their path by dismantling outdated barriers that previous administrations had put up in their way.

Today, nuclear power plants provide approximately 19% of the electricity generated in the United States, more than solar and wind combined. That is reliable and affordable electricity for the American people, and it could and should be even more.

Today, nuclear power plants provide approximately 19% of the electricity generated in the United States, more than solar and wind combined. That is reliable and affordable electricity for the American people, and it could and should be even more. The Trump Administration is setting the goal of expanding American nuclear energy capacity from 100 GW today to 400 GW by 2050. This week’s executive actions will help us reach that goal in four ways.

First, we are going to fully leverage our DOE national laboratories to increase the speed with which we test new nuclear reactor designs. There is a big difference between a paper reactor and a practical reactor. The only way to bridge that gap—understanding the challenges that must be surmounted to bring reactors to the market, and building public trust in their deployment—is to test and evaluate demonstration reactors. 

Second, for our national and economic security, we are going to leverage the Departments of Defense and Energy to build nuclear reactors on federally owned land. This will support critical national security needs which require reliable, high-density power sources that are invulnerable to external threats or grid failures.

Third, to lower regulatory burdens and shorten licensing timelines, we are asking the NRC to undergo broad cultural change and regulatory reform, requiring a decision on a reactor license to be issued within 18 months. This will reduce regulatory uncertainty while maintaining nuclear safety. We will also reconsider the use of radiation limits that are not science based, impossible to achieve, and do not increase the safety of the American people. 

Fourth, we will be supporting our domestic nuclear industrial base across the nuclear fuel cycle.  The President has called for industry to start mining and enriching uranium in America again, as well as an expansion of domestic uranium conversion capacity as well as enrichment capabilities to meet projected civilian and defense reactor needs.

When President Eisenhower spoke about nuclear potential over 70 years ago, he expressed no doubt that the world’s best scientists and engineers, if empowered to ‘test and develop their ideas,’ could turn nuclear energy into a ‘universal, efficient, and economic’ source of power. In 2025, we have only to believe in American technologists, and give them the chance to build, to turn nuclear power into energy dominance and national security for all.

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are continuing to overhaul the National Security Council and shift its main functions to other agencies like the State and Defense departments. 

The latest efforts to slim down a federal agency come weeks after Trump announced former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz would depart his post at the White House overseeing the agency and serve as UN ambassador. Waltz himself began the streamlining process in January, when, in one of his first moves as Trump’s national security adviser, he ordered 160 NSC staffers off the job pending a comprehensive review of the agency’s alignment with Trump’s agenda.

The current plans to upend the agency would include whittling down the size of the National Security Council, which the Trump White House believes is full of long-term, bureaucratic staffers who don’t align with Trump’s agenda. 

Additionally, the restructuring will move Andy Barker, national security advisor to Vice President JD Vance, and Robert Gabriel, assistant to the president for policy, into roles serving as deputy national security advisors. 

Axios was the first to report the Trump administration’s restructuring plans. A White House official confirmed Axios’ reporting to Fox News Digital. 

A White House official involved in the planning said Trump and Rubio are driving the change in an attempt to target Washington’s so-called ‘Deep State.’ 

‘The NSC is the ultimate Deep State. It’s Marco vs. the Deep State. We’re gutting the Deep State,’ a White House official told Axios. 

The National Security Council is located within the White House and provides the president guidance on national security, military and foreign affairs matters. 

Waltz’s departure from the agency followed his involvement with other administration officials, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in the Signal chat controversy over strike plans against the Houthis in March.

But Waltz had been focused early in his short tenure on the issue of what the Trump administration considers ‘deep state’ infiltration of the agency. The former Green Beret and Florida congressman was especially concerned about Biden administration political appointees and holdovers assigned to the NSC from other agencies. 

Since Waltz’s departure earlier this month, Rubio has taken on the role of national security advisor. That’s in addition to leading the State Department and serving as acting archivist and acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the administration is aiming to dismantle this year. 

Fox News Digital was the first to report that the State Department planned to absorb the remaining operations and programs USAID runs so it would no longer function as an independent agency. The move requires cutting thousands of staff members in an attempt to bolster the efficiency of the existing, ‘life-saving’ foreign assistance programs, according to a State Department memo Fox News Digital obtained. 

Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report. 

Satellite imagery captured what remained of a mangled 5,000-ton North Korean naval destroyer damaged during its launch ceremony this week, leaving the country’s dictator distraught. 

A photo captured by Maxar Technologies of the northeastern port of Chongjin, shows the ship apparently twisted and lying on its side, partly lodged on a launch slip and partly submerged in water. 

The secretive communist nation covered the would-be warship with a blue tarp.

Mexar Technologies also snapped a satellite photo of the ship before the launch, looking pristine as it prepared for its first voyage. 

But that voyage was put on hold after a flatcar guiding the ship failed to move during the launch, throwing the warship off balance and crushing parts of its bottom before its stern eventually slid down the launch slipway into the water, state media reported.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was reportedly fuming over the botched launch, which was intended to show the nation’s military might but instead became an embarrassment on the world stage. 

State media also reported on Kim’s fury. 

He reportedly blamed military officials, scientists and shipyard operators for a ‘serious accident and criminal act caused by absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism.’ 

The extent of the damage to the destroyer is unclear, though Kim demanded that repairs be completed before the communist Working Party’s meeting in June.

The dictator, known for his brutality as much as his secrecy, ominously warned that during that meeting, mistakes caused by the ‘irresponsibility of the relevant officials’ would be investigated. 

Under Kim’s rule, North Korea has been focused on building an arsenal of military weapons in what it regards as a response to western aggression. 

In March, Kim personally oversaw tests of AI-powered suicide drones, unmanned exploding drones that can be used to launch an attack without putting the attackers’ lives in danger. He reportedly called for an increase in production of those drones. 

He also recently claimed the country was in the process of building a nuclear submarine. 

In its first real showing of military force since the Korean War in the 1950s, an estimated 15,000 troops were sent to Russia to fight alongside the fellow communist nation in its war against Ukraine. 

South Korea claimed in late April that 600 of those troops had been killed. 

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are spearheading plans to overhaul the National Security Council and shift its main functions to other agencies like the State and Defense departments. 

The move is the latest effort to slim down a federal agency and comes weeks after Trump announced former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz would depart his post at the White House overseeing the agency. 

Trump announced the same day that Waltz was nominated to serve as United Nations ambassador. 

The plans to upend the agency would include whittling down the size of the National Security Council, which the Trump White House believes is full of long-term, bureaucratic staffers who don’t align with Trump’s agenda. 

Additionally, the restructuring will move Andy Barker, national security advisor to Vice President JD Vance, and Robert Gabriel, assistant to the president for policy, into roles serving as deputy national security advisors. 

Axios was the first to report the Trump administration’s restructuring plans. A White House official confirmed Axios’ reporting to Fox News Digital. 

A White House official involved in the planning said Trump and Rubio are driving the change in an attempt to target Washington’s so-called ‘Deep State.’ 

‘The NSC is the ultimate Deep State. It’s Marco vs. the Deep State. We’re gutting the Deep State,’ a White House official told Axios. 

The National Security Council is located within the the White House and provides the president guidance on national security, military and foreign affairs matters. 

Waltz’s departure from the agency followed his involvement with other administration officials, like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in the Signal chat controversy over strike plans against the Houthis in March.

Since Waltz’s departure earlier this month, Rubio has taken on the role of national security advisor. That’s in addition to leading the State Department and serving as acting archivist and acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the administration is aiming to dismantle this year. 

Fox News Digital was the first to report that the State Department planned to absorb the remaining operations and programs USAID runs so it would no longer function as an independent agency. The move requires cutting thousands of staff members in an attempt to bolster the efficiency of the existing, ‘life-saving’ foreign assistance programs, according to a State Department memo Fox News Digital obtained. 

Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump signed several executive orders (EOs) on nuclear energy proliferation and an order removing political considerations from public-sector science, as conservatives claimed the latter was scandalized in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump also signed restoring ‘gold standard science’ as the cornerstone of federal research. 

A senior White House official said on Friday there has been a decline in ‘disruptive research’ and investments in biomedical research, along with ‘serious cases’ of fraud and misconduct and the inability to reproduce scientific methods for the purpose of restoring public trust.

The official also blamed policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and ‘woke DEI initiatives’ for endangering the public’s trust in government scientists.

Now-retired NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci was repeatedly denounced for flip-flopping and obfuscating during his time engineering the federal response to COVID-19, leading many particularly on the right to disregard and dismiss the legitimacy of federal health authorities outright.

That order cites the fact the Biden administration included political edits from teachers unions in school-reopening guidance, instead of leading with any scientific evidence.

The order will enforce ‘gold standard science,’ defined as reproducible, transparent and falsifiable – as well as being subject to peer review and making sure that scientists are not discouraged from discovering outcomes that run counter to a narrative.

In terms of nuclear energy, one order will reform nuclear R&D at the Energy Department, accelerate reactor testing at national labs and establish a pilot program for new construction.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright previously told Fox News Digital that revitalizing and highlighting the work of U.S. national labs is paramount to his agenda.

In a move that appears to support Wright’s push for nuclear power, Trump will sign an order aimed at advancing new reactor construction on public lands.

A senior White House official cited the importance of that type of reliable power-source for critical defense facilities and AI data centers.

Another order being signed Friday will overhaul the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to require it to rule on reactor license applications within 18 months.

Only two new nuclear reactors have begun construction and entered into commercial operation since the Carter administration.

A typically risk-averse culture that requires, for example, nuclear facilities to emit as little radiation as possible, including below naturally-occurring levels, which critics said has hindered the NRC from licensing new reactors as technology begets safer and cheaper means of production.

The orders will also seek to raise nuclear energy capacity from 100 gigawatts (GW) to 400 GW within 25 years.

Another order will establish a vision to mine and enrich uranium within the U.S., decreasing another avenue of foreign reliance – and ‘reinvigorate’ the nuclear fuel cycle.

‘That means America will start mining and enriching uranium and expanding domestic uranium conversion and enrichment capacity,’ a senior White House official said.

Trump is expected to leverage the Defense Production Act – which last helped secure COVID-19 paraphernalia like masks and ventilators – to seek agreements with domestic nuclear energy companies for the procurement of enriched uranium, as well as finding ways to manage spent nuke fuel. 

Nuclear energy, the White House said in the order, ‘is necessary to power the next generation technologies that secure our global industrial, digital, and economic dominance, achieve energy independence, and protect our national security.’

The U.S. and Iran resumed nuclear negotiations on Friday in Rome as differences over demands have spilled over into the public sphere, making the red lines for both parties increasingly clear. 

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei this week criticized Washington’s position that has called for an apparent ban on all uranium enrichment in Iran and suggested a deal may not be possible.

The White House did not answer Fox News Digital’s questions about whether it is in fact calling for a ban on uranium enrichment for civil needs like nuclear energy, but on Friday Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters that ‘This round of talks is especially sensitive.’

According to Iranian media outlets, Tehran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left the negotiations and said, ‘I hope that in the next one or two meetings we can reach solutions that will allow the negotiations to progress. 

‘With Oman’s solutions to remove obstacles, there is a possibility of progress,’ though he did not expand on what the hiccups were or what Oman’s solutions may have been.

Araghchi, who was set to negotiate largely indirectly with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff through Omani mediators, made Tehran’s position on Washington’s apparent demands clear in a post to X early on Friday. 

‘Figuring out the path to a deal is not rocket science,’ he said. ‘Zero nuclear weapons = we DO have a deal. Zero enrichment = we do NOT have a deal. 

‘Time to decide,’ he added.

Iran has claimed it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon. But steps Tehran has taken, like bolstering its missile program, which could give it the technology to launch a nuclear warhead, and stockpiling enough near-weapons-grade enriched uranium to possess five nuclear weapons, have experts worried, including the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency. 

While uranium enrichment for nuclear energy is a power source many countries, including the U.S., rely on for their energy needs, Iran’s nuclear energy amounts to less than 1% of its energy consumption. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that the U.S. is attempting to form a deal that would enable Iran to have a civil nuclear energy program that does not include enriched uranium, though he admitted that this ‘will not be easy’.

‘Washington’s insistence on zero enrichment, I think, is the only sober, sane, non-proliferation approach you can take [with] the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has not stopped enriching uranium at various levels since April 2006 when this entire crisis really was kicked off, Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran expert and senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Fox News Digital.

‘Iran has more to lose by pushing away from the table,’ he continued. ‘Iran is engaging in 2025 for a very different reason than 2013 and 2015. It’s trying to blunt maximum pressure. It’s trying to prevent an Israeli military attack, and it’s trying to prevent European snap-back [sanctions]. 

‘This is why Iran is engaging today, and the Trump administration needs to be cognizant that, because of that, it does have the leverage in these negotiations and can demand more,’ Ben Taleblu urged. 

Hundreds of Ukrainian prisoners were released Friday in an exchange with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced, adding that ‘It is very important to return everyone who remains in captivity. 

‘We are bringing our people home. The first stage of the ‘1000-for-1000’ exchange agreement has been carried out. This agreement was reached during the meeting in Turkey, and it is crucial to implement it in full,’ Zelenskyy wrote on X, referencing a recent deal between Russian and Ukrainian officials.

‘Today — 390 people. On Saturday and Sunday, we expect the exchange to continue. Thank you to everyone who is helping and working 24/7 to bring Ukrainian men and women back home. It is very important to return everyone who remains in captivity. We are verifying every surname, every detail about each person. We will continue our diplomatic efforts to make such steps possible,’ he added.

The swap unfolded at the border between Belarus and Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official told the Associated Press. Moscow had no immediate comment. On his X account, Zelenskyy released images purportedly showing the newly-freed Ukrainians.

‘A major prisoners swap was just completed between Russia and Ukraine. It will go into effect shortly,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social this morning. ‘Congratulations to both sides on this negotiation. This could lead to something big???’ 

On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X that ‘I held a meeting on the preparation for an exchange’ and ‘The agreement to release 1,000 of our people from Russian captivity was perhaps the only tangible result of the meeting in Turkey.’ 

Trump had a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. Following the conversation, Trump said ‘I believe it went very well.’ 

‘Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War. The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of,’ Trump said. ‘The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent. If it wasn’t, I would say so now, rather than later.’ 

Putin, in a statement after the call, also noted that ‘a ceasefire with Ukraine is possible’ but noted that ‘Russia and Ukraine must find compromises that suit both sides.’ 

The Kremlin then said Thursday that both sides had no direct peace talks scheduled. 

‘There is no concrete agreement about the next meetings,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Associated Press. ‘They are yet to be agreed upon.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.