What is Elon Musk trying to do?  

As the founder of Tesla and SpaceX pursues his quixotic effort to launch a new political party – the America Party – you have to wonder – does Musk really care about our government debt or is he very, very angry that President Donald Trump’s big, beautiful bill eliminated tax credits for Teslas and other electric vehicles? After all, ditching the tax breaks for EV helps cut spending. Musk can’t have it both ways. 

After donating hundreds of millions of dollars to help elect Trump, being celebrated as the president’s right-hand man and spearheading the controversial effort to help cut government fraud and waste, Musk is likely irate – understandably– that he is not getting preferential treatment from the White House. Trump’s cavalier disregard of Musk’s concerns must have come as a hurtful shock. 

As a result, Musk is lashing out – as he has done before – by insinuating that Trump had dealings with Jeffrey Epstein, for instance – determined to undermine the president and his agenda. Musk has given a lot to this administration. Tesla came under ruthless attack because Musk volunteered to guide DOGE; dealerships were firebombed and cars vandalized. Worse, customers walked away. 

But launching a new political party is an especially risky way to go. Tesla’s stock sold off sharply on the news, ending up 40% off its 52-week high. The car company’s shareholders have already signaled they want CEO Musk to spend less time on politics and more on reviving Tesla’s mojo. While Musk has indicated that Tesla’s robotaxis are the wave of the future, and they may well be, the company today is not thriving. 

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Tesla is struggling in China, its second-largest market, losing market share to more advanced and cheaper EVs. In May, sales were down 30% from the year earlier, even as the sector overall grew 28%. In Europe, Tesla is suffering the same Trump-related reputational issues as here in the U.S. It is not a good time for Musk to become distracted.  

It is also not a good idea for Trump to further inflame his former sidekick, as he recently did by calling Musk’s venture ‘ridiculous.’ Musk’s strategy for how he can gain significant political power (and sabotage Republicans) is clever and could damage Republicans. As he posted on X: ‘One way to execute on this would be to laser-focus on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts. Given the razor-thin legislative margins, that would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring that they serve the true will of the people.’  

The SpaceX owner explained in yet another post, ‘The way we’re going to crack the uniparty system is by using a variant of how Epaminondas shattered the myth of Spartan invincibility at Leuctra: Extremely concentrated force at a precise location on the battlefield.’   

Musk has the money to influence a few races and, on today’s closely contested political battlefield, a few seats could give the America Party considerable influence. It could also eliminate the slim GOP majority in the House and Senate. 

But … to what end? If edging out some Republicans hands control of Congress over to Democrats, Musk will have enabled even greater deficits. Has he forgotten the spending spree undertaken by Democrats while President Joe Biden was in the Oval Office? Does he remember how they treated him? Because Musk does not employ union labor, the Biden White House shunned him, and launched investigations into his businesses. Surely, he cannot pine for those days. 

Musk’s party may be new, but the idea is not.  Throughout history candidates and policymakers have railed at the inadequacies of our two main political parties, but few third-party ventures have made it out of the starting gate.  

The most successful such effort in modern times was billionaire H. Ross Perot’s 1995 creation of the Reform Party of the United States. Three years earlier, Perot had run for president as an Independent, outspending both major party candidates and winning 19% of the vote. His participation in the race drained votes from the GOP candidate and gave the win to President Bill Clinton, who captured 43% of the vote and defeated incumbent President George H. W. Bush. 

But when Perot ran again in 1996, representing his Reform Party, he attracted only 6% of the vote. The Reform Party’s biggest victory was the election of Jesse Ventura, who became governor of Minnesota in 1998. Its most important legacy was helping to inspire Republican Rep. Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, which reset the GOP agenda and focused on many of the issues raised by Perot, including excess government spending.  

U.S. debt, as a percentage of GDP, peaked just after World War II at 106%, declined steadily until 1974, when it stood at 23%; between 1974 and 1992, it more than doubled to 47%, a trend that energized Perot’s battle against government deficits and also delivered Gingrich’s call for a balanced budget amendment.  

Today, rising deficits and debt are again driving discontent with our political establishment.  Under President Barack Obama, our debt to GDP rose from 77% to 103%, Under Donald Trump, debt stabilized but then jumped to 133% of GDP when Congress adopted bipartisan bills designed to keep COVID-19 shutdowns from destroying the economy. Unhappily, emergency spending measures that were meant to be temporary were kept in place and even expanded under Joe Biden. Debt as a percentage of GDP has since declined only modestly, and at the end of last year totaled 121%. Musk and Republican deficit hawks are correct that spending must come down. 

President Trump needs to reach out to Musk and settle their differences. Musk has caved before when Trump offered an olive branch; he will do so again. Both men can help each other, but both can also do significant damage – to each other and to the country. 

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met at the White House on Monday evening to cement a shared message: the U.S.-Israel alliance has reshaped the Middle East – and more is coming.

‘We had tremendous success together,’ Trump said during the public portion of their dinner meeting. ‘And I think it will only go on to be even greater success in the future.’

Netanyahu handed Trump a formal letter he sent to the Nobel Peace Prize committee. ‘It’s well-deserved,’ the prime minister said. ‘You’re forging peace as we speak, in one country and one region after the other.’

Trump appeared surprised. ‘Thank you very much,’ he replied. ‘Coming from you in particular, this is very meaningful.’

But behind the symbolism was a serious discussion about Iran, Gaza and what both sides see as an inflection point in regional diplomacy. Trump confirmed that Iran has requested new talks following the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on its nuclear and missile infrastructure. ‘They want to meet. They want to work something out,’ he said. ‘They’re very different now than they were two weeks ago.’

Netanyahu called the military operation ‘a historic victory,’ adding that it ‘set back the two tumors that were threatening the life of Israel – the nuclear tumor and the ballistic missile tumor.’ But, he warned, ‘just like a tumor, it can grow back…  You have to constantly monitor the situation to make sure that there’s no attempt to bring it back.’

Michael Makovsky, CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), told Fox News Digital that one key goal of the meeting was to define red lines for future action.

‘The war with Iran was ended a little abruptly by Trump,’ Makovsky said. ‘The Israelis wanted to continue it a couple more days, or at least until there was an understanding with the U.S. about what would trigger another response.’

According to a new JINSA memo titled Not Over, those triggers could include Iran rebuilding air defenses, diverting enriched uranium or importing advanced missile technology. ‘We’ve always viewed military action as a campaign, not a one-off,’ Makovsky said. ‘Unfortunately, short of regime collapse in Tehran, this is going to be part of a series.’

Trump, however, emphasized his peacemaking ambitions. ‘I’m stopping wars,’ he said. 

He said the Iran strike ‘turned out… to be obliterated,’ and praised the pilots involved: ‘They flew for 37 hours with zero problem mechanically. The biggest bombs we’ve ever dropped – non-nuclear. And we want to keep it non-nuclear, by the way.’

Turning to Gaza, Trump said he believes a ceasefire deal may be reached soon. ‘They want that ceasefire,’ he said, in reference to Hamas. Netanyahu echoed that desire, but reiterated that ‘certain powers, like overall security, will always remain in our hands. No one in Israel will agree to anything else. We don’t commit suicide. We cherish life.’

When asked whether his Palestinian relocation plan was still on the table, Trump initially deferred to Netanyahu, who responded by praising what he called ‘a brilliant vision.’

‘It’s called free choice,’ Netanyahu said. ‘If people want to stay, they can stay. But if they want to leave, they should be able to leave.’

He added that Israel is working closely with the United States to find countries willing to help realize this approach. ‘We’re getting close to finding several countries,’ Netanyahu said. ‘And I think this will give, again, the freedom to choose. Palestinians should have it. And I hope that we can secure it.’

Makovsky said Trump now sees Gaza and Iran as sequential ‘episodes.’ ‘He sees the war with Iran as a successful episode – it’s time to end that and pivot to peace,’ he said. ‘He wants to move toward expanding the Abraham Accords, particularly with Saudi Arabia.’

The two leaders also touched on Syria. ‘I think there’s an opportunity to explore,’ Netanyahu said, referencing recent shifts after the collapse of the Assad regime. Makovsky said Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa may be seeking ‘some sort of arrangement’ with Israel to gain U.S. support. ‘He’s incredibly flexible and practical,’ Makovsky noted.

As Netanyahu put it, ‘This has already changed the face of the Middle East.’ Trump added, ‘We’re on the way to a lot of great results.’

On Tuesday Netanyahu will meet with the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, R-La.

As Planned Parenthood sues the Trump administration for provisions of the ‘big, beautiful bill’ defunding abortion providers, pro-life medical groups are urging Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reexamine the FDA’s broad approval of abortion drugs.

In a letter obtained by Fox News Digital, six anti-abortion medical organizations, representing approximately 30,000 medical professionals, urge Kennedy and FDA Commissioner Martin Makary to reinstate safety guards on the abortion pill mifepristone that have been removed since it was first approved in 2000.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, medication abortion accounts for 63% of all U.S. abortions. The most common form of medication abortion method involves ingesting mifepristone, a pill that cuts off progesterone flow to the womb, essentially starving the fetus of nutrients. A second pill, called misoprostol, is then ingested to expel the dead fetus.

Under the Biden administration, the FDA significantly expanded its approval of mifepristone, allowing the drugs to be obtained via telemedicine, without in-person doctor appointments and to be mailed.  

In the letter, the groups, which include the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and the American College of Family Medicine, warn that the latest data on mifepristone ‘strongly suggests’ that hundreds of thousands of women have been harmed by using the drug.

Planned Parenthood states on its website that chemical abortion is ‘safer than many other medicines like penicillin, Tylenol, and Viagra.’ The letter, however, calls mifepristone ‘a high-risk abortion-inducing drug that is known to cause serious adverse effects and medical emergencies, including hemorrhage, sepsis, and incomplete abortions requiring surgical intervention.’

The letter cites two reports released this May, one by the Foundation for the Restoration of America and the other by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, that they say showed as many as one out of every nine women using mifepristone suffered serious adverse events.

The studies claimed that, based on an analysis of health insurance records covering 330 million U.S. patients of 860,000 women receiving mifepristone prescriptions, 10.93% of those women experienced sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, surgical intervention or another serious adverse event within 45 days following use of the drug.

Based on this, the letter says that real-world data on mifepristone use ‘shows real patients experience very real medical emergencies at an alarming rate – a rate that is consistent with what our members are seeing in their clinical practice.’

‘The data strongly suggest that mifepristone poses a far greater risk of causing harm than previously stated. In fact, the risk of serious complications may be 22 times higher than previously disclosed,’ the letter states.

In light of this, AAPLOG and the other groups signing onto the letter are urging the FDA to conduct its own evaluation of real-world data to determine the overall safety of mifepristone in both the adult and adolescent populations.

The groups also urge Kennedy and Makary to reinstate reporting of all adverse events related to mifepristone use and reinstate the pre-2016 Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies on the drug’s use, including limiting the use of the drug to seven weeks of gestation and requiring in-person dispensing as well as follow-up appointments.

The letter stressed that requiring ultrasounds is also essential to confirm the gestational age of the fetus, which the groups said is ‘crucial to accurately dating a pregnancy and determining the risk of complications.’

 ‘A basic tenet of medical ethics is informed consent – which requires a review of accurate risks and benefits of any proposed intervention that is specific to the patient sitting in front of us which is based on actual data, not ideologically-driven rhetoric,’ the letter states. ‘Women deserve to know the true risk of serious adverse events and medical emergencies after using mifepristone – no matter how politically charged the discussion surrounding this drug.’

‘Americans must be able to trust that no matter what, the FDA will rely on the most robust safety standards before and after approving any drug and that they can have truly informed consent by knowing what the risks to taking FDA-approved drugs are,’ the letter says.

The FDA’s broad approval of mifepristone has been the subject of intense legal debate in recent years, including in the Supreme Court. In 2024, the Supreme Court dismissed a case brought by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine challenging the FDA’s abortion pill approval on the grounds that the group lacked standing.

At the time, Dr. Jack Resneck Jr., then president of the American Medical Association, claimed that restricting mifepristone ‘would have devastating health consequences for people living in states where abortion is still legal.’

Resneck claimed that ‘hundreds upon hundreds of peer-reviewed clinical studies and decades of evidence-based research disprove the assertions of the plaintiffs in this case and demonstrate the safety of mifepristone,’ which he said, ‘has a safety profile comparable to ibuprofen.’

After the Ethics and Public Policy report was released, Dr. Céline Gounder, a CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, disputed the findings, accusing the study of lacking transparency and not disclosing its data source, according to CBS. 

Gounder also said the study lacked a comparison group to examine how experiences compare to pregnant women not taking mifepristone. 

A spokesperson for Danco, mifepristone’s manufacturer, also told the outlet that the company ‘stands confidently behind the product’s established safety and efficacy record.’

In a statement emailed to Fox News Digital, Dr. Christina Francis, an OB-GYN and CEO of AAPLOG, said the FDA’s deregulation of mifepristone ‘subjects pregnant women to an unacceptably low standard of care, leaving them vulnerable to life-threatening complications, and empowers abusers and traffickers who wish to force unwanted abortions on their victims.’

‘Our doctors have seen the devastating impact this recklessness has had on patients, which makes clear the dire need for the FDA to reprioritize women and girls by reexamining the drug’s safety and reinstating basic safeguards that should never have been lifted,’ she said.

The other groups that signed onto the letter are the Christian Medical and Dental Association, the American College of Pediatricians and the Coptic Medical Association of North America.

As Elon Musk moves forward with forming a third party in hopes of rocking the nation’s longstanding two-party system, the world’s richest person is reaching out to a one-time presidential candidate who has started his own independent party.

Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who spent the first four months of President Donald Trump’s second administration as a special White House advisor steering the recently created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), spoke with Andrew Yang, Fox News has confirmed.

A source familiar with the conversation said that the two discussed Musk’s push to create the ‘America Party,’ which Musk aims to field some candidates in next year’s midterm elections.

‘I’m excited for anyone who wants to move on from the duopoly,’ Yang said in a statement to Fox News. ‘And I’m happy to help give someone a sense of what the path looks like.’ News of the conversation was first reported by Politico.

Yang grabbed national attention in the 2020 election cycle, as the entrepreneur went from an extreme longshot to briefly being a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. 

But Yang soured on the two-party system after an unsuccessful 2021 run for New York City mayor. He then formed the independent Forward Party, which has been recognized in a handful of states and aims to eventually gain ballot access from coast to coast.

Yang and Musk are far from strangers. Musk in 2019 supported Yang’s unsuccessful presidential bid. 

Musk became the top donor of the 2024 election cycle, dishing out nearly $300 million in support of Trump’s bid through America PAC, a mostly Musk-funded super PAC aligned with Trump.

Trump named Musk to steer DOGE soon after the November election, and the president repeatedly praised Musk during his headline-making and controversial tenure at the cost-cutting effort.

But a feud between Musk and Trump broke out days after Musk left the White House in late May, as Musk dubbed the administration’s massive landmark spending bill – which Trump called his ‘big, beautiful bill’ – a ‘disgusting abomination,’ which he said would sink the nation into unsustainable debt.

Musk also argued that Trump would not have won last year’s presidential election without all of his support. 

Musk announced the launch of the ‘America Party’ on his social media platform X on Saturday, a day after Trump signed the sweeping domestic policy package into law. The measure narrowly passed the Senate and House last week along near party-line votes in the Republican-controlled chambers.

Trump on Sunday ridiculed Musk’s move.

‘I think it’s ridiculous to start a third party,’ Trump told reporters. ‘It’s always been a two-party system, and I think starting a third party just adds to confusion.

The president added that ‘third parties have never worked. So, he can have fun with it, but I think it’s ridiculous.’

Starting an independent or third party, and gaining ballot access in states across the country, is extremely difficult.

Attorney General Pam Bondi is facing scrutiny for remarks she made this year about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking case after the Department of Justice and FBI brought their Epstein inquiry to an abrupt close over the weekend.

The White House was grilled by reporters Monday about Bondi’s remarks, which appeared to contradict a memo the DOJ and FBI released earlier in the day stating that their Epstein review was complete and that they had nothing further to share with the public about it.

Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt about Bondi apparently confirming in February that a nonpublic list of Epstein’s sex-trafficking clients existed.

‘She was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork, all of the paper, in relation to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, that’s what the attorney general was referring to, and I’ll let her speak for that,’ Leavitt said.

The question was a reference to Fox News’s John Roberts asking Bondi during a television interview if the DOJ planned to release a ‘list of Epstein’s clients.’

‘It’s sitting on my desk right now to review,’ Bondi said at the time. ‘That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.’

Asked for comment, a DOJ spokesperson pointed to Leavitt’s remarksand said the Trump administration has been more transparent than its predecessor.

‘We’ve delivered more transparency in 6 months than the Biden administration did in 4 years,’ the spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

The newly released DOJ and FBI memo quashed theories about a nonpublic Epstein list, which was promoted for years by a vocal faction of Trump supporters, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino before they joined the bureau. The list was said to include names of powerful figures who were sexual predators associated with Epstein.

‘This systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list,’’ the memo read.

Bondi first drew criticism in February after teasing the release of damaging evidence related to Epstein. The attorney general, however, failed to deliver any new information to the public and blamed the FBI’s New York field office for withholding ‘thousands of pages of documents’ from her.

At the time, the Trump administration invited a group of right-wing social media influencers to the White House and gave them binders of what appeared to be a first look at the highly anticipated Epstein-related material.

Widely circulated photos showed the White House visitors smiling with the binders, which were labeled ‘classified’ and the ‘Esptein Files: Phase 1.’  The Epstein information, later published online, was largely a compilation of public court documents.

Some of the same influencers took to X to express incredulity over the new memo and call for Bondi’s replacement.

‘I’m supposed to be on vacation, but it’s time to fire Pam Bondi,’ Liz Wheeler wrote.

Mike Cernovich wrote that ‘nobody can even understand’ why the FBI and DOJ put out the memo and that ‘everyone is p*****.’

Rogan O’Handley called the memo a ‘shameful chapter in our country’s history.’

In response to a question from another reporter, Leavitt said nonpublic material was too explicit to release.

‘There was material they did not release because, frankly, it was incredibly graphic, and it contained child pornography, which is not something that’s appropriate for public consumption,’ Leavitt said.

The DOJ and FBI’s memo also reiterated what the FBI and DOJ inspector general found in 2023, that Epstein died by suicide.

Following the botched rollout of the files, Bondi raised eyebrows once again by claiming to reporters in May that there were ‘tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn, and there are hundreds of victims.’

But public court filings and the newly released memo do not corroborate that statement. The memo stated, however, that ‘files relating to Epstein’ included ‘ten thousand downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography.’

Epstein was indicted in 2019 for allegedly recruiting dozens of women and girls as young as 14 and engaging in sexual relations with them at his homes in Manhattan, Palm Beach, and elsewhere. He allegedly sexually abused some of them.

Authorities confirmed that Epstein hanged himself in his prison cell in New York City in 2019, before he could stand trial. His associate Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of conspiring to sexually abuse minors and sentenced to 22 years in prison.

More than 211 million people were active registered voters for the 2024 general election.

And over 158 million voters cast ballots in last year’s presidential election.

Those figures are according to a report issued to Congress by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), which has been conducting election administration and voter surveys of federal elections for two decades.

The commission touts that it ‘provides the most comprehensive source of state- and local jurisdiction-level data about election administration in the United States.’

More than 85% of voting-age Americans registered as active voters last year — the highest level on record, according to the report.

And voter turnout was the second highest in the past five presidential elections, trailing only the 2020 election.

The turnout of 64.7% of the citizen voting age population in the U.S. was a slight 3% drop compared to four years earlier.

Nearly three-quarters of those who voted last year cast their ballots in person — with 35.2% voting in person ahead of Election Day and 37.4% voting on Election Day.

According to the report, 30.3% voted by mail. That’s a drop from the 43% who voted by mail during the 2020 election, which, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, was the highwater mark for mail-in balloting.

But the report noted that the percentage of people who voted by mail in 2025 was ‘still larger than the percentage of the electorate that voted by mail in pre-pandemic elections.’

President Donald Trump won back the White House in last year’s election, with Republicans taking back control of the Senate and holding on to their razor-thin majority in the House.

The Trump administration revoked the terrorist designation for Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the militant group who overthrew President Bashar al’Assad and assumed control of the Syrian government. 

The group was formed as Syria’s al-Qaeda branch. In an astounding turnaround, the group’s interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa went from a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head to the de facto leader of Syria who scored a meeting with President Donald Trump in June. 

Al-Sharaa had been campaigning hard for a relationship with Washington and sanctions relief: He offered to build a Trump Tower in Damascus, ease hostilities with Israel, and give U.S. access to Syria’s oil and gas. He worked to soften the image of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and promised an inclusive governing structure. 

‘In consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, I hereby revoke the designation of al-Nusrah Front, also known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (and other aliases) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization,’ Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a memo made public Monday. 

The move comes a week after Trump signed an executive order ending sanctions imposed on Syria. Trump said he’d lift the sanctions on Syria to give the nation, ravaged by decades of civil war, a chance at economic development. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that lifting sanctions would help Syria ‘reestablish ties to global commerce and build international confidence,’ while continuing to prevent ‘Assad, his cronies, terrorists, and other illicit actors from attempting to destabilize Syria and the region.’ 

HTS, a Sunni Islamist group, emerged out of Jabhat al-Nusra, Syria’s former al-Qaeda affiliate. The State Department under Trump in 2018 added HTS to the existing al-Nusra foreign terrorist designation.

Some sanctions still will need to be lifted by Congress. In a bipartisan pairing from opposite sides of the political spectrum, Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., recently introduced legislation to lift sanctions on Syria. 

U.S. sanctions have included financial penalties on any foreign individual or company that provided material support to the Syrian government and prohibited anyone in the U.S. from dealing in any Syrian entity, including oil and gas. Syrian banks also were effectively cut off from global financial systems. 

A Senate Republican believes that regime change is the best long-term ‘solution’ in Iran as a fragile ceasefire between the Islamic Republic and Israel continues to hold.

The truce between Israel and Iran came late last month, and so far has put a hold on the fighting that took place over the course of 12 days in the region, which began when the Jewish State struck Iranian targets on June 13. It culminated in a U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear sites with bunker-busters in an operation greenlit by President Donald Trump.

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and previously held a position as chair of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, told Fox News Digital that he is cautiously optimistic that the truce will hold, but warned that Iran’s deep-seated aggression towards Israel could be the ceasefire’s undoing — unless a new regime took over.

‘I’m of the opinion that the longer-term solution in Iran is going to be regime change,’ Daines said. ‘Because until you have a regime that recognizes the legitimacy of the Jewish state of Israel and their right to exist, and believes that Israel should not be destroyed, I don’t think we’re going to bring the peace that we need, that we all aspire to see between Iran, Israel and, frankly, in the Middle East.’

Daines’ sentiment comes ahead of an expected meeting between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday at the White House. 

There is a bipartisan push between Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., to further arm Israel with B-2 bombers and bunker-busting bombs, but most lawmakers, including Daines, don’t believe that the U.S. should get involved in toppling the current regime and installing a new one.

The U.S. was involved in regime change in the country in the 1950s, when then-Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was removed and the door was opened for Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to take control of Iran. In 1979, the Islamic Revolution took place, which removed Pahlavi from power and saw the birth of the current regime.

Daines argued that any change must come from within, because ‘otherwise, it’s just a matter of time before that regime would lose its legitimacy.’

‘Regime change is risky because you may end up with something worse than what you have,’ Daines said. ‘Now in this case, the bar is set awfully low in Iran, but you could get an equivalent type of philosophy, or maybe something a little better.’

‘I think we need to have a regime that recognizes that Iran and their long-term prosperity will be tied to growing closer to the West and being an ally of the West and not being an ally of China, Russia, North Korea,’ he continued.

‘A ceasefire is not the end. It’s a means. A ceasefire just says, ‘OK, we’re still at war, but we’re not going to shoot for a while.’ That’s what a ceasefire is,’ Daines said. ‘A lasting peace will be when the Iranian leadership recognizes the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state.’

‘Until that happens, I think Iran will remain a threat, particularly if the regime, whether it’s the current regime or a regime that changed that has a similar ideology as the current regime, that Israel must be destroyed,’ he continued. ‘That is not a peaceful outcome. That’s just delaying what could be a future development of nuclear capabilities and some kind of a first strike by Iran, either against Israel or against the United States.’

Senior advisors to then-President Joe Biden reportedly urged him to hold a debate against President Donald Trump as early as possible in an attempt to highlight Biden’s ‘leadership’ and Trump’s ‘weakness,’ according to a new book. 

The book, ‘2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,’ is set for release Tuesday and claims that Biden’s team dismissed concerns about his age during the 2024 election cycle.  

The book, authored by Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal, Tyler Pager of the New York Times and Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post, says Biden senior advisors wrote up a memo advocating an initial spring debate, followed by a potential second one in early September after Labor Day. 

This strategy would allow Biden to take on Trump before early voting in battleground states kicked off, set the terms of the debate most advantageous for Biden and highlight Biden’s ‘leadership’ in contrast to Trump’s, according to a memo on the matter. 

‘By holding the first debate in the spring, YOU will be able to reach the widest audience possible, before we are deep in the summer months with the conventions, Olympics and family vacations taking precedence,’ Biden’s senior advisors reportedly wrote in an April 15, 2024, memo, published by Politico Playbook. ‘In addition, the earlier YOU are able to debate the better, so that the American people can see YOU standing next to Trump and showing the strength of YOUR leadership, compared to Trump’s weakness and chaos.’

Even so, the book reports that some Biden aides were hesitant about an early debate, with some even advocating that Biden shouldn’t debate Trump at all. Specifically, the book cites a Biden donor who pressed the White House in May 2024 to find a reason to pull Biden from the debates, after the donor reported being ‘alarmed’ by Biden’s behavior at a Chicago fundraiser. 

Meanwhile, the Trump White House said the debate backfired on Biden, and instead, shed light on Biden’s own weaknesses. 

‘The only highlight from the debate was Joe Biden’s inability (to) form a complete sentence,’ White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a Monday statement to Fox News Digital. ‘American voters got a firsthand look at Biden’s weakness, his campaign in chaos, and what it looks like when real leader is missing from the White House.’ 

‘Unfortunately for the Democrats, no adviser or so-called ‘strategic’ move could save their incompetent candidates and terrible policies from President Trump’s historic, landslide victory,’ Rogers said. 

A spokesperson for Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Biden and Trump ultimately did face off in a debate on June 27, 2024 – an event that prompted Biden to exit the election in July 2024 and led to Vice President Kamala Harris to take on Trump in November 2024. 

‘2024’ is one of several books that have been released in 2025 detailing Biden’s mental deterioration while in office and how Trump won the election. Another example is the book ‘Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,’ released May 20. 

The U.S. envoy to Lebanon championed a response issued by Beirut on Monday to a proposal by Washington that detailed the complete disarmament of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in exchange for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from its southern region. 

Envoy Thomas Barrack told reporters he was ‘unbelievably satisfied’ with Beirut’s timely response to a June 19 proposal that called for the disarmament of Hezbollah within a four-month timeframe. 

‘What the government gave us was something spectacular in a very short period of time,’ Barrack said following a meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, who took the top job in January. ‘I’m unbelievably satisfied with the response.’

The news comes as negotiators are also working to end Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip after Jerusalem saw itself facing four fronts just last fall with a war on its southern border against Hamas, back-and-forth missile strikes with Iran as well as with the Houthis in Yemen, and a campaign that unfolded in Lebanon.

A truce was struck in Lebanon following a sophisticated pager bombing that targeted hundreds of Hezbollah members across the country in September. 

Hezbollah largely retreated from Lebanon’s southern region and has reportedly relinquished some arms.

But reporting by Reuters on Monday also suggested that Hezbollah may be unwilling to relinquish all its arms and the details of the U.S.-Lebanon agreement that would see the disarmament of the terrorist network remain unknown.

Israeli troops have remained in parts of southern Lebanon to counter what it argues is a continued threat posed by the terrorist network to Israeli communities that live on the northern border, and skirmishes have continued. 

Barrack, who also serves as U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, said he believes that, ultimately, Lebanon and Israel share the same goal – peace.

‘The Israelis do not want war with Lebanon,’ he said. ‘Both countries are trying to give the same thing – the notion of a stand-down agreement, of the cessation of hostilities, and a road to peace.’

Barrack also suggested that the Trump administration may look to add Lebanon to the list of nations that have normalized ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords – a chief policy of Trump’s during his first administration and one which he has once again made a top priority. 

Fox News Digital could not confirm whether Beirut is yet interested in that level of diplomacy with its southern neighbor.

But Barrack also suggested that Syria has already begun ‘dialogue’ with Israel. 

‘The dialogue has started between Syria and Israel, just as the dialogue needs to be reinvented by Lebanon,’ he said. ‘If you don’t want change, it’s no problem. The rest of the region is moving at Mach speed and you will be left behind.’

The comments come one week after Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar said Jerusalem ‘is interested in expanding the Abraham Accords circle of peace and normalization.

‘We have an interest in adding countries, such as Syria and Lebanon, our neighbors, to the circle of peace and normalization – while safeguarding Israel’s essential and security interests,’ he added, though much of the normalization efforts would depend on Israel ending its war in the Gaza Strip. 

Reuters contributed to this report.