Lawmakers could soon have Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous ‘birthday book,’ which could potentially give insight into the disgraced late financier’s social ties. 

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., who serves as the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, told MSNBC on Friday that Epstein’s estate ‘is actually going to actually now get us that book and a bunch of other documents that they have that’s not actually been reported yet.’ He added that the lawmakers expect to receive the book and the documents on Sept. 8.

Garcia also told MSNBC that ‘many of the victims’ of Epstein would speak to lawmakers on Capitol Hill next week to ‘highlight their stories.’ He did not name the lawmakers or accusers expected to meet.

The release date is confirmed in the subpoena signed by House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky. The specific deadline listed in the subpoena is Sept. 8 at 12 p.m.

‘The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is reviewing the possible mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell, the circumstances and subsequent investigations of Mr. Epstein’s death, the operation of sex-trafficking rings and ways for the federal government to effectively combat them, and potential violations of ethics rules related to elected officials,’ Comer stated in a cover letter that accompanied the subpoena.

‘Recent reporting indicates the estate of Mr. Epstein has access to documents relevant to the Committee’s investigation, including the alleged ‘birthday book’ prepared for Mr. Epstein by Ms. Maxwell… It is imperative that Congress conduct oversight of the federal government’s enforcement of sex trafficking laws generally and specifically its handling of the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell,’ Comer added.

READ THE LETTER BELOW. APP USERS CLICK HERE:

House Oversight Democrats released a statement Monday supporting the subpoena for the book and calling on former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and Trump Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to testify before Congress. He is expected to appear for a closed-door transcribed interview next month.

With a federal probe of the case under way, lawmakers have sought the testimony of several former high-ranking officials, such as former Attorney General Bill Barr. While Barr testified before lawmakers, Democrats, such as Reps. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., and Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, were not pleased with Republicans’ questions.

Comer, who argued those accusations were baseless, implored Democrats not to politicize a bipartisan investigation. Divisions deepened after Comer said Barr had no knowledge of, nor did he believe there were any implications of wrongdoing on President Donald Trump’s part related to Epstein.

Garcia disagreed. Though he did not attend the deposition, he said in a statement that Barr did not clear Trump.

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report. 

Demetre Daskalakis, an official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), resigned this week, claiming the Trump administration’s policies ignore science. However, his own leadership during the Biden-era monkeypox response was criticized for putting optics over public health.

Amid the Trump administration’s efforts to push out CDC Director Susan Monarez, a handful of other top CDC officials, including Daskalakis, resigned in protest of the Trump administration’s policies. Daskalakis wrote in his resignation letter that was posted to social media that the health policies put forward by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy do not ‘reflect scientific reality.’ He also accused the Trump administration of attempting to ‘erase transgender populations,’ while also using the term ‘pregnant people’ to describe women who are about to give birth.

But flashback to 2022 and 2023, after the monkeypox virus had spread across several countries and made its way into the U.S., during which Daskalakis was among the Biden administration’s top advisers who spearheaded the national response to the disease outbreak. 

Government communications from that time period, uncovered by watchdog group the Oversight Project, show that officials were aware that the disease was spreading among the gay community. However, those communications, and other records, show the administration appeared to be more concerned with protecting the stigma targeting the gay community, than they were with implementing measures that would provide the best mitigation response.

‘A common theme was public health officials identifying locations where outbreaks occurred, to include bathhouses and saunas,’ according to the Oversight Project. ‘Officials never broached consideration of shutting down these locations. This draws a stark contrast to the public health guidance and shutdowns of gathering places during COVID, to include gyms and skate parks.’

In 2023, after the monkeypox outbreak had taken hold in the U.S., Daskalakis went on national television to let the country know that his team was ‘making sure [they] got the word out in a way that supports people’s joy, as opposed to calling them risky.’

‘You know, one person’s idea of risk, is another person’s idea of a great festival or Friday night, for that matter. So, we have to sort of embrace that with joy and make sure that folks know how to keep themselves safe,’ the Biden monkeypox coordinator added.

Meanwhile, during the outbreak, Daskalkis posted a tweet from gay sex app Grindr that stated ‘Dr. Daskalakis could jab me any day,’ with a sticker of a flattered cat.

In other social media posts from around the same time, Daskalkis can be seen using male models wearing leather bondage straps to make an entrance at an HIV prevention summit. 

While in his role at the White House leading the monkeypox response, Daskalkis also reportedly ran an STD screening operation from an after-hours sex club in New York City. When asked about the operation in an interview, Daskalakis described it as ‘exciting’ and added there was ‘not much sleep time.’ Later in the interview, he added: ‘I’d already kind of been the bathhouse HIV testing doctor.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Daskalakis about the juxtaposition between his criticism of Kennedy’s policies not reflecting ‘scientific reality,’ and his role in the Biden administration’s approach to monkeypox, but did not receive an immediate response.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso is ready to go nuclear on Senate Democrats and their blockade of President Donald Trump’s nominees.

Before leaving Washington, D.C., to their respective home states, Senate Republicans were on the verge of a deal with their colleagues across the aisle to hammer out a deal to ram through dozens of Trump’s picks for non-controversial positions.

But those talks fell apart when Trump nuked any further negotiations over funding demands from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Currently, there are 145 pending nominations on the Senate’s executive calendar, with that number expected to balloon when the upper chamber reopens for business.

Lawmakers are set to return on Tuesday, and Barrasso, R-Wyo., wants to immediately tackle the nomination quandary. He’s engaged in a public pressure campaign, writing an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal directly calling out Schumer.

Meanwhile, he’s facilitated talks among Senate Republicans on the best path forward, and told Fox News Digital in an interview that, at this point, he’s willing to do anything necessary to see the president’s picks confirmed.

‘We need to either get a lot of cooperation from the Democrats, or we’re going to have to roll over them with changes of the rules that we’re going to be able to do in a unilateral way, as well as President Trump making recess appointments,’ he said.

Senate Democrats, under Schumer’s direction, are unlikely to play ball, however.

Schumer, in response to Barrasso’s public jab against him and Senate Democrats, contended in a statement that ‘historically bad nominees deserve a historic level of scrutiny by Senate Democrats.’

‘Anybody nominated by President Trump is, in Schumer’s words, ‘historically bad.’ Why? Because they were nominated by President Trump,’ Barrasso shot back. ‘That is his sole criteria for which these people are being gone after and filibustered, each and every one of them, even those that are coming out of committee, many, many of whom are with bipartisan support.’

Unilaterally changing the rules, or the nuclear option, would allow Republicans to make tweaks to the confirmation process without help from Democrats, but it could also kneecap further negotiations on key items that would require their support to advance beyond the Senate filibuster.

Barrasso was not worried about taking that route, however, and noted that the nominees that he and other Republicans were specifically considering would be ‘sub-Cabinet level positions’ and ambassadors.

Up for discussion are changes to the debate time, what kind of nominee could qualify for a speedier process and whether to give the president runway to make recess appointments, which would require the Senate to go into recess and allow Trump to make appointments on a temporary basis.

‘When you take a look at this right now, it takes a 30-minute roll-call vote to get on cloture, and then two hours of debate time, and then another 30-minute roll-call vote,’ Barrasso said. ‘Well, that’s three hours, and it’s time when you can’t do legislation, you can’t do any of the other things.’

But there is a menu of key items that Congress will have to deal with when they return, particularly the deadline to fund the government by Sept. 30.

Barrasso acknowledged that reality, and noted that it was because of the hefty schedule that he wanted a rules change to be put front and center.

‘There’s not going to be any time to — or there’s going to be limited time, I should say, to actually get people through the nominations process, which is just going to drag on further, and you’ll have more people having hearings and coming out of committees,’ he said.  

‘This backlog is going to worsen this traffic jam at the Schumer toll booth. So, we are going to do something, because this cannot stand.’

America First Legal (AFL) sued the Food and Drug Administration on Friday to obtain Biden-era records related to the government’s internal guidance for the recommended use of puberty blockers for kids.  

The Trump-aligned legal group previously uncovered communications from the former administration through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, which reportedly showed the FDA knew that these drugs increased mental health risk but still recommended approving them for kids.

Following those uncovered communications, AFL followed up with a separate FOIA requesting documents specifically pertaining to the FDA’s internal guidance for the off-label use of these drugs. Despite acknowledging the federal information request, the FDA has not cooperated, and the deadline to produce documents is up.

‘The Biden administration pushed gender-denying treatments on American kids. Now, it’s time to expose what officials really knew,’ AFL counsel Will Scolinos, said. 

Similar to AFL’s current FOIA request, the group was required to engage in litigation to compel the release of the first set of documents. 

But, eventually, documents were released that seemed to show the Biden-era Division of General Endocrinology at the FDA recommended the agency approve puberty blockers for children despite the knowledge that there were negative impacts associated with them, such as increased depression, suicidality and seizure risks.

‘There is definitely a need for these drugs to be approved for gender transition,’ an FDA official from the agency’s endocrinology division stated in an email uncovered by AFL. In the same communications, the FDA official also explicitly states that studies found ‘increased risk of depression and suicidality, as well as increased seizure risk.’

Such findings have been confirmed by other studies as well.

Researchers at the University of Texas sampled 107,583 patients 18 and older who had gender dysphoria, including some who underwent gender surgery, and concluded that ‘gender-sensitive mental health support … to address post-surgical psychological risks’ is a ‘necessity.’

Males who received surgery had depression rates of 25% compared to males without surgery, who had rates slightly below 12%. Anxiety rates among that group were 12.8% compared to 2.6%.

The same differences were seen among females as well. Those with surgery had 22.9% depression rates compared to 14.6% in the non-surgical group. Females who did get surgery also had a rate of anxiety of 10.5% compared to 7.1% for girls who had not gotten surgery.

Fox News Digital reached out to the FDA for comment but did not immediately receive a response. 

Fox News’ Melissa Rudy and Michael Dorgan contributed to this report

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Friday grilled lawyers for the Justice Department and Lisa Cook over President Donald Trump’s historic attempt to fire her from the Federal Reserve.

The landmark case is almost certain to be kicked to the Supreme Court for review. Despite the high-stakes nature of the legal dispute, Friday’s hearing ended after more than two hours without clear resolution. 

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee, declined to immediately grant the temporary restraining order sought by Lisa Cook’s attorneys, which would keep her in her role on the Fed’s Board of Governors for now. 

Cook’s lawyers included the request for the temporary restraining order in the lawsuit filed in federal court on Thursday, challenging Trump’s attempt to fire her from her position on the independent board due to allegations of mortgage fraud. 

Instead, Judge Cobb ordered both parties to submit any supplemental briefs to the court by Tuesday, shortly before she dismissed the lawyers for the long weekend.

Cobb noted the novelty of the case before her, which involves the first attempt by a sitting president to oust a Federal Reserve governor ‘for cause.’ 

The fraud allegations were first leveled by Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee to the federal agency that regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He accused Cook of claiming two primary residences in two separate states in 2021, with the goal of obtaining more favorable loan conditions. 

Trump followed up by posting a letter on Truth Social earlier this week that he had determined ‘sufficient cause’ to fire Cook, a dismissal he said was ‘effective immediately,’ prompting her attorneys to file the emergency lawsuit.

The crux of Friday’s arguments centered on the definition of what ‘for cause’ provisions must entail for removal from the board under the Federal Reserve Act, or FRA, a law designed to shield members from the political whims of the commander in chief or members of Congress. 

The arguments also centered on Cook’s claims in her lawsuit that Trump’s attempt to fire her amounts to an illegal effort to remove her from the Fed well before her tenure is slated to end in January 2038 to install his own nominee. 

Lawyers for Cook argued that her firing was merely a ‘pretext’ for Trump to secure a majority on the Fed board, a contention that Cobb admitted made her ‘uncomfortable.’

They also attempted to poke holes in the mortgage fraud allegations, which they said were made on social media and ‘backfilled.’

The case ‘obviously raises important questions’ about the Federal Reserve Board, Cobb said shortly before adjourning court.

She also noted that she had not yet made a determination about the alleged ‘irreparable harm,’ prompting her to set the Tuesday filing deadline.

Cook’s attorneys argued Friday that Trump’s attempt to fire her violates her due process rights under the Fifth Amendment, as well as her statutory right to notice and a hearing under the Federal Reserve Act. 

Her lawyer, Abbe Lowell, noted on several occasions that there was no ‘investigation or charge’ from the administration prior to Trump’s abrupt announcement that he would fire Cook.  

Lowell also vehemently disputed the Justice Department’s allegations that Cook had an ‘opportunity’ to respond to the mortgage fraud accusations leveled by Bill Pulte, noting that they were made just 30 minutes before Trump called for Cook to be removed.  

He told Cobb that it was the latest attempt by the Trump administration to ‘litigate by tweet.’

Lawyers for the Trump administration, for their part, argued that the president has broad latitude to determine the ‘for cause’ provision.

Justice Department attorney Yakoov Roth told Cobb that the determination of when to invoke the provision should be left to the president, regardless of whether it is viewed by others as ‘pretextual.’

‘That sounds to me like the epitome of a discretionary determination, and that is when the president’s power is at [its] apex,’ Roth said.

DOJ lawyers also noted that Cook, to date, has not disputed any of the allegations in question and argued there is ‘nothing she has said’ about the allegations that would cause her to not be fired.

‘What if the stated cause is demonstrably false?’  Cobb asked, going on to cite hypothetical concerns that a president could, theoretically, use allegations to stack federal boards with majorities.

As for the issue of ‘irreparable harm,’ Justice Department attorneys argued that it would be more harmful for Cook to remain in office, arguing that the ‘harm of having someone in office who is wrongfully there … outweighs the harm of someone being wrongfully removed from office.’

Cook’s attorneys said Friday that in reviewing the lawsuit, the court need not itself establish a definition of what ’cause’ means under the Federal Reserve Act.

Instead, Lowell suggested, the court should instead work backwards to determine whether the accusations leveled by Pulte were in fact ‘backfilled’ by Trump to form the basis of her removal.  

‘It’s very difficult to come up with an 11-page definition of what it is,’ Lowell said Friday of the ’cause’ definition, adding that it is far easier to come up with a one-page definition of ‘what it’s not.’ 

‘Whatever it is, it’s not this,’ Lowell said.

Russia isn’t backing off from attacking Ukraine and pummeled it with missiles and drones Thursday — just weeks after President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, in an attempt to advance a peace deal. 

The attack could be a signal Putin is utilizing diplomacy to buy himself more time to advance his goals and continue to attack Ukraine, all while avoiding secondary sanctions that the Trump administration has threatened to impose, according to experts. 

The time to act is now, according to Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on cyber issues.  

‘Putin is stringing President Trump along and the added time is helping Russia to continue the bombing campaign against Ukrainian cities,’ Bacon said in a Friday statement to Fox News Digital. ‘The longer Trump refuses to impose secondary sanctions against Russia and send high-end weapons to Ukraine, the more he looks like a simp for Putin. It is beyond time for Trump to have moral clarity and come in strong to help the democracy that is being attacked by the Russian thug.’ 

Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general who is not seeking reelection in 2026, said that discussions with Putin have proven futile and have indicated Putin isn’t serious about a deal. 

‘We’ve seen zero results from the talks as far as Putin being willing to compromise,’ Bacon said. ‘Although I think seeking negotiations was worthwhile initially, it showed Putin does not want peace.’ 

The White House has maintained that Trump has made more progress in two weeks to resolve the conflict than his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, did in more than three years, and pointed to Trump’s meeting with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy within days of each other.  

‘President Trump’s national security team continue to engage with Russian and Ukrainian officials toward a bilateral meeting to stop the killing and end the war,’ White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a Friday statement to Fox News Digital. 

Trump announced July 14 that he would sign off on ‘severe tariffs’ against Russia if Moscow failed to agree to a peace deal within 50 days. He then dramatically reduced the deadline to only 10–12 days — which ended Aug. 8. But rather than lay on additional sanctions against Russia, Trump met with Putin a week later in Alaska and hailed the meeting a great success. 

Still, progress stemming from the meeting appears limited. Russia did not agree to a ceasefire, and while Trump initially said a trilateral meeting with both Putin and Zelenskyy was in the works, Russia has shown disinterest in such a meeting. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with NBC News Aug. 22 that no meeting had been scheduled and Putin would only agree to one if certain terms were approved beforehand. That’s not the case, he said. 

‘Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all,’ Lavrov said. 

Meanwhile, Russia launched a massive attack employing nearly 600 drones and decoys against Kyiv Thursday, killing more than 20 people. In response, the U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting for Friday, per the urging of Ukraine and several other European allies. 

Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia during former President Barack Obama’s administration, said in a post on X that Putin has only escalated attacks against Ukraine following the Alaska meeting, and said Putin is ‘openly mocking’ Trump. 

‘I hope Mr. Trump and his team understand how Putin is spitting in their faces,’ McFaul said in a Thursday post on X. 

Additionally, Putin is onto the fact he can bypass economic consequences, and won’t seriously negotiate a deal unless he must, according to Steven Pifer, who previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine during former President Bill Clinton’s administration. 

‘I think that Putin is, in fact, stringing the president along,’ Pifer told Fox News Digital. ‘Putin still believes he can achieve his goals, vis a vis Ukraine, on the battlefield. And we’re not going to see a serious negotiating attempt by the Russians until Putin is convinced he cannot win on the battlefield, and that continuing to try is only going to mean greater and greater cost — first and foremost, a lot more dead Russian soldiers.’

‘I just don’t see any really serious steps the administration has taken to inflict any punishment on Putin,’ Pifer said. ‘I think Putin’s figured that out, and until Putin is disabused of that notion, he’s going to keep missing deadlines.’ 

Historically, Russia’s demands for a peace deal have included barring Ukraine from ever joining NATO, along with concessions on some of the borders that previously were Ukraine’s.

Peter Rough, a senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at the Hudson Institute think tank, said that because Putin knows the U.S. is eager to end the war, Putin’s peace deal requirements are an attempt to turn up the heat on Ukraine. 

Following Trump’s meeting with Putin and ahead of his meeting days later with Zelenskyy, the U.S. president put the onus on Ukraine to end the war – and said that Ukraine could end the war immediately if it agreed to cede Crimea to Russia, and abandon its bid for NATO membership.

‘Putin managed to sidestep U.S. sanctions in Alaska and is content slogging away in Ukraine,’ Rough told Fox News Digital Monday. ‘But he also recognizes that the U.S. wants this war to come to an end, so he has put forward a proposal intended to appeal to Washington in the hopes that the U.S. will put pressure on Ukraine to accept its terms. If he can divide the transatlantic alliance along the way, all the better. At the very least, it helps him stave off additional U.S. sanctions.’ 

John Hardie, Russia program deputy director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that Putin isn’t interested in agreeing to a deal unless his terms are included in it. In the meantime, Putin is utilizing diplomacy to avoid economic consequences, Hardie said. 

‘I think Putin does want a deal — but only if it’s on his terms,’ Hardie told Fox News Digital Monday. ‘Until that happens, he’s bent on continuing the war, and Russia seeks to use diplomacy to forestall tougher U.S. economic pressure and redirect Trump’s ire from Moscow to Kyiv.’ 

House investigators’ plan to grill former FBI Director Robert Mueller has hit a snag. 

The House Oversight Committee was set to have Mueller appear before the panel on Tuesday as part of the House’s probe into Jeffrey Epstein. However, a source familiar with the investigation told Fox News Digital that lawmakers ‘learned that Mr. Mueller has health issues that preclude him from being able to testify.’ 

‘The committee intends to withdraw its subpoena,’ the source said. 

Mueller was one of many notable figures, including the Clintons, who House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., subpoenaed to testify before the panel. 

He would have been the second witness appearing in-person before the House Oversight Committee after former Attorney General Bill Barr did so last month.

His closed-door deposition was expected to see at least some lawmakers on both sides attend, with the investigation so far seeing wide bipartisan support in an otherwise highly divided era for Congress.

Mueller was most recently in the headlines for his role as special counsel investigating whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election in favor of President Donald Trump.

That probe, which did not find Trump to have committed any wrongdoing, saw 34 people indicted and eight convictions or guilty pleas, including several people associated with the president.

House investigators were expected to dive into Mueller’s time as director of the FBI. He led the bureau under former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, from September 2001 until September 2013.

It was during that window that the federal government first investigated Epstein, something Comer pointed out in his letter subpoenaing Mueller.

‘When you were FBI Director, an FBI investigation of Mr. Epstein led to an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Florida preparing a draft 60-count indictment of Mr. Epstein in 2007,’ Comer wrote.

‘However, the next year, Mr. Epstein pled guilty in Florida state court to two prostitution offenses, and, in exchange, he and his co-conspirators received immunity from federal prosecution through a non-prosecution agreement.’

That non-prosecution agreement has been widely criticized and is now the basis for Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to appeal her conviction and 20-year prison sentence before the Supreme Court.

It’s not clear how much of a role Mueller would have had in that agreement. Alexander Acosta, the former Trump labor secretary and U.S. attorney in Florida who signed off on the deal, is sitting down with the House Oversight Committee for a voluntary transcribed interview later this month.

Comer sent out a flurry of subpoenas last month in relation to the Epstein probe. 

Other figures also compelled to appear after Mueller are former FBI Director James Comey, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and ex-first couple Bill and Hillary Clinton.

White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff met with Ukrainian officials in New York City Friday for ‘very productive and constructive’ talks ahead of Kyiv’s emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, Fox News Digital has learned.

Witkoff met with Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s office of the president and chief of staff, and Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador extraordinary.

Senior administration officials familiar with the meeting told Fox News Digital that Yermak and Kyslytsya gave Witkoff a status update on the war with Russia and Moscow’s most recent attacks.

Russia launched a large-scale attack on Kyiv Wednesday night, killing at least 17 people, wounding 48 others and damaging buildings, officials in Ukraine said. 

The Ukrainian officials invited Witkoff to visit Ukraine in the future, a senior official told Fox News Digital.

Witkoff is continuing talks with Ukrainian officials, who say they are making progress.

The meeting, according to Trump administration officials, was a status update and a reaffirmation of the goal of getting both Ukraine and Russia to meet to ultimately reach an agreement to end the war.

Witkoff’s diplomatic approach in the highly sensitive talks has been met with praise by Trump Cabinet officials and foreign officials alike. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also touted Witkoff’s work, saying he is ‘a key member of President Trump’s team and plays an indispensable role in advancing the president’s priorities.’

Rubio told Fox News Digital that Witkoff’s ‘unique perspective and innovative approach open new opportunities for diplomacy that were previously unavailable.’ 

‘It’s been remarkable to see him in action and a privilege to call him a colleague,’ Rubio told Fox News Digital.

National Security Advisor to the United Kingdom Jonathan Powell also praised Witkoff’s style.

Powell reflected on his more than 30 years of experience in peace negotiations, telling Fox News Digital that ‘there is a lot of snobbery in diplomacy — that peace can only be made in grand chandelier rooms, with a delegation of tens of officials and decades of diplomatic experience.’

‘But in my experience, the people who are actually successful at making peace operate on their own and concentrate on building trust between key leaders on either side and moving quietly to cut a deal,’ Powell said. ‘Steve Witkoff is exactly that sort of person.’

Powell told Fox News Digital that Witkoff’s experience of ‘making deals in a completely different field,’ along with his ‘charm and optimism, unburdened by the tens of reasons why an initiative cannot work, and a steely focus on getting to a lasting agreement.

‘In the court of this year, Steve has been able to open doors that no one else could and make peace possible in a series of different conflicts which would otherwise have remained insoluble.’

And Jared Kushner, a former senior adviser to Trump during his first administration, told Fox News Digital that the Trump administration’s ‘small, focused teams with the right leadership can achieve great results.’

‘Coming from the deal world, managing several complex deals at the same time is not uncommon,’ Kushner said, touting Witkoff’s ‘commitment, creativity and determination to solve some of the world’s most complex problems.’

‘Steve is quick to seek out advice and expertise when he is assessing a situation and evolves his perspectives as the facts change,’ Kushner said.

Reports this week, however, quoted anonymous sources who said Witkoff didn’t have enough experience to handle the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Vice President JD Vance, though, told Fox News Digital that Witkoff has ‘made more progress toward ending the bloodshed in Ukraine than all his critics combined.’

‘He’s a natural diplomat, an experienced negotiator and a true humanitarian,’ Vance said.

Vance blasted those who have criticized Witkoff for simply being ‘threatened.’ 

‘These smears are coming from lifelong bureaucrats who are threatened by Steve’s success and who are basically opposed to a productive peace process,’ Vance said.

Meanwhile, Witkoff’s meeting with officials in New York City comes just hours after Ukraine requested an emergency open briefing at the U.N. Security Council following Russia’s overnight aerial attacks on Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine. 

Council members Denmark, France, Greece, the Republic of Korea, Slovenia and the United Kingdom supported the meeting request. 

Reports say Russia used nearly 600 drones and more than 30 ballistic and cruise missiles in the attack this week. 

Russia’s continued attacks come after Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska earlier in August. Putin proposed Ukraine cede some territory in exchange for peace. 

Days later, Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several European heads of state at the White House, and he urged Ukraine to accept a land swap deal with Russia. Trump has argued that it is the most efficient way to end the war. 

Trump hosted Zelenskyy along with French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Finnish President Alexander Stubb. 

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also attended the meeting at the White House. 

Trump is coordinating the next steps in brokering an end to the war and is encouraging Putin and Zelenskyy to meet. 

Trump has said that after Putin and Zelenskyy meet, he will host a ‘trilat,’ which will be a meeting between Putin, Zelenskyy and Trump. 

‘After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself,’ Trump said last week. ‘Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, are coordinating with Russia and Ukraine.’ 

But after the latest attack, Zelenskyy blasted Putin, saying Russia ‘chooses ballistics instead of the negotiating table. It chooses to continue killing instead of ending the war.

‘And this means that Russia still does not fear the consequences,’ Zelenskyy added. ‘Russia still takes advantage of the fact that at least part of the world turns a blind eye to murdered children and seeks excuses for Putin.’ 

Zelenskyy added that it is ‘definitely time for new, tough sanctions against Russia for everything it is doing.

‘All deadlines have already been broken, dozens of opportunities for diplomacy ruined,’ he said. ‘Russia must feel accountable for every strike, for every day of this war. Eternal memory to all victims of Russia.’

Bipartisan anger is brewing over the drama that unfolded at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), with the top members of the Senate’s healthcare panel forming a united front in the midst of the turmoil.

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., and the panel’s ranking member, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., dove head first into the issues stemming from the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez, which spurred a string of departures from the agency.

Monarez was abruptly fired from her position by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), less than a month after being confirmed by the Senate. Her removal, which her lawyers rejected, appeared to stem from disagreements over vaccines with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a vaccine skeptic.

Cassidy was the deciding vote during Kennedy’s confirmation hearing earlier this year.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the president and Kennedy were ‘committed to restoring trust and transparency and credibility to the CDC.’ 

‘We’re going to make sure that folks that are in positions of leadership there are aligned with that mission,’ she said. 

Cassidy agreed with that sentiment. 

‘The president and secretary are right,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘We need radical transparency. We need to protect the health of our children. The two go together. I am committed to the president’s vision, which is why the HELP Committee will conduct oversight.’

Monarez has since refused to leave the post, with her lawyers arguing that she had neither resigned nor been fired and had not received notification from the president of her removal.

Following news of her ouster, a string of top officials at the CDC announced their resignations, too, including National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Daniel Jernigan, Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Demetre Daskalakis and Director of Public Health Data, Science, Technology Jennifer Layden.

In response to their resignations, Cassidy demanded that the federal government’s vaccine advisory panel, which was filled with Kennedy’s handpicked replacements after he recently booted the original panel members, postpone its scheduled meeting in September.

His demand marks the second time this year that Cassidy called on the panel to halt its meeting.

Cassidy argued Thursday that there were ‘serious allegations made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] meeting.’

‘These decisions directly impact children’s health, and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted,’ Cassidy said in a statement. ‘If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.’

Daskalakis posted his reason for resigning on X, where he charged that he was ‘unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.’

Meanwhile, Sanders demanded a congressional investigation be opened into the Trump administration’s decision to fire Monarez.

‘We need leaders at the CDC and HHS who are committed to improving public health and have the courage to stand up for science, not officials who have a history of spreading bogus conspiracy theories and disinformation,’ Sanders said Thursday.

HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.  

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle panned the White House’s move to cancel billions in foreign aid funding as illegal, and warned that it could have dire consequences on the fast-approaching deadline to fund the government.

The White House on Thursday notified Congress of the administration’s intent to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid funding through a ‘pocket rescission.’

‘Last night, President Trump CANCELED $4.9 billion in America Last foreign aid using a pocket rescission,’ the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said on X. ‘[President Donald Trump] will always put AMERICA FIRST!’

The pocket rescissions package obtained by Fox News Digital includes cuts to a variety of foreign aid programs over several fiscal years that the administration argued did not comport with Trump’s agenda.  

Included are roughly $520 million in cuts to Contributions to International Organizations account, over $390 million in cuts to the Contributions for International Peacekeeping Activities account, $322 million from the Democracy Fund, $445 million from the Peacekeeping Operations account and over $3 billion from Development Assistance.

The rescissions process allows the president to make a request to Congress to cancel already approved funding within a 45-day period. Lawmakers successfully went through that exercise earlier this year when they approved $9 billion to be slashed from public broadcasting and foreign aid.

However, a pocket rescission is designed to skirt that 45-day window by coming so close to the end of a fiscal year that lawmakers wouldn’t have time to weigh in. And the White House’s maneuver is already giving Senate Republicans and Democrats heartburn.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement that the move was an ‘apparent attempt to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval.’

She also argued that the Government Accountability Office found that under the Impoundment Control Act, the law that governs rescissions, this style of pocket rescission was illegal.

‘Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law,’ she said.

‘Instead of this attempt to undermine the law, the appropriate way is to identify ways to reduce excessive spending through the bipartisan, annual appropriations process,’ Collins continued. ‘Congress approves rescissions regularly as part of this process.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the OMB and the White House for comment but did not immediately hear back.

Lawmakers will also have to grapple with how the pocket rescissions will affect negotiations to keep the government open. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., already warned that further attempts to claw back congressionally approved funding would be a bridge too far for Democrats.

Prior to the announcement, Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., imploring both to meet with them to discuss the looming Sept. 30 deadline. 

In the letter, they specifically asked if more rescissions were coming.

Now, Schumer charged that the ‘unlawful ‘pocket rescission’ package is further proof President Trump and Congressional Republicans are hellbent on rejecting bipartisanship and ‘going it alone’ this fall.’

‘As the country stares down next month’s government funding deadline on September 30th, it is clear neither President Trump nor Congressional Republicans have any plan to avoid a painful and entirely unnecessary shutdown,’ Schumer said in a statement.

‘In fact, it seems Republicans are eager to inflict further pain on the American people, raising their health care costs, compromising essential services and further damaging our national security,’ he continued.