A bipartisan group of lawmakers is introducing a bill aimed at restricting any unauthorized military action by President Donald Trump, amid growing debate over his comments about acquiring Greenland ‘one way or the other.’

Rep. Bill Keating, D-Mass., is leading the legislation along with Reps. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., and Don Bacon, R-Neb., according to POLITICO.

‘This is about our fundamental shared goals and our fundamental security, not just in Europe, but in the United States itself,’ Keating said in a statement to the outlet.

The group involved in the effort is soliciting broader support for the legislation and say they hope additional Republicans will back the effort to restrict funding for any unauthorized military action against U.S. allies.

In a letter to colleagues, Keating said ‘this legislation takes a clear stand against such action and further supports NATO allies and partners,’ according to POLITICO.

While the measure does not specifically name any specific countries, it is clearly in response to Trump’s repeated threats against Greenland.

Keating said the decision to omit Greenland’s name was meant to broaden the legislation’s focus. He said he met with the Danish Ambassador and the head of Greenland representation.

‘This isn’t just about Greenland. This is about our security,’ Keating said.

Keating also said he believes slashing funding is the most impactful way to disincentivize Trump administration officials from taking action.

‘War powers are important, but we’ve seen with Democratic and Republican presidents that that’s not as effective,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to get around having no funds or not allowing personnel to do it.’

This comes after the Senate advanced a bipartisan resolution last week that would limit Trump’s ability to conduct further attacks against Venezuela after the U.S. military’s recent move to strike the country and capture its president, Nicolás Maduro. The Upper Chamber could pass the measure later this week, although its future in the House remains uncertain despite some support from Republicans.

On Greenland, administration officials are openly weighing options such as military force to take the Danish territory, a move that would violate NATO’s Article V, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all of them and could end the alliance of more than 75 years.

‘We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not,’ Trump said on Friday. ‘Because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.’

Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four party leaders reaffirmed last week that the self-governing island has no interest in becoming part of the U.S.

‘We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,’ the leaders said, adding that Greenland’s ‘future must be decided by the Greenlandic people.’

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, as well as the leaders of Italy, Spain and Poland, also signed a letter stating: ‘Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.’

The chance of expanding U.S. control over Greenland has drawn mixed reactions from Congress. While most Democrats have opposed the idea, some Republicans have voiced support for pursuing closer ties with the territory.

Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., who introduced legislation to make it the 51st U.S. state, although he said the best way to acquire Greenland is voluntarily.

‘I think it is in the world’s interest for the United States to exert sovereignty over Greenland,’ Fine told Fox News Digital.

Former special counsel Jack Smith will testify in a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee next week, giving Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the panel a chance to grill him in a public setting on his prosecutions of President Donald Trump.

Smith will appear before the committee on Jan. 22, one month after he sat for a closed-door deposition with the committee and testified for eight hours about his special counsel work, a source familiar told Fox News Digital.

Smith had long said he wanted to speak to the committee publicly, and although Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, first demanded the deposition, the chairman also said an open hearing was on the table.

Smith investigated Trump and brought two indictments against him over the 2020 election and alleged retention of classified documents. Trump pleaded not guilty and aggressively fought the charges, and Smith dropped both cases when Trump won the 2024 election, citing a Department of Justice policy that discourages prosecuting sitting presidents.

In a public hearing, House lawmakers will be able to question Smith in five-minute increments, whereas in the deposition, each party questioned Smith in one-hour sessions. Politico first reported that Smith would appear for a hearing sometime this month.

Smith gave little new information during his initial meeting with the committee and defended his work.

‘I made my decisions in the investigation without regard to President Trump’s political association, activities, beliefs, or candidacy in the 2024 presidential election,’ Smith said, according to a transcript of the deposition. ‘We took actions based on what the facts, and the law required, the very lesson I learned early in my career as a prosecutor.’

Smith said he followed DOJ policy when his team made the controversial decision to subpoena numerous Republican senators’ and House members’ phone records as part of his 2020 election probe. Smith noted the subpoenas sought a narrow set of data.

‘If Donald Trump had chosen to call a number of Democratic senators [to delay the election certification proceedings], we would have gotten toll records for Democratic senators. So responsibility for why these records, why we collected them, that’s — that lies with Donald Trump,’ Smith said.

The Republicans have said the subpoenas were unconstitutional violations of the speech or debate clause, and they have broadly said the Biden DOJ abused its authority by bringing, in their view, politicized criminal charges against a former president and presidential candidate.

Trump, who has long decried Smith as a ‘thug’ and said he belongs in jail, has said he welcomes Smith at a public hearing.

Asked about Smith’s appearance next week, a representative for Smith provided a statement from one of his lawyers, Lanny Breuer.

‘Jack has been clear for months he is ready and willing to answer questions in a public hearing about his investigations into President Trump’s alleged unlawful efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his mishandling of classified documents,’ Breuer said.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., directed some heated remarks at a Trump administration Cabinet official whose department has been dominating headlines in recent weeks.

‘What is clear is that Kristi Noem is completely and totally unqualified. She should have never been confirmed by Senate Republicans,’ Jeffries said of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary during a Monday press conference. ‘It’s disgraceful that she’s there. She should be run out of town as soon as possible.’

Criticism against Noem, DHS, and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has intensified on the left in the wake of a deadly ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis last week.

An ICE agent shot and killed a U.S. citizen, 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, who allegedly presented a threat to ICE agents as they attempted to conduct enforcement operations. Partisan fissures have since erupted over which side was acting improperly when the deadly incident occurred.

‘Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, they’re totally out of control. And the American people want these extremists to be reined in,’ Jeffries said on Monday.

He said Good ‘should be alive today’ and accused both Noem and the ICE agent who shot Good of a ‘depraved indifference toward human life.’

Video of last week’s incident appears to show Good’s car making contact with the ICE agent who shot her before he opened fire. Arguments have since raged over whether she was deliberately getting in the way or even weaponizing her car, or whether she was trying to drive away.

Federal officials like Noem have defended the agent as acting in self-defense while accusing Good of trying to actively impede ICE activity in the Democrat-controlled city.

Democrats, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have accused ICE and Republican officials of stoking fear and tension in the city while demanding the federal government cease current operations there immediately.

Now Democrats in Congress have been threatening to withhold support from funding DHS unless significant reforms are made — a threat Jeffries alluded to during his press conference.

‘What’s in front of us right now is a spending bill that will go either one of two ways. Either Republicans will continue their my-way-or-the-highway approach as it relates to the Homeland Security bill — and if that happens, then it’s going to be on them to figure out a path forward,’ Jeffries began.

‘Alternatively, particularly in the face of the tragedy…there’s some commonsense measures that need to be put in place so that ICE can conduct itself in a manner that is at least consistent with every other law enforcement agency in the United States of America, at the state, local and federal level.’

The deadline to finish federal funding and avert a partial government shutdown is at the end of day on Jan. 30.

Fox News Digital reached out to DHS for a response.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk is increasingly drifting back into President Donald Trump’s MAGA orbit after their public blowup in June 2025 led to months of icy distance between the pair.

That thaw surfaced publicly again over the weekend. Trump mentioned Musk by name Sunday when asked by the media whether he would lean on Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet constellation, to help deliver internet access to Iran as citizens take to the streets in mass protests against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime.

‘We may get the internet going if that’s possible,’ Trump told the media Sunday while aboard Air Force One. ‘We may speak to Elon. Because, as you know, he’s very good at that kind of thing. He’s got a very good company. So we may speak to Elon Musk.’ 

The president added, ‘I’m gonna call him as soon as I’m finished with you.’ 

SpaceX did not immediately respond to Fox Digital’s request for comment on the president’s remarks. 

Trump’s comment is the latest signal that the Trump–Musk friendship is warming after months of the pair spatting or having cordial interactions — a stark contrast to their cozy relationship while on the 2024 campaign trail and the early days of the administration. 

When asked Monday for updates on the president’s friendship with Musk, and if Trump’s comments were more reflective of the urgency in Iran, the White House directed Fox Digital to Trump praising Musk Jan. 4. 

‘Elon’s great. I say about Elon, he’s 80% super genius, and 20% he makes mistakes. But he’s a good guy. He’s a well-meaning person,’ Trump said of Musk while aboard Air Force One Jan 4. 

Trump’s comments follow the pair sharing a ‘lovely dinner’ together at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, Musk reported on X at the time. 

Just roughly a year ago, Musk was described as Trump’s ‘first buddy,’ as the media took note of the pair’s close working relationship, which included Musk serving as a special employee of the federal government as Trump unleashed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Special government employees are commonly experts that the federal government hires on a temporary basis for no more than 130 days a year. 

Musk would sleep at the White House on late work nights, attend Cabinet meetings and become a common face on the White House campus when he served as the public leader of DOGE — the government office Trump established in January 2025 to seek out and end potential fraud, waste and mismanagement within the federal government. 

‘He’s one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced,’ Trump said in May, when Musk’s tenure as a special government employee ran dry of its 130 days. ‘He stepped forward to put his very great talents into the service of our nation, and we appreciate it.’

Days later, Musk began publicly criticizing the ‘big, beautiful bill’ — a massive tax and spending package that advanced Trump’s agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt — as a ‘disgusting abomination.’ 

Musk warned on X it would be the ‘BIGGEST DEBT ceiling increase in HISTORY’ — then escalated the spat with a personal jab that ‘@RealDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files.’

Trump told the media that he was disappointed in Musk’s comments, while the tech billionaire reeled in some of his commentary, remarking he sometimes ‘went too far.’ The president said in 2025 that his relationship with Musk changed when he began discussing plans to eliminate the electric vehicle mandate, which would affect Musk’s signature electric company, Tesla.

The pair abruptly parted ways in June. Musk has sporadically signaled support for the Trump administration, including just weeks later in July when he praised Trump’s actions in Israel to end the war with Gaza. 

Trump signed the ‘big, beautiful bill’ into law on the Fourth of July. 

Their relationship has been on an apparent mend since at least September 2025, when the pair was seen sitting next to each other and chatting during Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s memorial service in Arizona following his shocking assassination.

Musk attended a White House dinner for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia on Nov. 18, 2025, and Trump told the media in December 2025, ‘I like Elon a lot,’ but said he was unsure if the tech leader was back in his friend circle following the June fallout. 

The next global energy war won’t just be fought over oil and gas – it will be decided by who can power artificial intelligence first, and the U.S. must win that race, the head of the nation’s largest oil and gas trade group told Fox News Digital.

American Petroleum Institute President Mike Sommers said surging AI-driven electricity demand has made energy infrastructure the decisive front in the next phase of U.S. economic and national security competition, as the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress moved aggressively in 2025 to deliver landmark domestic energy production wins.

Sommers, who will headline the 2026 State of American Energy forum at Washington’s wharf on Tuesday, told Fox News Digital that of the goals set out in API’s two-year plan, ‘we got 90% of it done in 2025,’ – while permitting reform remains unresolved and AI is both a growing energy demand and a tool the industry plans to deploy.

‘The [June 2024 plan] was all about how to reduce inflation and ensure that we have energy security here in the United States. And the Trump administration, along with their allies in Congress, allowed us to get historic victories in 2025.’

‘The Trump administration has done everything they can to get permitting done at the federal level, but there’s only so much they can do without congressional action. So our focus going into 2026 is how do we finally unlock permitting form that both Republicans and Democrats can get behind.’

That remaining frontier, Sommers said, is AI. Sommers said that not only must the U.S. win the battle to power AI the fastest and most efficient but also harness its power in a novel way to in turn increase the effectiveness of energy development itself.

‘We expect that energy demand is going to go up by 50% just in the next 15 years. What that means is, is that we’re really going need every energy source going forward. But primarily what that means is that, we’re going need a lot more natural gas,’ he said, calling it the ‘backbone’ of contemporary electricity and the power grid in the U.S.

The AI race is intertwined with a newly bipartisan push for permitting reform – slashing the red tape preventing major projects from getting off the ground.

Republicans and some top Democrats are onboard, and Sommers said all sides likely understand what’s at stake. At the 2025 meeting of the National Governor’s Association, both Republicans, like Oklahoma’s Kevin Stitt and Democrats, like Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, spoke about the importance of reforming the permitting process to unleash their states’ energy potential.

‘It’s time for both sides to put their swords down and work together because we know that we’re going to need a lot more energy going into the future. And the only way that we are going to be able to get it built in this country is to get a comprehensive permanent bill through Congress that is durable and can survive the pendulum swings of American politics.’

On the AI front, Sommers said a lot of infrastructure must be developed to power the U.S. into the AI age.

‘We have to win the war for AI. But if we don’t win the War for Energy, we’re never going to even be able to get to the war for AI,’ he said.

‘So that’s just on what has to happen for artificial intelligence. There’s another side of this, which is how our industry is going to use AI into the future: What I’m optimistic about is that we’re going to be able to use AI in a way that allows us to find more resources than we can even find today.’

He added that the AI frontier can be the next fracking revolution in the U.S. – as fracking allowed energy companies to capture resources they never thought they could reach.

‘AI has that exact same potential. And I think 10 years from now, we’ll be talking about the incredible impact that AI has had on our ability to find more oil and more natural gas in the United States.’

Sommers said that even with the heightened technology in the energy exploration sector today, up to 80% of oil and gas resources get left underground.

Energy companies are developing ways to harness AI to better explore the subsurface of the Earth – helping them draw out more proverbial bang for their buck on what lies beneath.

‘So there’s kind of a two-pronged message here: One, we have to have permanent reform so that we can build out the infrastructure that’s going to power AI.’

‘And two, AI is really the path of future energy security for the United States,’ Sommers said.

President Donald Trump branded himself as the ‘president’ of Venezuela in a social media post Sunday night, after signaling that the U.S. would oversee Caracas, Venezuela, for years. 

Trump shared a doctored image that looked like a Wikipedia page that identified him as ‘Acting President of Venezuela’ since January 2026, after the U.S. conducted strikes in Venezuela and seized its dictator, Nicolás Maduro. 

Trump said Jan. 3 that the U.S. would run Venezuela until a safe transition could occur, and he told The New York Times in an interview published Wednesday that he anticipated that the U.S. would oversee Venezuela ‘much longer’ than six months or a year. Even so, he did not share a more detailed estimated timeline. 

The social media post also comes as the Trump administration has sought to reassert U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, and has claimed it’s revived the Monroe Doctrine, rebranded as the ‘Don-roe Doctrine,’ which originally sought to limit European influence in Latin America and to protect U.S. influence in the region.

The Monroe Doctrine, first introduced in 1823 by President James Monroe, eventually was used to justify U.S. actions in the region as an ‘international police power’ under former President Theodore Roosevelt, according to the National Archives.

In response to questions from Fox News Digital regarding whether the post was shared jokingly, and what it suggests about how long the U.S. will be involved in running Venezuela, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital: ‘President Trump will be the greatest President for the American and Venezuelan people in history. Congratulations, world!’

Trump announced Jan. 3 that U.S. special forces conducted a ‘large-scale strike’ against Caracas, Venezuela, and seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Both were taken to New York and appeared in a Manhattan federal court Jan. 5 on drug charges, where they each pleaded not guilty.

The raid came after months of pressure on Venezuela and more than two dozen strikes in Latin American waters against alleged drug traffickers as part of Trump’s effort to crack down on the influx of drugs into the U.S.

The Trump administration routinely stated that it did not recognize Maduro as a legitimate head of state and said he was the leader of a drug cartel. Likewise, Trump said in December 2025 he believed it would be ‘smart’ for Maduro to step down. 

The Trump administration has justified seizing Maduro as a ‘law enforcement’ operation, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said congressional approval wasn’t necessary since the operation didn’t amount to an ‘invasion.’

However, lawmakers primarily on the left have questioned the legality of the operation in Venezuela, which was conducted without Congress’ approval.

‘This has been a profound constitutional failure,’ the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a statement Jan. 3. ‘Congress — not the President — has the sole power to authorize war. Pursuing regime change without the consent of the American people is a reckless overreach and an abuse of power.’

As Iran faces escalating nationwide protests and rising verbal threats from the Trump administration, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivered a pointed warning to the United States this week from an unusual platform — his Russian-language account on X — a move analysts say underscores Tehran’s alignment with Moscow as pressure mounts on the regime.

In a post dated Jan. 11, Khamenei wrote in Russian, ‘The United States today is miscalculating in its approach toward Iran.’ Hours later, he followed with a second message, also in Russian, warning that Americans had suffered defeat before because of ‘miscalculations’ and would do so again because of ‘erroneous planning.’

Ksenia Svetlova, executive director of the Regional Organization for Peace, Economy and Security (ROPES) and an associate fellow at Chatham House, said the language choice was telling, even if the execution was clumsy.

‘This is bad Russian,’ Svetlova told Fox News Digital. ‘It seems that it’s translated by Google Translate, not by a human being.’ Still, she said the use of Khamenei’s Russian-language account was no surprise given how closely Iran and Russia have aligned in recent years.

Khamenei’s warning came as Iran’s internal crisis continued to deepen. According to HRANA, a human rights organization tracking the unrest, at least 544 people have been killed in nationwide protests, with dozens of additional cases still under review. Opposition group NCRI has claimed the death toll is far higher — more than 3,000 — though exact figures remain difficult to verify amid widespread internet blackouts imposed by Iranian authorities.

President Donald Trump has led U.S. criticism in response to the rising death toll. In response to a question about whether Iran had crossed a red line, Trump responded by saying, ‘They’re starting to, it looks like. And they seem to be some people killed that aren’t supposed to be killed. These are violent. If you call them leaders, I don’t know if they’re leaders, or just they rule through violence. But we’re looking at it very seriously,’ he said on Sunday aboard Air Force One. 

‘We’re looking at some very strong options,’ he added.

Iranian leaders have pushed back, accusing Washington of interference and warning that any U.S. military action would trigger retaliation against American forces and allies in the region.

At the same time, Tehran has signaled it wants to keep diplomatic back channels open. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Monday that communication between Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff remains active. Axios separately reported that Araghchi reached out to Witkoff over the weekend amid Trump’s warnings of possible military action.

Despite those overtures, analysts say Khamenei’s Russian-language message reflects where Iran sees its most reliable strategic partner.

Russia has become a critical lifeline for Tehran, particularly as Moscow relies on Iranian-supplied drones and other military equipment for its war in Ukraine. That dependence, Svetlova said, means Iran’s internal instability could carry serious consequences for the Kremlin.

‘I think that could be a dramatic effect, because they do depend on Iran — specifically military production, the drones and ballistic missiles,’ she said. ‘They need them to continue their war against Ukraine.’

Yet the partnership has also fueled resentment inside Iran. Svetlova pointed to criticism following the 12-day war with Israel, when many Iranians accused Moscow of failing to come to Tehran’s aid.

‘There was a lot of criticism in Iran against Russia that it did not come to help,’ she said. ‘It didn’t reach out. It didn’t do anything, basically.’

Still, she said Russia has few alternatives as its global position narrows. With longtime allies weakened or toppled, such as Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, Moscow is increasingly reliant on Tehran — even as it remains largely silent about the protests rocking Iran.

Against that backdrop, Svetlova explained, Khamenei’s warning in Russian appears like a signal — to Washington and to Moscow — that Iran sees its confrontation with the United States as part of a shared front with President Vladimir Putin.

A House Republican is pushing for Greenland to become the country’s 51st state as President Donald Trump publicly pushes for the Danish territory to come under U.S. rule.

Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., is introducing a bill on Monday aimed at authorizing Trump ‘to take such steps as may be necessary’ to acquire Greenland and set it on the pathway of becoming part of the United States.

‘I think it is in the world’s interest for the United States to exert sovereignty over Greenland,’ Fine told Fox News Digital in an interview. 

‘Congress would still have to choose to make it a state, but this would simply authorize the president to do what he’s doing and say the Congress stands behind him. And then it would expedite it into becoming a state, but it would still be up to Congress about whether to do that.’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that he would be meeting with officials from Denmark this week to discuss Greenland.

Trump has publicly pushed for the idea of the U.S. buying the Arctic island territory since his first term in the White House.

He and other Republican officials have pointed out its strategic importance, including Greenland’s proximity to Russia and the critical minerals located within its borders.

Fine agreed with those points while also arguing U.S. rule would be better for those living in Greenland as well.

‘Their poverty rate is high. Denmark hasn’t treated them well,’ Fine said. ‘When war came to town, Denmark couldn’t protect them. Guess who protected Greenland during World War II? We did.’

And while a majority of Republicans have conceded they understand Trump’s argument for why owning Greenland would benefit the U.S., GOP lawmakers were somewhat rattled after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not rule out using military force to acquire the island during a recent press conference this month.

Asked if he would support using military force, Fine said, ‘I think the best way to acquire Greenland is voluntarily.’

‘The poverty rate in Greenland is much, much higher than it is in Denmark. The country is run by socialists, and it is not in America’s interests to have a territory that large between the United States and Russia run by socialists,’ Fine said.

The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to admit new states into the Union.

It typically requires Congress to pass a bill authorizing the new state after a territory is formed, after which that territory must draft a state constitution approved by people who live there.

Congress must then vote again to admit that new state before it’s made final with the president’s signature.

Lawmakers are keenly aware of the costs of running a country due to the nation’s skyrocketing debt, but now another expense may be added to Congress’ tab — Venezuela. 

President Donald Trump hasn’t backed down from his position that the U.S. will run Venezuela after the surprise strikes and capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. That’s left some on Capitol Hill wondering what the price tag will be, considering Venezuela’s bleak economy. 

Like most issues in Washington, D.C., there’s a strong partisan divide on how lawmakers expect running Venezuela will shake out. Senate Republicans believe that the vast petroleum, natural gas and mineral reserves will be enough to foot the bill and cause oil companies to come running to dump money into the region. 

And fiscal hawks in the Senate, who routinely sound the alarm over rampant government spending, believe that running the country will be a financial boon for the U.S.

‘I would envision there’s so much money to be made that the oil companies will show up, and they’ll pay for everything,’ Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital. 

That’s a shared calculus among several other Republicans, who contend that any cost incurred from stewarding the country during the transition period would be leveraged by the colossal reserves of crude oil creeping underground. 

‘That’s the whole point,’ Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital.

There could already be a wrench in that plan following a meeting between Trump and several top oil executives at the White House last week. The roster of companies in attendance Friday touched nearly every choke point in Venezuela’s oil sector, including production, services, trading and refining. The sheer weight of that lineup underscored what is at stake for global energy policy, with the United States squarely at the center.

And ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods told the administration that Venezuela was ‘uninvestable,’ which prompted Trump to suggest that he’d be ‘inclined to keep Exxon out.’

And despite lawmakers’ optimistic outlook, the economic reality on the ground in Venezuela is stark. 

Venezuela once had the makings of an economic powerhouse, but years of mismanagement and international sanctions have hollowed out the economy, leaving behind a much smaller, debt-laden nation.

Precise figures are difficult to verify because Venezuela has not published comprehensive financial data in years. However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates the economy will total about $82.8 billion in 2025, which is roughly the size of Maine’s economic output.

What’s more, Venezuela’s debt is roughly 200% of its economy. In simple terms, the country owes about $2 for every dollar it produces.

Those pressures are compounded by runaway inflation. The IMF forecasts eye-watering inflation, with consumer prices expected to rise by more than 680% in 2026, underscoring the continued strain on Venezuela’s economy and households.

That collapse is inseparable from Venezuela’s oil industry, once the backbone of national wealth. Petroleum revenues long underwrote government spending and social programs, leaving the economy acutely vulnerable as production fell, infrastructure decayed and sanctions tightened.

Even in its diminished state, oil remains Venezuela’s most consequential asset. The country holds more than 300 billion barrels of proven crude — the largest in the world, eclipsing established energy titans like Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait — underlining its potential if production and investment return.

The potential cost of reinvigorating Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, coupled with the prior military operation and any other costs accumulated from running the country, is emblematic of the growing rift between the Hill and the White House, where Trump has routinely run roughshod over lawmakers in his decision-making. 

Senate Democrats want to claw back some of that authority through the appropriations process, where they could try to limit the flow of taxpayer dollars toward Venezuela.

‘Congress should be involved,’ Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital. ‘And we must be involved because we have the power of the purse, we have appropriations authority, and we need better and more information to make these decisions about how the taxpayer funds are spent in support of these military or intelligence operations.’ 

Some of that action is already taking place. 

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., whose war powers resolution to curtail future use of military force in Venezuela without congressional approval survived its first procedural test on Thursday, said lawmakers were having discussions tweaking the defense spending bill to ‘block appropriated defense funds from being used in certain actions that haven’t been authorized by Congress.’

Senate Republicans, despite cries from the other side of the aisle to regain some modicum of congressional oversight over the Venezuela situation, are firm in their belief that Venezuela’s oil, not American taxpayers’ money, will foot the bill.

‘We’re going to use Venezuelan resources to reimburse the U.S. Treasury for what we’ve already spent there, and we’re going to use Venezuelan resources to help rebuild their own country,’ Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said. ‘The taxpayer is not going to be on the hook for one cent of this.’

The Islamic Republic of Iran may have more than eight American citizens and residents in its captivity, Fox News Digital can reveal based on information from sources outside the Trump Administration who are well-versed with Tehran’s hostage-taking policy system.

Information shows that the total number of Americans citizens and residents held hostage by the Iranian regime could exceed the open-source data listing five American hostages in Iran.

Iran’s regime arrested a U.S. citizen, Kamran Hekmati, a 70-year-old from Great Neck, New York, who went to Iran to visit family members last May. Iranian authorities arrested Hekmati in July 2025 and charged him with ‘making a trip to Israel’ 13 years prior to his visit to Iran. Hekmati, a Persian Jew who was born in Iran, traveled to Israel in 2012 to attend his son’s Bar Mitzvah.

Iran bans Iranians from traveling to the Jewish state and any relations with Israel. Tehran considers Hekmati an Iranian citizen because the regime does not recognize dual citizenship.

The regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced Hekmati to four years in prison, and he is being held in Iran’s infamous Evin Prison — a complex that is reportedly used to torture political prisoners and dissidents. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) noted Hekmati has also been held at an intelligence ministry facility in Tehran. CNN reported that Hekmati suffers from bladder cancer.

The regime arrested another U.S. citizen, Afarin Mohajer, on Sept. 29, 2025 at Imam Khomeini International Airport. The human rights group, HRANA, said there was no information about the charges leveled against the Californian resident. 

According to U.S. government outlet Radio Farda that reports on Iran, Mohajer has an inoperable brain tumor and was told by ‘a doctor before going to prison that she does not have long to live,’ citing her son. She visited Iran to take care of her husband’s finances following his death, the son said. While released in December on bail, she is not allowed to leave Iran.

The authorities arrested an unnamed Iranian American woman in December 2024. She was released from prison, but the authorities seized the passports of the dual national, and she is also barred from leaving Iran.

The former Radio Farda journalist Reza Valizadeh traveled to Iran in March 2024 to visit relatives, according to a report by United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI) on American hostages held in Iran.  

The U.S. government outlet Voice of America, like Radio Farda, reports on Iran, said Valizadeh was reportedly arrested in September 2024 and charged with ‘collaborating with overseas-based Persian media.’

The charge was later changed to ‘collaborating with a hostile government.’ UANI noted that ‘VOA cited sources claiming that Valizadeh was arrested for not cooperating with the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization and Iran’s intelligence ministry and for not expressing regret for his journalism.’

The regime arrested Shahab Dalili, a permanent U.S. resident who lives in Virginia, in 2016.

The UANI report stated that Taghato, a Farsi-language news outlet operated by Iranians living in the U.S., posted on Twitter (now X) that the Iranian regime arrested Dalili in March 2016. He went to Iran after his father’s death. The opaque Iranian regime judicial system sentenced him to 10 years in prison for ‘allegedly cooperating with a hostile government.’

A U.S. State Department official told Fox News Digital that ‘As Secretary Rubio has said, President Trump is working to secure the release of detained Americans around the world. The Iranian regime has a long history of unjustly and wrongfully detaining other countries’ citizens as hostages for use as political leverage. Iran should release these individuals immediately.’

The U.S. official added that ‘Due to security considerations with respect to ongoing cases, we do not disclose specific numbers of hostages.’

Barry Rosen, a former American diplomat and survivor of the Iran hostage crisis that took place in 1979 when Islamist revolutionary students took a group of 66 Americans captive, told Fox News Digital, in the wake of the nationwide revolts against the regime, ‘We are in a very intractable situation right now’ and expressed skepticism about bringing the hostages back under the current situation.

The nationwide strikes and demonstrations to topple the regime with respect to securing the hostage’s release ‘make it even more complicated,’ Rosen said, adding that hostage diplomacy ‘has always been complicated.’ Rosen was eventually released having spent 444 days in captivity.

‘Quiet diplomacy is the best way to go, but I don’t think there is any way for quiet diplomacy right now,’ he said.

When discussing ‘quiet diplomacy,’ Rosen said he was ‘talking about dealing with the hostage situation with Iran, given all our differences on the nuclear situation between both countries. But when it comes to the uprising in Iran, we need to loudly support a democratic Iran.’

Rosen, who considers Iran his second home, said, ‘I want to see the Iranian people do what they are doing now, so the Iranian regime implodes by itself.’ He said, ‘Support for uprisings (and protests) is the right way to go. I am fearful of any military operations that could cause chaos in the country.’

Rosen co-founded the non-government organization Hostage Aid Worldwidewhich provides current information on hostages held outside the U.S.

Navid Mohebbi, who worked as a Persian media analyst for the U.S. State Department’s Public Affairs Bureau, wrote a booklet on ‘Breaking the Trend: How to Combat the Hostage-Taking Business in Iran’ for the U.S.-based National Union for Democracy in Iran.

He told Fox News Digital, ‘Iran’s hostage-taking is not a series of isolated cases; it is a systematic state policy designed to extract political and economic concessions. The Islamic Republic has learned that detaining Americans and other Western nationals carries little cost and often produces tangible rewards — whether sanctions relief, access to frozen assets or asymmetric prisoner swaps. As long as this behavior is treated as a humanitarian problem rather than a coercive strategy, Tehran will continue to rely on hostage-taking as a core tool of statecraft.’

He continued, ‘To reverse this pattern, the United States must impose consequences that are measurable, cumulative and irreversible. Every hostage-taking case should trigger automatic penalties: targeted sanctions on judges, prosecutors, interrogators, prison officials and intelligence officers involved; permanent confiscation — not escrow — of regime assets tied to hostage diplomacy; and coordinated diplomatic consequences with allies, including travel bans, removal of regime officials from international bodies and the pursuit of Interpol red notices where applicable. The message must be unambiguous: hostage-taking will leave the regime worse off, not better.’

Mohebbi urged that, ‘The U.S. should formally designate Iran as a state that engages in hostage-taking, ban the use of U.S. passports for travel to or through Iran and maintain a public registry of regime officials involved in these crimes. At the same time, Washington must provide stronger, more transparent support to families of hostages and ensure sustained public naming and shaming. Only by raising the cost across legal, diplomatic, financial and reputational fronts can the United States begin to dismantle Iran’s hostage-taking business,’ he said.