A third high-level Pentagon staffer has been placed on administrative leave in two days as part of a probe into media leaks.

Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Secretary Stephen Feinberg, was escorted out of the building on Wednesday, following Dan Caldwell, senior advisor to Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Darin Selnick, deputy chief of staff to Hegseth. 

‘We can confirm that Mr. Carroll has been placed on administrative leave pending investigation. We have nothing additional to provide at this time,’ a defense official told Fox News Digital. 

Carroll did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The Pentagon has not provided specifics about what the three officials are accused of leaking. 

Last month Defense Department (DOD) announced it would launch a probe into ‘recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information’ and might employ the use of polygraphs to determine the source of the leaks. 

‘The use of polygraphs in the execution of this investigation will be in accordance with applicable law and policy,’ DOD Chief of Staff Joe Kasper wrote in a memo. ‘This investigation will commence immediately and culminate in a report to the Secretary of Defense.’

He wrote that ‘information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure’ would be referred for criminal prosecution. 

Vice President JD Vance is poised to kick off a trip to Italy and India on Friday – marking his third international trip with the Trump administration. 

Vance and the second family are poised to meet with and ‘discuss shared economic and geopolitical priorities with leaders in each country,’ according to a statement from Vance’s office. 

When in Rome, Vance is scheduled to meet with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. He will meet with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi while visiting New Delhi, Jaipur and Agra. 

Meanwhile, Meloni is also slated to visit the White House on Thursday in Washington. 

The vice president and the second family are also planning to conduct engagements at several unspecified cultural sites. 

The vice president’s office did not provide specifics regarding their trip.

It comes as the White House has said that more than 75 countries have reached out seeking to negotiate trade deals with the U.S., after the Trump administration unveiled historic tariffs on April 2. 

Both the European Union and India have signaled interest in brokering a deal with the U.S. on trade. Meloni has said Italy isn’t on board with the tariffs imposed on the EU, and is prepared to ‘deploy all tools’ to protect Italian businesses. 

The original tariff plan slapped 20% duties on goods from the European Union, as well as at least 26% duties on Indian goods. However, Trump announced on April 9 a 90-day pause on those tariffs where duties would be reduced to 10% as countries work to hash out trade deals with the U.S. 

Vance’s previous international trips include attending the Munich Security Conference in February, where he delivered remarks pushing Europe to ‘step up in a big way to provide for its own defense.’ He also warned that Russia and China don’t pose as great a threat to European nations as the ‘threat from within,’ concerning issues like censorship and illegal immigration.

In March, Vance visited Pituffik Space Base in Greenland, the Department of Defense’s northernmost military installation that houses Space Force’s 821st Space Base Group to conduct missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations.

A former Albanian ambassador to the U.S. says the country’s upcoming election will be more like a runoff between the policies of President Trump and George and Alex Soros as opposition parties call foul over corruption by the ruling socialists. 

‘Albania is now effectively a one-party system pretending to hold elections,’ Agim Nesho, former Albanian ambassador to the United States and the United Nations, told Fox News Digital. Nesho said May’s election ‘is a clash between ‘Trump-ists’ and ‘Soros-ists,’ with the latter fighting to keep their grip on corruption and the state in Albania.’

Amid accusations of corruption and the recent arrests of major Albanian political candidates, some critics are voicing concern over the integrity of upcoming elections for the country’s 140-member Parliament, now scheduled for May 11. 

Nesho claimed the country’s ruling socialists ‘led by Prime Minister Edi Rama, is undemocratic and deeply rooted… for over 12 years, it has been supported by rich left-wing donors like Alex Soros, Rama’s close friend, and by projects like the USAID and Open Society [Foundations] judicial reform, which Rama co-opted and twisted to attack the center-right, conservative opposition.’ He claimed the prime minister ‘also oversees a powerful narco-state that spreads fear and exerts controls over elections.’

President Trump’s former campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, joined the campaign of Sali Berisha, the leader of Albania’s right-wing Democratic Party in February, according to Politico. LaCivita told the publication that Berisha would be ‘a true friend of the United States and… will successfully work with President Trump and the United States.’ He called Rama a ‘puppet of George Soros.’ 

Berisha, formerly president and prime minister of Albania, told Fox News Digital that Rama’s government ‘banned my name and the name of the party in the voting list’ during May 2023 elections. ‘When they failed with these measures,’ he said they went further. 

Parliament stripped Berisha’s legal immunity in December 2023 and placed him on house arrest under the accusation that he had used his position to help his son-in-law acquire private land. Berisha says that ‘official documents proved’ the land belonged to his son-in-law’s grandfather, and had been confiscated by the former Communist regime. 

Last November Berisha was released from house arrest. He was formally charged with corruption in September, the Associated Press reported.

Berisha’s spokesperson, Alfred Lela, told Fox News Digital that Berisha is now awaiting trial.

In addition to Berisha, Centrist Freedom Party leader and former Albanian President Ilir Meta was arrested on corruption charges in October 2024 in what one source told Fox News Digital was a ‘weaponization of the judiciary and law enforcement agencies.’ Once an ally of Rama, Meta has frequently noted the increasing corruption and authoritarianism of the Rama government. 

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) has invested more than $131 million in Albania between 1992 and 2020, effectively ‘supporting Mr. Rama’s rise to power,’ the European Center for Law & Justice reported in 2023. The center alleges that OSF helped to allocate some of the $60 million that USAID spent on judicial reform in Albania between 2000 and 2015, explaining that Rama’s opposition has ‘denounced this reform as aimed at enabling the government to take control of the judiciary.’

OSF offices in Albania and the U.S. did not respond to numerous inquiries from Fox News Digital about allegations placed by its opponents against it. 

According to an OSF website, the group has ‘earmarked $600,000 to support the process to overhaul Albania’s judicial system’ in 2015 as part of Albania’s preparations to join the European Union. OSF claims ‘the money was used to fund a 20-strong expert panel, conduct public outreach and opinion surveys, establish a dedicated website, and organize conferences.’

NewsNation reported that Alex Soros often travels to Tirana, and calls it his ‘second home.’ In July 2021, Soros posted a selfie with Rama on Instagram, identifying the prime minister as his ‘good friend.’

Berisha says he asked eight years ago for the U.S. Congress and European Parliament ‘to ban [George] Soros’ political activity in Europe because he is an enemy of democracy.’

In a December speech, Berisha said he would ban the OSF from Albania, calling the group a ‘real national threat,’ according to Euronews Albania. Berisha said the Rama government’s mismanagement of resources and failure to mitigate poverty had forced the emigration of 45% of Albanians. 

Another impediment to Berisha’s run is the sanctions that former Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced against Berisha, his wife, and his children in May 2021. Blinken said Berisha had been ‘involved in corrupt acts, such as misappropriation of public funds and interfering with public processes, including using his power for his own benefit and to enrich his political allies and his family members at the expense of the Albanian public’s confidence in their government institutions and public officials.’

Berisha claimed that the sanctions against him were ‘entirely based on corrupted lobbying’ by George Soros and Rama. He also said members of the Biden administration ‘turned [the] U.S. Embassy in Tirana into a huge prosecutorial office,’ urging supporters, journalists and business people to stop supporting Berisha and his party, and that the State Department ‘asked other countries to sanction and to isolate me.’

Berisha said sanctions have hindered his campaign. ‘Of course it hurts me, because I’m not able to meet with Albanian Americans, which are so numerous, and in this election, for the first time, they have the right to vote for the party and candidate they prefer in their country of origin.’ 

A State Department spokesperson said they had no comment about Berisha’s claims that U.S. entities turned supporters against him. The State Department did not respond to questions from Fox News Digital about whether sanctions against Berisha should be upheld, or if they impede free and fair elections in Albania. 

A spokesperson for former President Joe Biden did not respond to questions on whether his administration had a role in turning supporters against Berisha.

Nesho noted that sanctions ‘lack… evidence and had been rejected by Albanian public opinion. It looks like a political move, driven by Rama’s big money allies such as Alex Soros, who benefit both commercially and in influence from keeping Rama in power.’ Nesho called on the Trump administration to ‘lift this ban immediately. It’s stirring anti-American feelings and clashes with the values of democracy and fairness,’ he added. 

Nesho claimed that ‘the last three elections were unfair, full of intimidation and theft. The upcoming May 11, 2025, election shouldn’t just be a fake show – it needs to be truly free and fair. The U.S. and EU must push for this or ask that the vote is delayed until it can meet proper standards.’

Fox News Digital also reached out multiple times to Albanian Prime Minister Rama, the OSF, a member of the Albanian Foreign Ministry, and the Albanian Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment about accusations of corruption and OSF election interference but received no response.
 

: Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley are demanding information from the Justice Department’s inspector general on whether any unassigned or ‘untasked’ confidential human sources (CHSs) from DOJ agencies beyond the FBI were in or around the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

In 2024, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz revealed that there were more than two dozen FBI confidential human sources in the crowd outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but only three were assigned by the bureau to be present for the event. 

One of the three confidential human sources tasked by the FBI to attend the rally entered the Capitol building, while the other two entered the restricted area around the Capitol. If a confidential human source is directed to be at a certain event, they are paid by the FBI for their time.

Horowitz, in that report, said none of the sources were authorized or directed by the FBI to ‘break the law’ or ‘encourage others to commit illegal acts.’ 

In December, and after the release of Horowitz’s report, Grassley, R-Iowa, and Johnson, R-Wis., demanded information on whether confidential human sources from DOJ agencies beyond the FBI were used on Jan. 6, 2021. 

In an April 7 letter exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, Horowitz notified the senators that he found no evidence the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), or the Bureau of Prisons deployed confidential human sources to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.

‘We can confirm that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) did not have any undercover employees in Washington, D.C. on January 6 in connection with the events of January 6,’ Horowitz wrote in his response. ‘This includes in or around the Capitol or in the restricted area of the Capitol.’ 

‘We can also confirm that the ATF, DEA, USMS, and BOP did not have any tasked CHSs in Washington, D.C. on January 6 in connection with the events of January 6,’ Horowitz continued. ‘This includes in or around the Capitol or in the restricted area of the Capitol.’ 

However, Horowitz could not conclusively say whether any of those agencies had ‘untasked’ confidential human sources – or those who traveled on their own initiative – present on Jan. 6, 2021. 

‘With respect to whether any DOJ law enforcement components other than the FBI had untasked CHSs in Washington, D.C. on January 6 in connection with the events of January 6, unlike the FBI, we have no information at this time as to whether the ATF, DEA, USMS, or BOP conducted a post-January 6 canvass to determine if any of their CHSs traveled on their own initiative (untasked) to D.C. in connection with the January 6 events,’ Horowitz wrote. 

Horowitz notified Grassley and Johnson that after conversations with their Senate staff on the matter, the DOJ inspector general’s office is inquiring those agencies further on whether they have any information to indicate whether any of their confidential human sources were in Washington, D.C., ‘on their own initiative (untasked) for the events on January 6.’ 

‘We will supplement this response when we receive that information,’ Horowitz wrote. 

Grassley and Johnson, in a letter to Horowitz obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, demanded Horowitz provide that information, saying his investigative work appeared to be ‘narrowly focused’ on just the FBI’s use of CHSs, and said his response on ‘untasked CHSs from DOJ components other than the FBI’ was ‘less definitive.’ 

Additionally, Grassley and Johnson are demanding further information on confidential human sources, noting that ‘the term ‘undercover agent’ can mean many things.’ 

Grassley and Johnson are now reiterating their request for information on whether ‘any federal law enforcement components, including FBI, ATF, DEA, USMS, or BOP had employees or contractors wearing civilian clothing in the Washington D.C. area; at the Capitol Building; and in restricted areas on J6 in an official or unofficial capacity.’ 

Meanwhile, Grassley and Johnson, in December, also questioned whether Horowitz thoroughly reviewed classified and unclassified communications between handlers and their sources, warning that without that review, there may be a ‘major blind spot’ in his findings. 

Horowitz, in his April letter to the senators, said he reviewed the ‘relevant portions of CHS files in the FBI’s electronic record-keeping system for CHS management’ and obtained ‘relevant portions of those files,’ including underlying text messages, photographs and videos. 

Horowitz said he obtained emails documenting the FBI’s Washington Field Office communications with CHS handlers of the tasked CHSs, and emails of CHS handling agents of ‘untasked’ CHSs who contacted the Washington Field Office during the events of Jan. 6, 2021. 

‘We flagged certain additional documents to be produced, including 1023s, documentation of unauthorized illegal activity (which generated a negative response), approvals for the tasked CHSs, and some underlying text messages and photographs referenced in 1023s, including text messages sent and shared between CHSs and their handlers,’ Horowitz wrote, adding that he also obtained instant messages from the FBI’s classified and unclassified communication platforms. 

‘As with all reviews, we sought the information that was most relevant to our review, one aspect of which was to confirm that no FBI handling agent, FBI Headquarters personnel, or WFO personnel authorized any CHS to engage in illegal activity on January 6, 2021,’ Horowitz stressed. ‘Given this scope, and the fact that the OIG did not receive any information indicating that any individual handling agent had inappropriate communications with a CHS, the OIG requested and reviewed relevant text messages between handling agents and CHSs, but did not request all of the text messages for all of the 26 CHSs and their handlers.’ 

Horowitz explained that for many of the confidential human sources in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, ‘the handling agents did not know of the CHSs’ presence in Washington, D.C. until after the events of that day.’ 

‘We further note that, in the hundreds of prosecutions that took place in connection with the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the extensive discovery that took place during those prosecutions, we are not aware that any CHS (or other person) provided text messages to a Court indicating that a FBI agent had encouraged or instructed (with or without authorization from their Field Office, WFO, or FBI headquarters) anyone to engage in illegal activity on January 6, 2021,’ Horowitz wrote. 

However, Grassley and Johnson say Horowitz’s response falls short, noting he ‘did not request all of the text messages for all of the 26 CHSs and their handlers.’

‘It’s well past time the American people received complete transparency and clarity regarding the full extent of the Justice Department and its component agencies’ involvement in the events of J6,’ Grassley and Johnson told Fox News Digital in a joint statement. ‘Inspector General Horowitz must be thorough in his approach and shed light on every corner of the department he oversees.’ 

Grassley and Johnson added, ‘We expect Horowitz to bring finality to this investigation by fully complying with our requests.’ 

A spokesperson for Horowitz did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

In the wake of the arrest of two foreign nationals seeking to murder a U.S. journalist on behalf of the Iranian government, a bipartisan group of senators put forward a bill Tuesday to stiffen penalties on people who commit crimes in the U.S. on behalf of foreign countries.

Sens. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., Jim Banks, R-Ind., Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., introduced the Deterring External Threats and Ensuring Robust Responses to Egregious and Nefarious Criminal Endeavors (DETERRENCE) Act.

The bill increases penalties on murder-for-hire schemers, those convicted of attempted murder or assassination of federal officials, as well as suspects allegedly involved in attempting to kill former officials because of their actions while in office.

Stalking and attempted kidnapping in the name of foreign governments would also lead to more serious charges for any offender. Many sentence enhancements fell at 10 additional years in prison.

‘If you commit crimes in America on behalf of foreign adversaries, you must face serious consequences,’ Slotkin said in a statement.

‘The bipartisan DETERRENCE Act helps strengthen penalties for these crimes and sends a clear message about how seriously we take our national security and how we will hold accountable those who commit crimes against our nation.’ 

In March, two foreigners appeared in New York federal court and pleaded not guilty to an alleged murder-for-hire plot against Masih Alinejad – an Iranian-born U.S. journalist.

Rafat Amirov of Iran and Polad Omarov of the Czech Republic and Slovenia were members of the Russian mob and were hired by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to kill the New York City resident, according to prosecutors.

‘Finally, I will face the men hired by the Islamic Republic to kill me, right here in New York,’ Alinejad said at the time.

‘I’m deeply grateful to my new country, the United States of America, for trying to keep me safe from the government of my birth country, Iran.’

Ernst said the U.S. cannot allow foreign adversaries like Iran to ‘fund crimes against Americans on our own soil.’

She called the DETERRENCE Act an example of Reagan-esque ‘peace through strength’ that puts foreign criminals ‘on notice’ and is a direct warning to anyone trying to act on Tehran’s motto of ‘Death to America.’

Meanwhile, Hassan said in a statement that Congress should pass the legislation as a clear message to foreign adversaries that they will face serious consequences if their criminal behavior crosses the U.S. border.

‘Foreign adversaries are working with gangs and criminals in the United States to try to kill people on our soil, which is a national security risk,’ she warned. 

Another reported foreign murder-for-hire plot was revealed last fall when an ex-Indian intelligence officer allegedly plotted to kill a U.S. citizen in New York who was a leader of a pro-Sikh independence movement.

Vikash Yadav’s October indictment reportedly laid out a connection to the Indian government, according to NPR.

The Trump administration is mulling a proposal that would slash the State Department budget by $27 billion – nearly in half – and shutter smaller embassies and consulates across the globe. 

The proposal calls for the elimination of funding for more than 20 international organizations, including the United Nations, NATO and the Organization of American States, a diplomatic source in possession of the document told Fox News Digital. 

The U.S. contributed around $13 billion to the United Nations in 2023 and around $3.5 billion to NATO. The proposed budget calls for allocating $2 billion for ‘America First’ priorities. Those coffers could be used for ‘specific partners’ like India and Jordan, according to the document, or broader priorities, like the South Pacific Tuna Treaty. 

However, a State Department spokesperson said Tuesday, ‘there is no final plan, final budget.’ 

The proposal is an early draft and has to pass layers of approval within the administration before it even gets to Congress. Congress can then take it as an outline but ultimately draw up its own budget figures. 

The foreign service travel budget and benefits would be scaled back, and the Fulbright scholarship program would be eliminated.

The document calls for a 2% reduction in diplomatic security, cuts to the inspector general’s office and the closure of smaller embassies in countries such as the Maldives, Malta, Luxembourg and the Central African Republic.

It also proposes a 54% cut to global public health funding, with carve-outs for malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis, and a complete elimination of international peacekeeping funds.

When asked about the budget plan during a State Department briefing, spokesperson Tammy Bruce said, ‘Throughout the history of the United States, everyone has a budget plan and everyone has ideas for budgets. And every president has a budget plan and sends it to Congress. And then Congress either accepts it or they have their own ideas, which happens more often than not.’

‘There is no final plan, final budget,’ she emphasized. 

The Trump administration has moved quickly to dismantle foreign aid, eliminating nearly 90% of USAID projects and merging the agency with the State Department and defunding ‘soft power’ institutions like Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting networks. 

The White House budget is set to be transferred to Congress next month before the Republican-led House and Senate get to work on passing appropriations bills for each agency of government. 

Meanwhile, agencies are expected to present their own plans for reorganization to the White House this week, outlining what cuts they believe are necessary to further shrink the federal government. The State Department has not yet publicly detailed its plans for downsizing. 

As reports of the cuts emerged, Democrats warned that U.S. adversaries would fill the vacuum left by America around the world. 

The cuts ‘would leave our country alone and exposed and allow China and Russia to fill the vacuum made vacant by this administration,’ according to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, N.H., top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. 

‘Why in the world would we cut funding for NATO at a moment when war is raging in Europe and security threats on the continent grow?’ she added.

It is not clear whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio endorses the initial proposal. ‘I want to hear from Secretary Rubio directly,’ said Sen. Brian Schatz, Hawaii, top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that handles State funding, calling the reports ‘deeply troubling.’

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Rep. Ro Khanna, the California Democrat who likely harbors national ambitions in 2028, is turning up the volume in his broadsides against Vice President JD Vance, the heir apparent to President Donald Trump.

In two high-profile speeches this week – in the vice president’s home state of Ohio on Monday and Tuesday at Yale Law School, where both politicians earned their legal degrees – Khanna trained his verbal fire on Vance.

Khanna accused Vance of working to ‘win public adulation by stoking anger and treating legal limits as nuisances to be ignored.’ 

While Vance has not called on Trump to ignore Supreme Court rulings, the vice president, in a closely watched social media post two months ago, criticized moves by federal judges to block the Trump administration’s controversial efforts to dramatically downsize the federal workforce. Vance argued that the judges were trying to ‘control the executive’s legitimate power.’ 

‘Vance says the president, elected by the people, should tell the court what the Constitution means, and if the court disagrees, let them try to enforce their ruling — that the president, as a co-equal, may simply ignore the court’s judgment of the law,’ Khanna argued in his Tuesday speech.

Khanna – spotlighting the controversial case of a Salvadoran citizen (who the Trump administration alleges was an MS-13 gang member) who had lived in Maryland for about 15 years that the Justice Department said was deported to El Salvador due to an ‘administrative error’ – highlighted Vance’s response.

‘Let me say this as clearly as I can: JD Vance, your cold indifference to the lives of vulnerable immigrants betrays every principle that this law school was built to uphold,’ Khanna charged. ‘Your affiliation with this law school is now a stain on the degree of every Yale graduate.’

Vance’s political team did not appear to be too concerned about Khanna’s repeated verbal attacks.

‘Yawn,’ a top political adviser to Vance told Fox News when asked about Khanna’s comments. The adviser described Khanna as an ‘ankle biter,’ which is slang for a relatively minor or irritating person or problem.

Khanna’s speech in New Haven was followed by a day an economic address at the City Club of Cleveland, where the congressman contrasted his vision for America’s ‘new economic patriotism’ with the future of the GOP with Vance at the helm. 

Responding to the visit, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou told Fox News Digital that ‘Khanna is a far-left socialist from one of the wealthiest and wokest congressional districts in America. He served as an official surrogate for both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. This speech is nothing but another desperate plea for attention from another elitist politician wholly out-of-touch with Middle Class voters like those in Ohio.’

Plenty of Democratic Party leaders have turned up the volume in their pushback against Trump’s sweeping and controversial actions to upend the federal government and policy. Also in the Democrats’ crosshairs is the president’s most visible White House adviser – billionaire Elon Musk – who, through his role steering the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has taken a sledgehammer to the federal work.

However, Khanna is taking the lead among Democrats in shaping Vance – who at this extremely early stage in the 2028 race is viewed as the GOP nomination front-runner – as the Republican bogeyman.

When asked if he was trolling Vance, Khanna said in a Fox News Digital interview ahead of his speech at Yale that the vice president is ‘trolling all of us. He’s the one who has made the argument that the court should not be listened to,’ before adding a litany of other examples. Additionally, Khanna pointed to what he described as Vance’s ‘dangerous attacks on universities, the Supreme Court and the rule of law.’

Noting rising economic uncertainties and the recent massive stock market sell-off triggered by the initial implementation of Trump’s tariffs on nations across the globe, Khanna suggested that Vance may not have the 2028 Republican nomination to himself.

‘Well, after the markets and the economy and the tariffs, I’m not sure he’s going to get the nomination. I think that others may emerge,’ Khanna predicted.

He stressed that the vice president ‘is the one person who is trying to give most argument to MAGA philosophy. He’s the one who’s called the university’s the enemy. He’s the only one who said the Supreme Court should be defied. He’s the one who’s been defending this high tariff policy. And so we need to take on his arguments and offer a counter to defeat them.’

However, when asked if his attacks on Vance were an early 2028 positioning move, Khanna responded that ‘what I’m doing is providing an intellectual foundation for the Democratic Party.’

Khanna emphasized that ‘we have to have a whole rebrand of the Democratic Party with a coherent platform and a future-oriented platform, and many leaders need to do that. New leaders, not the old guard. And I hope to be part of that.’

Khanna has been crisscrossing the country the past couple of months, taking a lead in amplifying the Democrats’ message in resisting Trump.

When asked if Democratic Party leaders need to be more vocal, Khanna quickly said yes.

‘We need more from our leadership. And you know, if you’re not willing to speak up about someone being snatched away from their home and deported without due process, you probably shouldn’t be in elective office as a Democrat right now,’ he said. ‘We need Democrats speaking out, not just on the economy. We need them speaking out on civil liberties, on the rights of immigrants and on the rights of universities.’

Khanna also praised the recent record-breaking marathon Senate floor speech by Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, and the large rallies across the country being co-headlined by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

Looking ahead to next year’s midterm elections, when House Democrats aim to topple the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the chamber, Khanna said he will continue his brisk pace on the campaign trail.

‘I’m already going out to more red districts. We did three red districts in California. I’m headed out to Pennsylvania. Was invited to go out to Nebraska, to Nevada, down south to South Carolina,’ he said. ‘So we will be campaigning in red districts. 1000s of people are showing up. I’m very, very confident that we’re going to succeed.’

In Khanna’s home state of California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is term-limited, and former Vice President Kamala Harris is mulling a 2026 gubernatorial run. 

‘I think she would do well in California. She was attorney general. She was a district attorney. A lot of people care about public safety in California, we have to tackle building housing,’ Khanna said of Harris. ‘So she would have a lot of support if she does it. Of course, it’s her decision.’

Fox News’ Deirdre Heavey and Emma Woodhead contributed to this report

It apparently pays to lead the resistance.

Progressive lawmakers in Congress who have been among the most vocal in pushing back against President Donald Trump’s aggressive and controversial second-term agenda are seeing a surge in fundraising.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the longtime progressive champion, hauled in $11.5 million in the January-March first quarter of 2025 fundraising, according to Federal Election Commission filings this week.

The Vermont independent and two-time Democratic presidential primary runner-up also reports more than $19 million in his campaign coffers at the start of this month.

Sanders has been drawing tens of thousands of people to his ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ rallies across the country over the past six weeks. Co-headling those rallies is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another rock star on the political left.

The four-term Democrat from New York City raked in a massive $9.6 million the past three months. The record-breaking fundraising haul was one of the biggest ever for any House lawmaker.

Ocasio-Cortez’s team highlighted that the fundraising came from 266,000 individual donors, with an average contribution of just $21.

‘I cannot convey enough how grateful I am to the millions of people supporting us with your time, resources, & energy. Your support has allowed us to rally people together at record scale to organize their communities,’ Ocasio-Cortez emphasized in a social media post.

Another Democrat in Congress who has been very visible in leading the resistance to Trump is Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Murphy, who won re-election last November and doesn’t have to run again until 2030, hauled in $8 million over the past three months, his biggest quarterly fundraising ever.

‘The people are sending Democrats a message about the direction they would like to see,’ top Sanders advisor Faiz Shakir said in a social media post.

Longtime Democratic operative and strategist Joe Caiazzo, a veteran of the Sanders 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, told Fox News that ‘there’s a direct correlation between fundraising and action… this is an indication of the yearning for action over inaction… that is what Democratic voters and Democratic activists want.’

And Caiazzo warned that ‘the stale ways of Washington have been rejected by the voters, and we need to understand that going into the next cycle.’

While not bringing in similar eye-popping numbers, House Republicans are touting their first-quarter fundraising, as they prepare to defend their razor-thin majority in the chamber in next year’s midterm elections.

Seven GOP lawmakers in competitive districts who are being targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee each raised seven figures over the past three months.

Leading the way was Rep. Mike Lawler of the 17th Congressional District of New York, who hauled in nearly $1.5 million during the first quarter. Lawler is mulling a statewide bid for New York governor in 2026. Also on the list are Reps. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona’s 6th District, Young Kim and Ken Calvert, of California’s 40th and 41st Districts, respectively, Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa’s 1st District, Jen Kiggans of Virginia’s 2nd District, and Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin’s 3rd District

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) highlighted that House GOP lawmakers in competitive districts enjoy a large fundraising advantage over Democrats in competitive seats.

And the NRCC emphasized that this is ‘a huge difference’ from the first fundraising quarter during the 2024 election cycle, when the Democrats held a campaign cash advantage. 

‘House Republicans aren’t just winning the fundraising game against vulnerable Democrats – they’re running laps around them,’ NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella argued.

While American taxpayers are familiar with the annual rigmarole of filing their federal taxes and realizing just how much of their hard-earned money Uncle Sam is taking away, several House Republicans are pushing a proposal to take some things away from the Internal Revenue Service: Guns and ammunition.

The ‘Why Does the IRS Need Guns Act’ would disarm the federal agency, prohibiting the commissioner of internal revenue from using funds to buy, receive or store firearms and ammo, and requiring the transfer of IRS firearms and ammunition to the Administrator of General Services. 

The guns would then be sold or auctioned to licensed dealers and the ammo would be auctioned to the public. 

Proceeds would go to ‘the general fund of the Treasury for the sole purpose of deficit reduction,’ the measure stipulates.

The bill states that ‘there are transferred to the Department of Justice the authorities, functions, personnel, and assets of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service, which shall be maintained as a distinct entity within the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, including the related functions of the Secretary of the Treasury.’

Rep. Barry Moore, R-Ala., introduced the measure, which is backed by three original cosponsors: GOP Reps. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Mary Miller of Illinois, and Clay Higgins of Louisiana. 

The IRS says on its website that its ‘mission is to provide America’s taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities and to enforce the law with integrity and fairness to all.’

But Moore claimed that the federal agency has regularly been ‘weaponized.’

‘The IRS has consistently been weaponized against American citizens, targeted religious organizations, journalists, gun owners, and everyday Americans,’ Moore asserted, according to a press release. 

‘Arming these agents does not make the American public safer. My legislation, the Why Does the IRS Need Guns Act, would disarm these agents, auction off their guns to Federal Firearms License Owners, and sell their ammunition to the public. The only thing IRS agents should be armed with are calculators.’

In an April 15 post on X Moore noted, ‘Tax Day is a great reminder that it’s time for the IRS to stop wasting our taxpayer dollars stockpiling guns and ammo.’

It’s too bad there are no cameras allowed in federal courtrooms, because I really would like to see Mark Zuckerberg testify.

He was the leadoff witness in the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Meta, and that in itself was news.

The clash is the most sweeping attempt to dismember the world’s biggest social network, and goes to the heart of how competition is defined.

Not since the government broke up AT&T more than four decades ago has a mega-corporation faced the prospect of being torn apart.

The suit was filed in the first Trump term (the president couldn’t stand Facebook at the time), aggressively pursued by Joe Biden, and now has finally come to trial in a Washington courtroom.

Trump once told me Facebook was such a threat to society that he used it as justification for flip-flopping on his effort to ban TikTok. 

But since he won a second term, Zuck, like many tech bros, has been cozying up to the new sheriff in town, including a $1-million donation to the president’s inaugural.

There are reports that when the man who runs Facebook recently met with Trump, he asked about the possibility of dropping the lawsuit. Obviously, it didn’t work.

The focus of the trial is Zuckerberg’s decision to buy Instagram and WhatsApp when they were small start-ups.

The FTC’s lead lawyer questioned Zuckerberg about a platform meant to foster ties between family and friends to a concentration on showing users interesting third-party content through its news feed.

‘It’s the case that over time, the ‘interest’ part of that has gotten built out more than the ‘friend’ part,’ Zuckerberg said. He added that ‘the ‘friend’ part has gone down quite a bit, but it’s still something we care about.’

Translation: Screw the friends. Very 2010s. We’ve moved on.

Zuckerberg spoke slowly – at least according to reporters who were there – and he was back on the hot seat yesterday. FTC lawyers pressed him on a stack of emails he had sent:  

‘We really need to get our act together quickly on this since Instagram’s growing so fast.

‘Instagram has become a large and viable competitor to us on mobile photos, which will increasingly be the future of photos.’

‘If Instagram continues to kick ass on photos, or if Google buys them, then over the next few years they could easily add pieces of their service that copy what we’re doing now.’ Which was a flop called Facebook Camera.

In yet another message, Zuck called Instagram’s growth ‘really scary,’ saying ‘we might want to consider paying a lot of money for this.’ Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, and two years later spent $19 billion on WhatsApp.

In an email to Tom Alison, head of Facebook, Z offered alternatives:

‘Option 1. Double down on Friending. One potentially crazy idea is to consider wiping everyone’s graphs and having them start again.’

Alison responded: ‘I’m not sure Option #1 in your proposal (Double-down on Friending) would be viable given my understanding of how vital the friend use case is to IG.’

Now we come to the fascinating part.

It’s not breaking news that Mark’s judgment can be flawed. Remember when he insisted that virtual reality would be the next big thing? 

But he argues that Meta has all kinds of rivals in the ‘entertainment’ area, such as X, TikTok and YouTube – and he easily could have added Snap, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and HBO’s Max. It’s all about the battle for eyeballs now. There are only so many hours in the day. Mindshare is everything.

And with group chats all the rage, Meta doesn’t do well on that kind of interaction, with Instagram as a possible exception.

Now of course it’s in Zuckerberg’s self-interest to testify that he competes with anything that has a screen. But it’s not that far off the mark. Keep in mind that Meta has 4 billion active monthly users.

I sure wish we could see the embattled CEO making the case that he’s awash in a vast sea of rivals.