Democrats are moving to embrace former Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk as he publicly spats with President Donald Trump, despite many party voters and lawmakers railing against Musk for months as a ‘fascist’ or ‘dictator’ for taking a hatchet to the federal government’s overspending and fraud within the Trump administration.

‘If Biden had a big supporter criticize him, Trump would have hugged him the next day,’ Democrat California Rep. Ro Khanna posted to X on Thursday of Musk’s criticisms of the ‘big, beautiful bill.’ ‘When we refused to meet with @RobertKennedyJr, Trump embraced him & won. We can be the party of sanctimonious lectures, or the party of FDR that knows how to win & build a progressive majority.’

Khanna told Politico on Wednesday that Democrats should ‘ultimately be trying to convince [Musk] that the Democratic Party has more of the values that he agrees with.’

‘A commitment to science funding, a commitment to clean technology, a commitment to seeing international students like him,’ he added. 

Democrat New York Rep. Ritchie Torres told the outlet on Wednesday, ‘I’m a believer in redemption, and he is telling the truth about the legislation.’ 

Torres said Musk has ‘done an enormous amount of damage’ and ‘there are Democrats who see his decimation of the federal workforce and the federal government as an unforgivable sin.’

‘Couldn’t agree with Elon more: kill the bill,’ Jon Favreau, who served as former director of speech writing for former President Barack Obama, posted to X in response to Musk calling on lawmakers to ‘kill’ the legislation.

Musk is in the midst of publicly trading barbs with Trump over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is sweeping legislation currently making its way through Congress and aims to fund the president’s agenda. 

‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,’ Musk posted to X on Tuesday. ‘This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.’ 

In addition to Democrats who don’t support the bill, Musk has also found himself aligned with members of the House Freedom Caucus, which is considered the most conservative voting bloc within the lower chamber, as well as staunch fiscal conservatives in the Senate, such as Republicans Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Wisconsin Sen. Ron. Johnson, who have publicly rebuked the legislation. 

Some Democrats posting messages favorable of Musk’s comments on the ‘big, beautiful bill’ come after many left-wing voters and lawmakers, as well as federal employees, slammed Musk for months as an unelected billionaire who was helping shape White House policy. Many also took issue with Musk on inauguration day for delivering what dozens of media outlets described as a ‘Nazi-style salute’ to Trump supporters. 

‘If you’re cool and want to defend the ‘Sieg Heils’ and the Nazi salutes … whatever you want to do, that’s on you,’ Democrat New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Coretz said in January following the gesture. ‘I’m on the opposite side of that. I’m not with the Nazis.’

‘I never imagined we would see the day when what appears to be a Heil Hitler salute would be made behind the Presidential seal,’ New York Rep. Jerry Nadler tweeted in January. ‘This abhorrent gesture has no place in our society and belongs in the darkest chapters of human history. I urge all of my colleagues to unite in condemning this hateful gesture for what it is: antisemitism.’

‘He’s incompetent. He’s a thief. He’s a Nazi. And people don’t trust him,’ former Democrat New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman said of Musk in March. 

‘He’s a Nazi nepo baby who breaks everything he touches,’ Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Ayanna Pressley said in February as Musk announced cuts to the federal government via DOGE. ‘And right now he’s locked himself in a room with grandpa’s Social Security check.’

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey referred to Musk as a ‘dictator’ at an anti-DOGE rally in February.

Fiscal conservatives in Congress have spoken out against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as one that will increase the U.S. debt ceiling by trillions, including Senate Republicans bucking support for the legislation after its passage in the House last month. 

‘I want the tax cuts to be permanent. But at the same time, I don’t want to raise the debt ceiling $5 trillion,’ Paul told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ on Sunday. ‘The GOP will own the debt once they vote for this.’

Trump has admonished the criticism from fiscally conservative Republicans, arguing that Paul, for example, was on the verge of siding with the ‘Radical Left Democrats’ and encouraging a 68% tax hike on Americans if he voted against the legislation. 

Musk, since stepping down from his DOGE role in May after his 130 predetermined days as a special government employee ended, ramped up his criticism of the bill on Wednesday, including encouraging lawmakers to ‘kill the bill.’

On Thursday, Trump directly addressed Musk’s comments, saying in an Oval Office meeting with the chancellor of Germany that he was ‘disappointed’ by Musk’s attacks on the legislation and said he was unsure how their friendly relationship would fare through the criticisms. Trump added that Musk’s disapproval of the bill was allegedly tied to its cuts to electrical vehicle mandates. Musk is the CEO of electric vehicle company Tesla. 

‘I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it,’ Trump said Thursday. ‘All of a sudden, he had a problem. And he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate.’

‘Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,’ Trump added.

The pair later launched attacks on one another on social media.

‘Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!’ Trump posted to X on Thursday. 

‘Such an obvious lie. So sad,’ Musk responded on X.

Billionaire Elon Musk dropped a serious bomb on social media on Thursday when he made allegations that President Donald Trump was in the Jeffrey Epstein file.

‘@RealDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files,’ Musk wrote on X. ‘That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!’

Musk followed the post with another, saying, ‘Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.’

The former ‘First Buddy’ dropped the allegation in response to a back-and-forth series of social media messages between him and Trump.

Shortly after Musk posted about Trump being in the Epstein file, Trump posted his response to Truth Social.

‘I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress,’ Trump said, turning his attention to the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ that is before the Senate. ‘It’s a Record Cut in Expenses, $1.6 Trillion Dollars, and the Biggest Tax Cut ever given. If this Bill doesn’t pass, there will be a 68% Tax Increase, and things far worse than that.’

‘I didn’t create this mess, I’m just here to FIX IT. This puts our Country on a Path of Greatness. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’ the president added.

Trump lambasted Musk on Thursday afternoon, saying he asked the former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head to leave.

‘Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!’ Trump said on Truth Social.

Musk’s bombshell allegation against Trump comes months after a trove of files pertaining to the Epstein case were released.

In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel explaining the delay in the release of documents and placing blame on an FBI field office in New York.

Bondi said she requested the full Epstein case file before Patel was confirmed as the head of the FBI and received about 200 pages – far fewer than the number of pages released last year in a civil lawsuit connected to Ghisalaine Maxwell, the trafficker’s former lover and convicted accomplice.

Although Bondi pushed for the release of the full dossier, which included records, documents, audio and video recordings, and materials related to Epstein and his clients, the request remains unfulfilled.

One of the key pieces that remains unreleased is a client list, though Bondi claimed in February it was on her desk to be reviewed.

The documents that have been released so far include flight logs, an evidence list, a contact book and a redacted ‘masseuse list’ believed to refer to Epstein’s victims.

Many people named in the documents have never been accused of Epstein-related wrongdoing. However, some have, like Maxwell; Prince Andrew, who has denied allegations of wrongdoing; and Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent who, like Epstein, died in a jail awaiting trial.

Epstein, Maxwell, and unnamed co-conspirators allegedly abused young women and underage girls between 1996 and his death in 2019, according to the lawsuit. Citing police documents, it alleges that Epstein recruited girls between 14 and 16 as well as students at Palm Beach Community College for ‘sex-tinged sessions.’

Maxwell is appealing her conviction while serving a sentence at a federal prison in Tallahassee. She is due for release in the summer of 2037.

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller and Mike Ruiz contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. 

The Trump administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court over allegations against Israel. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions against Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin, and Beti Hohler of Slovenia.

‘These individuals directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without consent from the United States or Israel,’ Rubio said. 

The sanctions against the Hague-based court are related to Trump Feb. 6 executive order. 

He signed the executive order punishing the ICC in response to its May 2024 arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity amid Israel’s ongoing conflict against Hamas. 

Rubio said the four ICC judges ‘actively engaged in the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel.’

‘The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies,’ he said. ‘This dangerous assertion and abuse of power infringes upon the sovereignty and national security of the United States and our allies, including Israel.’

He said the United States will take ‘whatever actions we deem necessary’ to protect its sovereignty, that of Israel, and other U.S. allies from ‘illegitimate actions by the ICC.’

Rubio noted that member states of the court, ‘many of whose freedom was purchased at the price of great American sacrifices’ and to push back against the court for its ‘disgraceful attack’ against the U.S. and Israel.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the ICC. 

The ICC only prosecutes cases when domestic law enforcement authorities cannot or will not investigate. Israel is not a member of the court. 

Despite the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the court has no police powers to enforce warrants, instead choosing to rely on cooperation from its member states.

As criticism mounts from within former President Joe Biden’s world against former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and her new book, one ex-aide lambasted the now-Independent ombudswoman as ‘kinda dumb’ — a tweet he deleted but later stood by.

Timothy Wu, now a Columbia Law professor, was Biden’s ‘architect’ of antitrust policy whose faculty bio claims he also coined the progressive term ‘net neutrality’ in 2002.

In a now-deleted tweet, Wu wrote: ‘from a [White House] staff perspective, the real problem with Karine Jean-Pierre was that she was kinda dumb.’

‘[She had n]o interest in understanding harder topics. Just gave random incoherent answers on policy,’ Wu added in the trashed tweet.

The X account ‘I work with my word’ replied to the original tweet, calling it ‘pretty racist,’ and the tweet was later deleted, but the reply remained.

Below the reply, Wu added a new line of commentary, saying the Biden White House was ‘full of genius-level Black women. [Jean-Pierre] was not one of them.’ 

In response to another X user asking Wu whether Trump White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt understands executive policy, the professor said a good ombudsperson will ‘meet with policy staff and try and understand what the administration is doing and why.’

After Wu’s original tweet, fellow former Biden advisor Symone Sanders Townsend wrote on X that Democrats ‘going on the record or on background to call Karine ‘dumb’ or ‘stupid’ have crossed a line.’ ‘You can have a valid criticism about how she did the job, but let’s not walk down the road of disrespect,’ Sanders Townsend said.

Fox News Digital reached out to Wu via his Columbia faculty office, where he has taught since 2006.

The former Biden advisor was also a Democratic primary candidate for New York’s lieutenant governorship in 2014, and also worked in the Obama administration and at the Federal Trade Commission.

Jean-Pierre on Wednesday announced that she left the Democratic Party and has become an independent while revealing her upcoming book: ‘Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines.’

She was mocked and criticized by several people in Biden’s orbit besides Wu, including one who said, ‘I wouldn’t ignore what Karine has to say, but it’s not an account in which much weight will be invested — just like her briefings.’

‘At noon on that day [that Biden left office], I became a private citizen who, like all Americans and many of our allies around the world, had to contend with what was to come next for our country. I determined that the danger we face as a country requires freeing ourselves of boxes. We need to be willing to exercise the ability to think creatively and plan strategically,’ Jean-Pierre said of her new independent streak.

Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Following news that two Chinese nationals were charged with allegedly smuggling a ‘dangerous biological pathogen’ into the United States to study at a U.S. university, Fox News Digital spoke to an expert on China who said the arrests should be a wake-up call to the country. 

‘I was entirely unsurprised, which is a sad commentary, but it speaks to the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP wants to kill Americans,’ Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute focusing on U.S. and China relations, told Fox News Digital after FBI Director Kash Patel announced the arrests of the two Chinese nationals. 

‘Look at what they’ve done with smuggling fentanyl precursors into our country to kill Americans, look at the effects of them failing to stop the spread of COVID-19,’ Sobolik said. ‘Dead Americans. The fact that they want to target Americans here within the United States with pathogens and with bioweapons. This is the Chinese Communist Party. This is what they do. They’re in a cold war with the United States. They want to become the most powerful nation in the world and they wanna make the world safe for their tyranny and unsafe for freedom. And they’re coming for us here at home.’

The couple are accused of smuggling a fungus called Fusarium graminearum, which scientific literature classifies as a ‘potential agroterrorism weapon,’ according to the Justice Department. Federal prosecutors note that the noxious fungus causes ‘head blight,’ a disease of wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and ‘is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year.’ 

The Justice Department also says fusarium graminearum’s toxins cause vomiting, liver damage, and ‘reproductive defects in humans and livestock.’ 

According to the criminal complaint, one of the accused allegedly received Chinese government funding for her work on the pathogen in China. 

The couple are accused of bringing the pathogen into the U.S. to study at a University of Michigan laboratory, which raises more concerns about Chinese nationals infiltrating American universities.

Last month, a bombshell report out of Stanford University shed light on the influence of spies from the Chinese Communist Party that the student newspaper says have likely infiltrated the prestigious institution and other universities nationwide to gather intelligence.

‘American higher education is addicted to the Chinese Communist Party,’ Sobolik told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s addicted to easy money that has come from Beijing for decades. It’s addicted to international students that pay full tuition, many of which are then coerced and pressured by the Chinese embassy and consulates and other networks to spy for the party and report back.’

‘American universities need to finally open their eyes and stop being willfully blind to the threat of the CCP. They’re vectors for intelligence gathering. They are vectors for these threats that target Americans on our own soil. That’s unacceptable. If sovereignty means anything, we need to be able to protect Americans within the borders of the United States. And universities cannot continue to be willing accomplices of the Chinese Communist Party.’

A Chinese embassy official said Wednesday he was unaware of the case involving two Chinese nationals charged with smuggling a ‘dangerous biological pathogen’ into the U.S. for university research.

‘I don’t know the specific situation, but I would like to emphasize that the Chinese government has always required overseas Chinese citizens to abide by local laws and regulations and will also resolutely safeguard their legitimate rights and interests,’ said Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Embassy in the U.S.

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace and Charles Creitz contributed to this report

President Donald Trump maintained his belief that former President Joe Biden didn’t have ‘much of an idea what was going on’ when he served as president when asked Thursday to respond to Biden’s dismissal of an investigation into his administration’s use of an autopen. 

‘He was never for open borders. He was never for transgender for everybody. He was never for men playing in women’s sports. I mean, he changed,’ Trump said Thursday from the Oval Office during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. ‘I mean, all of these things that that changed so radically. I don’t think he had any idea… I said it during the debate and I say it now, he didn’t have much of an idea what was going on.’ 

‘Essentially, whoever used the autopen was the president, and that is wrong,’ he added. ‘It’s illegal. It’s so bad, and it’s so disrespectful to our country.’ 

Trump sent a memo to the Department of Justice Wednesday directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Biden administration aides conspired to deceive the public about his mental state, and simultaneously used an autopen to sign key presidential actions. 

‘In recent months, it has become increasingly apparent that former President Biden’s aides abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and assert Article II authority,’ Trump wrote. ‘This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history. The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.’

Biden responded to the memo Wednesday evening, brushing it off as ‘ridiculous’ and a ‘distraction’ put forth by the GOP. 

‘Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,’ Biden said. ‘This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.’ 

Trump continued in his Thursday comments that the Biden administration’s use of an autopen is one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history, remarking that autopens are typically used to send mass amounts of letters – not for official presidential actions. 

‘I sign important documents. Usually, when they put documents in front of you, they’re important. Even if you’re signing ambassadorships or – and I consider that important, I think it’s inappropriate,’ Trump continued. ‘You have somebody that’s devoting four years of their life or more to being an ambassador. I think you really deserve that person deserves to get a real signature, not a, not an autopen signature.’ 

The president added that he can easily identify autopen signatures from genuine pen-to-paper signatures due to ‘two little pinholes from pulling the paper’ that are found on documents. 

‘I think it’s very disrespectful to people when they get an autopen signature,’ Trump said. ‘Autopens, to me are used when thousands of letters come in from young people all over the country, and you want to get them back and, you know, people use autopens for that to send, a little signature at the bottom of a letter. We have thousands of them. We get thousands of letters a week, and it’s not possible to, you know, though I’d like to do it myself, but you can’t do it. That’s where autopens start and stop.’ 

Autopen signatures are automatically produced by a machine, as opposed to an authentic, handwritten signature.

The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project first investigated the Biden administration’s use of an autopen earlier in 2025 and found that the same signature was on a bevvy of executive orders and other official documents, while Biden’s signature on the document announcing his departure from the 2024 race varied from the apparent machine-produced signature.

The reports led to speculation that Biden aides had approved of executive orders and sweeping pardons, not the president. 

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to restore millions of dollars in grant funding for AmeriCorps and to reemploy thousands of employees, ruling that the administration’s abrupt dismantling of the organization violated federal law. 

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman agreed to reinstate thousands of terminated AmeriCorps employees across 24 U.S. states and D.C., which sued the administration earlier this year over the steep cuts to the agency ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

She also ordered the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally approved funding for AmeriCorps programs, which were also slashed by DOGE earlier this year.

Boardman sided with plaintiffs in ruling that the Trump administration likely violated administrative procedures by ordering the abrupt cancellations and terminations, without a proper notice or comment period. 

While the decision does not require the Trump administration to keep the jobs in place indefinitely, it does require it to provide adequate notice before doing so.

AmeriCorps, an agency created by Congress more than two decades ago, had an operating budget of roughly $1 billion prior to this year, when it found itself squarely in the crosshairs of DOGE, the agency previously headed up by Elon Musk and tasked with eliminating wasteful spending.

In granting the preliminary injunction Thursday, Boardman said the 24 states have adequately demonstrated they are likely to suffer ‘irreparable harm’ from the gutting of AmeriCorps, absent court intervention, and that the balance of equities ‘heavily favors’ plaintiffs seeking injunctive relief.

‘Any harm the defendants might face if the agency actions are enjoined pales in comparison to the concrete harms that the States and the communities served by AmeriCorps programs have suffered and will continue to suffer,’ she said in the ruling. 

The preliminary injunction comes after DOGE in April abruptly announced it would be putting roughly 85% of all AmeriCorps staffers on leave.

It also announced mass Reduction of Force, or RIF, for AmeriCorps staff, and sent notice that they were planning to cut $400 million in grants and other funding from the agency. 

In their lawsuit, attorneys general from the 24 U.S. states and D.C. urged the court to reverse the cuts and terminations across AmeriCorps, citing the risk of irreparable harm, as well as the administration’s failure to properly notify employees of their terminations. 

Plaintiffs alleged that the Trump administration and DOGE had acted beyond the scope of their authority in gutting AmeriCorps, an agency created by Congress, without proper notice. 

They also asked the judge to halt the cuts to roughly $557 million in congressionally approved funding.

Importantly, the judge said Thursday that the order only applies to the states that joined the lawsuit. 

The news was praised on social media by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who described it as a victory, noting: ‘Over 200,000 AmeriCorps staff and volunteers work hard every day to care for our communities.’

‘This ruling ensures their valuable work can continue,’ she said.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said the decision to halt the cuts to AmeriCorps will ‘help communities respond to natural disasters, support seniors and veterans, and keep our trails clean across Pennsylvania.’

Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s feud about the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ continued on Thursday when the tech billionaire responded to the president’s criticism in a post on X.

‘Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude,’ Musk wrote in a post responding to Trump’s remarks about him.

While speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said that he was ‘very disappointed’ by Musk’s vocal criticisms of the bill. The president claimed that Musk knew what was in the bill and ‘had no problem’ with it until the EV incentives had to be cut.

‘I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it,’ Trump said. ‘All of a sudden, he had a problem. And he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate.’

Musk pushed back on the president’s claim in another post on X and said that ‘this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!’

The Tesla founder has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration and Republicans over the last few days because of the legislation that the president has pushed. Musk has taken to calling it the ‘Big Ugly Bill’ and at one point advocated for a ‘Slim Beautiful Bill.’

Earlier on Thursday, Musk highlighted Trump’s old posts that seemingly align with the tech billionaire’s current positions and objections to the Big Beautiful Bill. 

Musk has also faced criticism from House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said on Wednesday that he was ‘surprised’ by the former DOGE leader’s objections to the legislation. The Republican lawmaker said that he and Musk, whom he considers a ‘friend,’ had a ‘great conversation’ about the bill on Monday. Johnson told reporters on Wednesday that Musk was ‘flat wrong’ about the legislation.

Meanwhile, there are several Republicans who have expressed solidarity with Musk, including Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. Additionally, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said that Musk was right to be concerned that AMericans are ‘quickly becoming debt slaves.’

Now that the bill has passed the house, it’s up to the Senate to meet Trump’s July 4 deadline.

As criticism mounts from within Biden’s world against former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and her new book, one ex-aide lambasted the now-Independent ombudswoman as ‘kinda dumb’ — a tweet he deleted but later stood by.

Timothy Wu, now a Columbia Law professor, was former President Joe Biden’s ‘architect’ of antitrust policy whose faculty bio claims he also coined the progressive term ‘net neutrality’ in 2002.

In a now-deleted tweet, Wu wrote: ‘from a [White House] staff perspective, the real problem with Karine Jean-Pierre was that she was kinda dumb.’

‘[She had n]o interest in understanding harder topics. Just gave random incoherent answers on policy,’ Wu added in the trashed tweet.

The X account ‘I work with my word’ replied to the original tweet, calling it ‘pretty racist,’ and the tweet was later deleted, but the reply remained.

Below the reply, Wu added a new line of commentary, saying the Biden White House was ‘full of genius-level Black women. [Jean-Pierre] was not one of them.’ 

In response to another X user asking Wu whether Trump White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt understands executive policy, the professor said a good ombudsperson will ‘meet with policy staff and try and understand what the administration is doing and why.’

After Wu’s original tweet, fellow former Biden adviser Symone Sanders Townsend wrote on X that Democrats ‘going on the record or on background to call Karine ‘dumb’ or ‘stupid’ have crossed a line.’ ‘You can have a valid criticism about how she did the job, but let’s not walk down the road of disrespect,’ Sanders Townsend said.

Fox News Digital reached out to Wu via his Columbia faculty office, where he has taught since 2006.

The former Biden adviser was also a Democratic primary candidate for New York’s lieutenant governorship in 2014, and also worked in the Obama administration and at the Federal Trade Commission.

Jean-Pierre announced Wednesday that she left the Democratic Party and has become an Independent while revealing her upcoming book: ‘Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines.’

She was mocked and criticized by several people in Biden’s orbit besides Wu, including one who said, ‘I wouldn’t ignore what Karine has to say, but it’s not an account in which much weight will be invested — just like her briefings.’

‘At noon on that day [that Biden left office], I became a private citizen who, like all Americans and many of our allies around the world, had to contend with what was to come next for our country. I determined that the danger we face as a country requires freeing ourselves of boxes. We need to be willing to exercise the ability to think creatively and plan strategically,’ Jean-Pierre said of her new Independent streak.

Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth kicked off Pride month this year with a shot across the bow of wokeness, as his plan to rechristen a Navy ship honoring gay rights icon Harvey Milk has emerged.

Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978, and in that same year he was gunned down, leaving him a legacy as a martyr to the cause of gay liberation.

Let’s be clear about two things. First, Hegseth is absolutely trolling the woke left with this move and its timing. Secondly, he is absolutely right to do so, because a navy vessel has nothing to do with men having sex with each other and that is the only thing painting ‘Harvey Milk’ on the side of the ship implies.

Harvey Milk is not a hero to everyone in the United States. One can wholeheartedly support equal rights without celebrating homosexuality, and asking naval officers and civilians to serve on the USNS Harvey Milk does just that.

The ship, which transports oil, isn’t named after Milk, who happened to be gay; it’s named after Milk because he was gay, and Hegseth is correct that this is wildly inappropriate. 

Why not the USNS Liberace? Think of the boon it would be to the domestic chandelier industry.

Progressives seem deeply confused these days about why they don’t appeal to young men, and I would like to submit that the USNS Harvey Milk is a pretty good example of why. 

You take some 18-year-old guy, maybe he watched ‘Top Gun Maverick’ a few too many times and wants to be a warfighter, then you point and say, there’s your ship, it celebrates dudes making out with dudes.

Let’s face it, most sailors in the Navy do not want to be sitting in a diner in 25 years wearing a ballcap that proudly states they served on the ‘Harvey Milk,’ and that’s OK.

Predictably, former House Speaker and San Francisco’s own Rep. Nancy Pelosi decried the decision to rename the ship, calling it, ‘a shameful vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers…’

Is there an element of revenge in Hegseth’s action? There might be, because for decades now Americans have been forced to swallow the bizarre notion that who you have sex with is something to be proud of, as if we should all applaud.

For decades now, every June at ballgames and in TV ads, on municipal buildings and subway trains the rainbow flag has been everywhere, demanding your consent to celebrate gayness.

In recent years, as the teal of the trans flag has bled into the rainbow, we have once again been told that we must accept an absurd lie that men can become women, as if this was just some a priori truth.

Not this time, and as America rejects the trans movement, it is also realizing that bending over backwards every June to cheer on homosexuality makes no sense in a society where gay people face little to no discrimination.

A warship has one purpose, to help to destroy our enemies. Everything about the vessel should be directed towards that goal, including the name emblazoned on it. ‘Harvey Milk’ fails that test.

Throughout the first quarter of the 21st Century, progressives have made enormous gains in American society, and they have generally assumed that once their new norms are established, they cannot be undone.

Hegseth, as he has done before by restoring the names of army bases changed by progressives, is showing that we can indeed go back. History is not a one-way ratchet that only turns left.

Progressives are firmly convinced that everything is an occasion for activism, that their preferred lifestyle and worldview should be threaded into every aspect of our lives. This is wrongheaded in general, but especially so in regard to warfare.

Hegseth is popular with soldiers and vets alike because he understands that his primary job is to kill the enemy while keeping his guys alive. It’s not to promote gay rights, it’s not to foster social justice, it is to destroy.

By all means, name a community center or a clinic after Harvey Milk, but not a warship. Those willing to put their lives on the line aboard deserve better.