This week, while Bruce Springsteen and Robert De Niro were abroad trashing President Donald Trump in front of wealthy Europeans, everyday Americans were flocking to the Kennedy Center to enjoy fine art. 

It is quite a split screen to consider and, in the end, The Boss and old droopy eyes Bobby come across as looking nothing short of ridiculous.

Let’s start with Springsteen, who kicked off his tour in Manchester on Wednesday night with the message for Brits.

‘My home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration,’ he said.

Later in the show, during which presumably he also played some music, Springsteen called Trump incompetent and an authoritarian. It seems Bruce wasn’t born to run, he was born to whine.

Across the English Channel, which is not yet the Channel of America, De Niro was at the Cannes Film Festival receiving a lifetime achievement award, because the only thing actors do better than wearing makeup and saying things they didn’t write is giving each other awards for it.

Of course, De Niro could not resist providing plenty of raging bull about Trump.

‘[Artists] are a threat to autocrats and fascists,’ he said. ‘America’s Philistine president has had himself appointed head of one of our premier cultural institutions (the Kennedy Center). He has cut funding and support to the arts, humanities and education.’

This last statement about the Kennedy Center drew a strong rebuke from its controversial new president, Richard Grenell.

‘He’s lying,’ Grenell wrote on X. ‘President Trump hasn’t cut funding for the Kennedy Center. There are a few honest reporters already reporting the massive funding INCREASE request from President Trump for the Kennedy Center. It is De Niro’s political party that is canceling shows and booing people they don’t agree with politically. We haven’t canceled shows.’

The fact of the matter is that Grenell is absolutely right about this. It is actors from a production of ‘Les Misérables’ who are refusing to perform for Trump next month, not Trump refusing to watch them.

It was the producers of ‘Hamilton’ who decided to cancel their Kennedy Center run, not Trump administration officials in arm bands censoring art.

In fact, I don’t know if ‘Hamilton’ composer Lin Manuel Miranda knows this or not, but these days it is conservatives who are far more likely to cherish his patriotic musical. Many on the left now accuse him of whitewashing America’s supposed horrible history.

For the first time in decades, we have leadership at the Kennedy Center that is worried about what the audience, otherwise known as the people, want, not with indoctrinating Americans into progressive ideologies with shows nobody wants to see anyway.

As it turns out, I found myself at the Kennedy Center on Thursday night to catch the National Symphony’s performance of Beethoven’s ‘Missa Solemnis.’ After all, a columnist can’t survive on dive bars and Midwest diners alone.

I know this will come as a deep shock to Springsteen and De Niro, but for the life of me, I could not find the fascism or autocracy. 

Instead, I found Americans of all ages and walks of life sitting stunned as a piece of music that has enthralled audiences for 200 years unfolded under the direction of legendary Maestro Gianandrea Noseda.

It was a packed house on a Thursday night. You could see young people grabbing $10 rush tickets like I did as a student to see the Philadelphia Orchestra decades ago.

Try getting into a Springsteen concert for 10 bucks. 

While the Boss and Bobby were being feted by Euro elites, they were still playing out their sad boomer protest fantasies born under a haze of weed smoke in 1968.

Back in April, the Kennedy Center smashed its attendance record when 11,000 attended a cheesy performance that combined art, science and drones. It is exactly the kind of programming that gives this jewel of the arts back to the people.

For the first time in decades, we have leadership at the Kennedy Center that is worried about what the audience, otherwise known as the people, want, not with indoctrinating Americans into progressive ideologies with shows nobody wants to see anyway.

Maybe Springsteen and De Niro should just stay in Europe and move in near Rosie O’Donnell and Eva Longoria, who already left after Trump’s election. They all think America is awful and they can all get cheering crowds overseas for trashing the red, white and blue.

Here in the United States, we are not going to miss the talents of these naysayers, because we have a wealth of brilliant artists who want to share their gifts with everyone, Republican or Democrat, who know that at its best, art unites, it does not divide.

So, if you find yourself in Washington, swing by the Kennedy Center and check it out. Or, wherever it is that you live, find the artists who want to speak to your soul, not to your politics. Because at long last, we are finally, once again, making space for that ancient pursuit.

President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. has given Iran a proposal for a nuclear deal.

‘Yeah they have a proposal, but more importantly, they know they have to move quickly or something bad, something bad is going to happen,’ Trump said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned this week that the United States is facing a critical moment with Iran to curb its efforts to develop a nuclear weapon and limit its uranium enrichment.

U.S. and Iranian officials have held four rounds of talks, primarily in Oman, since Trump took office to address Tehran’s nuclear program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, often referred to as the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, noted in a March report that Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium had alarmingly grown from 182 kg to 275 kg, approximately 401 pounds to 606 pounds, in early 2025.

‘Once you’re at 60, you’re 90% of the way there. You are, in essence, a threshold nuclear weapons state, which is what Iran basically has become,’ Rubio said Thursday on ‘Hannity’.

‘They are at the threshold of a nuclear weapon. If they decided to do so, they could do so very quickly. If they stockpile enough of that 60 percent enriched, they could very quickly turn it into 90 and weaponize it. That’s the danger we face right now. That’s the urgency here,’ he said.

The president also said Thursday in the United Arab Emirates that the U.S. and Iran have ‘sort of’ agreed to terms on a nuclear deal.

‘Iran has sort of agreed to the terms. They’re not going to make — I call it, in a friendly way — nuclear dust,’ Trump told reporters. ‘We’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran.’

Congressional Republicans are urging Trump to remain committed to a hardline Iran strategy, calling for the complete dismantlement of the regime’s nuclear enrichment capabilities in a letter that drew wide support. 

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan and Christina Shaw contributed to this report.

While Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., has been a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump’s tariff and deportation policies, the president’s latest executive order targeting prescription drug prices inspired the Silicon Valley congressman to trade political disses for diplomacy. 

Khanna proposed legislation on Wednesday to codify Trump’s executive order aimed at lowering drug prices, and the Democrat is urging his Republican colleagues to follow his lead, reaching across the aisle to deliver for everyday Americans. 

‘President Trump’s executive order says that Americans should pay the least price. We should not pay any more than people are paying in countries overseas. Then, it gives the Cabinet secretaries the ability to go after Big Pharma companies that are price-gouging. Now, he tried something similar in his previous administration. Big Pharma sued him, it got tied up in courts, nothing happened. That’s why we need Congress to act. I have introduced something that codifies President Trump’s language, and I’m hoping we get a Republican co-sponsor,’ Khanna told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. 

As Democrats search for party unity after losing the White House, the Senate and failing to regain the House of Representatives last year, Democrats have gravitated toward an outright rejection of the Trump administration, as depicted through ongoing protests. Khanna, however, said he does not mind if Trump ‘gets a political win’ if it benefits the American people. 

‘If Donald Trump says that’s something that’s good for the American people, I’m not going to oppose it just for political points,’ Khanna said. 

Khanna is considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate and, like many ambitious Democrats, has crisscrossed the United States this year, bringing his vision for America to the national conversation. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, D-Mich., also expected to harbor 2028 ambitions, faced some flack within the party this year for engaging directly with Trump to deliver for Michiganders. 

‘If Donald Trump has a good idea that’s going to help the American people, we should work with him. If we have a philosophical disagreement, we shouldn’t. But the barometer for me, the test case is, is this helping people? Is this something that I think is going to help this country? Where I have philosophical disagreements, I speak up. But when I think that it is good legislation, I am willing to support him. And I don’t care, like some people, if he gets a political win. So much of politics is, ‘Oh, we don’t want to give the other side a political win.’ For all I care, he can have a great political win if the American public gets lower drug prices,’ Khanna told Fox News Digital. 

While Khanna said he has not communicated with Trump directly about codifying his executive order, he delivered a now-viral House floor speech Wednesday, urging his Republican colleagues to join the bipartisan effort to lower prescription drug prices. 

‘Are you on the side of the people, or are you on the side of the $16 billion in Big Pharma lobbyist money that was spent last year? My legislation, there’s no trick to it. It is President Trump’s idea, President Trump’s executive order, President Trump’s language into law. Every Republican should support this, and every Democrat should,’ Khanna added. 

Ahead of Trump’s executive order signing, Khanna affirmed his support for lowering drug prices, reminding Americans that he proposed similar legislation alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., with the same goal in mind. 

‘I just don’t understand why any Republican wouldn’t support this. It’s President Trump’s executive order, and every American agrees that prescription drug price costs are too much, that it’s so unfair that Americans are stuck with all these high bills when other countries are paying pennies on the dollar for their drugs. It’s time that Americans be treated fairly,’ Khanna said. 

As Khanna, who was a surrogate for then-President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign in 2024, finds common ground with the current administration, he told Martha MacCallum on ‘The Story’ Wednesday that Biden should not have run in 2024. 

‘I do think it’s important that, given what has come out, that we take accountability,’ Khanna said. ‘Obviously, he should not have run. We should be clear to say that. Obviously, there should have been an open primary. And, I don’t think that’s very difficult that Democrats should just be straight up that he should not have run, now that we have all the facts. There should have been an open primary. I think to move on and move forward, it’s important to take accountability and be straight-forward with the American people.’

While Khanna said he did not have the full picture of Biden’s health and mental acuity when he defended him before the disastrous debate performance, Khanna admitted, ‘We should be honest as a party that we made a mistake.’

Eight years ago, during the first few days of President Donald Trump’s first term, I joined his other senior advisers in the White House Situation Room to discuss our approach to Saudia Arabia, which was then in the midst of an internal power struggle. Should we work with the older generation of Saudi leaders, with whom the U.S. has done business with for decades? Or would we take a chance on the younger generation, who were untested, but are committed to massive social and economic change.  

Jared Kushner made the case for the new leaders, especially Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). Kushner argued they would take Saudi Arabia in a different direction — away from the religiously and socially conservative, insular, extremist-tolerant older generation of their grandparents – and build a modern, tolerant and open society, with rights for women.  

They wanted to diversify the Saudi economy beyond its reliance on oil and create a modern nation focused on technology, investment and infrastructure. They would stand against Islamic extremism and work with us to destroy terrorist movements. They were open to the idea of peace with Israel as the foundation of a wilder peace in the Middle East.  

The choice was Trump’s, and one of his first major foreign policy decisions. He would continue his rock-solid support of Israel, but he took a bet on the younger generation of Sunni Arab leaders. He withdrew from President Barack Obama’s flawed nuclear weapons deal with Iran, believing that the road to Middle East peace went through Riyadh and Israel, not Tehran. 

This week’s trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE was Trump’s victory lap. His big bet in 2017 paid off. He could say with great pride, ‘Before our eyes, a new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts and tired divisions of the past, and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos; where it exports technology, not terrorism; and where people of different nations, religions, and creeds are building cities together — not bombing each other out of existence.’ 

The Gulf Arab nations, led by Saudi Arabia, have accomplished extraordinary things in the last eight years, despite the cold shoulder given them during the Biden administration. They were crucial in destroying ISIS and other Islamist extremist movements. They played a major behind-the-scenes role in the Abraham Accords between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and then Morocco. While not yet a formal signatory to the Abraham Accords, Saudi Arabia is well on its way. 

The Saudis, along with the other Gulf Arab leaders, have now urged Trump to open a dialogue with the new leaders of Syria. He has taken another bet on peace during this trip, and is dropping crippling sanctions on Syria, to give them a ‘chance at greatness.’ If Trump is right, Syria will no longer be a scourge of the region it has been for decades; using chemical weapons on its own people, hosting extremist groups bent on spreading death and destruction, and welcoming in Russian influence. 

Perhaps most important of all, Trump has put a stake in the heart of American interventionist foreign policy pursued by both political parties for the last 20 years. We will no longer fight forever wars in the Middle East in a futile attempt to force them into the American mold. We will no longer give nations ‘lectures on how to live or how to govern their own affairs.’  

As Trump said in his first address to the United Nations General Assembly in 2017, ‘We do not expect diverse countries to share the same cultures, traditions, or even systems of government. But we do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties: to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation… 

‘In America, we do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to watch.’  

Our policy is Peace through Strength – which encompasses all forms of our strength, not just our military strength.  

What better way to honor the spirit of our own founding 250 years ago, than to encourage other ‘sovereign nations let their people take ownership of the future and control their own destiny.’ 

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said ex-FBI Director James Comey should be ‘put behind bars’ for a post he made on Instagram on Thursday allegedly ‘issuing a call to assassinate [President Donald Trump.]’

Earlier on Thursday, Comey shared a picture on Instagram with seashells formed in the numbers ’86 47.’ To some, the number ’86’ is a call sign for murdering or getting rid of someone or something and ’47’ is typically used to refer to the 47th President of the United States.

‘Cool shell formation on my beach walk…,’ Comey wrote in the caption of the picture, which has since been deleted.

Gabbard made the comments on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime’ Thursday night after Comey said he wasn’t aware that the number ’86’ stands for some sort of violence.

‘I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message,’ Comey said after deleting the initial picture. ‘I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.’ 

Gabbard said Comey and his people ‘need to be held to account according to the law’ regardless of why he said he posted the picture.

‘The rule of law says people like him who issue direct threats against the POTUS, essentially issuing a call to assassinate him, must be held accountable under the law,’ Gabbard said, adding that she thinks he should be in jail.

The national intelligence director said Comey’s post has her ‘very concerned for [the president’s life.]’

‘I’m very concerned for the president’s life; we’ve already seen assassination attempts. I’m very concerned for his life and James Comey, in my view, should be held accountable and put behind bars for this,’ she said.

Gabbard also said Comey has a lot of influence and that there are ‘people who take [him] very seriously.’

Shortly after Comey removed the post, Fox News Digital learned from a Secret Service source that the agency was aware of the incident and agents are being sent to investigate and interview Comey.

The White House also condemned Comey’s actions, with White House deputy chief of staff and Cabinet Secretary Taylor Budowich calling his post ‘deeply concerning.’

‘While President Trump is currently on an international trip to the Middle East, the former FBI Director puts out what can clearly be interpreted as ‘a hit’ on the sitting President of the United States — a message etched in the sand,’ Budowich wrote on X. ‘This is deeply concerning to all of us and is being taken seriously.’

Comey, who led the FBI during Trump’s first term before he was fired from the spot, had no comment when reached by Fox News Digital earlier on Thursday.

Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel and David Spunt contributed to this report.

The Trump administration is backing away from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations to vaccinate children and pregnant women against COVID-19, according to a new report.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is planning to pull federal recommendations that these groups get the COVID vaccine as a routine measure, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The CDC currently recommends that everyone aged 6 months and older get vaccinated, but that guidance may be scrapped in the coming days.

It’s unclear whether HHS plans to drop the recommendation entirely or simply stop pushing it for everyone across the board, the report said.

The move would be a major shift in federal health policy and would mark a break from the blanket-vaccine approach that dominated the early years of the pandemic.

Few parents and expectant mothers have followed through with recent COVID boosters. As of April, CDC data shows just 13% of children and 14% of pregnant women had received the latest shot.

The change comes as the FDA, under Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, prepares to roll out a tougher approval process for vaccines. 

Speaking Thursday at a gathering of food and drug lawyers, Makary said, ‘We want to see vaccines that are available for high-risk individuals, and at the same time, we want some good science. We want some good clinical data.’

Kennedy has long been critical of mRNA vaccines and mass vaccination campaigns. As HHS secretary, he now has the authority to revise CDC guidance. 

The Trump administration said it plans to drop routine COVID vaccination guidance for kids and pregnant women, marking a major shift in federal health policy, the WSJ reported.

The expected shift would undercut one of the most promoted health policies of the first Trump administration, Operation Warp Speed, and raise questions about whether insurers will continue covering the shots.

Critics of the move told the Journal it could discourage vaccination and leave immunocompromised people more vulnerable. Supporters say it brings policy back in line with science and common sense.

Both HHS and CDC did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ appears to be in peril as of late Thursday afternoon, ahead of a critical meeting by the House Budget Committee to bring the legislation close to a House-wide vote.

At least three Republicans on the committee are expected to vote against advancing the bill, a multitrillion-dollar piece of legislation aimed at enacting Trump’s priorities on tax, the border, immigration, defense, energy and raising the debt limit.

GOP Reps. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., both told Fox News Digital they would vote against the bill in committee in its current form.

Norman said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, also would vote against the bill. Roy himself signaled he was opposed to the legislation both on X and in comments to reporters.

‘Right now, the House proposal fails to meet the moment. It does not meaningfully change spending (Medicaid expansion to able bodied, [Inflation Reduction Act] subsidies). Plus many of the decent provisions and cuts, don’t begin until 2029 and beyond. That is swamp accounting to dodge real savings,’ Roy wrote Thursday on X.

Other members of the committee also suggested they had concerns.

Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital he wanted the Friday morning meeting delayed.

And Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., a rank-and-file member who is not known for defying House Republican leaders, said the legislation did not seem ‘sincere’ and would not reveal how he will vote.

With one expected absence for Republicans on the House Budget Committee, the GOP can only afford one ‘no’ vote to still advance the legislation.

Once the bill is passed through the House Budget Committee, it must then come before the House Rules Committee — which sets terms for debating the bill House-wide — before it is weighed by all House lawmakers.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said he wants the legislation to pass the House by Memorial Day.

‘I think we’re on schedule,’ Johnson told reporters leaving a conference-wide meeting on the bill Thursday afternoon. 

He also said he was confident Budget Committee Republicans could advance the bill on Friday.

‘I’m talking to everybody and I think we’re gonna get this thing done on the schedule that we proposed,’ Johnson said in response to conservative concerns.

Both Norman and Roy have complained that the legislation’s provisions aimed at curbing abuse of the Medicaid system and rolling back former President Joe Biden’s green energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act did not go far enough.

Timing is among their key concerns on both fronts. Conservatives have issues with Medicaid work requirements not going into effect until 2029, the end of Trump’s term. They also questioned what they saw as a delay in phasing out green energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act. 

‘I questioned the timing on work requirements, I questioned the IRS phase-outs. I didn’t get an answer on that,’ Norman told reporters after the Thursday afternoon meeting. ‘My point is, we need to have answers before it hits the floor.’

Clyde told Fox News Digital of his opposition, ‘I’m a NO on advancing the budget reconciliation bill out of the Budget Committee in its current form.’

‘I’m actively involved in negotiations to improve this package, and I’m hopeful that we will do so quickly in order to successfully deliver on President Trump’s agenda for the American people,’ he said.

Another issue at hand involves continued tensions over state and local tax (SALT) deductions, which primarily affect high cost-of-living states — and Republicans representing critical swing districts within blue states.

The Trump bill currently would raise the SALT deduction cap from $10,000 for single and married tax filers to $30,000 — a number that’s not enough for a group of moderate House Republicans that’s large enough to sink the final bill.

Conservative fiscal hawks have said higher SALT deduction caps must be paired with deeper spending cuts.

‘SALT is a pay-for,’ Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., who is not on the budget committee, said in response to conservatives asking for offsets. 

He pointed out that SALT deduction caps would be eliminated entirely if Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which Republicans want to extend permanently via this bill, is allowed to expire.

‘The fact is, if the tax bill expires, the cap on SALT expires, which means it goes back to unlimited. So any cap is a savings within the bill,’ Lawler said. ‘So this idea that we need to find a pay-for, that’s not an us problem. That’s other people’s problems.’

But Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., another SALT Caucus member, signaled he would be OK with moving up the deadline on Medicaid work requirements in exchange for raising the SALT deduction cap.

House GOP leaders are expected to continue negotiating with both groups, however.

Both Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said they expected the Budget Committee meeting to go on as planned.

House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, however, seemed less optimistic.

‘We’ll see,’ he said when asked about the Friday meeting, adding the likely ‘no’ votes are ‘potentially enough to delay it.’

Congressional Republicans are moving Trump’s agenda via the budget reconciliation process.

By lowering the Senate’s threshold for passage down to the House’s own simple majority requirement, it allows the party in control of both chambers and the White House to pass vast pieces of legislation while entirely sidelining the minority — in this case, Democrats.

Eleven House committees have cobbled together individual portions of the bill, which will be put back into a framework that the House Budget Committee will consider Friday morning.

Then it must head to the Senate, which will likely amend the bill, which then must sync up with the House before arriving on Trump’s desk for a signature.

The State Department said nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran have been constructive, and President Donald Trump has been clear about wanting to see diplomacy.

U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott was asked during a press briefing Thursday about comments made by Trump, and he said the U.S. and Iran were close to an Iran nuclear deal.

Trump, speaking in Doha, Qatar, said he thinks the U.S. and Iran ‘are getting close’ to making a deal without any violence. In Trump fashion, he said there are two steps — ‘a very nice step and a violent step’ — which he added consists of violence people have never seen before.

The president also said Thursday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), that the U.S. and Iran have ‘sort of’ agreed to terms on a nuclear deal.

‘Iran has sort of agreed to the terms. They’re not going to make — I call it, in a friendly way — nuclear dust,’ Trump told reporters, suggesting a growing alignment with the terms he has been seeking. ‘We’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran.’

While Pigott would not comment on private diplomatic conversations or negotiations, he reiterated Trump’s stance on the matter.

‘The president has been clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon,’ Pigott told reporters. ‘The talks have been described as constructive by the participants in them, and so, again, Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. And the president has been clear. He wants diplomacy. He wants to see a diplomatic solution here.’

Pigott made his remarks as Trump tours the Middle East, making stops in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Trump, while speaking at the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh Wednesday, reiterated his desire to make a deal with Iran and called for building upon the progress of the Abraham Accords by adding more countries to the historic agreement.

Trump made the comments while addressing leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council as part of his four-day visit to the region. 

‘I want to make a deal with Iran. I want to do something if possible. But for that to happen, it must stop sponsoring terror, halt its bloody proxy wars and permanently and verifiably cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons. They cannot have a nuclear weapon,’ Trump said.

Though Trump said he wants to make a deal with Iran and see Tehran prosper, he also recently accused the Iranian regime of not only hurting its own nation, but the region at large.

‘Iran’s leaders have focused on stealing their people’s wealth to fund terror and bloodshed abroad. Most tragic of all, they have dragged down an entire region with them,’ Trump said. 

The president pointed to the ‘countless lives lost’ in Iran’s effort to prop up the former Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, which collapsed in December, and accused its support of Hezbollah for the downfall of Beirut, which he said was ‘once called the Paris of the Middle East.’

It is unclear how Trump’s negative comments toward Tehran could affect ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Still, The Associated Press reported Thursday that a top political, military and nuclear advisor to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told NBC News Wednesday that Tehran stands ready to get rid of its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium that can be weaponized, agree to enrich uranium only to the lower levels needed for civilian use and allow international inspectors to supervise the process.

In return, Ali Shamkhani, the advisor, said Iran wants an immediate lifting of all economic sanctions.

Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz and Caitlin McFall and The Associated Press contributed to this report.