Happy New Year 2025

Tag: attempt

‘Truly providential’: Trump made promise to Marc Fogel’s mother moments before Butler assassination attempt

President Donald Trump met with Marc Fogel’s mother on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania, and vowed to bring her son home if elected, just before an assassination attempt nearly took his life.

Rep. Mark Kelly, R-Pa., was there for the meeting between Trump and Malphine Fogel before the president took the stage.

“The president survived the assassination attempt on July 13 in Butler, and he fulfilled his commitment to Mrs. Fogel that he would get her son home,” Kelly told Fox News Digital. “It is an incredible, providential story.”

MOTHER OF FREED AMERICAN HOSTAGE MARC FOGEL THANKS PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: ‘HE KEPT HIS PROMISE’

President Donald Trump met with Marc Fogel’s mother on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, and vowed to bring her son home if elected, just before an assassin tried to take his life. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)

During the rally, after his meeting with Fogel’s mother, Trump was showing off a chart highlighting how illegal immigration skyrocketed under the Biden-Harris administration. As he turned toward the chart, he was hit by a bullet that pierced the upper part of his right ear by the now-deceased would-be-assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks. Trump credits the chart for saving his life.

Kelly likened the situation to the classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“The theme of the movie was that George Bailey was very frustrated, but he was given a glimpse of life and what would have happened if he hadn’t been there – if he hadn’t been born,” Kelly recalled. “And if I go back to July 13, this is all providential.”

President Donald Trump welcomes Marc Fogel back to the United States on Feb. 11, 2025, after Fogel was released from Russian custody. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

“Mrs. Fogel has a chance to talk to the president, and she talks about what is happening to Marc. The president vows to get him home,” Kelly continued. “It is a take-off of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and the opportunity, or the dilemma, that if you were never born, what would the consequences have been?”

“If President Trump did not survive the assassination attempt on July 13, Marc Fogel wouldn’t be home today,” Kelly said.

Fogel, an American teacher from Western Pennsylvania, returned to the United States late Tuesday, after Trump secured his release. Fogel was arrested in 2021 at an airport in Russia for possession of medical marijuana and was sentenced to 14 years in a Russian prison.

AMERICAN MARC FOGEL RELEASED FROM RUSSIAN CUSTODY

Kelly told Fox News Digital that “it is all about faith.”

Marc Fogel, 63 years old, taught at AAS Moscow, formerly known as the Anglo-American School of Moscow. (Ellen Keelan and Lisa Hyland)

“Having been there and witnessed it, I think to myself, ‘Oh my goodness, that tiny fraction of an inch, or whatever it was, is the difference between Marc Fogel being home and Marc Fogel not being home,’” he said. “Between making a promise to his mother and being able to keep it, as opposed to making a promise and never getting a chance to fulfill it.”

Malphine Fogel recalled the Butler meeting with Trump on Fox News Channel’s “America Newsroom.”

“I met with President Trump, and he was just as cordial as he could be,” she said. “He told me three different times, ‘If I get in,’ he said, ‘I’ll get him out’ and I really think he’s been instrumental.”

Malphine Fogel told Fox News that “it was a total surprise” when she heard from her son from the Moscow airport.

“So, that meant that (they) had taken him out of the prison to Moscow…. The last week or so, for some crazy reason, I had a better feeling about things, but I hadn’t heard from him in a week, so I thought that was odd and when he called… it was just a total shock,” she said.

Meanwhile, Kelly told Fox News Digital, “There is a certain time in people’s lives where you realize you don’t have forever, you have right now, and you need to get it done.”

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“Politically, there is no one on either side of the aisle that could look at what happened with Marc Fogel and not somehow say, this is truly providential – this is not a political move,” Kelly said. “This doesn’t do anything for the president. He’s already elected. He did this to keep a promise to a mother in her mid 90s – the only thing she wanted to see before she died was her son one more time.”

Kelly added: “This is a promise made. Promise kept. It is truly providential. It is. It is a wonderful life.”

Brooke Singman is a political correspondent and reporter for Fox News Digital, Fox News Channel and FOX Business.

February 13, 2025
EXCLUSIVE: Patel camp derides Durbin accusations as ‘politically motivated’ attempt to derail FBI confirmation

EXCLUSIVE: President Donald Trump’s FBI director nominee, Kash Patel, pushed back Wednesday on allegations that he played a role in the firings of bureau personnel just hours after swearing not to do so during his confirmation hearing late last month – dismissing accusations from the panel’s top Democrat as a politically motivated effort to derail his confirmation.

Speaking to Fox News Digital Wednesday morning, a senior transition team official for Patel refuted the allegations made by the ranking Senate Judiciary Committee Democrat, Dick Durbin, that Patel had orchestrated the firings after his confirmation hearing.

This person told Fox News that Patel had left Washington the night of his confirmation hearing to fly home to Las Vegas, where he has “been sitting there waiting for the process to play out.”

This person also refuted the notion that Patel has had anything to do with the firings of bureau personnel, as alleged by Durbin in Senate floor remarks the previous day.

FBI AGENTS SUE TRUMP DOJ TO BLOCK ANY PUBLIC IDENTIFICATION OF EMPLOYEES WHO WORKED ON JAN. 6 INVESTIGATIONS

Senate Judiciary ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Kash Patel and Judiciary Chariman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. ( AP/Getty Images)

“Mr. Patel has been going through the confirmation process, and everything he has done since his nomination has been above board,” this person said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “And any insinuation otherwise is false.”

In addition to his trip home to Vegas, Patel has also spent time hunting away from Washington, this person said, providing photographed evidence of Patel’s activities.

The news comes one day after Durbin’s team cited “highly credible” whistleblower reports his office had received in recent days, which they said indicated that Patel had been “personally directing the ongoing purge of FBI employees prior to his Senate confirmation for the role.”

Durbin’s staff also sent a letter Tuesday to the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, requesting an investigation into these allegations.

“I have received highly credible information from multiple sources that Kash Patel has been personally directing the ongoing purge of career civil servants at the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Durbin said in the letter to Horowitz.

“Although Mr. Patel is President Trump’s nominee to be FBI Director, he is still a private citizen with no role in government.”

If true, Durbin has alleged that Patel’s reported actions could put him on the hook for perjury.

Patel claimed during his Senate confirmation hearing late last month that he would use his role to protect agents against efforts to weaponize the bureau.

“All FBI employees will be protected against political retribution,” Patel told Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., during that hearing.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have sought to discredit Patel’s confirmation in the days and weeks ahead of his confirmation – which they reiterated last week in a press conference, after announcing they would delay his committee confirmation vote by a full week.

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Durbin told Fox News last week that their aim in delaying the hearing is to raise more public awareness about Patel’s previous actions, in hopes that doing so will shore up new opposition from some Republicans in the chamber.

Ultimately, lawmakers noted they can only delay Patel’s committee vote through next week. Beyond that, they said, it is up to Republicans.

This is a breaking news story. Check back shortly for updates.

Breanne Deppisch is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI, and other national news.

February 12, 2025
France, Europe attempt to flex tech muscles at Paris AI summit

Vice President JD Vance told world leaders in Paris that AI must be ‘free from ideological bias,’ and that American tech won’t be a censorship tool. (Credit: Reuters)

FRANCE – Without a doubt, this week’s artificial intelligence summit in Paris was to showcase how Europe intends to catch up with the U.S. and China, the leaders in the field. But that’s not all.

The summit was also aimed at bringing together the major players in this new technology. But in reality, it looks more like a clash of civilizations, cultures and national priorities. In simple terms, the main players are at substantial odds with each other.

Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday presented the keynote address at the plenary session. The Trump administration “will ensure that American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide,” he said. American AI tech is “the partner of choice for others, foreign countries, and certainly businesses, as they expand their own use of AI.” The administration also wants AI to create jobs.

HOUSE REPS UNVEIL BILL BANNING DEEPSEEK FROM US GOVERNMENT DEVICES OVER ALLEGED TIES TO CHINESE GOVERNMENT

Avoiding “excessive regulation” and to “remain free of ideological bias [and] not be co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship,” are other key goals, Vance said.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance delivers a speech during the plenary session of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, Feb. 11, 2025. (REUTERS/Benoit Tessier / Reuters)

But when you contrast the different players, chasms appear.

“The U.S. is the freewheeling innovator, prioritizing speed and market-driven growth,” Pascal Bornet, an award-winning expert and pioneer in AI and automation told FOX Business. “China is the strategic state planner, channeling national resources into AI as a matter of economic and geopolitical priority.”

However, it is well known that authoritarian China doesn’t embrace free speech and essentially does use censorship when it feels it’s necessary.

Bornet epitomizes Europe as “the careful regulator, focused on creating a human-centric AI ecosystem that prioritizes ethics and individual rights.”

TRUMP’S AI CZAR FLAGS REPORT QUESTIONING DEEPSEEK’S COST OF DEVELOPING AI MODELS

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the country would make investments of 109 billion euros ($112 billion) in infrastructure, and to make France a strategic AI power. That will include the creation of data centers and the largest supercomputer in Europe and a one-gigawatt campus. The latter being a 50-billion-euro France-UAE joint effort.

Still, France and much of Europe remains behind the eight ball when it comes to innovation.

“Europe needs to be more aggressive in its research and deployment,” Nuria Oliver, director of ethical AI company ELLIS Alicante in Spain told FOX Business. That’s what Macron is attempting to do with the epic announcement at the summit.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced the country would make investments of 109 billion euros ($112 billion) in infrastructure, and to make France a strategic AI power. (TERESA SUAREZ/POOL/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

However, the culture in many European countries is to avoid risk-taking, Oliver said.

“In the southern part of Europe, taking risks is de-incentivized,” she said. Basically, the failure in those countries has high social and financial penalties. But she noted that there’s more risk-taking in the Nordic countries such as Finland and Sweden.

Contrast that anti-risk approach with America embracing it. “The U.S. has attractive bankruptcy laws, Oliver said. “That is not the case in some other countries and that creates a barrier.”

That barrier also helps explain why there are zero mega-sized consumer tech companies in Europe. The big ones are all based in either the U.S. or China, and include Apple, Google, Amazon, Meta, Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent.

Bornet said Europe is “seriously behind,” and that not one of the top 25 AI research institutions is in Europe, and Europe holds 786 AI-related patents compared to almost 16,000 in the U.S.

“China is the strategic state planner, channeling national resources into AI as a matter of economic and geopolitical priority,” said Pascal Bornet. (Photo credit: GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Sweden, Finland and the U.K. all have a tech sector, but it’s limited, Raj Venkatesan, a professor at the Darden Graduate School of Business and an AI expert, told FOX Business. “They don’t have a global platform,” he said. “The U.S. and China have a global presence.”

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Nevertheless, Bornet sees one of Europeans’ soft spots as a possible winner. “By being the global standard-setter for ethical AI through rigorous regulations, they could attract companies and users who value trust and transparency,” he said. “It’s a long shot, but potentially a brilliant one.”

February 12, 2025
Dem mayor unleashes task force in attempt to rescue crime-ridden city: ‘Restore order to our streets’

San Francisco Mayor David Lurie launched the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Hospitality Task Force and secured a key vote in support of the Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinance this week as he works to clean up San Francisco’s streets and restore common sense policies to the liberal city.

San Francisco has had one of the slowest economic recoveries from the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. Images of San Francisco’s open-air drug markets, homeless encampments and empty office buildings have caught the nation’s attention since the pandemic.

The SFPD Hospitality Task Force will target San Francisco’s business and tourist districts, increasing police presence, dedicating resources to high-traffic areas and offering support to the hospitality industry.

“Helping people feel safe walking downtown is the key to unleashing our city’s comeback,” Lurie said. “We are creating the conditions for a thriving commercial center by launching the SFPD Hospitality Task Force. The Hospitality Task Force will break down silos to increase the police presence across the areas that drive our city’s economy, not just during large conferences, but 365 days a year.”

FORMER AOC CHIEF OF STAFF ANNOUNCES RUN AGAINST PELOSI, CALLS DEMS ‘PARALYZED AND UNPREPARED’ UNDER TRUMP

People inhabit encampments on the streets of San Francisco April 15, 2023. (Flight Risk for Fox News Digital)

Major retailers, including Nordstrom and Saks Off Fifth, pulled out of San Francisco’s downtown due to rising crime and dwindling foot traffic. After more than 20 years in the heart of downtown San Francisco, Westfield abandoned the San Francisco Centre mall in 2023, citing a decline in sales, occupancy and foot traffic.

San Franciscans voted Mayor London Breed out of office in November. She was elected in 2018 and led the city through its struggling pandemic recovery. Lurie, a Levi’s heir and political outsider, began his first term as mayor in January.

He campaigned on cleaning up San Francisco’s streets, public safety, tackling the city’s drug crisis, creating housing, cutting through corrupt bureaucracy and “breathing life back into our downtown.”

CALIFORNIA PLANS TO CONTINUE ALLOWING TRANS ATHLETES TO COMPETE IN GIRLS’ SPORTS DESPITE TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER

San Francisco Mayor David Lurie launched the SFPD Hospitality Task Force this week. (Getty)

“With a safe, bustling downtown, we will attract businesses, shoppers, tourists and conventions, creating jobs, generating revenue and helping us provide better services for everyone in San Francisco,” Lurie said of the new task force.

Also this week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 in favor of Mayor Lurie’s Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinance.

“As a candidate for mayor, I promised San Franciscans that I would work in partnership with the Board of Supervisors to take action on the critical issues facing our city,” Lurie said. “As mayor, I am proud to be delivering on that promise today. The Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinance gives us the tools to treat this crisis with the urgency it demands. And with our partners on the board, that’s exactly what we will do.”

The ordinance will equip the city with the resources “to get drugs off the street and keep San Franciscans safe” by unlocking funding and expediting the contracting process to allow for expanded treatment options, increased shelter capacity and health initiatives. The full Board of Supervisors will address the ordinance Tuesday for a second and final reading before Lurie can sign the ordinance into law.

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“I don’t think there’s a problem facing San Francisco today that isn’t caused by or made significantly worse by street-level drug addiction,” Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who voted in favor of the ordinance, said.

“Mayor Lurie’s emergency ordinance aims to surge resources that deliver solutions as big as the problems. This is a needed approach to restore order to our streets, to diminish San Francisco’s attraction as a drug-use and drug-dealing destination and to save lives.”

Deirdre Heavey is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

February 7, 2025
Nobel laureate letter opposing RFK Jr confirmation loaded with Dem donors, officials: ‘Thinly veiled attempt’

A letter signed by 77 Nobel laureates opposing the confirmation of Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being touted as a reason to oppose him is almost entirely composed of political donors, many of them who supported Democrat campaigns.

“In view of his record, placing Mr. Kennedy in charge of DHHS would put the public’s health in jeopardy and undermine America’s global leadership in the health sciences, in both the public and commercial sectors,” more than 75 Nobel laureates wrote in an open letter published by the New York Times last month.

A Fox News Digital review found that at least 60 of the signatories are political donors, mostly to Democratic campaigns, including Steven Chu, who served as former President Barack Obama’s secretary of Energy. Chu gave $5,400 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016.

Nobel Medicine Laureate Joseph L. Goldstein, who also signed the letter, has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats, including former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, former President Joe Biden and the Democrat-aligned SMP Super PAC.

RFK JR.’S PLAN TO COMBAT ADDICTION: ‘WELLNESS FARMS’

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Getty)

American economist George A. Akerlof, who is married to Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, also signed the letter on top of donating $25,000 to Biden in 2020 and $20,000 to the DCCC in 2018.

Akerlof signed a letter in June of last year warning of the economic dangers of electing President Donald Trump back into office, which was amplified by the Biden campaign and other Biden surrogates and also littered with signatories who have either donated to Biden or supported him politically in the past.

Akerlof, who donated nearly $90,000 to Democrats between the 1990s and 2022, also signed a letter supporting Build Back Better, and signed a letter in 2020 calling Trump’s re-election effort “selfish and reckless.”

Louis E. Brus, an American chemist who signed the letter, is a frequent Democrat donor, including sending $2,000 to Biden’s campaign.

Chemists Walter Gilbert, Johann Deisenhofer, Alan Heeger and Brian K. Kobilka also donated to Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Obama, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

HEALTH EXPERTS PREP DEM LAWMAKERS ON ANTI-VACCINE ARGUMENTS AHEAD OF RFK JR’S CONFIRMATION HEARINGS

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services logo. (AP/Jacqueline Larma)

Other signatories include Planned Parenthood donor David Baltimore, John Kerry donor Michael Rosbash, former President Bill Clinton NIH Director Harold E. Varmus and Adam Schiff donor Kip Stephen Thorne.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. hosts a fireside chat with rapper and producer Eric B. at The Gentleman’s Factory on Feb. 18, 2024. (John Nacion/Getty Images)

“If there’s one thing Americans should understand about politics, it’s that things are rarely as they seem,” Camryn Kinsey, executive director of Confirm 47, told Fox News Digital. “This letter appears to be nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt by special interests to block a critical Cabinet nomination. The fact that one of the signers is a former Obama Cabinet official, and that the majority are Democrat donors, tells you everything you need to know.”

Kennedy is also facing a million-dollar opposition campaign from Protect Our Care, which is backed by the dark money group Sixteen Thirty Fund that is not required to disclose its donors, Politico reported.

The dark money fund is a group “committed to tackling society’s biggest social challenges” such as climate change and gun reform, brought in $181 million, spending about $141 million in 2023.

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Kennedy, who has been criticized by both sides of the aisle for previous positions on vaccines and his stance on abortion, will have his first confirmation hearing Wednesday at 10 a.m.

On top of facing opposition from experts in the New York Times letter and other petitions, Kennedy has faced support in the medical community, including an initiative backed by IMA Action, a coalition of over 15,000 healthcare professionals, who are rallying support for Kennedy.

“Our coalition is broad, highly active and deeply committed to much needed healthcare reform,” Lynne Kristensen, Communications Director for IMA Action, said in a statement. “We’re going to push back against the falsehoods of the Pharma-financed opposition to RFK Jr., and our healthcare professionals will be exceedingly active with their home state senators, policy makers and public health agencies.”

“The Kennedy and other HHS confirmations are about restoring health to America’s healthcare system, and IMA Action is excited for health reform to be at the forefront of the national conversation.”

Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to [email protected].

January 29, 2025