President Donald Trump kicked off the week meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and closed the week meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. 

He also signed legislation ordering the Justice Department to release files related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

Here’s a look at what happened this week. 

Epstein files 

Trump announced Wednesday evening that he put his stamp of approval on a bill instructing the Justice Department to release files related to Epstein — after Congress passed the measure Tuesday.

‘I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!’ Trump wrote in a lengthy message on the Truth Social platform. ‘As everyone knows, I asked Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, to pass this Bill in the House and Senate, respectively. Because of this request, the votes were almost unanimous in favor of passage. 

‘At my direction, the Department of Justice has already turned over close to fifty thousand pages of documents to Congress. Do not forget — The Biden Administration did not turn over a SINGLE file or page related to Democrat Epstein, nor did they ever even speak about him.’

Trump’s ties to Epstein had faced increased attention after Trump’s Justice Department and FBI announced in July it would not unseal investigation materials related to Epstein, and that the agencies’ investigation into the case had closed.

However, Trump announced Nov. 16 that he backed releasing the documents, claiming that he had ‘nothing to hide.’

Ultimately, the House voted Tuesday to release the files by a 421–1 margin, following pressure for months from the measure’s ringleaders, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and other Democrats.

The Senate passed the measure by unanimous consent later Tuesday.

Mamdani meeting 

Mamdani visited Trump at the White House Friday, and the two appeared chummy and ready to launch a fresh start in their relationship. The two said they discussed addressing affordability issues and improving conditions in New York. 

Trump said the two had more in common than he anticipated, and that he would be ‘cheering’ for Mamdani as he leads the city. 

‘I expect to be helping him, not hurting him — a big help,’ Trump said.

Trump also brushed off Mamdani’s comment labeling him a despot in his victory speech following the Nov. 4 election, with the president claiming Friday he’s encountered worse and that he believes Mamdani will change his tune as the two work together. 

‘I’ve been called much worse than a ‘despot,’ so it’s not, it’s not that insulting,’ Trump said. ‘I think he’ll change his mind after we get to working together.’ 

Saudi crown prince meeting

Trump also met with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House Tuesday, an occasion that included a red carpet rolled across the South Lawn, military honor guard, and an Air Force flyover to elevate the formal state-level welcome.

During bin Salman’s visit, the U.S. announced that it would sell F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia, and that it would now be a ‘major non-NATO ally’ to facilitate military cooperation between the two countries. 

‘President Trump approved a major defense sale package, including future F-35 deliveries, which strengthens the U.S. defense industrial base and ensures Saudi Arabia continues to buy American,’ the White House said in a statement. 

Trump’s reception of bin Salman is a departure from the Biden administration, who said in 2019 during his presidential campaign that he would make Saudi Arabia ‘the pariah that they are’ because of the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in 2021 that bin Salman gave the green light on the operation that took Khashoggi’s life. Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident, was brutally murdered in Istanbul at the Saudi consulate in 2018.

But Trump defended bin Salman Tuesday, and accused a reporter who asked about U.S. intelligence reports linking the prince to Khashoggi’s death of embarrassing bin Salman.

‘A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about,’ Trump said Tuesday. ‘Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen, but he knew nothing about it. And would you leave it at that? You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question.’

Even so, bin Salman has dismissed the reports as false. When asked Tuesday about Khashoggi, bin Salman said it’s ‘painful’ to hear of the death of anyone for ‘no real purpose,’ and ‘we are doing our best that this doesn’t happen again.’

Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., is demanding that President Donald Trump release a 2019 call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, saying the American people ‘deserve to know what was said’ in the aftermath of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.

Vindman, a retired Army colonel who once served on Trump’s National Security Council, said the call was one of two that deeply concerned him — the other being the 2019 conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that triggered Trump’s first impeachment. 

Standing beside Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, the slain journalist’s widow, Vindman said Trump ‘sidelined his own intelligence community to shield a foreign leader’ and that transparency is owed to both the Khashoggi family and the country.

‘The Khashoggi family and the American people deserve to know what was said on that call,’ Vindman said Friday. ‘Our intelligence agencies concluded that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of Mr. Khashoggi’s husband. When the president sidelined his own intelligence community to shield a foreign leader, America’s credibility was at stake.’

Vindman’s name already is polarizing in Trump-era politics. 

He and his twin brother, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, became central figures in the first impeachment attempt against Trump, when their internal reporting of Trump’s Ukraine call led to accusations from conservatives that they had undermined an elected president. To Trump’s allies, Eugene Vindman’s demand to release the 2019 Saudi call feels like a replay of that fight — another attempt by a former National Security Council insider to damage the president under the banner of transparency.

Still, his comments land at a revealing moment. Washington’s embrace of bin Salman underscores a familiar trade-off in U.S. foreign policy: strategic security and economic interests over accountability and human rights.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: ‘The U.S.-Saudi friendship is now a partnership for the future. President Trump’s historic agreements with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, from defense to investment, will create quality jobs for Americans and will grow our economy. No virtue-signaling. No lecturing. Only results for the American people.’

White House relations

Trump’s latest visit with bin Salman brought sweeping defense and investment deals, even as questions over 9/11 and Khashoggi’s murder continue to test that balance. The United States granted Saudi Arabia major non-NATO ally status, formally elevating the kingdom’s defense and intelligence partnership with Washington and clearing the way for expedited arms sales and joint military programs.

Bin Salman also pledged nearly $1 trillion in new Saudi investments across U.S. industries, including infrastructure, artificial intelligence and clean energy. The commitments were announced alongside a Strategic Defense Agreement that includes purchases of F-35 fighter jets, roughly 300 Abrams tanks and new missile defense systems, as well as joint ventures to expand manufacturing inside Saudi Arabia.

Administration officials said the initiatives would create tens of thousands of American jobs and strengthen the U.S. industrial base.

During his appearance with Trump at the White House, reporters shouted questions about Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in the Sept. 11 attacks and the 2018 killing of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul — marking a rare moment of public pressure on the crown prince, who typically avoids unscripted exchanges with the press.

Trump accused the press of trying to ’embarrass’ his guest, but the crown prince offered what sounded like regret for the killing of Khashoggi, even as he denied involvement.

‘A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about,’ Trump said. ‘Whether you like him or don’t like him, things happen, but he knew nothing about it … We can leave it at that. You don’t have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.’

ABC reporter Mary Bruce had told bin Salman that U.S. intelligence determined he’d signed off on the killing and that 9/11 families were ‘furious’ about his presence in the White House. ‘Why should Americans trust you?’

‘It’s been painful for us in Saudi Arabia,’ bin Salman said of the killing, calling it ‘a huge mistake.’ ‘We’ve improved our system to be sure that nothing happens like that again,’ he added.

A 2021 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated: ‘We assess that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.’ 

Bin Salman has repeatedly denied approving the killing, though he said in 2019, ‘It happened under my watch, I take full responsibility as a leader.’

Sept. 11, 2001

The question of Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks remains one of the most sensitive and unresolved issues in the U.S.-Saudi relationship. While 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals, the U.S. government has never concluded that the Saudi state or senior Saudi officials had prior knowledge of or directed the attacks.

Families of 9/11 victims condemned bin Salman after he invoked Osama bin Laden during his White House remarks, saying the al-Qaeda leader used Saudi nationals to drive a wedge between Washington and Riyadh.

‘We have to focus on reality,’ the crown prince said. ‘Reality is that Osama bin Laden used Saudi people in that event for one main purpose: to destroy the American–Saudi relationship. That’s the purpose of 9/11.’

‘The Saudi crown prince invoking Osama bin Laden this afternoon in the White House does not change the fact that a federal judge in New York ruled a few short months ago that Saudi Arabia must stand trial for its role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks that murdered 3,000 of our loved ones,’ said Brett Eagleson, president of 9/11 Justice, a group representing victims’ families.

In August 2025, U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels issued a landmark ruling bringing Saudi Arabia under U.S. federal jurisdiction for a 9/11 trial. The court found evidence of a network of Saudi officials inside the U.S. who allegedly provided logistical support to the hijackers, citing ‘prior planning’ and ‘constant coordination.’ 

Among the materials described in the ruling was a drawing seized from a Saudi government operative showing an airplane with flight-path equations — evidence prosecutors said suggested advance knowledge of the attacks.

Saudi Arabia has denied any role, calling the allegations ‘categorically false.’ 

But for bin Salman, who came to Washington seeking to highlight new security and economic ties, the families’ sharp rebuke was a reminder that the 9/11 case still looms large in the public eye, even as the Trump administration deepens its partnership with Riyadh.

President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama are polar opposites in many ways, but, as with anyone who has sat behind the Resolute Desk, they do share some similarities.

One thing both have in common is overseeing government shutdowns — one under Obama and two under Trump. And even in that sparse similarity, both men operated differently, particularly in the most recent, 43-day closure.

While both congressional battles were centered on Obamacare, Obama put his shutdown at the center of attention, while Trump kept it at more of an arm’s length.

Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, told Fox News Digital that a major difference in the Obama and Trump administrations’ approaches to their respective shutdowns was that in 2013, Obama wanted the pain of shutdown to be felt by Americans, while Trump kept the focus centered on Washington, D.C.

‘During the Obama shutdown, it was more to make it extremely visible, shut down beloved functions — even if you didn’t have to — that affect average Americans,’ she said.

Boccia at the time worked for the conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation and recalled the barricades that were swiftly erected around Washington, D.C.’s many national parks.

Those barricades, both concrete and human, spilled out beyond the nation’s capital and were placed around the hundreds of national parks across America as a stark reminder that the government was closed.

Boccia noted that a direct comparison of the two shutdowns would be difficult given the differing lengths, but that the Trump administration, at least early on, sought to inflict direct pain on congressional Democrats and the federal government.

That was carried out largely by the Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, who ordered mass firings of furloughed workers and withheld or canceled billions in federal funding to blue cities and states.

‘It’s not that this wasn’t a shutdown, it’s just that the choices the administration made were an attempt to focus the impacts of the shutdown this round on the government itself,’ Brittany Madni, executive vice president of the Economic Policy Innovation Center, told Fox News Digital.

‘This was showmanship from President Obama,’ Madni continued. ‘And if you look at what happened over the last 40 something days, it was the exact same playbook by congressional Democrats.’

Madni argued that discussions and debate during the 2013 shutdown were centered largely in Washington, D.C. The latest closure saw some of that, but it also saw Trump continuing to work on trade deals, particularly during his high-profile visit to Asia, which was a point of contention for Democrats on the Hill.

‘He was doing his job,’ Madni said. ‘He was doing his job. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats, quite simply, were not.’

Still, there was a shared thread in both shutdowns: Obamacare.

In 2013, congressional Republicans wanted to dismantle Obama’s signature piece of legislation. Fast-forward, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., led his caucus to push extensions to enhanced Obamacare subsidies.

Boccia said that played a large part in why Obama was at the vanguard during his shutdown.

‘He was front and center in the media talking about the shutdown, and because it was over his legacy achievement,’ she said.

It was because his key legislative achievement was under fire that Obama took such a central role in the shutdown, Boccia argued, but for Trump, who tried during his first administration to gut and replace Obamacare, it wasn’t a priority.

‘The fact that it was over the Obamacare COVID credits, I think, made the president less necessary and perhaps interested in being the face of the shutdown,’ she said. ‘It was really a congressional battle.’

Madni disagreed that the latest shutdown wasn’t a direct bid by congressional Democrats to go after one of his legislative achievements.

Before the climactic failed vote in the Senate in late September that ushered in the longest shutdown in history, Democrats offered a counter-proposal that would have stripped several provisions from Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ which has so far been the crowning legislative achievement of his second term.

‘It’s really important that everyone remembers the subsidy request was one request in a laundry list of radical, incredibly expensive ideas that added up to $1.5 trillion,’ Madni said. ‘Another item in that list was dismantling key portions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.’

‘If this was really about the subsidies, then the Democrats would have been willing at any point during the last 43 days to adjust their asks and just make it about subsidies,’ she continued. ‘Not once did they.’

President Donald Trump’s administration is rejecting claims that its most recent plan for a peace deal in Ukraine was really a Russian ‘wish list.’

Confusion arose regarding the deal after lawmakers on Capitol Hill claimed they were told by White House officials that the deal was a proposal from the Russian side. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has since pushed back on that claim, however.

‘[Rubio] made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,’ Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said at a press conference. ‘It is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan. It is a proposal that was received, and as an intermediary, we have made arrangements to share it — and we did not release it. It was leaked.’

According to The Associated Press, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said that Rubio told him and his colleagues that it ‘was not the administration’s plan’ but a ‘wish list of the Russians.’

Rubio responded to this narrative with a post on social media, writing that the peace proposal ‘was authored by the U.S.’

‘It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine,’ he added.

Rounds released another statement through his press office after Rubio’s response.

‘I appreciate Secretary Rubio briefing us earlier today on their efforts to bring about peace by relying on input from both Russia and Ukraine to arrive at a final deal,’ Rounds wrote.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Rubio traveled to Geneva on Sunday to meet with Ukrainian officials alongside Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, where they are expected to hash out Kyiv’s misgivings regarding the deal.

Trump himself lashed out at Ukraine over the peace talks in a Sunday statement.

‘UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.

While the current agreement has not been made public, a leaked draft has been reported to include terms that would halt the fighting in Ukraine while giving Russia concessions like control over Ukrainian territory that the Russian military does not yet control, as well as barring Ukraine from membership in NATO.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not reject the plan outright in an address last week, but he insisted on fair treatment while pledging to ‘work calmly’ with Washington and other partners in what he called ‘truly one of the most difficult moments in our history.’

Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Former President John F. Kennedy’s granddaughter, Tatiana Schlossberg, announced on Saturday — exactly 62 years after he was assassinated — that she has terminal cancer.

The 35-year-old said she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, with a rare mutation called Inversion 3, soon after the birth of her daughter in May 2024, and that doctors recently told her she probably has about a year to live.

‘My first thought was that my kids, whose faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids, wouldn’t remember me,’ she wrote in an essay for The New Yorker. ‘My son might have a few memories, but he’ll probably start confusing them with pictures he sees or stories he hears.’

She said she ‘didn’t ever really get to take care of my daughter—I couldn’t change her diaper or give her a bath or feed her, all because of the risk of infection after my transplants. I was gone for almost half of her first year of life. I don’t know who, really, she thinks I am, and whether she will feel or remember, when I am gone, that I am her mother.’

She said the diagnosis was shocking because she felt perfectly healthy.

‘I did not—could not—believe that they were talking about me,’ she wrote of the first talk of leukemia. ‘I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew.’

She said the cancer is mostly seen in older patients and doctors frequently asked her if she had spent much time at Ground Zero in New York City, which she had not.

Schlossberg, who is the daughter of Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s oldest surviving daughter, described in heartbreaking detail her months on end of different treatments to beat the cancer.

She went through a round of chemotherapy to ‘reduce the number of blast cells in my bone marrow,’ then received a bone-marrow transplant with the help of her sister.

She said after she went into remission and went home she had no immune system and had to get all of her childhood vaccines again.

Then she relapsed, her doctor telling her that leukemia with her mutation ‘liked to come back.’

At the beginning of the year, she joined a clinical trial of CAR-T-cell therapy, ‘a type of immunotherapy that has proved effective against certain blood cancers.’

That was followed by another round of chemotherapy and a second blood transfusion from an unrelated donor.

‘During the latest clinical trial, my doctor told me that he could keep me alive for a year, maybe,’ she wrote.

She also wrote of her concerns after her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom she called an ’embarrassment,’ was nominated as secretary of Health and Human Services.

‘Suddenly, the health-care system on which I relied felt strained, shaky,’ she wrote. ‘Doctors and scientists at Columbia [Presbyterian hospital], including [her husband] George, didn’t know if they would be able to continue their research, or even have jobs.’

She praised the rest of her family, whom she said sat at her bedside while she endured treatments and took care of her children.

Of her husband, urologist George Moran, she wrote, ‘he is perfect, and I feel so cheated and so sad that I don’t get to keep living the wonderful life I had with this kind, funny, handsome genius I managed to find.’

Her brother Jack Schlossberg, who is running for congress in New York, wrote on his Instagram on Saturday, ‘Life is short, let it rip.’

Her mother’s cousin, Maria Shriver, shared her essay on Instagram, writing, ‘If you can only read one thing today, please make take the time for this extraordinary piece of writing by my cousin Caroline’s extraordinary daughter Tatiana. Tatiana is a beautiful writer, journalist, wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend.’

Tatiana added in her essay, ‘For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry. Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.’

Robert F. Kennedy Sr., her mother, Caroline Kennedy’s uncle, was assassinated five years after JFK, and along with having two siblings who died in infancy, Caroline’s only surviving brother, JFK Jr, died in a plane crash in 1999.

Schlossberg’s grandmother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, also died of cancer in 1994, of non-Hodgkin lymphoma when she was 64.

She finished her essay by saying that she lives to be with her children now.

‘But being in the present is harder than it sounds, so I let the memories come and go,’ she admitted. ‘So many of them are from my childhood that I feel as if I’m watching myself and my kids grow up at the same time.’

She added, ‘Sometimes I trick myself into thinking I’ll remember this forever, I’ll remember this when I’m dead. Obviously, I won’t. But since I don’t know what death is like and there’s no one to tell me what comes after it, I’ll keep pretending. I will keep trying to remember.’

Having covered Ukraine and Russia for over three decades, especially the war between the two countries for the last several years, I’ve naturally been fascinated by the latest Trump administration effort to broker peace.

The reaction I’ve been getting from contacts in Ukraine to the 28-point plan to end the war is not all that positive.  

‘It’s not worth the paper it’s written on,’ said one observer.

‘Any deal would have to include Ukraine … and Europe,’ noted another. 

The overall consensus of analysts is that the document is slanted heavily toward Moscow. The man at the center of things, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been diplomatic in various statements, basically saying he’s ‘reviewing the points’ aiming at arriving at a ‘dignified peace.’

There are all sorts of talks happening now between the U.S. and Ukraine and among European leaders. We’re even hearing from Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s no wonder. The stakes in this war for Europe and the world are enormous. If I were to send a quick note to Zelenskyy, it would go something like this: 

Dear Volodymyr, 

So far so good. You haven’t freaked out, and you’re promising to engage. Rejection of this plan out of hand would have been a non-starter.

You’re staying cool (though a bit grim and determined), and you’re talking to people. 

My overall advice is … pick your fights, don’t sweat the small stuff and keep the big picture in mind. 

I know what your country is going through. Every time I’m in Kyiv, I go to the same military cemetery outside the city, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger and sadder.

So, as to the points of the plan: There are a lot of easy ‘gimmes’ to Russia. Re-joining the G8. Gradual dropping of sanctions. Granting of amnesty for everything Russian troops have done. I know this stuff is going to stick in your craw, but little of it affects your country’s future. 

I mentioned that you shouldn’t ‘sweat the small stuff.’ Some of the points might sound like a big deal. Like prohibiting ‘Nazi ideology’ in Ukraine. And adopting ‘EU rules on religious tolerance and linguistic minorities.’ That’s pretty much window dressing for Moscow. Having the Russian language and Russian church regain official status is not horrendous. 

In fact, the plan’s glass is at least one-third full for you guys. Confirming your sovereignty. Russia expected not to invade you again. You will receive reliable security guarantees. Rebuilding pledges and humanitarian promises. They are all good. Just nail down the specifics. Get all sides to commit for sure.

Now to three of the points which cross your red line, according to analysts.

Like handing over the rest of the eastern Donetsk region to Russia even though Moscow’s troops haven’t even taken it. The region is referred to as a demilitarized zone in the plan. A ‘DMZ’ a la the divider between North and South Korea. Well, hold them to that. No troops from either side. Tough security on both sides. A neutral body running things. And see if you can get them to not call it Russian!

Then there’s the reduction by a third of your military. Troop strength limited to 600,000. That’s a huge cut, but it’s still not a bad-sized force. That is if … it was properly trained, well-armed and finely-positioned.  Guarantees are needed for all of this to happen.

And then there’s the other red line: No NATO troops in Ukraine. That would seem to scupper the plan to have foreign peacekeepers on the ground, which has been in the works, to monitor the peace. A possible compromise? They’re stationed around Ukraine’s borders, surveillance keeps a close eye on things and rapid-response forces are at the ready. 

There are also a few ‘gimmes’ for the U.S. in all this, like sharing in the profits of reconstruction. But that’s the price of doing business with President Trump. 

As for that Thanksgiving deadline to sign the deal? The president has already signaled he’s willing to let that slide if there’s talking. 

And that other deadline? One hundred days until a new election? I know it’s a tough time for you politically with those corruption charges getting near. It might be something you have to live with. 

Anyway, for what it’s worth, that’s my take. 

Negotiations will probably sink on any hard discussion of any of these main points. But you know what the old adage is: ‘Jaw-jaw’ is better than ‘war-war.’ 

For the proud people of Ukraine who have suffered so much during this time, it’s worth your best shot.

Sincerely,

Greg

Two federal inmates previously on death row, one a crooked New Orleans cop and the other the man behind a multi-state killing spree, have been transferred to a notorious ‘supermax’ prison in Colorado, the Justice Department told Fox News Digital. 

News of their transfers comes as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi looks to crack down on the previous administration’s sweeping clemency actions, especially those against violent crime. 

The former death row inmates were transferred Thursday to the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, also known as ‘ADX,’ Justice Department officials confirmed. 

They are among the 37 death row inmates whose sentences Biden commuted shortly before leaving office last December. The news prompted criticism and complaints that the record clemency and commutation actions were done as a political ‘Hail Mary,’ and without proper vetting.

Eight death row inmates have already been transferred to ADX, the Justice Department told Fox News Digital, bringing to 10 the number of death row inmates that have been transferred to the facility since mid-September. 

More are expected soon, as all 37 death row inmates commuted by Biden are expected to be moved to the facility by ‘early next year,’ the Justice Department told Fox News Digital.

The effort comes as Bondi and the Trump administration have sought to reverse some of the Biden administration’s efforts on criminal justice reform, with an emphasis on cracking down on violent crime.

Though sentence commutations cannot be fully reversed, Justice Department officials told Fox News Digital, Bondi has prioritized ways to penalize these individuals, in coordination with directives from Trump, and to ensure that the ‘conditions of confinement’ are ‘consistent with the security risks those inmates present because of their egregious crimes, criminal histories, and all other relevant considerations,’ according to an earlier DOJ memo. 

‘Two more monsters who plotted and violently murdered innocent people will spend the rest of their lives in our country’s most severe federal prison,’ Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

‘This Department of Justice will continue to seek accountability for the families blindsided by President Biden’s reckless commutations of 37 vicious predators,’ she added.

Like the eight former death row inmates that were sent to Colorado’s supermax prison, the two criminals processed in ADX on Thursday have been convicted of particularly heinous crimes. 

One individual chased down his ex-girlfriend from Roanoke, Virginia, to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he cut the phone lines to the apartment she was living in before using cans of gasoline to set the building on fire.

Though she escaped via a second-story window and was hospitalized for second-and third-degree burns, he followed her back to her family’s home in Virginia two months later, where he gunned her down on the streets of her neighborhood and just steps from her mother.  

Another inmate, a former New Orleans police officer dubbed ‘Robocop’ for his large physical demeanor and aggressive law enforcement style, was caught on tape by the FBI as he ordered and orchestrated the killing of a mother of three who had come to the precinct hours earlier to submit a supposedly confidential brutality complaint about his behavior that she witnessed on her way home the night before. 

The FBI had stumbled upon the conversation as part of a broader probe they had started to investigate a so-called ‘protection racket’ between cocaine dealers in New Orleans and the city’s police force, which had been guarding a warehouse stocked with the drug. The same officer was later revealed as one of the chief conspirators in the protection racket. 

He was also found to have falsely testified in two murder cases, including one murder he has since been linked to. The statements were used to exonerate four men from prison, including three teenagers who had been wrongfully convicted of a murder 28 years prior.

ADX is the only true federal ‘supermax’ prison in the U.S., and its inmates are as notorious as the prison’s reputation. 

Among them are Ramzi Yousef, convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers; former Sinola Cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán, or ‘El Chapo’; and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the co-founder of al-Qaeda.

Shortly after her confirmation as attorney general, Bondi issued a memo aimed at ‘restoring a measure of justice’ to the victims’ families. 

The measures granted by Biden earned more criticism than former President Barack Obama: As Fox News reported at the time, the vast majority of Obama’s clemency actions focused on commuting the sentences of federal inmates who met certain criteria outlined under his administration’s Clemency Initiative.

Bondi hosted victims’ families earlier this year to hear their concerns about the commutations, DOJ said. Some said they had been stunned by the eleventh-hour commutations, and that they not been given a heads-up by the Biden administration.

In February, Bondi issued a memo to the Bureau of Prisons ordering an evaluation of where these prisoners should be detained.

Having covered Ukraine … and Russia … for over three decades, especially the war between the two countries for the last several years, I’ve naturally been fascinated by the latest Trump administration effort to broker peace.

The reaction I’ve been getting from contacts in Ukraine to the 28-point plan to end the war is not all that positive.  

‘It’s not worth the paper it’s written on,’ said one observer.

‘Any deal would have to include Ukraine…and Europe,’ noted another. 

The overall consensus of analysts is that the document is slanted heavily towards Moscow. The man at the center of things, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been diplomatic in various statements, basically saying he’s ‘reviewing the points’ aiming at arriving at a ‘dignified peace.’

There are all sorts of talks happening now between the U.S. and Ukraine and among European leaders. We’re even hearing from Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s no wonder: The stakes in this war for Europe and the world are enormous. If I were to send a quick note to Zelenskyy, it would go something like this: 

Dear Volodymyr, 

So far so good. You haven’t freaked out, and you’re promising to engage. Rejection of this plan out of hand would have been a non-starter.

You’re staying cool (though a bit grim and determined), and you’re talking to people. 

My overall advice is … pick your fights, don’t sweat the small stuff, and keep the big picture in mind. 

I know what your country is going through. Every time I’m in Kyiv, I go to the same military cemetery outside the city, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger and sadder.

So, as to the points of the plan: There are a lot easy ‘gimmes’ to Russia. Re-joining the G-8. Gradual dropping of sanctions. Granting of amnesty for everything Russian troops have done. I know this stuff is going to stick in your craw, but little of it affects your country’s future. 

I mentioned that you shouldn’t ‘sweat the small stuff.’ Some of the points might sound like a big deal. Like prohibiting ‘Nazi ideology’ in Ukraine. And adopting ‘EU rules on religious tolerance and linguistic minorities.’ That’s pretty much window-dressing for Moscow. Having the Russian language and Russian church regain official status is not horrendous. 

In fact, the plan’s glass is at least one-third full for you guys. Confirming your sovereignty. Russia expected not to invade you again. You will receive reliable security guarantees. Rebuilding pledges and humanitarian promises. They are all good. Just nail down the specifics. Get all sides to commit for sure.

Now to three of the points which cross, according to analysts, your red line. 

Like handing over the rest of the eastern Donetsk region to Russia even though Moscow’s troops haven’t even taken it. The region is referred to as a demilitarized zone in the plan. A ‘DMZ’ ala the divider between North and South Korea. Well, hold them to that. No troops from either side. Tough security on both sides. A neutral body running things. And see if you can get them to not call it Russian!

Then there’s the reduction by a third of your military. Troop strength limited to 600,000. That’s a huge cut, but it’s still not a bad-sized force. That is if…it was properly trained, well-armed, and finely-positioned.  Guarantees are needed for all of this to happen.

And then there’s the other red line : No NATO troops in Ukraine. That would seem to scupper the plan to have foreign peace-keepers on the ground, which has been in the works, to monitor the peace. A possible compromise? They’re stationed around Ukraine’s borders, surveillance keeps a close eye on things and rapid-response forces are at the ready. 

There are also a few ‘gimmes’ for the U.S. in all this, like sharing in the profits of reconstruction. But that’s the price of doing business with President Trump. 

As for that Thanksgiving deadline to sign the deal? The president has already signaled he’s willing to let that slide if there’s talking. 

And that other deadline? One-hundred days until a new election? I know it’s a tough time for you politically with those corruption charges getting near. It might be something you have to live with. 

Anyway, for what it’s worth, that’s my take. 

Negotiations will probably sink on any hard discussion of any of these main points. But you know what the old adage is : ‘jaw-jaw’ is better than ‘war-war.’ 

For the proud people of Ukraine, who have suffered so much during this time, it’s worth your best shot.

Sincerely,

Greg

Two federal inmates previously on death row, one a crooked New Orleans cop and the other the man behind a multi-state killing spree, have been transferred to a notorious ‘supermax’ prison in Colorado, the Justice Department told Fox News Digital. 

News of their transfers comes as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi looks to crack down on the previous administration’s sweeping clemency actions, especially those against violent crime. 

The former death row inmates were transferred Thursday to the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, also known as ‘ADX,’ Justice Department officials confirmed. 

They are among the 37 death row inmates whose sentences Biden commuted shortly before leaving office last December. The news prompted criticism and complaints that the record clemency and commutation actions were done as a political ‘Hail Mary,’ and without proper vetting.

Eight death row inmates have already been transferred to ADX, the Justice Department told Fox News Digital, bringing to 10 the number of death row inmates that have been transferred to the facility since mid-September. 

More are expected soon, as all 37 death row inmates commuted by Biden are expected to be moved to the facility by ‘early next year,’ the Justice Department told Fox News Digital.

The effort comes as Bondi and the Trump administration have sought to reverse some of the Biden administration’s efforts on criminal justice reform, with an emphasis on cracking down on violent crime.

Though sentence commutations cannot be fully reversed, Justice Department officials told Fox News Digital, Bondi has prioritized ways to penalize these individuals, in coordination with directives from Trump, and to ensure that the ‘conditions of confinement’ are ‘consistent with the security risks those inmates present because of their egregious crimes, criminal histories, and all other relevant considerations,’ according to an earlier DOJ memo. 

‘Two more monsters who plotted and violently murdered innocent people will spend the rest of their lives in our country’s most severe federal prison,’ Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

‘This Department of Justice will continue to seek accountability for the families blindsided by President Biden’s reckless commutations of 37 vicious predators,’ she added.

Like the eight former death row inmates that were sent to Colorado’s supermax prison, the two criminals processed in ADX on Thursday have been convicted of particularly heinous crimes. 

One individual chased down his ex-girlfriend from Roanoke, Virginia, to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he cut the phone lines to the apartment she was living in before using cans of gasoline to set the building on fire.

Though she escaped via a second-story window and was hospitalized for second-and third-degree burns, he followed her back to her family’s home in Virginia two months later, where he gunned her down on the streets of her neighborhood and just steps from her mother.  

Another inmate, a former New Orleans police officer dubbed ‘Robocop’ for his large physical demeanor and aggressive law enforcement style, was caught on tape by the FBI as he ordered and orchestrated the killing of a mother of three who had come to the precinct hours earlier to submit a supposedly confidential brutality complaint about his behavior that she witnessed on her way home the night before. 

The FBI had stumbled upon the conversation as part of a broader probe they had started to investigate a so-called ‘protection racket’ between cocaine dealers in New Orleans and the city’s police force, which had been guarding a warehouse stocked with the drug. The same officer was later revealed as one of the chief conspirators in the protection racket. 

He was also found to have falsely testified in two murder cases, including one murder he has since been linked to. The statements were used to exonerate four men from prison, including three teenagers who had been wrongfully convicted of a murder 28 years prior.

ADX is the only true federal ‘supermax’ prison in the U.S., and its inmates are as notorious as the prison’s reputation. 

Among them are Ramzi Yousef, convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers; former Sinola Cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán, or ‘El Chapo’; and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the co-founder of al-Qaeda.

Shortly after her confirmation as attorney general, Bondi issued a memo aimed at ‘restoring a measure of justice’ to the victims’ families. 

The measures granted by Biden earned more criticism than former President Barack Obama: As Fox News reported at the time, the vast majority of Obama’s clemency actions focused on commuting the sentences of federal inmates who met certain criteria outlined under his administration’s Clemency Initiative.

Bondi hosted victims’ families earlier this year to hear their concerns about the commutations, DOJ said. Some said they had been stunned by the eleventh-hour commutations, and that they not been given a heads-up by the Biden administration.

In February, Bondi issued a memo to the Bureau of Prisons ordering an evaluation of where these prisoners should be detained.

A moderate House Democrat representing a district that President Donald Trump won in 2024 is warning fellow elected officials, both within his party and the GOP, from pandering to the extremes of their base.

‘It’s a road to ruin, because too many extremists, too many elected officials, are busy pandering to their base instead of listening to the general public and instead of trying to find common ground,’ Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., told Fox News Digital.

Suozzi said people on the far-left and far-right make up a relatively small — but active — section of both sides. He suggested that it’s a group that’s had an outsized influence in Congress as well.

‘We have not seen much compromise these days. And everything has been, you know, one party or the other trying to do a my-way-or-the-highway partisan effort,’ he said. ‘I’m sure both sides are inspired by good intention, but it’s not long-lasting, and it’s not going to help move our country forward.’

Suozzi’s district encompasses part of the New York City suburbs of Long Island and includes part of the Big Apple itself as well.

But his district is not as progressive as other parts of New York that have shown support for socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani — whose candidacy Suozzi spoke out against on multiple occasions. 

Suozzi did not answer directly when asked if Mamdani’s leadership in the city will affect him in the coming 2026 midterms, but he pointed out significant Republican gains in the district in the 2025 election cycle where he won.

‘In Queens, in my portion of the district, Mamdani lost to Cuomo by 27%. And also, a Republican city councilwoman from the City of New York won in my district, and she won big. And then in my Long Island portion of it, which is not the city, but it’s right next to the city, Mamdani was weaponized by the Republicans in their races, and they won everything,’ Suozzi said.

‘I was always in a vulnerable district, because Trump won by 19,000 votes and I won by 11,000 votes, and I had to get 20,000 people who voted for Donald Trump to also vote for me,’ he said. ‘But that’s still the case for me. So while there were a lot of Democratic victories throughout the country on Election Day, in my district, it still performed pretty Republican.’

He credited his success with ‘listening’ to voters on both sides and reflecting those views in Washington.

‘The reason I was successful in 2024 is because I was endorsed by the police, is because I was clear on my position on immigration, that we do need to secure the border, because I’m fighting for affordability. I mean, I feel like I’ve got to do what the people are asking to do,’ he said.

Suozzi conceded that he believed both Trump and Mamdani were correct in their focus on the high cost of living.

‘Mamdani was right, much like Trump is right, that people are economically insecure. They’re worried about their financial security. They properly diagnose the problem,’ he said.

‘The challenge is, you know, what’s the solution? I believe that socialism is a terrible solution. It will not work. It’s never worked in the history of the world. And it will not work now.’

But he urged Democrats nationwide to continue the focus on affordability, both trying to find solutions that are unique to their districts and on the federal level.

One example he cited was the minimum wage, which has been $7.25 on the federal level since July 2009.

‘That’s absurd, 20 states have a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. We should be fighting to increase the minimum wage,’ he said.

In the end, however, he called for a Democratic Party that errs away from socialism on the national level.

‘We’ve got to be capitalist, not socialist. We’ve got to be mainstream, not extreme. We’ve got to be about safety, not lawlessness. We’ve got to be for reform, not the status quo,’ Suozzi said. ‘We have to be proud of our country, not ashamed of our country.’