House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, subpoenaed former special counsel Jack Smith on Wednesday for a deposition, escalating Republicans’ investigation into one of President Donald Trump’s top political foes.

Jordan directed Smith to appear before the committee on Dec. 17, according to a copy of the subpoena reviewed by Fox News Digital.

‘Due to your service as Special Counsel, the Committee believes that you possess information that is vital to its oversight of this matter,’ Jordan wrote in a letter accompanying his request.

The forthcoming deposition, which is set to take place behind closed doors, comes as House and Senate Republicans have zeroed in on Smith’s election-related investigation of Trump, describing it as a scandal that unnecessarily swept up hundreds of Republican lawmakers, GOP entities, Trump allies and media outlets as part of the probe.

Smith has repeatedly stood by his work as special counsel, which eventually involved bringing two sets of criminal charges against Trump over the 2020 election and over alleged retention of classified documents. Smith dropped both cases after Trump won the 2024 election, citing a Department of Justice policy that discourages prosecuting sitting presidents.

Smith has already offered to publicly testify before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, but a source familiar with Jordan’s request said a deposition is the chairman’s preferred format because each party on the committee can question Smith for an hour at a time and build a better record. In a public hearing, lawmakers typically question a witness in five-minute intervals.

Peter Koski, an attorney for Smith, responded to the subpoena in a statement provided to Fox News Digital and reiterated that Smith offered six weeks ago to appear voluntarily in a public hearing setting.

‘We are disappointed that offer was rejected, and that the American people will be denied the opportunity to hear directly from Jack on these topics,’ Koski said. ‘Jack looks forward to meeting with the committee later this month to discuss his work and clarify the various misconceptions about his investigation.’

Jordan’s subpoena also included a sweeping demand for all documents and communications related to Smith’s time as special counsel, a request that comes after the DOJ told Smith’s lawyers in a letter on Nov. 12, reviewed by Fox News Digital, that it would make a ‘unique’ accommodation to Congress by authorizing Smith to ‘provide unrestricted testimony to the Committee, irrespective of potential privilege.’

Fox News Digital reached out to committee Democrats for comment.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

The Trump administration is rolling out a new visa-restriction policy in response to a wave of brutal anti-Christian attacks in Nigeria, targeting those accused of orchestrating religious violence against Christians in the West African nation and around the world.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday that a new policy in the Immigration and Nationality Act will allow the State Department to deny visas to those ‘who have directed, authorized, significantly supported, participated in, or carried out violations of religious freedom.’ Immediate family members may also face visa restrictions in some cases.

‘The United States is taking decisive action in response to the mass killings and violence against Christians by radical Islamic terrorists, Fulani ethnic militias, and other violent actors in Nigeria and beyond,’ Rubio said in the statement.

The move follows a surge of attacks on Christians and Christian institutions in Nigeria. Last month, gunmen stormed the Christ Apostolic Church in Eruku, Kwara State, killing two people and kidnapping dozens. The 38 abducted worshipers were freed nearly a week later.

Days later, armed attackers raided St. Mary’s School in Niger State, abducting more than 300 students and staff. School officials said 50 students aged 10 to 18 escaped in the following days, but 253 students and 12 teachers remain captive.

The violence prompted President Donald Trump to designate Nigeria a ‘country of particular concern,’ though the Nigerian government disputes the U.S. assessment.

‘I’m really angry about it,’ the president told Fox News Radio last month. ‘What’s happening in Nigeria is a disgrace.’

Rubio said the new visa restrictions will apply to Nigeria and to any other governments or individuals involved in violating religious freedom.

Echoing Trump’s warning, Rubio said: ‘As President Trump made clear, the ‘United States cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria, and numerous other countries.’’

A top federal court official defended Judge James Boasberg’s gag orders that hid subpoenas related to the FBI’s Arctic Frost investigation, saying this week that the chief judge in Washington would likely have been unaware that the subpoenas’ intended targets were members of Congress.

The administrative office for the federal courts indicated that the chief judge in D.C. routinely blindly signed gag orders when the Department of Justice requested them, including during Arctic Frost, the investigation that led to former special counsel Jack Smith bringing election charges against President Donald Trump.

The administrative office’s director, Robert Conrad Jr., provided the explanation on behalf of Boasberg to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in a letter first obtained by Fox News Digital.

The letter came in response to Grassley, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, demanding an explanation from Boasberg about why he authorized the one-year gag orders, which barred phone companies from telling Republican Congress members that their records were subpoenaed by Smith in 2023.

Conrad said he could not address those specific subpoenas and gag orders, in part because some of the material was sealed, but that he could help the lawmakers ‘understand relevant practices’ in place during Arctic Frost.

The DOJ’s requests for gag orders, also known as non-disclosure orders, ‘typically do not attach the related subpoena; rather they identify the subject accounts only by a signifier — e.g., a phone number,’ Conrad wrote. ‘As a result, [non-disclosure order] applications would not reveal whether a particular phone number belonged to a member of Congress.’

Read a copy of the letter below. App users click here.

Grassley reacted to the latest correspondence from the court by faulting the Biden DOJ for seeking the gag orders from Boasberg without notifying the judge that they pertained to Congress members.

Grassley noted that the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section gave Smith’s team the green light to subpoena lawmakers’ phone records but had also told the prosecutors to be wary of concerns lawmakers could raise about the Constitution’s speech or debate clause, which gives Congress members added protections in prosecutorial matters.

‘Smith went ahead with the congressional subpoenas anyway, and it appears he and his team didn’t apprise the court of member involvement,’ Grassley told Fox News Digital. ‘Smith’s apparent lack of candor is deeply troubling, and he needs to answer for his conduct.’

The DOJ revised its policy in response to an inspector general report in 2024 so that prosecutors were required to notify the court if they were seeking a gag order against a Congress member so that judges could take that into consideration when deciding whether to authorize the orders. Smith’s subpoenas pre-dated that policy shift.

The subpoenas, and the gag orders that kept them concealed, have drawn enormous criticism from the targeted lawmakers, who alleged that the Biden DOJ improperly spied on them over their alleged involvement in attempting to overturn the 2020 election and that Boasberg was complicit in allowing it. Among the top critics is Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who was set to lead a since-postponed hearing Wednesday examining the case for impeaching Boasberg. Impeachment of judges is exceedingly rare and typically has only occurred in response to crimes like corruption and bribery.

Johnson said he remained unsatisfied with Boasberg after the letter from the administrative office.

‘Judge Boasberg’s refusal to answer questions from Congress about his approval of unlawful gag orders is an affront to transparency and an obvious attempt to deflect any responsibility for his awareness of or involvement in Jack Smith’s partisan dragnet,’ Johnson told Fox News Digital. ‘Judge Boasberg must immediately lift the seal that is apparently preventing him from addressing Congress’ questions and provide the public a full explanation for his actions.’

Public documents reveal that as chief judge of the D.C. federal court, Boasberg authorized numerous gag orders that blocked phone companies from telling about a dozen House and Senate lawmakers that Smith had subpoenaed their phone data.

Smith had sought a narrow set of their records, which included details about when calls and messages were placed and with whom the Congress members were communicating. The records did not include the contents of calls and messages. Smith has defended the subpoenas, saying they were in line with department policy and ‘entirely proper.’

The chances of a bipartisan solution to expiring Obamacare subsidies are growing slimmer with each passing day as the Senate gears up for a vote next week on extending the credits.

Senate Democrats made the subsidies the focal point of their position during the government shutdown, which ended only after a group of Democrats broke from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., based largely on a guarantee from Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., that lawmakers would get a chance to vote on extending the subsidies.

And next week is Thune’s deadline to get a proposal on the floor, but the likelihood that it is bipartisan is fast fading.

‘I mean, my assumption is that by next week, when we have to have that vote, that we might not be far enough along in the bipartisan discussions. But my assumption is we’ll still have a vote of some kind, because that’s what we’re committed to do,’ Thune said.

Bipartisan talks have been ongoing, both during the shutdown and in the weeks after. But those have yet to yield a plan that could muster the 60 votes necessary to break through the filibuster in the upper chamber.

Republicans want to see reforms to the program and are floating proposals that would see money from the subsidies that normally flows to insurance companies be sent directly to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) — a plan previously floated by President Donald Trump.

Democrats, however, want a cleaner extension of subsidies but are open to reforms either up front or down the line.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital he’s been involved in talks with colleagues across the aisle, but those discussions had recently slowed. He agreed that a bipartisan solution was likely out of reach by next week’s vote.

‘I mean, I would love to see that, but it’s not realistic, and I’m putting my eggs into the basket for Jan. 30, a nice bipartisan package,’ he said.

At that point, however, the subsidies will have expired.

That leaves the option of a possible side-by-side vote, with Democratic and Republican proposals put on the floor to see which survives. But that idea may not have much support, either.

‘I don’t know about whether they would have the appetite for a side-by-side,’ Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., said. ‘We certainly have not seen Republicans come up with any sincere plans to help alleviate the concerns.’

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., who is leading Republicans’ negotiations for a plan on the subsidies, scoffed that if Democrats spoke with him, ‘You’re going to be hearing a lot of sincerity.’

Cassidy’s plan revolves around HSAs, which he sketched out in broad terms to Fox News Digital. Under his plan, HSAs would be pre-funded with, ‘say $2,000,’ that he argued would see Americans pay roughly the same health insurance deductibles and act as a much more workable day-to-day policy moving forward.

He noted that Democrats see where he’s coming from, but that he couldn’t say if he’s got ‘their vote yet.’

‘If you look at the numbers, there are people who are in their 50s and 60s who will really, like, pay a third of their income for insurance on the exchange, and so the Democrats have set it up so there’s a cliff at the end of this year, and we’re trying to avoid that cliff,’ Cassidy said.

‘So [we’re] looking for a way that can take care of those folks but begin to transition to a system which is much more workable,’ he continued. ‘The Obamacare subsidy system is not workable.’

Cassidy and Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, pitched ideas and options during the Senate GOP’s closed-door lunch on Tuesday, but there still wasn’t a solid consensus on a path forward on a Republican proposal.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said it would take ‘divine intervention’ for Republicans to agree on a plan to vote on by Thune’s deadline next week.

‘Have you ever heard of a Rorschach test where it’s smeared all over the wall? That’s kind of where we’re at,’ Kennedy said.

Members on both sides of the aisle believe that Trump should get more involved, too, given that anything that passes the Senate and works through the House would need his signature to become law.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, one of the eight Democratic caucus members that voted to reopen the government with Republicans, said that it would help if Trump told the Senate GOP to make a deal.

‘I think the easiest, clearest thing would be a straight extension with some modest reforms, and then we can move on,’ King said. ‘And frankly, if it doesn’t happen, then the Republicans can own massive premium increases. And I don’t know why they would want to do that.’

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth chastised the press following media reports that he signed off on a second strike against an alleged drug boat after the first one left survivors. 

The Trump administration has come under renewed scrutiny for its strikes in the Caribbean targeting alleged drug smugglers, after the Washington Post reported on Friday that Hegseth verbally ordered everyone onboard the alleged drug boat to be killed in a Sept. 2 operation. The Post reported that a second strike was conducted to take out the remaining survivors on the boat. 

On Monday, the White House confirmed that a second strike had occurred, but disputed that Hegseth ever gave an initial order to ensure that everyone on board was killed, when asked specifically about Hegseth’s instructions.

Hegseth said that he watched the first strike live, but did not see any survivors at that time amid the fire and the smoke — and blasted the press for their reporting.

‘This is called the fog of war. This is what you in the press don’t understand,’ Hegseth told reporters at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. ‘You sit in your air-conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill and you nit pick, and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about ‘kill everybody’ phrases on anonymous sources not based in anything, not based in any truth at all. And then you want to throw out really irresponsible terms about American heroes, about the judgment that they made.’ 

Hegseth said that after watching the first strike, he left for a meeting and later learned of the second strike. The White House said Monday that Hegseth had authorized Adm. Frank ‘Mitch’ Bradley to conduct the strikes, and that Bradley was the one who ordered and directed the second one. 

At the time of the Sept. 2 strike, Bradley was serving as the commander of Joint Special Operations Command, which falls under U.S. Special Operations Command. He is now the head of U.S. Special Operations Command.

According to Hegseth, carrying out a subsequent strike on the alleged drug boat was the right call. 

‘Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat,’ Hegseth said Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, reports of the second strike have attracted even more scrutiny from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill and calls for greater oversight, amid questions about the strikes’ legality. 

‘This committee is committed to providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defense’s military operations in the Caribbean,’ Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., who lead the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement on Saturday. ‘We take seriously the reports of follow-on strikes on boats alleged to be ferrying narcotics in the SOUTHCOM region and are taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question.’

Hegseth said Tuesday that although there has been a pause in strikes in the Caribbean because alleged drug boats are becoming harder to find, the Trump administration’s campaign against the influx of drugs will continue. 

‘We’ve only just begun striking narco-boats and putting narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean because they’ve been poisoning the American people,’ Hegseth said. 

The Trump administration has carried out more than 20 strikes against alleged drug boats in Latin American waters, and has bolstered its military presence in the Caribbean to align with Trump’s goal to crack down on the influx of drugs into the U.S.

On about two dozen occasions, the Supreme Court had to step in during President Trump’s second term because many inferior courts refused to accept that he is the president. The justices must do so again, after lower courts invalidated the appointments of acting U.S. attorneys Alina Habba of the District of New Jersey and Lindsey Halligan of the Eastern District of Virginia.

The Senate has a tradition that is over a century old called the blue slip. Home-state senators have an extraordinary power: the ability to veto U.S. marshals, U.S. attorneys, and U.S. district judges. In order for nominees to proceed, home-state senators must return a blue slip approving the nominations. Senators will never let this power go, so administrations have to bear the consequences. In New Jersey, leftist senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim have refused to allow the nomination of Alina Habba to serve as U.S. Attorney. Likewise, in Virginia, their fellow leftist senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner will not acquiesce to the nomination of Lindsey Halligan to serve as U.S. Attorney. As such, Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Habba and Halligan to 120-day terms to serve on an interim basis, as 28 U.S.C. § 546 allows. Halligan replaced another interim prosecutor, Eric Siebert, who departed shortly before his 120 days lapsed.

After 120 days have expired, leftists asserted that Bondi can make no more appointments, only district judges can. The Executive Branch, this argument goes, has no say whatsoever after 120 days. This result would lead to a scheme where leftist senators can block President Trump’s nominees. Then, courts composed mostly of leftist judges in these blue states can install leftist puppet U.S. attorneys, and the Executive Branch must grin and bear it, just as with the blue slip process.

The 120-day limit first appeared in a statute in 1986. During the years of presidents Clinton and Bush, attorneys general made successive 120-day appointments under the statutory scheme in effect from 1986-2006, the same scheme as today. Yet, Clinton Judge Cameron Currie of South Carolina did not view this historical evidence as persuasive when she invalidated Halligan’s appointment. Halligan secured indictments against New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud and former FBI Director James Comey for false statements to and obstruction of Congress concerning the Russiagate hoax.

Those indictments are, for the moment, invalid. Currie’s opinion drips with disdain for Halligan, noting Halligan’s lack of prosecutorial experience. This issue is irrelevant to the legal question. Halligan, under Currie’s analysis, could have had three decades of prosecutorial experience, and her appointment would still have violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. Currie also quoted another irrelevant piece of evidence: President Trump’s social media post demanding Bondi move faster on prosecutions. Whether Halligan’s appointment is valid has nothing to do with that post. Its inclusion thus has no valid legal purpose.

The Appointments Clause vests appointment power in a president, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for principal officers. Congress can also require the advice and consent process to apply to inferior officers, and it did so with respect to U.S. attorneys. As such, presidents nominate U.S. attorneys, and the Senate confirms them. When there are vacancies, attorneys general can fill them for 120 days at a time, and a separate part of Section 546 allows for district courts to make appointments after the 120 days have expired. The Constitution grants department heads and courts the power to appoint inferior officers. District judges, for example, appoint magistrate judges.

Section 546 does not vest the authority to appoint U.S. attorneys exclusively in district courts. Under the reading of the judges who have invalidated the appointments of Habba and Halligan, a future President J.D. Vance’s attorney general could not make a 120-day appointment, either. The text of Section 546 does not specify a 120-day appointment per president. When one president’s attorney general makes a 120-day appointment, these judges absurdly prevent any future president’s attorney general from doing so in that district. District judges therefore have all the power until the Senate confirms a nominee one of these years or decades.

Fortunately, the issue now is ripe for Supreme Court review. This week, a Third Circuit panel ruled that Habba’s appointment is invalid. The justices should decide the cases together, even though the Fourth Circuit has not ruled on the Halligan appeal. There is only one circuit with all states that have Republican senators: the Fifth. This district court control could continue into the terms of a President Vance.

The easiest way to correct the lower court’s error is for the Supreme Court to hold that Section 546 allows attorneys general to make more than one 120-day appointment. Alternatively, the justices could hold that Section 546’s stripping of appointment power from the Executive Branch with respect to its officials violates the separation of powers.

In the face of immense criticism from Democrat politicians, the leftist media, and academic elites, the justices have intervened time and again to thwart unlawful interference by resistance lower courts. Because of the Supreme Court’s intervention on issues ranging from the ability to fire Executive Branch employees to the ability of the president to revoke temporary protected status from illegal immigrants, President Trump has been able to do his job far more effectively.

Bondi, Solicitor General John Sauer, and their team of stellar lawyers have amassed a success rate of over 90% at the Supreme Court. The justices must restore Habba and Halligan to preserve the separation of powers and prevent U.S. attorneys from being servants of district courts instead of presidents.

On about two dozen occasions, the Supreme Court had to step in during President Trump’s second term because many inferior courts refused to accept that he is the president. The justices must do so again, after lower courts invalidated the appointments of acting U.S. attorneys Alina Habba of the District of New Jersey and Lindsey Halligan of the Eastern District of Virginia.

The Senate has a tradition that is over a century old called the blue slip. Home-state senators have an extraordinary power: the ability to veto U.S. marshals, U.S. attorneys and U.S. district judges. In order for nominees to proceed, home-state senators must return a blue slip approving the nominations. Senators will never let this power go, so administrations have to bear the consequences. In New Jersey, leftist Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim have refused to allow the nomination of Alina Habba to serve as U.S. attorney. Likewise, in Virginia, their fellow leftist Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner will not acquiesce to the nomination of Lindsey Halligan to serve as U.S. attorney. As such, Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Habba and Halligan to 120-day terms to serve on an interim basis, as 28 U.S.C. § 546 allows. Halligan replaced another interim prosecutor, Eric Siebert, who departed shortly before his 120 days lapsed.

After 120 days have expired, leftists asserted that Bondi can make no more appointments; only district judges can. The Executive Branch, this argument goes, has no say whatsoever after 120 days. This result would lead to a scheme where leftist senators can block President Trump’s nominees. Then, courts composed mostly of leftist judges in these blue states can install leftist puppet U.S. attorneys, and the Executive Branch must grin and bear it, just as with the blue slip process.

The 120-day limit first appeared in a statute in 1986. During the years of Presidents Clinton and Bush, attorneys general made successive 120-day appointments under the statutory scheme in effect from 1986-2006, the same scheme as today. Yet, Clinton Judge Cameron Currie of South Carolina did not view this historical evidence as persuasive when she invalidated Halligan’s appointment. Halligan secured indictments against New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud and former FBI Director James Comey for false statements to and obstruction of Congress concerning the Russiagate hoax.

Those indictments are, for the moment, invalid. Currie’s opinion drips with disdain for Halligan, noting Halligan’s lack of prosecutorial experience. This issue is irrelevant to the legal question. Halligan, under Currie’s analysis, could have had three decades of prosecutorial experience, and her appointment would still have violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. Currie also quoted another irrelevant piece of evidence: President Trump’s social media post demanding Bondi move faster on prosecutions. Whether Halligan’s appointment is valid has nothing to do with that post. Its inclusion thus has no valid legal purpose.

The Appointments Clause vests appointment power in a president, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, for principal officers. Congress can also require the advice and consent process to apply to inferior officers, and it did so with respect to U.S. attorneys. As such, presidents nominate U.S. attorneys, and the Senate confirms them. When there are vacancies, attorneys general can fill them for 120 days at a time, and a separate part of Section 546 allows for district courts to make appointments after the 120 days have expired. The Constitution grants department heads and courts the power to appoint inferior officers. District judges, for example, appoint magistrate judges.

Section 546 does not vest the authority to appoint U.S. attorneys exclusively in district courts. Under the reading of the judges who have invalidated the appointments of Habba and Halligan, President Trump’s attorney general could not make a 120-day appointment, either. The text of Section 546 does not specify a 120-day appointment per president. When one president’s attorney general makes a 120-day appointment, these judges absurdly prevent any future president’s attorney general from doing so in that district. District judges, therefore, have all the power until the Senate confirms a nominee one of these years or decades.

Fortunately, the issue now is ripe for Supreme Court review. This week, a Third Circuit panel ruled that Habba’s appointment is invalid. The justices should decide the cases together, even though the Fourth Circuit has not ruled on the Halligan appeal. There is only one circuit with all states that have Republican senators: the Fifth. This district court control could continue into the terms of a President Vance.

The easiest way to correct the lower court’s error is for the Supreme Court to hold that Section 546 allows attorneys general to make more than one 120-day appointment. Alternatively, the justices could hold that Section 546’s stripping of appointment power from the Executive Branch with respect to its officials violates the separation of powers.

In the face of immense criticism from Democrat politicians, the leftist media, and academic elites, the justices have intervened time and again to thwart unlawful interference by resistance lower courts. Because of the Supreme Court’s intervention on issues ranging from the ability to fire Executive Branch employees to the ability of the president to revoke temporary protected status from illegal immigrants, President Trump has been able to do his job far more effectively.

Bondi, Solicitor General John Sauer, and their team of stellar lawyers have amassed a success rate of over 90% at the Supreme Court. The justices must restore Habba and Halligan to preserve the separation of powers and prevent U.S. attorneys from being servants of district courts instead of presidents.

: Last week, Taiwan President William Lai unveiled a massive $40 billion supplemental defense procurement proposal, casting it as proof that the independently ruled, democratic island is serious about countering escalating military pressure from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The PRC has not governed Taiwan for even a single day but claims it as its territory.

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that, ‘We welcome Taiwan’s announcement of a new $40 billion special defense procurement budget. Consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act and more than 45 years of commitment across multiple U.S. Administrations, the United States supports Taiwan’s acquisition of critical defense capabilities, commensurate with the threat it faces.’ 

The spokesperson also commended Taipei, ‘We also welcome the Lai administration’s recent commitments to increase defense spending to at least 3% of GDP by 2026 and 5% of GDP by 2030, which demonstrates resolve to strengthen Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities.’

The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) – the de facto American embassy – responded very positively almost immediately after Lai’s proposal was announced. Courtney Donovan Smith, a political columnist for the Taipei Times, told Fox News Digital that the strong support from AIT, ‘Amounts to a public American stamp of approval.’

A day after Lai’s announcement, Taiwan’s Defense Minister, Wellington Koo, told the media that preliminary talks have already been held with the United States about the kinds of weapons it wants to buy as part of this budget that would run from 2026 to 2033. But Koo said he could not make any details of discussions public until Congress receives a formal notification.

Yet some in Taiwan expressed concern that the language from the administration was somewhat understated, and didn’t come from senior-enough officials. 

Those worried about what they perceive as a muted tone from the Trump administration wondered if the timing could be sensitive, coming shortly after President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to a trade deal, and just days after Xi phoned Trump to reiterate Beijing’s claims over Taiwan, claims the U.S. ‘acknowledges’ but does not accept.

Even so, Taipei-based political risk analyst and Tamkang University assistant professor Ross Feingold told Fox News Digital that U.S. support fundamentally has not shifted and that when it comes to U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan, ‘If Taiwan is a willing buyer, the Trump administration is likely to be a willing seller.’

Also causing distress to the fragile egos of China’s communist leaders is Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a conservative who became Japan’s first female prime minister in October. She appeared to break long-standing Japanese strategic ambiguity over Taiwan when, asked on Nov. 7 in parliament whether a Chinese attack on Taiwan would qualify as ‘a situation threatening Japan’s survival.’

Takaichi didn’t deflect with a ‘I don’t comment on hypotheticals.’ Instead, she said, ‘If there are battleships and the use of force, no matter how you think about it, it could constitute a survival-threatening situation.’

Under Japan’s 2015 security law, that designation could allow Japanese military action in defense of an ally.

China predictably lashed out, immediately calling her remarks ‘egregious.’ A Chinese diplomat in Osaka escalated further, reposting coverage on X with a threat-like warning: ‘The dirty head that sticks itself in must be cut off.’

Kerry K. Gershaneck, a visiting scholar at National Chengchi University and a former U.S. Marine counterintelligence officer, told Fox News Digital that the U.S. needed to clearly denounce China for threats against Japan and the Japanese prime minister. Gershaneck warned that Asian allies remember past U.S. abandonment’ under what he called the ‘do not provoke China!’ policy of the Obama administration. ‘Unless high-level Washington officials signal stronger support, he said, ‘the Trump 47 administration risks going down in history as Barack Hussein Obama’s third term.’

Feingold noted that while Takaichi’s stance was enthusiastically received in Taiwan, the excitement ‘was unsustainable and not based on a formal policy decision by Japan to defend Taiwan.’

Following reports that President Trump phoned the Japanese prime minister and requested that she dial down talk about Taiwan, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Kihara Minoru issued a strong denial, saying Trump did not advise Takaichi to ‘temper the tone of her comments about Taiwan.’

While the geopolitical shifts grabbed headlines, Lai’s real challenge is domestic. Taiwan has a single-chamber legislature, and Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party does not have a majority.

Cheng Li-wun, the new chair of the main opposition Kuomintang (KMT), campaigned against boosting defense spending to 5% of GDP and has repeatedly argued Taiwan is ‘not an ATM’ for ‘unreasonable’ military budgets. The KMT supports renewed engagement with Beijing and acceptance of the ‘1992 Consensus,’ a proposed framework that allows both sides to claim there is ‘one China’ while interpreting the meaning differently. Lai rejects that position entirely, calling it a path toward subordination to China.

Bryce Barros, associate fellow at GLOBSEC and a former U.S. Senate national security advisor, told Fox News Digital that there are serious hurdles. ‘Opposition leaders have cited cuts to other essential services like healthcare, lack of details on how the budget will be paid for and concerns over more hostilities with China,’ he said. But Barros said the head of the de facto American embassy has called for bipartisan support for the bill, and he noted Lai needs only six opposition defections for the vote to pass.

Analysts also stress the proposal is not solely for U.S. weapons. Lai wants major investment in domestic defense manufacturing, including a ‘dome’ anti-missile system, which could help blunt accusations of excessive spending to curry favor with Washington. But the plan still faces a volatile parliament and certain retaliation from China.