President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social Friday that he commuted the sentence of disgraced former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., after several campaign finance violations.

‘George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,’ Trump wrote. 

‘I started to think about George when the subject of Democrat Senator Richard ‘Da Nang Dick’ Blumenthal came up again…. This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!’ President Trump added.

‘George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated. Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY.’

Andrea Bocelli paid President Donald Trump a visit at the White House on Oct. 17.

Trump’s special assistant, Margo Martin, shared a video of the moment on X, formerly known as Twitter.

While the Italian tenor appeared to give an impromptu performance in the Oval Office, Trump stood behind the Resolute Desk as Bocelli stood in front, wearing a black suit and tie with sunglasses on.

‘Listen to this,’ Trump said as ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ started playing in the Oval Office.

Bocelli began singing along with the track before he took a moment to laugh. He then continued to sing until the video concluded.

Another video posted by Martin shows Trump and Bocelli talking at the president’s desk and listening to a recording of a Bocelli song.

Trump told reporters Bocelli would be performing at the White House on Dec. 5, two days before the Kennedy Center Honors, according to Deadline. 

Bocelli’s representatives did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Bocelli’s visit to the White House came just before the President of the United States welcomed the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for the high-stakes summit. 

It is unclear if Bocelli’s visit and Zelenskyy’s are connected.

New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa faced off in their first general election debate on Thursday night, and, with no live audience, supporters flooded 50th Street outside 30 Rock, cheering on their preferred candidates with campaign signs and lobbing verbal attacks at their opponents. 

With less than three weeks until Election Day, the debate gave voters their clearest side-by-side look yet at the candidates vying to lead the nation’s largest city.

On the debate stage, candidates made commitments to delivering affordability and public safety for New Yorkers. Outside the venue, while speaking to Fox News Digital, Mamdani supporters told Fox News Digital they are ready for change, while those cheering on Cuomo said they were voting for him for his experience. 

‘He’s very experienced,’ Emily, a Cuomo supporter who lives in Brooklyn, told Fox News Digital. ‘I feel that he’s going to keep our city safe and that he is going to keep small businesses alive and that he just has the right amount of experience for the job.’

New York state Sen. Robert Jackson, who was cheering on Mamdani from across 50th Street, said Cuomo already had his chance to deliver for New Yorkers as governor, telling Fox News Digital Cuomo ‘was not the leader that we wanted. He never came through on it.’

On the flip side, Jackson praised Mamdani for getting New Yorkers excited about politics, explaining that he loved Mamdani’s ‘straightforward’ and ‘no nonsense’ policies.

However, both Emily and Anthony Braue, a Bronx union worker, said Mamdani’s policies are driving their support for Cuomo. 

‘Giving away free stuff is not the answer,’ Brau said, telling Fox News Digital he appreciates how Cuomo supports union workers, wants to build infrastructure in New York City and make it a safer place to live. 

Emily added that Mamdani is ‘not experienced,’ and his ‘policies seem too extreme.’

‘Nothing’s free. Giving free stuff means the hard-working people’s taxes are going to pay for the free stuff,’ Braud said. ‘There’s nothing free. It never works out. It might be a good selling campaign pitch, but I don’t think it’s the right thing.’

Braue said he couldn’t understand why members of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, a union supporting hospitality workers, were across the street cheering for Mamdani. Ahead of the debate, the New York City Police Department designated three respective pens for supporters to gather. 

‘I don’t know exactly what they’re doing over there,’ he said. ‘They should be on this side with the rest of the union workers, but everyone’s got their own opinion. They’re entitled to it.’

After Thursday night’s debate, Mamdani met with a roundtable of union workers at the Service Employees International Union headquarters Friday morning in Manhattan. 

‘The reason I support Zoran Mandani is because he’s a make-it-make-sense politician,’ SEIU member Pedro Francisco told Fox News Digital ahead of the debate. ‘He really understands what this city needs. The city needs to be affordable for all of us.’

While acknowledging that Cuomo is a ‘great politician’ with great ideas, Francisco said, ‘Cuomo was the past, Zohran is the present and the future of New York City.’

Jim Golden, a 67-year-old New Yorker, agreed that ‘it’s time for a change, simple as that.’

‘We’ve screwed up this city enough, and it’s time to let some other people try and fix it. It’s a mess,’ he said. 

Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliwa all greeted their supporters ahead of the debate on Thursday night, with Mamdani sparking the most raucous commotion as he marched through a gaggle of reporters and glad-handed his supporters lined up along a police barricade. 

Thursday’s mayoral debate was hosted by NBC 4 New York/WNBC and Telemundo 47/WNJU, in partnership with Politico. Election Day is Nov. 4 in New York City in the race to replace Mayor Eric Adams, who suspended his re-election campaign last month. 

The federal judge assigned to oversee the criminal case against former Trump national security advisor John Bolton is an Obama-era appointee who made headlines during both Trump administrations for halting or pausing some of his most sweeping executive orders. 

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, a 2014 appointee to the federal bench in Greenbelt, Maryland, is far from the only judge whose rulings have been viewed by Trump allies as unfavorable to the administration. Dozens of judges have issued temporary orders and injunctions during Trump’s second term aimed at pausing or blocking certain directives while courts consider their merits.

But Chuang is noteworthy for being the judge who in 2017 issued a nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s revised ‘travel ban’ from taking force. The March 2017 executive order suspended travel for 90 days from six majority-Muslim countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — and paused the entry of asylum seekers for 120 days.

Chuang ruled that Trump’s order was likely motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment, describing it as a revised ‘realization’ of Trump’s ‘long-envisioned Muslim ban,’ which he had floated repeatedly during his first presidential bid.

‘Simply because a decisionmaker made the statements during a campaign does not wipe them from the ‘reasonable memory’ of a ‘reasonable observer,” he said in the injunction, which was quickly appealed to the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. 

Shortly after Trump took office in January, Chuang again drew the administration’s ire when he blocked Trump and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from continuing efforts to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development. In a 70-page ruling, he said the actions likely violated the U.S. Constitution ‘in multiple ways.’

The preliminary injunction was the first to attempt to constrain DOGE, which at the time had already cut 98% of USAID staffers. The 4th Circuit also set aside Chuang’s ruling on appeal several weeks later, clearing the way for DOGE to continue its efforts to gut USAID. 

Chuang has also presided over lesser-known cases, including temporarily suspending in-person requirements for women who were seeking the morning-after pill during the COVID-19 pandemic. That decision was later reversed by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision.

Trump’s executive actions and orders have sparked 220 lawsuits since January, according to a litigation tracker from Lawfare Media. 

Many of the early actions were blocked by federal judges, including Chuang, through emergency orders or temporary injunctions pending review.

(Court watchers and legal experts attribute this imbalance to congressional inaction, which has prompted an increase in executive orders by the last four presidents and, in turn, more judicial review.)

Like other federal judges who have held up Trump’s agenda, if only temporarily, in his second term, Chuang’s orders have been castigated by the president’s allies and some Republicans in Congress.

Earlier this year, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., introduced a House resolution seeking to impeach Chuang and five other federal judges who had challenged Trump administration actions. (The attempt prompted a stern warning from the New York City Bar Association, which cited ‘grave concerns’ about the effort.)

Bolton appeared Friday in federal court in Greenbelt, Md., where he pleaded not guilty to 18 counts.

Bolton’s indictment makes him the third Trump foe to have been indicted in federal court in as many weeks, following the high-profile indictments brought against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. But his case has not touched off the same concerns or allegations of political retribution as the others.

The investigation into Bolton’s handling of classified materials moved forward in part during the Biden administration, and career prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office signed off on the charges — a contrast to the cases against Comey and James, which were brought by Trump’s former attorney Lindsey Halligan.

A magistrate judge ordered Bolton released on the condition that he remain in the continental United States and surrender his passport, which he did. His next court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 21.

Andrea Bocelli paid President Donald Trump a visit at the White House on Oct. 17.

Trump’s special assistant, Margo Martin, shared a video of the moment on X, formerly known as Twitter.

While the Italian tenor appeared to give an impromptu performance in the Oval Office, Trump stood behind the Resolute Desk as Bocelli stood in front, wearing a black suit and tie with sunglasses on.

‘Listen to this,’ Trump said as ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ started playing in the Oval Office.

Bocelli began singing along with the track before he took a moment to laugh. He then continued to sing until the video concluded.

Another video posted by Martin shows Trump and Bocelli talking at the president’s desk and listening to a recording of a Bocelli song.

Trump told reporters Bocelli would be performing at the White House on Dec. 5, two days before the Kennedy Center Honors, according to Deadline. 

Bocelli’s representatives did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Bocelli’s visit to the White House came just before the President of the United States welcomed the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for the high-stakes summit. 

It is unclear if Bocelli’s visit and Zelenskyy’s are connected.

As the government shutdown nears its fourth week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has no intention of giving in to what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wants.

On a surface level, Schumer and Senate Democrats want a guaranteed deal on expiring Obamacare subsidies, and Thune has signaled that he is open to giving them an opportunity to negotiate on that only after the government reopens.

But what he won’t do is strike a deal in secret with Schumer, something he told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that was all too often the case when the top Senate Democrat ran the upper chamber.  

‘You know, I’ve been around here when everything’s decided by four people in Schumer’s office,’ Thune said. ‘That’s not a way to run the government.’

‘It’s not the business model that Chuck Schumer is accustomed to, and he likes to be the kingmaker and have everybody come and kiss the ring,’ he continued. ‘And I just think that’s not my style.’

Thune described his leadership style as a bottom-up approach ‘where senators get to be senators.’ That has proven true so far, in his handling of the shutdown.

He’s encouraged rank-and-file Republicans to have talks with Senate Democrats in the hopes of constructing an off-ramp from the shutdown, rather than handing down a my-way-or-the-highway edict.

And from those conversations, an offer to Senate Democrats has materialized on the expiring subsidies that would give them a vote, but only if the government reopens. And that offer comes with several caveats that Thune couldn’t guarantee an outcome on. 

‘I signaled to the Democrats that, because they’ve said, ‘Well, we want a guaranteed vote by a certain date.’ OK, I think we can make that happen,’ Thune said. ‘But they also want a guarantee they’re going to win, you know, and I can’t guarantee that. And honestly, even if I could, there’s no guarantee anything gets through the House.’

Still, with an offer for a vote on the table, Schumer and his caucus have not budged from their position. They again blocked Republicans’ attempt to reopen the government for a tenth time on Thursday, and in doing so, guaranteed that the shutdown goes into next week as lawmakers leave town for a long weekend.

A potential complication, too, is Republicans’ desire to make reforms to Obamacare subsidies, enhanced during the COVID-19 pandemic but set to expire at the end of this year. In Democrats’ counter to the House-passed continuing resolution (CR), they demanded a permanent extension of the program as-is, which was a non-starter for congressional Republicans.

The Congressional Budget Office found in a report last month that permanently extending the subsidies would cost roughly $350 billion over the next decade.

Thune didn’t dive into specifics of certain reforms he and others in the Senate GOP would like to see, but he noted that reining in the cost of the program was a starting point.

‘There’s no incentive to control costs,’ Thune said. ‘And when the insurance companies are getting direct subsidies from the federal government to enroll as many people as possible, they’re going to enroll as many people as possible, even if those people don’t know they’re enrolled.’

Meanwhile, Schumer has called on President Donald Trump to get directly involved in negotiations after a meeting with the president and Republican leaders at the White House late last month was not enough to prevent the shutdown from happening.

Thune said, ‘I think that happens,’ when asked if Trump would get involved, but he noted that first, the government has to reopen.

‘That’s basically what the White House has been saying,’ he said. ‘The president does like to be, you know, obviously, he is a guy who has experience and wants to solve problems and has experience making deals, and I think he’s probably more than willing to sit down with them, but he’s not going to let them extort him.’ 

President Donald Trump said Friday that ‘tremendous bad blood’ between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin is delaying a peace deal in Ukraine despite the administration’s recent victory with calming tensions in Gaza.

‘They have tremendous bad blood. It’s really is what is holding up I think a settlement. I think we are going to get it done and we have to make it long-lasting, as I said in the Middle East, everlasting,’ Trump said Friday as he hosted Zelenskyy at the White House.

‘The Middle East is a much more complicated situation. You know, we had 59 countries involved, and every one of them agreed. And it’s, you know, it’s sort of amazing. Most people didn’t think that was doable. This is going to be something I really believe that’s going to get done. I had a very good talk yesterday with President Putin. I think he wants to get it done,’ Trump added.

Zelenskyy, sitting alongside Trump, said, ‘President Trump has a big chance now to finish this war.’

‘President Trump has really showed for the world that he can manage a ceasefire in the Middle East. And that’s why I hope that he will do this. And we will also have such big success. For Ukraine, it’s a big chance, and I hope that President Trump can manage it,’ Zelenskyy said.

Trump also said at one point during the meeting, ‘We need Tomahawks, and we need a lot of other things that we’ve been sending over the last four years to Ukraine.’

Trump and Zelenskyy’s meeting, which was announced earlier this week, unfolded a day after Trump held a phone call with Putin. 

Zelenskyy has made clear his chief aim is to secure better defenses for Ukraine amid Russia’s constant aerial bombardments of civilian targets like cities, energy infrastructure and hospitals, and his big-ticket item is the American Tomahawk missile. 

With the capability of hitting beyond even Moscow, the sophisticated high-precision long-range cruise missile could increase Ukraine’s ability to strike further into Russia and better target not only its military complex, but its oil industry, which has largely funded Putin’s war chest.  

Following his call with Putin on Thursday, Trump said ‘great progress’ was made, but he did not provide any specifics on how progress was achieved, though the pair agreed to once again meet in person, this time in Hungary. 

Though Trump said the pair discussed U.S.-Russia trade, he did not say whether U.S. aid to Ukraine was discussed, which appeared to be the impetus for the call earlier this week when he told reporters he ‘might have to speak’ with Putin regarding whether he wanted U.S. Tomahawks near his borders, in what appeared to be an implied threat.  

But neither Tomahawks nor defensive aid were mentioned in the president’s account of the talks.  

Though, according to Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, the issue was discussed and opposed by Putin.  

‘Vladimir Putin reiterated his thesis that Tomahawks won’t change the situation on the battlefield, but they will cause significant damage to relations between our countries. Not to mention the prospects for a peaceful settlement,’ he told reporters following the call, according to Reuters. 

Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X on Thursday that, ‘Nothing has changed for Russia – it is still terrorizing life in Ukraine.’

‘Therefore, every air defense system for Ukraine matters – it saves lives. Every decision that can strengthen us brings the end of the war closer,’ he added.

Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House Friday was his third this year. In his first visit in February, Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Zelenskyy sparred during their meeting.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has once again instructed House lawmakers to remain in their home districts next week, keeping attention — and heat — in Washington on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for over a month.

A clerk in the House of Representatives announced on Friday that Johnson is designating Oct. 20 through Oct. 23 as a ‘district work period,’ meaning no votes or House hearings are expected to be held for that time.

It’s part of the pressure strategy Johnson has implemented against Democrats amid the ongoing government shutdown, which is barreling into a fourth week with the GOP’s federal funding plan stalled in the Senate.

The House GOP passed its federal funding plan on Sept. 19, a seven-week extension of fiscal year (FY) 2025 government spending levels, called a continuing resolution (CR). 

It was aimed at giving congressional negotiators more time to strike a longer-term deal on FY 2026 spending.

But Democrats, infuriated by being sidelined in the talks, are threatening to reject any deal that does not include an extension of COVID-19 pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of December.

Democrats reason that millions of Americans are expected to see their healthcare premiums skyrocket even before the subsidies themselves expire at the end of this year, and with no plan in place.

Republican leaders have signaled openness to having those discussions at a later date — albeit not without reforming the system — but are holding firm to their demand that the CR be passed without any partisan policy riders attached.

Johnson told reporters earlier on Friday that he would give House members 48 hours’ notice before they had to return for any votes, something he’s stated both publicly and privately for weeks.

But while his House GOP conference is holding largely united behind him, there are several Republicans growing uncomfortable with the lengthy recess period.

Both Reps. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Julie Fedorchak, R-N.D., expressed concern about the extended time at home during a private call among House Republicans earlier this month.

Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., has been more public with his pushback. He told MSNBC live on television Wednesday, ‘It is absolutely unacceptable to me and I think only serves further distrust.’

And Rep. Dave Valadao, while not explicitly pushing back on Johnson’s decision, told Fox News Digital that he was ‘kind of torn on that’ before blaming Senate Democrats for putting the GOP in this situation.

Meanwhile, Rep. Johnny Olszewski, D-Md., the lone House Democrat who was in the chamber when the district work period was declared, criticized Johnson for keeping the chamber out of session.

‘Congress has been absent here in the House for almost a month when there are critical conversations that need to be happening about reopening the government, lowering the cost of healthcare for millions of Americans, and also moving forward on critical issues,’ Olszewski said.

In a sign of a likely lengthy shutdown, the Senate is preparing to hold a standalone vote next week on paying government workers who are forced to work during the shutdown, including active-duty military members.

Asked by reporters if the House would come back to vote on the measure if it passed the Senate, Johnson said Friday, ‘If we have a viable path, yes, but I suspect the Democrats are going to bat it down again.’

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is hitting back at House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., after he called her ‘sick’ among other attacks on Friday morning.

‘Hakeem and Democrats are lashing out because they know what I said is true,’ Leavitt told Fox News Digital. ‘The Democrat Party’s elected officials absolutely cater to pro-Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals. House Democrats voted against a resolution condemning Hamas following the horrific October 7th terrorist attacks, and Democrats cheered on pro-Hamas radicals while they hijacked America’s college campuses and harassed Jewish students.’

‘Democrats opened our borders and allowed tens of millions of illegal aliens into our country over the past four years, including rapists and murderers, because they view them as future voters,’ she continued. ‘Democrats coddle violent criminals and support soft-on-crime policies like cashless bail that let violent offenders back on the streets to hurt law-abiding citizens.’

She then went after Jeffries directly while criticizing Democrats as a whole for blocking the GOP’s federal funding bill.

‘Democrats do NOT serve the interests of the American people. Hakeem Jeffries is an America Last, stone-cold loser. Now open up the government and stop simping to try to get your radical left-wing base to like you,’ Leavitt said.

Fox News Digital reached out to Jeffries’ office for a response.

Earlier Friday, Jeffries criticized Republicans as a whole for their attacks against Democrats, before he turned the focus to Leavitt specifically during a press conference.

‘You’ve got Karoline Leavitt, who’s sick. She’s out of control,’ Jeffries said. ‘And I’m not sure whether she’s just demented, ignorant, a stone-cold liar or all of the above.’

He added, ‘But the notion that an official White House spokesperson would say that the Democratic Party consists of terrorists, violent criminals and undocumented immigrants makes no sense, that this is what the American people are getting from the Trump administration in the middle of a shutdown.’

Tensions have run high on both sides as the shutdown drags on, and the standoff shows no signs of slowing down.

In fact, it’s expected to roll into its fourth week after Senate Democrats blocked the GOP’s federal funding measure for a tenth time on Thursday before leaving Washington for the weekend.

Republicans put forward last month a seven-week extension of fiscal year (FY) 2025 funding levels, called a continuing resolution (CR), aimed at giving congressional negotiators more time to strike a long-term deal for FY2026.

But Democrats in the House and Senate were infuriated by being sidelined in those talks. The majority of Democrats are refusing to accept any deal that does not include serious healthcare concessions, at least extending COVID-19 pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of this year.