Former President Donald Trump moves from the courtroom in New York City to the banquet rooms in South Florida on Friday, as he headlines a gathering of top Republican donors and teams up with potential running mates.

Trump starts his day in a Manhattan courtroom, where the former president is being tried on nearly three-dozen state felony charges for falsifying business records in relation to hush-money payments during the 2016 election he made to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about his alleged affair with the adult film actress.

Trump has repeatedly denied falsifying business records as well as the alleged sexual encounter with Daniels.

But the conclusion of court on Friday will free the former president to travel home to Palm Beach, Florida, where he’ll be the main attraction at the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) Spring Donor Retreat.

The closed-to press gathering – held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Palm Beach and at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club a few miles north – comes as he aims to close his fundraising gap with President Biden in their 2024 election rematch.

And listed as ‘special guests’ at the confab are a number of Republican politicians considered to be on Trump’s shortlist for running mate, according to an agenda of the weekend’s events obtained by Fox News.

‘This event takes on even greater significance in light of the fact that the President is constrained from travel due to his trial. While at the same time, Biden can travel all over the country to raise money,’ Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks told Fox News

Brooks, who has close ties to the GOP donor class, said that ‘major donors are stepping up now in a big way as we watch in horror the nightly images on TV of our country spiraling out of control.’ 

And he predicted that ‘this weekend will be a huge success.’

Among those listed as ‘special guests’ are possible running mates Sens. Tim Scott of South Carolina, JD Vance of Ohio, and Marco Rubio of Florida. So are Govs,. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Kristi Noem from South Dakota. Two top Trump supporters in the House – Reps. Elise Seefanik of New York and Byron Donalds of Florida – will also be there, as will entrepreneur and former 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

Also attending the gathering are the recently Trump-installed leadership at the RNC – chair Michael Whatley and the former president’s daugther-in-law Lara Trump, who is co-chair of the national party committee. House Speaker Mike Johnson is also attending, as will a handful of top GOP Senate candidates.

While Trump’s team won’t say whether the former president will hold one-on-one meetings with the potential running mates during the weekend confab, it’s not hard to imagine that such encounters may occur.

While the appearance of the potential vice presidential candidates will grab media attention, those involved in the gathering say fundraising is the emphasis.

‘The events this weekend are really more about raising money for the presidential race than it is about auditions for the potential VP candidates,’ a Republican strategist with ties to Trump world told Fox News.

Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes told Fox News the gathering ‘is certainly an opportunity for a collection of the most dynamic leaders of our common sense movement to demonstrate the winning messages we have to end Biden’s weak and dangerously dishonest presidency. Those who financially support President Trump and the America First agenda will see that they are helping save our nation with victory in November.’

The Biden campaign took aim at Trump ahead of the RNC donor retreat.

‘Donald Trump will spend the weekend off the campaign trail again, hiding behind closed doors with billionaire donors, boot lickers, abortion banners, Social Security cutters, and a puppy killer,’ Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer charged.

The ‘puppy killer’ reference was to South Dakota’s Noem, whose anecdote in her upcoming book about shooting and killing a family dog has stirred controversy amid plenty of media attention.

House Democrats who furiously condemned attacks on police during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol are also speaking out against police being injured at the anti-Israel protests currently raging at universities across the country.

Fox News Digital reached out to all the remaining members of the now-defunct House select committee on January 6 as well as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif. – all Democrats who led criticism of how cops were treated in 2021 – to ask whether they would extend the same condemnation to those attacking police on college campuses. 

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a member of the committee, told Fox News Digital that she condemned all attacks on law enforcement but panned comparisons to the Capitol riot.

‘I condemn attacks on police officers, full stop. At the Capitol and on campuses,’ Lofgren said. ‘It’s worth noting that what is happening on college campuses is not aimed at stopping the peaceful transfer of power or threatening our democratic system of government, so there is not a direct equivalency. Any attempt to sanitize the events on January 6th is a malicious one.’

Swalwell told Fox News Digital, ‘I condemn all violence against police officers.’

Similarly, a source familiar with the thinking of the former Jan. 6 committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said he also condemns any form of violence.

It comes after reports of police officers being injured during anti-Israel protests at the University of Madison-Wisconsin, the University of Utah, and Emerson College in Boston, as well as violent clashes between students and police at the University of California at Los Angeles.

A report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published last year found that 114 Capitol Police officers were reported injured during the Capitol riot. One officer died on the scene of natural causes, and four more who were at the scene committed suicide in the seven months after the riot.

A spokesperson for Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., would not directly weigh in on whether Schiff condemns the recent attacks against police specifically, but pointed Fox News Digital to earlier statements speaking out against attacks on Jewish students.

‘Over the past weeks, from Columbia University to UCLA and far too many campuses in between, many of those demonstrations have turned violent, and created unsafe and wholly unsustainable learning environments for all students. We’ve seen explicit, repeated targeting and intimidation of Jewish students – many of whom have been blocked from entering buildings or called unspeakable things on the basis of their faith and background. This is patently unacceptable and must end,’ Schiff said in one of the statements flagged.

Pelosi’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment, nor did the offices of House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., or Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., despite all three condemning attacks on police during the Jan. 6 riot.

In an October 2022 Jan. 6 committee hearing, Aguilar accused the pro-Trump protesters of ‘violently attacking the efforts of the brave men and women in law enforcement trying to resist the mob.’

Raskin said in a statement on the one-year anniversary of Jan. 6, ‘The attempted coup and insurrection left 150 law enforcement officers injured, wounded, traumatized or dead. Anyone who denies or minimizes this unprecedented assault on law enforcement can never call himself or herself ‘pro-law enforcement.’ That’s just political fraud.’

: Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., led the entire Republican Senate conference in calling on President Biden to reject agreements that would expand the authority of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the case of a global pandemic.

‘We strongly urge you not to join any pandemic related treaty, convention, or agreement being considered’ at the 77th World Health Assembly, reads a letter sent to Biden by Johnson and all 48 other Republican senators. 

The Republican senators stressed that any such agreement would be considered a treaty, which they noted requires ‘the concurrence of two-thirds of the Senate under Article I Section 2 of the Constitution.’

The World Health Assembly (WHA) will take place from May 27 to June 1, and international agreements are expected to be considered. 

The WHA is the WHO’s decision-making body, which meets yearly, so it can lay out its goals and craft policies between the 194 member states. 

The senators emphasized the U.S. ‘cannot afford to ignore this latest WHO inability to perform its most basic function and must insist on comprehensive WHO reforms before even considering amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) or any new pandemic related treaty that would increase WHO authority.’

The Republicans claimed that the latest draft of the WHO’s new pandemic response treaty is ‘dead on arrival.’

A ‘revised draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement’ from March detailed significant coordination and compelled information, technology, and resource sharing, with a significant emphasis on ‘equity.’

‘Instead of addressing the WHO’s well-documented shortcomings, the treaty focuses on mandated resource and technology transfers, shredding intellectual property rights, infringing [on] free speech, and supercharging the WHO,’ they wrote. 

They also claimed such agreements ignore that the origin of the COVID-19 virus still isn’t clear, ‘because Beijing continues to block a legitimate independent investigation.’

While Biden’s administration has committed to enhancing global coordination to combat pandemics, it has also criticized some elements of the WHO’s potential treaty. Specifically, officials have poured cold water on agreements that don’t protect the patents of pharmaceutical companies sufficiently, Politico reported in January. 

In a statement to the outlet at the time, a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said, ‘The U.S. wants outcomes that are effective and operationally viable to protect national and global health, promote innovation and promote access to medical countermeasures, strengthen investments in global health security, secure additional governmental commitments and responsibility for pandemic prevention and response, that are consistent with U.S. laws, policies and practices.’

The White House and WHO did not immediately provide comment to Fox News Digital. 

Johnson and the other Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, Republican conference Chairman John Barrasso of Wyoming and National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Chairman Steve Daines of Montana, said any potential support from the Biden administration for the international agreement would be ‘unacceptable.’ 

Johnson has been a fierce critic of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former chief medical adviser to the president, and of the precautions put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. The Wisconsin senator has also criticized the pharmaceutical industry and vaccinations for the virus that were mandated across the country, as well as advocating for those who said they suffered injuries from the shots. 

It was a poll that rattled the campaign world, disrupting the recent narrative that President Biden was closing the gap with former President Trump in the 2024 election rematch.

A survey that went viral on Sunday indicated Trump topping his Democratic successor by six points in a head-to-head match-up and by nine points in a five-candidate ballot that included Democrat turned independent contender Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Green Party candidate Jill Stein and progressive professor Cornel West.

The CNN poll conducted by SSRS was instantly used as evidence by pundits – and as ammunition by Trump and his team – of the waning of the perceived polling bump the president enjoyed coming out of his well-regarded and aggressive State of the Union address in early March – when he went for the jugular in primetime with numerous salvos fired at his Republican predecessor.

Trump enjoyed the polling edge over Biden in an average of national horserace surveys dating back to last October, but the president’s numbers edged up in the weeks after the State of the Union address.

‘Biden’s position in the polls is improving against Trump,’ polling analyst Nate Silver said last month.

But Daron Shaw, a politics professor and chair at the University of Texas who serves as a member of the Fox News Decision Team and the Republican partner on the Fox News Poll, is skeptical.

‘If you want to really parse one-to-two-point shifts one way or the other, then I suppose if you squint very hard, you can convince yourself that he [Biden] bumped up one or two, and now he’s lost one of that,’ Shaw said.

Shaw, who served as a top strategist on former President George W. Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, emphasized that ‘the race has been fairly steady over much of the past nine months.’

Veteran pollster Chris Anderson, another member of the Fox News Election Decision Team, and the Democratic partner on the Fox News Poll, said that any bump was a small one.

‘There seemed to be, at the very least, a stabilization after the State of the Union,’ which tempered earlier perceptions of a Trump advantage.

And showcasing recent Fox News polls in the crucial swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia, Anderson noted, ‘There were signs in there of a little bit of progress for Biden, but again it’s really small.’ 

While national surveys garner plenty of attention, the race for the White House is a battle for the states and their electoral votes, which places a spotlight on battleground state polling.

Analysts argue over how much the State of the Union address fueled the slight rise in the polls by Biden.

‘Simply Democrats coming home naturally, which they’ll probably do, versus State of the Union stuff,’ Shaw argued. ‘The main thing about the State of the Union was that it sort of stopped a conversation that was corrosive to Biden, that he’s too old and too feeble and not up to the task. That’s still there, but at least there are not daily stories about it. That was, I think, the success of the State of the Union.’

The CNN poll was followed a couple of days later by a Marist College survey for NPR and the PBS NewsHour that indicated Biden edging Trump by two-points in a head-to-head match-up, and tied with his GOP challenger in a five-candidate field.

A Quinnipiac University national survey in the field at the same time as CNN’s survey indicated Biden and Trump tied in both head-to-head and five-candidate showdowns, while an NBC News poll conducted a few days earlier put Trump up by two in a two-person race and Biden with a two-point edge when the third party and independent candidates were added.

With six months to go until Election Day, Shaw wondered whether the current polling dynamic would dramatically shift, baring major developments. 

Pointing to ‘an era of hyper-polarization where you’ve got two candidates who’ve already run against each other,’ Shaw noted that many voters already ‘know everything about both these two guys.’

‘So why would you expect much movement? What is it about this campaign that’s going to educate voters? Which is usually what’s happened in the past and why the numbers move around,’ he said.

Anderson agreed, spotlighting ‘that’s likely to be the story of this election as we go through, that the movement that we’re going to see is likely to be in the margins because so many people are locked in.’

Six months out, Anderson said, ‘it’s not looking good for Biden, but at the same time, you can see how his base comes home, and he pulls his coalition back together and is suddenly a couple of points higher than he is now.’

The House GOP rebels who ousted ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the fall are now hesitant to embrace the new push to boot current House Speaker Mike Johnson from the job.

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea. The support’s not there. I’m glad they’re getting it out of the way, but waiting another week just keeps it in the press,’ Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said on Wednesday.

Burchett spoke with Fox News Digital hours after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., announced she would force a House-wide vote on ousting Johnson, R-La., sometime next week via a procedural move known as a motion to vacate the chair. 

She filed her resolution in late March, but she is expected to note it as ‘privileged’ next week – meaning House leaders will have two legislative days to either call a vote on the measure itself or first try to kill it via a vote to table the resolution.

However, beyond finding impassioned support in Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., Greene’s push has mostly fallen flat within the House GOP. That includes the seven remaining House Republicans out of the original eight who voted with Democrats to boot McCarthy, R-Calif., in early October.

When asked what was different about the situation now, Burchett told reporters the rebels were ‘100% sure that we’d put a Republican in.’

‘You’ve got Republicans in districts [where] Democrats won the White House by 15 points. So in an election year, anything can happen,’ he said.

Additionally, while nearly all the rebels expressed disappointment in their belief that Johnson has not fought hard enough for House GOP priorities since winning the gavel in late October, most were hesitant to say if they wanted to go through another midterm speaker election – while others outright rejected the idea.

‘I don’t support the motion to vacate. I’m still recovering from the first one,’ Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C. told Fox News Digital on Monday.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who spearheaded McCarthy’s ouster, said, ‘I’ll probably support a motion to table it.’

When asked what he thought of Greene announcing she would force the vote next week, Gaetz told Fox News Digital, ‘I think everybody’s got the weekend to think about it.’

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good, R-Va., indicated last month that he wanted a new House GOP leader but pointed out that Republicans had a thinner majority than when he and the others forced out McCarthy. He has not indicated anything about changing his position since.

‘I think there’s a lot of dissatisfaction within the Republican Party. I think the speaker guarantees himself that there will be a contest for the speaker, I hope, in November. I think that’s the wise course when you’re sitting at a 216 to 213 margin,’ Good told reporters.

Similarly, both Reps. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., and Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., expressed displeasure with Johnson’s leadership but told CNN and The Hill respectively that a Johnson ouster is not likely right now.

Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., who is retiring at the end of this year, would not give reporters an indication of his thinking earlier this week.

‘It’s my understanding that even if she tries to move it, we’ve got, I don’t know, 48 hours to figure out what’s going to happen,’ Rosendale said. ‘So I guess I have plenty of time to think about it.’

When asked about their lukewarm reception to her push, Greene told Fox News Digital, ‘I think that’s the question you’ll have to ask them.’

‘But if they stand by the words and the statements that they made when they voted to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership after he basically did nothing wrong, I would think that they would be the first ones running to vote to vacate Mike Johnson,’ Greene said.

In comments to reporters alongside Greene, however, Massie said early on Wednesday evening that he anticipates more GOP support next week.

‘I’ll go out on a limb and predict there’ll be enough votes to show that Mike Johnson can’t be elected speaker in January because although he can get Democrat votes on a motion to table, it’s not a motion to table vote on January 3rd,’ Massie said, referring to closed-door House GOP leadership elections.

Both Massie and Greene were emphatically against toppling McCarthy last year.

The eighth Republican who voted to oust McCarthy, former Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., left the House in March before the end of his term.

A 2020 social media post by then-presidential candidate Joe Biden blaming then-President Donald Trump for violence in the U.S. is drawing renewed criticism after violence has erupted on college campuses nationwide stemming from anti-Israel protests.

‘Remember: every example of violence Donald Trump decries has happened on his watch,’ Biden posted on Twitter, now known as X, in August 2020. ‘Under his leadership. During his presidency.’

Social media users have looked back on that post in recent days, given the increased violence and arrests being made as anti-Israel activists have caused chaos on over a dozen college campuses in recent weeks. 

‘It’s now the year 2024, three full years into Joe Biden’s presidency and Jewish students are being blocked from their college campuses, and being told to stay home and remote learn,’ conservative political commentator Stephen Miller recently posted on X.

‘Is this the soul of the nation healed?’

‘Joe Biden has looked the other way as Democrat foot soldiers hijack universities across America,’ Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe told Fox News Digital. ‘He’s more concerned about winning votes in Dearborn, Michigan, than condemning the 20-year-olds cheering for intifada.’

Former White House press secretary and Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer told Fox News Digital that President Biden ‘would be well served by reading his old tweets and taking action.’

‘There are antisemitic uprisings on campuses across the country, and all Joe Biden can do is passively sit there and hope they go away,’ Fleischer said. ‘He’s shown no leadership, despite this being far worse than the two-day Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville.’

David Avella, chairman of GOPAC and a veteran Republican strategist, told Fox News Digital that polling shows Americans feel less safe after three years of Biden.

‘Gallup reported more than 75% of Americans believe there’s more crime in the country than there was in 2022,’ Avella said. 

‘Whether Biden’s statements condemning violence are hollow have less impact on his re-election than the fact that Americans feel less safe. Forty percent of Americans said they were afraid to walk alone at night within a mile of their home,’ Avella continued. ‘The last time we were at this level was 1993. In the next election, President Clinton was at 46% approval and Republicans gained 54 seats in the House of Representatives, and gained eight seats in the Senate. President Biden is at 39% approval and Americans are watching violence occur every day.’

Conservatives on social media have recently resurfaced other posts from Biden during the summer of 2020, including a post where he said, ‘Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response.

President Biden respects the right to free expression, but protests must be peaceful and lawful,’ White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said Tuesday in a statement. ‘Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful — it is wrong. And hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America.’

Israel’s recent retaliatory strike inside Iran, in response to Tehran’s unprecedented missile and drone assault on Israel proper the weekend before, was a brilliant work of what practitioners of intelligence statecraft call ‘strategic signaling.’

The message delivered to the ayatollahs on April 19 by the Jewish state was so daring, direct and unequivocal that it will likely compel Iran to abandon its new bold tactics of direct kinetic warfare. Jerusalem has enforced its red lines with Iran, making a successful kinetic counterattack by Iran inside Israel unlikely. Here’s why. 

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has demonstrated to the Iranian regime that its skillfulness at bombastic rhetoric and ability to gin up anti-Israel fervor among various groups across the globe doesn’t compensate for its military’s ineptness at conventional warfare. 

There was a lot of drama unfolding in multiple corners of the world, with the usual theatrics coming out of Tehran. The Iranian Parliament’s National Security Committee spokesman Abolfazl Amoue warned a day before Israel’s retaliation that Iran will use ‘weapons that we have never used’ to attack Israel. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi threatened a ‘painful and severe’ response if Israel takes even the ‘slightest action.’  

Doubling down on these warnings, Raisi, speaking at Iran’s annual army parade, issued a threat to launch a ‘massive and harsh’ retaliation if Israel launches even a ‘tiniest attack.’ And Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani vowed that the speed of response from Iran, if Israel strikes back, ‘will be less than a few seconds.’

The usual anti-Israel suspects were ratcheting up fear-mongering rhetoric, in an attempt to put pressure on Israel simply to ‘eat’ the provocative Iranian attack, in order to avoid further escalation. ‘The Middle East is on the brink,’ U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told a Security Council meeting in response to the Iranian strikes. ‘The people of the region are confronting a real danger of a devastating full-scale conflict,’ he said, calling for maximum restraint. 

Russia’s Vladimir Putin warned against a ‘new round of confrontation fraught with catastrophic consequences for the entire region.’ Media outlets across the world ran headlines that evoked fears of open warfare breaking out between Israel and Iran, dangers of conflict escalation into a regional war that could drag the United States in. 

Following Raisi’s telephone call with Putin on April 17, fear spread from the doomsayers to the international ‘expert’ class. U.S., European and Middle Eastern intelligence officials and weapons experts privately expressed concerns, according to major U.S. media outlets, about Russia’s pledge to supply Iran with advanced fighter jets and air defense technology that are capable of destroying stealth fighter jets operated by the U.S. and Israel. Even President Biden reportedly urged Prime Minister Netanyahu to ‘take the win’ after Israel and its allies intercepted most of the missiles launched during Iran’s attack.

And then came the Israeli counterstrike. Kinetic. Precise, yet calibrated, using measured force. Stealth technology was likely used in what appeared to be a covert action, combining conventional warfare and special operations. The ayatollahs didn’t know what hit them. 

The Israeli strike took out Iranian air-defense missile batteries in Ishafan, rendering them inoperable. The choice of target – located near the Natanz enrichment facility that is critical to Tehran’s nuclear program – was deliberate.

The Israelis went after the very systems that are designed to prevent such attacks. It was, in Western military strategy parlance, a shot across the bow. And the message to Iran was clear – knock it off, or we will decimate the very crown jewel of your war-fighting machine – the nearly operational nuclear capability. Iran has playedits nuclear card as a psychological weapon to intimidate the region and the West and, most importantly, to manipulate Washington into giving the regime billions of dollars and other concessions.

Compare Israel’s limited albeit strategically commanding strike with that of Iranian airstrikes on Israel on April 13. Out of about 320 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, only 1% made it through combined Israeli, American, Jordanian and Saudi air defenses. The IDF’s spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, called it ‘a very significant strategic success,’ and it was 99% ineffective for Iran. It was a vivid display of impotence of the Iranian combat force.

It is no wonder that Tehran played down the Israeli counterstrike and almost immediately declared that it has no plans to respond. Shortly after Israel’s limited but highly effective strike, the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, speaking in New York, where he was attending a U.N. Security Council session, stated that Iran would not escalate conflict. He belittled Israeli weapons as ‘toys that our children play with’ without acknowledging that the attacks came from Israel. 

Iran is considered by the U.S. intelligence community to be one of the top four threats to the United States. The other three are China, Russia and North Korea. The 2024 Annual Threat assessment issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, characterized Iran’s ‘hybrid approach to warfare – using both conventional and unconventional capabilities’ – as posing a ‘threat to U.S. interests in the region for the foreseeable future.’ The report also noted that Iran’s ballistic missile programs have the largest inventory in the region, and highlighted that Tehran is putting emphasis on improving the accuracy, lethality and reliability of its missiles. 

While the threat posed by Iran cannot be underestimated, it is more of an asymmetric rather than conventional nature. For instance, Tehran has been developing clandestine networks inside the United States for more than a decade, with the goal of kidnapping, assassinating and otherwise harming high-level government officials and law enforcement and security personnel. The Iranian regime is now agitating the anti-Israel movement that is raging at universities across America.

But when it comes to conventional warfare, Israel clearly has demonstrated to the world that the Iranian military is not a match for it, and certainly not for the U.S. military.

: Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., led a bipartisan group in introducing a bill to fortify Taiwan and its supply chain as it continues to face military threats from China, which has made no secret of its plan to facilitate a reunification with the island.

On Thursday, the bipartisan Transpacific Allies Investing in Weapons to Advance National (TAIWAN) Security Act was introduced by Rosen and Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska. They were joined by Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., Rick Scott, R-Fla., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.

‘As China ramps up its military buildup and aggression towards Taiwan, we must not only ensure our strength, but also bolster the strength of our democratic ally, Taiwan,’ Rosen told Fox News Digital in a statement. ‘I’m proud to lead a bipartisan, bicameral bill to deepen the United States’ defense ties with Taiwan, enhance supply chain resilience, and help increase Taiwan’s military readiness.’

The goal of the measure is to strengthen ties between the U.S. and Taiwan while also preemptively addressing any supply chain and readiness challenges it may face. Specifically, Rosen and Sullivan’s bill would require Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to ‘appropriately consider’ enhanced defense industrial base cooperation between the U.S. and Taiwan.

The bill is also bicameral, with a House version introduced by Reps. Michelle Steel, R-Calif., and Steven Horsford, D-Nev.

‘It is no secret that Communist China’s evil dictator, [President] Xi Jinping, is planning to invade Taiwan and continue his attacks against democracy in a quest for world domination,’ Scott said in his own statement on the bill. 

He emphasized that the U.S. ‘cannot sit back and let this happen, and that starts with supporting our peaceful and democratic ally Taiwan and its military.’

After months of disagreement between Democrats and Republicans within the upper and lower chambers, a $95 billion foreign aid supplemental package was passed and signed into law by President Biden to support Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.

The package included $8 billion to strengthen Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific against Chinese threats.

China spoke out against the foreign aid passage, promising to take ‘resolute and forceful steps’ to defend itself. 

According to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Monday, ‘This package gravely infringes upon China’s sovereignty.’

Jian accused the U.S. of violating the ‘One China’ principle by providing military aid to Taiwan, which it contends is part of its territory.

He further suggested the package emboldens ‘Taiwan independence separatist forces’ on the island.

An admiral in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command recently testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, telling members that China is preparing with ‘aggressive military buildup’ to be ‘ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.’

Six months after Jewish groups warned the Biden administration that antisemitism in the United States is worse than it has ever been, Jewish leaders and a Middle East expert told Fox News Digital that things have only gotten worse and offered insight into what more needs to be done.

‘In the past 6 months, antisemitism has definitely gotten worse,’ Archie Gottesman, co-founder of JewBelong, told Fox News Digital this week. Gottesman’s reaction comes six months after several prominent Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, met with Biden’s Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to express the belief that they’ve ‘never seen’ this much antisemitism in the U.S.

‘College campuses are hosting violent protests, and they are continuing to grow in number,’ Gottesman added. ‘Those of us watching closely know that the violence is going to continue to escalate– like it just did on Columbia’s campus last night– and that many of the students don’t even know what they are protesting about.  The faculty members that are joining them should be ashamed of how poorly they are representing once-revered institutions.’

Gottesman told Fox News Digital that the Biden administration can and should do more, including deploying the National Guard to college campuses facing lawlessness from anti-Israel groups.

‘President Biden has the authority to call in the national guard yet he hasn’t,’ Gottesman said.  

‘Can you imagine if these protests were against either people of color or LGBTQ+ people? The administration needs to start by showing some real leadership. Even just meeting with university presidents, offering assistance to universities that need help ensuring the safety of Jewish students, and helping to draw a line against all-out anarchy. Many of the trustees of these universities have a direct line to Biden and vice-versa. They could end this quickly if they worked together.’

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told Fox News Digital that antisemitism ‘has gotten worse’ over the last 6 months ‘especially on U.S. college campuses.’

‘This is the culmination of wrong policies by the Biden administration, since it first put antisemitism on equal footing with so-called Islamophobia, and even made CAIR sit on the White House’s antisemitism committee,’ Abdul-Hussain explained.’

 ‘Since October 7, pro-Hamas groups have taken President Biden’s measurements and noticed how he softened his position after the non-committed vote in Michigan. As a result, Students for Justice Palestine (SJP), a shadowy network founded and run by Islamists, started its antisemitism campaign on college campuses.’

Abdul-Hussain added that the Biden administration ‘should have seen it coming.’

‘If you give a mischievous kid milk, he’ll come back asking for cookies,’ Abdul-Hussain said. 

‘This is exactly what SJP did. They believed that Biden was prone to pressure and went ahead and cranked it up a few notches. The result was students, masked with Palestinian Kufiyyah, breaking doors and windows and taking over one or more university buildings across the country. The result was also more antisemitism and less safety for Jewish Americans, students as well as the general population.’

Brooke Goldstein, human rights attorney and executive director of The Lawfare Project, told Fox News Digital, ‘Law enforcement must be empowered to deal with this threat immediately. Our elected representatives owe us a duty to protect us against this type of radicalization and extremism, but thus far they have turned a blind eye to on our college campuses. And we can now clearly see the results of this.’

‘Our elected officials have either benefitted from, or turned a blind eye to, the billions of dollars of dark money from Qatar that contribute to teaching American students to hate America, hate democracy, hate Jews, and hate Israel,’ Goldstein continued. ‘They have ignored the dozens of complaints filed with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights over the last 4 years, one of which, filed by The Lawfare Project four years ago against Columbia University, has still not been investigated.’

‘There must be congressional hearings – with subpoena – immediately, to follow the money and get to the bottom of how millions of dollars are being spent by foreign state actors to destabilize this country. This has nothing to do with Israel-Palestine, which is a decoy. It has everything to do with destroying America from within.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Cardona’s office but did not receive a response.

Cardona was grilled on Capitol Hill on Tuesday regarding his efforts to combat antisemitism and on whether he would expedite Title VI investigations to possibly pull federal funding from universities riled with antisemitic protests. 

During a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing dedicated to discussing the president’s fiscal year 2025 budget request for the U.S. Department of Education, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W. Va., hammered Cardona on how Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination of race, color or national origin in programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. 

Asserting that ‘no student should feel unsafe on campus,’ the senator cited how ‘just last week, Columbia University had to move classes online, and Jewish students were told by a campus rabbi to go home because it was no longer safe for them on their campus’ and ‘late last night, protesters took over Hamilton Hall on campus, and the university is locked down today with access limited to only residential students.’

‘This is just totally unacceptable. So, Secretary Cardona, do you believe what is happening to Jewish students at Columbia and other colleges and universities across this country is okay?’ Capito demanded. 

‘Absolutely not. I think what’s happening on our campuses is abhorrent,’ Cardona said. ‘Hate has no place on our campuses. And I’m very concerned with the reports of antisemitism. I’ve spoken to Jewish students who have feared going to class as a result of some of the harassment that they’re facing on campuses. It’s unacceptable, and we’re committed as a Department of Education to adhering to Title VI enforcement.’

Cardona said the Department of Education has 137 open cases of possible Title VI enforcement violations – including at Columbia University – and has ‘increased the number of communications to college campuses to make sure that they have what they need in terms of the law and best practices on how to make sure they’re protecting students.’ 

‘This is why in our budget we’re proposing a $22 million increase to increase the number of investigators so we can move on those investigations that are open. And ultimately, if a school refuses to comply with Title VI, yes, we would remove federal dollars,’ he told lawmakers. 

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

The judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s ongoing New York City trial is taking heat from a rare coalition formed to jointly condemn his ‘dangerous’ gag order ruling that it says ‘poses a dire threat to our democracy.’

The group, made up mostly of prominent Republican candidates running in battleground states crucial to flipping the Senate red in November, includes Pennsylvania’s Dave McCormick, Wisconsin’s Eric Hovde, Ohio’s Bernie Moreno, Michigan’s Mike Rogers, Arizona’s Kari Lake, Indiana’s Jim Banks, Nevada’s Sam Brown, Montana’s Tim Sheehy and West Virginia’s Jim Justice.

All signed onto a joint statement condemning Judge Juan Merchan’s imposition of the ‘unconstitutional’ gag order, which Trump himself has called ‘election interference.’

‘We have deep concerns regarding the gag order imposed on President Trump, as it fundamentally violates constitutional principles and threatens the very essence of freedom of speech and expression in the middle of an election,’ the group said.

‘The First Amendment of the United States Constitution explicitly guarantees the right to freedom of speech, stating that ‘Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.’ This fundamental right is not contingent upon one’s political affiliation or position of power,’ they said.

The group went on to say that ‘any attempt to silence or restrict the speech of a candidate for president undermines the core values upon which our democracy is built,’ and it set a ‘dangerous precedent’ for presidents and other elected officials in the future.

‘If we allow such actions to go unchecked, it opens the door for authoritarian tendencies to flourish, where those in power can suppress dissenting voices and control the narrative to serve their own interests. Make no mistake: Silencing a candidate for public office, under the threat of imprisonment, poses a dire threat to our democracy,’ they said.

The group added that the gag order also affected the American public by inhibiting their ‘right to information and transparency,’ and that they ‘have a right to be informed about the actions and statements of their elected leaders.’

‘In conclusion, the gag order imposed on President Trump is a clear violation of the First Amendment and represents a dangerous encroachment on the fundamental rights that form the bedrock of our democracy. America must stand firm in defense of these principles and resist any attempts to undermine them, regardless of political affiliations or personal opinions,’ they said.

Merchan imposed the gag order on Trump before his trial began last month, ordering that the former president cannot make or direct others to make public statements about witnesses with regard to their potential participation or about counsel in the case — other than Bragg — or about court staff, DA staff or family members of staff. He also ordered that Trump cannot make or direct others to make public statements about any prospective juror or chosen juror.

In his ruling, Merchan pointed to Trump’s ‘prior extrajudicial statements,’ saying they establish ‘a sufficient risk to the administration of justice.’ 

Merchan ruled Tuesday that Trump violated the gag order banning him from speaking publicly about witnesses and family members of court officials. He specifically ruled Trump violated the order on nine separate occasions in social media posts, with each violation resulting in a $1,000 fine. The former president was ordered to pay $9,000 for violating the gag order. 

Following Merchan’s ruling, Trump removed the social media posts found in violation of the order from his Truth Social account. The ruling comes after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office accused Trump of violating the order 14 times since it was imposed last month.

Trump has repeatedly railed against the gag order, calling the case overall a ‘scam’ promoted by the Biden administration and saying the gag order has stripped him of the ability to defend himself against accusations in the case.

Fox News’ Emma Colton and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.