The war between Russia and Ukraine rages on. 

A Russian military transport plane crashed in an area north of the border. Russia claimed Ukrainian missiles shot it down with 74 passengers on board, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war. No confirmation of that.

This comes as Russia continues to pound cities across Ukraine with ballistic, cruise and guided missiles, killing dozens, injuring more and destroying residential areas. 

Russian artillery pounds away along a 600-mile front line, firing up to 10 times as many shells as the Ukrainian military.

This threat from Moscow prompted NATO to stage its biggest military exercise in Europe since the Cold War, dubbed ‘Steadfast Defender 24.’ Starting this week, 90,000 troops, 1,100 tanks and other combat vehicles, 130 jets and ships will be in action.

The exercise aimed at getting U.S. forces to Europe. A U.S. Navy dock landing ship kicked off the drill with its departure from Norfolk, Virginia.   

Once all the forces and hardware are gathered in Europe, NATO will rehearse, at least, fending off Russia from targeting a member country.

Supreme Allied Commander General Christopher Cavoli called the war games ‘a clear demonstration of our unity, our strength, and our determination to protect each other.’

Strategic expert Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute told Fox News that he was ‘glad to see NATO doing this exercise’, calling it ‘important for us to recognize the degree to which Russia threatens NATO.’

The Kremlin is defiant about NATO’s challenge. Spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, called the activity of NATO near its borders ‘provocative,’ declaring it ‘will not remain without an appropriate reaction from Moscow.’

As Russian sabre-rattling grows, Moscow officials have now rejected a Biden administration offer made last year to resume nuclear arms control talks as long as the U.S. supports Ukraine.

Embattled Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelenskyy, who has seen Russian aggression up close for nearly two years of full-fledged war, has emphasized the bigger stakes of this all. ‘If anyone thinks this is only about us, only about Ukraine,’ he said recently, ‘they are mistaken.’

The massive NATO exercise is happening as billions of dollars of U.S. military aid remains held up on Capitol Hill.

According to analyst Fred Kagan, all this is more ammunition for Russian President Vladimir Putin to strengthen his fight with the West.

‘It’s fueling Putin,’ he told us, ‘It’s encouraging him to think more broadly about the U.S. and our willingness to resist him at all.’

As NATO troops and armor get set to assemble across Europe, Military Committee Chairman Admiral Rob Bauer had an even more chilling assessment, saying the alliance is facing, ‘the most dangerous world in decades.’

The exercises are set to last until the end of May.

Hunter Biden’s business associate involved in his dealings with Chinese energy company CEFC is expected to appear for a closed-door transcribed interview Thursday morning before the House Oversight and Judiciary committees.

Mervyn Yan, who worked with the first son on deals with Chinese energy company CEFC, was subpoenaed last November to appear as part of the House impeachment inquiry against President Biden.

He is expected to appear at 10 a.m. on Capitol Hill.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan notified Yan of his subpoena and explained the reason for compelling his appearance.

‘President Biden has received money originating from China via James and Hunter Biden, individuals with whom your client has previously engaged in business,’ Comer and Jordan wrote to Yan’s attorney. ‘James Biden maintained a business relationship with Hunter Biden, and the two engaged in several business deals, including a deal with Chinese energy company CEFC China Energy (CEFC), which is closely ties to the Chinese Communist Party through its founder, Chairman Ye Jianming.’

Fox News Digital first reported on the funds transferred to Joe Biden in November.

Comer said the ‘money trail’ began in July 2017 when Hunter Biden demanded a $10 million payment from a CEFC associate. In a WhatsApp message, Hunter Biden ‘was sitting with his father and that the Biden network would turn on his associate if he didn’t pony up the money,’ Comer said.

Hunter Biden in the WhatsApp message allegedly told a Chinese business associate from Chinese energy company CEFC that he and his father would ensure ‘you will regret not following my direction.’

Hunter requested the $10 million wire for his joint-venture with CEFC called SinoHawk Holdings. 

‘I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,’ Hunter Biden told Henry Zhao, the director of Chinese asset management firm Harvest Fund Management. ‘And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.’

Zhao responded, in part, ‘CEFC is willing to cooperate with the family.’

The Oversight Committee then obtained bank records that showed on Aug. 8, 2017, the $5 million in funds were sent to Hudson West III, a joint venture established by Hunter Biden and CEFC associate Gongwen Dong. The same day, Hudson West III sent $400,000 to Owasco PC — a separate entity controlled and owned by Hunter Biden, Comer said.

Days later, on Aug. 14, 2017, the records show Hunter Biden wired $150,000 to Lion Hall Group, a company owned by James Biden and his wife, Sara Biden. By Aug. 28, 2017, Comer said Sara Biden withdrew $50,000 in cash from Lion Hall Group and later deposited it into her and James Biden’s personal checking account.

Sara Biden wrote a check to Joe Biden a few days later for $40,000, with a memo line of the check reading ‘loan repayment.’

While President Biden has maintained he was never in business with his son, text messages obtained by Fox News Digital in 2020 revealed that in May 2017 he met with Hunter’s business associates for the Sinohawk venture, specifically Tony Bobulinski. The meeting on May 2, 2017, would have taken place just 11 days before a May 13, 2017, email obtained by Fox News in 2020 that included a discussion of ‘remuneration packages’ for six people in the business deal with CEFC.

The email includes a note that ‘Hunter has some office expectations he will elaborate.’ A proposed equity split references ’20’ for ‘H’ and ’10 held by H for the big guy?’ with no further details.

The ‘big guy’ has been said to be a reference to President Biden. 

Also, Fox News Digital in December 2020 reported that Hunter Biden, his CEFC associate, Gongwen Dong, and Joe Biden shared office space in Washington, D.C., in September 2017.

Meanwhile, Comer and Jordan, in demanding Yan’s testimony, said they expect he will ‘provide evidence that is relevant to the impeachment inquiry,’ specifically related to his ‘knowledge of how James Biden and Hunter Biden operated their businesses and structured their financial transactions, and your client may also know whether and how President Biden has been involved in his family’s business dealings.’

Comer and Jordan also said Yan could be in a position to provide information on whether Joe Biden, as vice president or as president, ‘took any official action or effected any change in government policy because of money or other things of value provided to himself or his family, including whether concerns that Chinese sources may release additional evidence about their business relationships with the Biden family have had any impact on official acts performed by President Biden or U.S. foreign policy.’

They also said he may provide evidence of whether Joe Biden ‘abused his office of public trust by providing foreign interests with access to him and his office in exchange for payments to his family or him’ or ‘abused his office of public trust by knowingly participating in a scheme to enrich himself or his family by giving foreign interests the impression that they would receive access to him and his office in exchange for payments to his family or him.’

Yan’s transcribed interview is expected to take place a day before Hunter Biden business associate Rob Walker appears for testimony and weeks before Hunter Biden appears for his deposition.

Biden defied his subpoena to appear for a deposition on Dec. 13 and was at risk of being held in contempt of Congress.

His attorneys and the committees came to an agreement last week that the first son will appear for a closed-door deposition on Feb. 28.

Despite Gov. Ron DeSantis’ departure from the presidential race ahead of the New Hampshire primary, political experts agree the Florida governor likely isn’t done pursuing high-profile political office.

‘My own personal assessment is that he’s got three years left as governor of the third-largest state in the country, and that’s a pretty, pretty awesome place to be to drive conservative change,’ Justin Sayfie, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s spokesman and a top policy adviser, told Fox News Digital. ‘I expect him to focus on governing and governing with his unique conservative populist style.’

DeSantis announced the end to his campaign Sunday afternoon in a video posted to his X account, while also throwing his support behind former President Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner in the race to the White House. 

‘If there was anything I could do to produce a favorable outcome — more campaign stops, more interviews — I would do it,’ DeSantis said in the Sunday video announcement. ‘But I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don’t have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign.’

‘It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,’ he said. ‘He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.’

DeSantis launched his presidential bid in May after his emergence as a celebrated Republican governor during the pandemic, when he reopened schools and businesses while other states shuttered under stay-at-home orders and strict social distancing measures. 

The Florida Republican began his bid for the White House polling strongly against Trump in national and early state polls, but the support soon waned as the 45th president unleashed attack ads against DeSantis. 

‘Trump’s barrage of attacks was the beginning of the end of DeSantis,’ veteran New Hampshire-based Republican strategist Michael Dennehy previously told Fox News Digital, adding DeSantis ‘just didn’t have the charisma to connect with voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.’

DeSantis’ campaign was also mired in campaign finance hiccups and woes. The Florida governor’s campaign was bolstered by support from super PAC Never Back Down, which had promised $200 million for the campaign, but headlines in recent months were dominated by reports of in-fighting between the super PAC’s board and the campaign, with several high-profile super PAC leaders quitting.

‘His presidential campaign did not go as he and his supporters had hoped. There were so many problems — rookie mistakes, a poor start — and he just wasn’t particularly good on his feet,’ GOP pollster Whit Ayres of North Star Opinion Research told Fox News Digital. 

Ayres said DeSantis, 45, could make a run for the Senate in the future but likely only if a seat should open up. 

‘If a Senate seat should open up, which right now doesn’t look like it will happen, you never know. I can’t see him primarying Marco Rubio or Rick Scott. At this point, you kind of need to wait for another opportunity to open up. He’s young,’ he added. 

Sayfie, who noted he doesn’t have direct information from the DeSantis camp, said any hiccups in the campaign were a learning moment for the Florida governor, who would likely employ those lessons in a potential future run for political office. 

‘Every candidate and every campaign finishes the campaign much smarter and much wiser than they did the beginning of the campaign. … The experience that he’s gained by running for president this year will serve him well should you ever decide to run again,’ he said. 

Sayfie said it wouldn’t come as a surprise if DeSantis made another run for the White House, pointing to the GOP’s history of nominating candidates who had previously performed well in presidential campaigns. 

‘The Republican Party has a tradition of nominating candidates who have won previously and have done well in previous presidential campaigns. Mitt Romney didn’t win in 2008, but he became the nominee in 2012. And there are other examples. Bob Dole, running and then finally becoming the nominee in 1996. So, based on that historical precedent, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Gov. DeSantis run for president again,’ he said. 

DeSantis assumed his gubernatorial office in 2019 before winning re-election in 2022. He will serve as the Sunshine State’s governor until 2027, which aligns nicely with the 2028 presidential election, Sayfie said. 

‘If he finishes his term as governor strong, and if he wanted to run for president, that would propel him into a solid run in ‘27 and ’28. The experience of having campaigns in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina, those are three really important states,’ he said.

After Trump won the Iowa caucuses, the 45th president won the New Hampshire primary against former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley Tuesday. Haley said after the New Hampshire results ‘the race is far from over,’ and she is heading back to her home state of South Carolina to gear up for its Feb. 24 primary.

Trump told Fox Digital in an exclusive interview shortly after New Hampshire was called he is ‘very honored by the results’ and said Haley ‘should’ drop out of the race so his campaign can focus on defeating President Biden in the general election. 

Trump said he is ‘looking forward to going against the worst president in the history of our country.’

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has been in talks with former President Trump about the issue of school choice and parental rights, he told Fox News Digital in an interview Wednesday night. 

Tuberville said the former president ‘understands’ how big of an issue school choice for parents will be in this year’s presidential election as public schools continue to ‘fail’ students, despite the U.S. spending more money per student than most countries in the world.

‘I’ve talked to President Trump about it, and I think it should be a big focal point in the election,’ Tuberville said.

‘He knows it, and that it’ll be a big factor,’ he continued. ‘And I think parents resonate with that. The last thing I told the parents was: Voices need to be heard. And this needs to be spread, it can’t be a dozen parents, and it’s got to be parents all over the country.’

Tuberville, the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Children and Families, hosted a roundtable Wednesday afternoon with GOP Sens. Katie Britt of Alabama, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Ted Budd of North Carolina and Eric Schmitt of Missouri, along with a dozen parents from across the country.

Topics like ethnic studies and critical race theory (CRT), boys and girls sports, and how test scores have plummeted after the COVID-19 pandemic were discussed during the roundtable that also marked National School Choice Week.

School choice, which provides all families with alternatives to the public schools for which they’re zoned, can be expanded through multiple avenues at the state level, including school voucher programs, tax-credit scholarship programs, individual tuition tax credit programs and deductions, and education savings accounts. These programs can be limited to certain households based on an income threshold or other factors, or they can be expanded universally to all children.

Tuberville said that despite significant federal funding for public schools, it ‘goes into buildings and teachers’ unions’ but not into ‘the minds of the students.’ According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the 2019-2020 school year, the U.S. spent $870 billion on public elementary and secondary schools.

‘Basically, this is about parents in charge of their kids,’ Tuberville said. ‘We’re not teaching reading, science and history as much as we should be. They’re more concerned about a social justice agenda in the school.’

One of the attendees, Sonja Shaw, the president of Chino Valley Unified School Board in Southern California and a mother of three, agreed that school choice will be a big ballot issue for parents casting a vote this year.

‘I do because CRT is still a huge issue, and this ties into CRT, it’s just packaged differently,’ Shaw told Fox News Digital. ‘I think the more awareness that we bring, it’s going to bring light, and then just like you’ve seen with parental rights, I just think it’s a matter of parents exposing it.’

California became a battleground state for parental rights and school choice issues in local politics last year. Shaw said this is because California is the blue ‘pilot’ for what other state school programs will inevitably follow. 

‘Whatever’s in California, they’re going to put it everywhere else, it’s just a matter of time,’ she said. 

One of the biggest issues that swept several school boards across the Golden State last year was the parental notification policy that requires schools to disclose to parents if their child identifies as transgender. Shaw’s district was one of the few to implement the policy, and they received backlash from the governor’s office for it.

Following Chino Valley’s adoption of the policy, California Attorney General Rob Bonta launched an investigation into the district for ‘potential legal violations.’ Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom also threatened to sue another Southern California school district for refusing to teach a social studies course that included controversial gay rights activist Harvey Milk.

However, it’s not just California in the education fight. Dozens of bills have been introduced in other states — including Arizona, Indiana, Arkansas and others — to establish stronger parental rights policies in public schools.

Popularity for school choice is also on the rise. According to ACE Scholarships, a nonprofit committed to helping parents access better education options for their school-age children through private school partnerships, a record 14,090 scholarships were awarded to K-12 children across the country through its program for the 2023-2024 school year.

Recently, Republican governors made significant inroads in pushing universal school choice legislation, which did not exist anywhere in the country a few years ago.

Nine states have enacted universal school choice, with state Republicans leading the effort.

Trump routinely touted school choice during his presidency, once calling it the civil rights issue of ‘all-time in this country,’ and he signed an executive order on Expanding Educational Opportunity Through School Choice toward the end of his term.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

Fox News’ Brandon Gillespie and Joshua Q. Nelson contributed to this report.

Concerns about AI interfering with the 2024 elections are well-founded, yet not unprecedented in recent history. In 1975, the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA foreshadowed today’s AI concerns. 

Asilomar set the precedent on how to respond to changes in scientific knowledge. According to conference organizers, biochemist Paul Berg and molecular biologist Maxine Singer, the proper response to new scientific knowledge was to develop guidelines that governed how to regulate it. 

They were as wrong as those asking for AI regulation. The solution is not to be found through regulation, but by debunking the premise of processing immense sets of data at the cost of sustainability. Brute force computation sold as intelligence is a fraud!

The challenges of AI and the 2024 elections are ethical. Not regulatory. We’ve made a Faustian bargain for AI, and its impact will irreversibly affect the future of humankind if we do not challenge the science behind it. 

We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, hence the need to understand how to mitigate the potential dangers to society and our democratic system implicit in the deterministic foundation of AI. 

It is not only the past, represented by data processed in AI that is the cause of our actions, but rather the possible future, of choices we make in a responsible manner, that matter. 

AI doesn’t care who wins the presidential election. It solves a mathematical problem. Not long ago, Kenneth Arrow got a Nobel Prize for showing how elections can be manipulated. 

In some AI learning-based processing in which an immense quantity of numbers is used, the purpose is to engineer the behavior of the 10-12% of the voting population that never previously appeared on the radar of elections. This is a political gold mine that’s waiting to be exploited. 

Is it ethical to conceive behavioral engineering? Never mind if this is or is not a legal tool. 

Our political system, already subject to cannibalism, is undermined by replacing human judgment with machine inferences. We need to understand that mechanistic technology has no anticipatory dimension. There is no ethic in using a hammer – it does not distinguish between a nail and someone’s head. 

The automated hammer is actually a gun. It is automated know how to the exclusion of know why. The automated abacus – called a computer – is exceptionally good at processing data, but with zero know why capabilities. It has no sense of right and wrong, and no conscience.

Indeed, the Turing machine, based upon which everything computational exists, knows only the limits of physics – expressed as volume of data, speed of processing and cost (energy used). The human aspect, represented by the meaning of data, is entirely absent. 

Progress at any cost based on data processing spells destruction unless we rein it in.  The Asilomar Conference is living proof. Participants, aware of how dangerous gene manipulation could be, were looking for guardrails. 

Change of function of the COVID recent memory might ring a bell as we talk about AI today. Also, remember the genome hysteria: All diseases will be cured! Today the promise is that AI will make medicine better. But then, the reality: More disease was artificially produced. 

AI is already making medicine more expensive but not necessarily more effective. AI regulation is of the same nature as what Asilomar endorsed. It is enthusiastically supported by those who want to secure their advanced positions. But it will not prevent aberrant applications. 

What we need is a scientific foundation that does not reduce behavior to the physics and chemistry of matter. So far we have failed to do so. This is reflected in the increased pathological, delusional nature of human life in the 21st century. 

I hope we can wake up and choose the right path. The clarion call to disrupt science is not optional but an existential imperative.

Military and defense officials from the U.S. and Iraq are expected to continue talks on the future of U.S. military presence in Iraq in the coming weeks, a U.S. official tells Fox News. The Defense Department is expected to announce the resumed talks later this week, the official said. 

The U.S. currently has about 2,500 troops in Iraq for the Defeat ISIS mission. These troops are stationed at several bases throughout the country and have come under more than 60 attacks from Iranian proxy groups in Iraq since October 17. The U.S. has carried out several strikes targeting these Iranian-proxy groups, including airstrikes on Tuesday, targeting two Kataib Hezbollah headquarters buildings and an intelligence facility, according to a U.S. defense official. 

The strikes have put pressure on the government of Iraq to question the U.S. presence in the region. On January 4th, the U.S. killed a militia leader in Baghdad who helped carry out several of these attacks on U.S. forces. According to U.S. Central Command, the U.S. drone strike on January 4th targeted and killed Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al Jawari. He was a leader of Iranian-proxy group Harakat al Nujaba and was involved in planning and carrying out attacks against U.S. service members in Iraq.

This specific strike is in part what led the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani to call for the U.S. to withdraw its troops from the country just a day later on January 5th. 

‘We are in the process of setting a date to begin a dialogue through a tripartite committee that was formed to determine arrangements to end this presence. This is a commitment which the government will not back down from and will not neglect any matter that completes national sovereignty over land, sky, and waters of our dear Iraq,’ Al-Sudani said. 

Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters in a Defense Department briefing on January 4th shortly after the militia leader was killed by the U.S. strike, ‘Our focus is going to continue to remain on the defeat ISIS mission. But again, we’re not going to hesitate to protect our forces if they’re threatened.’

The Pentagon has not received any requests to end its presence in the region, despite the words from the Iraqi prime minister, multiple defense officials tell Fox News. 

When asked if the U.S. has been asked to withdraw its troops from Iraq, Ryder told reporters, ‘I’m not aware of any plans. We continue to remain very focused on the Defeat ISIS mission under CJTF-OIR, as we advise and assist the Iraqis. And as you’ve heard us say many times before, we’re there at the invitation of the government of Iraq.’

The upcoming talks between the U.S. and Iraq were planned in August, well before Hamas invaded Israel and the attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq began. The talks could have a different outcome than what would have been expected back in August.

In August 2023, before the conflict in the Middle East started, the U.S. and Iraq agreed to start a ‘Higher Military Commission’ or HMC for talks. According to a Defense Department press release from that time, ‘The United States and the Republic of Iraq intend to consult on a future process, separate from the JSCD and inclusive of the Coalition, to determine how the Coalition’s military mission will evolve on a timeline according to the following factors: the threat from ISIS, operational and environmental requirements, and ISF capability levels.’

The talks will be in the form of a working group with both defense and military officials from the Pentagon, the U.S. official said. 

House Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, is accusing the Academy Awards of sexism over the exclusion of the film ‘Barbie’ from the Best Director category. 

The congressman added a high-profile voice to the internet’s progressive-fueled outrage over director Greta Gerwig not getting a mention for the 2023 summer hit.

‘Hollywood still has a big problem with women. In 2022, women made up 11% of directors (of top 250 grossing films),’ Castro wrote on X.

‘So in 2023 Greta Gerwig: 1. Directs Barbie, year’s highest grossing film at $1.4B; 2. Provides coattails to Oppenheimer ($1B); 3. Saves [Warner Bros. Discovery’s] disastrous year.’

He concluded, ‘How do you end up directing the biggest hit of the year, a cultural phenomenon, and not get an Oscar nomination for best director? Be a female director in Hollywood, apparently.’

But he wasn’t the only national Democratic figure to chime in; Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chimed in with a message to the movie’s lead actress and director.

‘Greta & Margot, While it can sting to win the box office but not take home the gold, your millions of fans love you. You’re both so much more than Kenough,’ Clinton wrote on X.

‘Barbie,’ along with Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer,’ was credited with saving the movie industry from a lingering post-COVID slump. 

It was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Actor for Ryan Gosling, who played the titular doll’s boyfriend Ken, and a Supporting Actress nod for America Ferrera.

But left-wing activists complained at the lack of a nod for both Gerwig and the movie’s lead actress, Margot Robbie.

Fox News Digital reached out to Castro’s office and the Academy for comment.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders — while not totally ruling out potentially serving as former President Donald Trump’s running mate — is making it clear that she plans to run for re-election in 2026.

‘I love Arkansas and I feel like I just got started here with one year in office,’ Sanders said Monday while delivering remarks at the Arkansas Christian Schools Summit. ‘There’s a long list of things I want to make happen.’

With Trump being the commanding frontrunner in the Republican presidential race — winning both the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary — anticipation is growing over who the former president would pick as his running mate. Sanders often appears in speculative lists.

Sanders, the daughter of Fox News host and former longtime Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, was White House press secretary in Trump’s administration. 

Now serving as Arkansas’ first female governor and a prominent GOP political figure, she is considered to be one of many names on a long list of potential running mates for Trump.

Sanders has openly endorsed Trump and is campaigning on his behalf, but amid rumors of rejoining his administration, affirmed her plans to run for re-election as governor.

A source in the governor’s political orbit also told Fox News on Wednesday that ‘she is very, very happy with what she’s doing.’

On Monday, Sanders also said, ‘I’m very biased in what I hope happens in the election. I’m going to do everything within my power to see that Donald Trump gets re-elected, but I look forward to serving as governor for seven years.’

Trump said he has already decided on his 2024 running mate during a recent Fox News townhall, but did not give any hints as to who that might be. 

Among the other rumored VP picks are South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem; Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio; and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.

MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE – Former President Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump on Tuesday said she believes skeptical GOP voters will coalesce around the former president in November and said former Ambassador Nikki Haley’s path to the nomination is essentially ‘impossible.’

‘I think so I don’t see any world in which someone who loves this country, who wants to see this country succeed again, who wants to see people basically return to a time when they could achieve their American dream, I don’t see any of those people ever voting for Joe Biden,’ Trump told Fox News Digital in New Hampshire Tuesday when asked if she thinks Republicans who didn’t support Trump in the primary will support him in November.

‘We know, of any candidate who has been running in this election for president of the United States, there is only one who has done it successfully, It’s Donald Trump and maybe you don’t like every tweet, maybe you don’t like his personality at times, but he kept us safe,’ Trump continued. ‘He kept us strong. He made people prosperous. He really reinvigorated the American spirit and, man, do we need that now more than ever. I don’t see anyone who really considers himself someone who loves this country ever voting for Joe Biden.’

Lara Trump spoke to Fox News Digital hours before Trump’s record third New Hampshire primary victory and talked about Haley’s chances of winning in South Carolina next month.

‘Polling for Nikki Haley does not indicate that she would likely win her home state,’ Trump said. ‘I think you look at New Hampshire, you have Nevada coming up as well, she’s not even registered right now for the caucuses there. That’s the only way you actually earn delegates from the votes there.’ 

‘So I think the path to victory seems small, if not negligible and impossible for her at this point. Politically, I don’t know that it would be the greatest move for her to stay in this election.’

Trump added, ‘The reality is we have to target our enemy. The enemy is Joe Biden. We have to take back the White House. We want to take back the Senate. We want more folks in the House from the Republican side of the aisle because we really do have a country to save at this point. I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that if Joe Biden wins this election in 2024, I don’t believe we will have the same country after another term of Joe Biden as president that we started with when Donald Trump left office.’

If disgruntled Republicans do unite behind former President Trump in November, Lara Trump told Fox News Digital that Biden is handing a victory to Republicans by doing a ‘masterful’ job campaigning for them with his unpopular policies. 

‘That’s not to say that we don’t have our work cut out for us,’ Trump said. ‘We know that we deal majorly with a hostile mainstream media who does not like Donald Trump, certainly, and is always in the pocket of the liberals, who are basically the marketing arm for the Democrat Party at this point. 

‘We’re up against a lot and we take nothing for granted so I do think we’re going to have to work. But man, when it comes to Joe Biden, he certainly has served it up to us on a silver platter.’

President Biden’s nominee for second-highest civilian position in the U.S. Air Force was grilled by Congress on Tuesday regarding the Department of Defense’s selling off of border wall parts, as well as the handling of the Chinese spy balloon, among other issues impacting national security. 

Melissa Dalton, who has served as the Pentagon’s Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs since 2022, appeared before the Senate Committee on Armed Services on Tuesday as she’s being considered for a second time for the role of Under Secretary of the Air Force. Biden nominated her for the Air Force’s No. 2 civilian role in September, but because the Senate didn’t act before the end of the year, the White House renominated Dalton this month. 

In his opening statement, Ranking Member Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., raised concern that Dalton ‘has virtually no experience with the Air Force.’ 

‘Ms. Dalton, the Air Force and Space Force both possess insufficient capacity and capability to meet their growing mission sets. This is the case even as we march toward a state of maximum vulnerability in the Pacific. The last confirmed appointee to the post that Ms. Dalton has been appointed for was not focused on this challenge. She created division in our military instead of prioritizing readiness and modernization,’ he said. ‘If Ms. Dalton is confirmed, I hope that she will not do the same. Regrettably, her performance in her current position gives me pause.’

While Dalton has been at her post, Wicker charged, the ‘Department of Defense was caught flat-footed as a Chinese surveillance balloon traversed the continental United States and flew over military sites,’ and ‘when Congress sought more information, she, along with others at the Department, evaded Constitutionally-authorized oversight.’ 

Wicker also raised concern over Dalton’s handling of the Pentagon’s responsibilities at the southwestern border. 

‘At one point, the Department of Defense was spending $130,000 every single day to store, instead of use, border wall construction materials,’ he said. ‘They were already manufactured, they were ready, and yet we were spending $130,000 to store them. Meanwhile, illegal migration broke records. Later, we found out that the Department of Defense had initiated a process in which these panels would be auctioned for pennies on the dollar — a clear effort to circumvent emerging Congressional intent as the FINISH IT Act was being added to the NDAA. That act was added to the NDAA; it is now the law of the land.’

Specifically, Wicker took issue with Dalton failing to deliver the Homeland Defense Planning Guidance until the end of 2023 — over a year after the release of the National Defense Strategy. 

‘This track record casts a shadow on this nomination,’ he said. 

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., was also among the Republicans to challenge Dalton about the border, as well as the Chinese spy balloon, which entered U.S. airspace over Alaska, crossed through Canada and then over the continental United States, reportedly gathering key intelligence about U.S. military sites, before it was shot down off the coast of South Carolina.

‘This was under your watch. Were you in the direct chain of command in regards to the decision not to shoot the balloon down until after it had left American airspace?’ Rounds demanded. 

Dalton admitted she was one of the officials advising Austin, adding that ‘the best military advice to not shoot down over U.S. territory came from our U.S. senior military officials.’ 

Noting that at the time Dalton’s nomination to hold her current role passed the same committee in 2022, she was ‘not controversial,’ Rounds said that since then, ‘two items have happened that now call into question that confidence.’ 

Regarding the spy balloon, Rounds warned, ‘This is an area you will be challenged on this particular one because it’s a question of judgment and recommendations being made. I think that between now and the time that a vote is held on your nomination, I think you’ve got some work to do to regain the confidence of a lot of the members on this committee.’ 

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., also pressed Dalton on when she first was made aware of the spy balloon. 

Dalton testified she first heard of the balloon on Jan. 27, 2023, the same day as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. 

‘My initial advice was that we absolutely needed to understand what capabilities were on the PRC high altitude balloon. NORAD NORTHCOM was tracking it and characterizing it, but we needed to get to the bottom of what it was doing, what its intentions were,’ she said. 

Cramer pressed Dalton on why it was not ‘instinctive’ for her to ever initiate an internal review of all the policies and processes, including the siloing of various intelligence agencies, in the aftermath of the incident, adding that it took the Senate Armed Service Committee to do so. 

‘Did it ever occur to you, ‘Gee, this is something we should maybe dig into a little bit and see where our failings are’?’ Cramer posed. 

After insisting the department had incorporated the ‘lessons learned’ in the development of the homeland defense policy guidance over the last year that was signed by Austin in December, Dalton was again grilled on what she would have done differently in the event of the crisis itself. 

‘We as a community could have had better national level integration at the local level — what I saw in the early days of the PRC HAB was that we were very well wired for responding to hurricanes, to wildfires, and that is the day-to-day existence for defense supported civil authorities, but it hadn’t been since World War II that we had an incursion over U.S. territory from a foreign adversary, and so getting that national to federal to state and local integration happened, but I think in real time we could have been more expeditious about it, and we will do so going forward,’ she said. 

‘It’s OK to have been wrong,’ Cramer told Dalton. ‘A correction is what we’re looking for.’