Family members of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza stormed into an Israeli parliament panel to demand action on Monday.

Roughly 20 protesters burst into the Knesset Finance Committee meeting, with many holding pictures of their loved ones. Roughly 130 hostages are believed to remain in Hamas custody.

‘Just one I’d like to get back alive, one out of three!’ shouted a woman who had photos of three relatives being held hostage.

‘You will not sit here while they die there,’ others shouted. ‘Release them now, now, now!’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced growing demands from relatives of hostages to cut a deal with Hamas. One lawmaker inside the committee meeting on Monday argued that disrupting Netanyahu’s government would not be helpful.

‘Redeeming captives is the most important precept in Judaism, especially in this case, where there is an urgency to preserving life,’ he said. ‘Quitting the coalition would not achieve anything.’

Netanyahu himself responded to similar protests on Monday as well, denying that Israel had rejected a proposal from Hamas.

‘There is no real proposal by Hamas. It’s not true. I am saying this as clearly as I can because there are so many incorrect statements which are certainly agonising for you,’ Netanyahu’s office quoted him as telling hostage relatives in a separate incident.

Israel says it remains open to a second wave of hostage exchanges if Hamas agrees to the correct terms.

The new negotiations come amid boiling tensions in the wider region, as Iran and its proxy terrorist groups attack Israel, the U.S. and international shipping lanes.

The Islamic Republic of Iran launched drone and missile attacks into Iraq, Syria and Pakistan in less than 24 hours last week. The regime’s open warfare follows its military aid to Hamas ahead of the organization’s massacre of 1,200 people on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.

The U.S. has sought to prevent Israel’s war against Hamas from spreading into a wider conflict in the region. Nevertheless, Israel has threatened to expand the war to include Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terrorist group operating Lebanon to Israel’s north.

Fox News’ Benjamin Weinthal and Reuters contributed to this report

EXCLUSIVE: The former House Select Committee on Jan. 6 deleted more than 100 encrypted files from its probe just days before Republicans took over the majority in the House of Representatives, Fox News Digital has learned.

The House Administration Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee is leading an investigation into Jan. 6, 2021, led by Chairman Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga. The panel is investigating the security failures on that day, as well as the ‘actions’ of the former select committee investigating the Capitol riot.

Loudermilk, last week, told Fox News Digital his investigation has entered a ‘new phase’ with renewed support from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who has committed additional resources to the panel’s investigation.

Sources familiar with Loudermilk’s investigation told Fox News Digital that, per House rules, the former select committee, which was chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., was required to turn over all documents from its investigation to the new, GOP-led panel, after Republicans secured the majority of the House of Representatives following the 2022 midterm elections.

Sources told Fox News Digital that Thompson had told Loudermilk that the select committee would turn over four terabytes of archived data, but that the new committee only received approximately two terabytes of data.

Fox News Digital has learned that Loudermilk’s committee hired a digital forensics team to scrape hard drives to determine what information they were not given.

The forensics team, according to sources familiar with their search, determined that 117 files were both deleted and encrypted. Sources said those files were deleted on Jan. 1, 2023 – just days before Thompson’s team was required to transfer the data to the new committee.

Fox News Digital has learned the forensics team has recovered all 117 deleted and encrypted files. Now, Loudermilk is demanding answers and passwords to access the data. 

Fox News Digital exclusively obtained a letter Loudermilk sent to Thompson, requesting access to recovered digital files by his forensic team.

‘As you acknowledged in your July 7, 2023 letter, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Select Committee) did not archive all Committee records as required by House Rules,’ Loudermilk wrote. ‘You wrote that you sent specific transcribed interviews and depositions to the White House and Department of Homeland Security but did not archive them with the Clerk of the House.’

Loudermilk added that Thompson also ‘claimed that you turned over 4-terabytes of digital files, but the hard drives archived by the Select Committee with the Clerk of the House contain less than 3- terabytes of data.’

Loudermilk explained that after a forensic analysis of the data and archived hard drives, he was able to recover ‘numerous digital records from hard drives archived by the Select Committee.’

‘One recovered file disclosed the identity of an individual whose testimony was not archived by the Select Committee,’ Loudermilk wrote. ‘Further, we found that most of the recovered files are password-protected, preventing us from determining what they contain.’

Loudermilk asked that Thompson provide him ‘a list of passwords for all password-protected files created by the Select Committee’ so that his committee can ‘access these files and ensure they are properly archived.’

Meanwhile, Loudermilk also penned letters to White House general counsel and the general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, requesting ‘unedited and unredacted transcripts’ of White House and DHS testimony to the former select committee. 

Loudermilk’s committee knows the transcripts of these interviews exist, but said they were not turned over by the Thompson-led committee. 

Loudermilk demanded the White House and DHS comply with his request by Jan. 24.

‘It’s obvious that Pelosi’s Select Committee went to great lengths to prevent Americans from seeing certain documents produced in their investigation. It also appears that Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney intended to obstruct our Subcommittee by failing to preserve critical information and videos as required by House rules,’ Loudermilk told Fox News Digital. 

‘The American people deserve to know the full truth, and Speaker Johnson has empowered me to use all tools necessary to recover these documents to get the truth, and I will.’

JERUSALEM — The Biden administration is lost in the Middle East and in Central Asia because of its misguided policy toward its enemies, ranging from Iran’s regime to the Taliban to Hezbollah, according to experts contacted by Fox News Digital.

The Islamic Republic of Iran launched drone and missile attacks into Iraq, Syria and Pakistan in less than 24 hours starting on Tuesday. The regime’s open warfare follows its military aid to Hamas ahead of the organization’s massacre of 1,200 people on Oct. 7 in southern Israel, including more than 30 Americans.

The heightened pro-war feeling was on display last Tuesday in the capital city of Tehran, where the clerical regime blanketed a building with a banner that warned its enemies in Hebrew and Farsi to ‘Prepare your coffins.’ Pro-Iran regime activists gathered in front of the banner to show fealty to the Islamic Republic. 

OUTRAGE AS IRAN PRESIDENT PREPARES TO ADDRESS UN: ‘WANTS TO KILL AMERICAN CITIZENS’ 

The Islamic Republic’s foreign policy has long been animated by the country’s late revolutionary anti-Western founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who famously declared, ‘All of Islam is politics.’ 

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini, has announced that ‘Death to America will happen. In the new order I am talking about, America will no longer have any important role.’

The other pillar of Iran’s foreign policy is, according to Khamenei, ‘Death to Israel.’

The rapid spread of Khomeini-style radical Islamism across the Middle East, including aiding the Lebanese-based terrorist movement Hezbollah, is just one window onto the courtyard of a deficient Biden foreign policy, according to experts.

Walid Phares, a Lebanese-American academic expert on the Mideast, told Fox News Digital ‘The Biden administration resumed the Obama Mideast policies entirely, but with further recklessness, yielding a domino effects worldwide and particularly in the Middle East and North Africa. The removal of the Houthis from U.S. terror lists in February 2021 signaled that Washington was making concessions to Iran at the expense of the Arab coalition and to the advantage of Iran. In August, the apocalyptic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the transfer of power and weapons to the Taliban, broke the backbone of U.S. anti-Jihadist strategy. It also messaged the anti-American forces that the U.S. are hurdling towards a global retreat.’

A U.S. State Department spokesperson countered by telling Fox News Digital in a statement that ‘Secretary Blinken and the Department have focused on promoting both stability and regional integration in the Middle East since the beginning of the administration and especially since the Israel-Hamas conflict broke out on October 7. The Secretary has made four trips to the region since October 7 – during which period, the United States has helped negotiate temporary humanitarian pauses in Gaza, secure the release of 110 hostages, and promote the delivery of critical humanitarian aid to Gaza.’

IRAN MOVES TOWARD POSSIBLE ATOM BOMB TEST IN DEFIANCE OF WESTERN SANCTIONS: INTEL REPORT 

The spokesperson added, ‘Our most critical and enduring interest in Afghanistan is to ensure that it never again becomes a safe haven for those who wish to harm the United States or our allies.’

‘We closely watch the Taliban’s treatment of the people of Afghanistan. As we have said – in public and in private with Taliban representatives – their relationship with the international community depends entirely on their actions. Ultimately the United States wants to see Afghanistan at peace with itself and its neighbors, and able to stand on its own two feet,’ the State Department spokesperson stated.

According to Phares, who served as an adviser to President Trump, ‘The Biden administration made dangerous choices regarding U.S. traditional friends and allies, especially by pressuring Israel to delay any action against Iran’s aggressive behavior in the region, and also pressures on Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, regarding their containment of the Houthis in Yemen, leading to a lionization of the Ansarallah, hence encouraging them to hold the maritime line in the Red Sea hostage.’

Ansarallah, which is generally known as the Houthis, was relisted as a terrorist organization by the U.S. on Wednesday. Biden, to the wonderment of many counter-terrorism experts, delisted the Houthi movement as a terrorist entity at the start of his term in 2021. ‘Allah is Greater. Death to America. Death to Israel. Curse on the Jews. Victory to Islam’ is the slogan of the Houthis.

One foreign policy expert presented a more mixed analysis of Biden’s role on the international stage. Fox News Digital asked Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow and director of research in foreign policy at the Washington D.C.-based Brookings Institution, about the White House’s foreign policy strategy and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

Sullivan penned an essay for Foreign Affairs just prior to Oct. 7 in which he boasted, ‘The war in Yemen is in its 19th month of truce, for now the Iranian attacks against U.S. forces have stopped, our presence in Iraq is stable, I emphasize for now because all of that can change and the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.’

O’Hanlon told Fox News Digital, ‘The Afghanistan withdrawal was a mistake. Jake’s article was mistaken. But I see no other major evidence of a lack of vigilance or resolve.’

Jason Brodsky, the policy director of the U.S.-based United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told Fox News Digital that he views the Biden administration’s marriage to rekindling the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the formal name for the Iran nuclear deal, as the first flawed departure point of the White House.

Biden wishes to inject more than $100 billion into Iran’s coffers as part of a revived JCPOA deal, according to one think tank estimate, in exchange for Tehran pledging to impose temporary restrictions on its nuclear weapons program.

‘I think the Biden administration’s Iran policy has repeatedly failed. The effort to revive the JCPOA collapsed, and then its informal de-escalatory understandings with Tehran to keep the Iran file off the president’s desk before the 2024 presidential election collapsed. This is because the administration’s strategy is premised on faulty and outdated assumptions about the Islamic Republic. It also does not understand the Iranian leadership’s psychology. Ignoring Iran and avoiding Iran does not work,’ he said.

Brodsky added, ‘The Biden administration’s public messaging has also been extremely weak. The constant pleas that the U.S. does not seek conflict with Iran makes an impression in Tehran: That the American government is more fearful of the Islamic Republic than the Islamic Republic is of the American government. That only emboldens the supreme leader to escalate. President Biden is seen as a predictable and non-threatening adversary for the supreme leader. That’s a dangerous perception. If the U.S. government wants to deter Iran, it can’t focus solely on its expendable proxies. It has to strike strategic targets that hold value for the Iranian leadership in order to restore deterrence and deescalate.’

Phares concurred with Brodsky about the principal role that Iran’s regime plays in fomenting regional volatility. 

‘The Iran regime is the central source of terror and destabilization in the region, followed by the metastasizing Islamist forces that are now taking advantage of the militant organized migrations in the Mediterranean and across the Rio Grande, both facilitated by radical lobbies, constitute today the global threat against Western democracies, in addition to the Ukraine War and Western divisions,’ said Phares.

Iran’s rapidly advancing program to weaponize a nuclear warhead remains foremost in the thinking of countries affected by Tehran’s desire to obliterate them.

American physicist and nuclear weapons expert David Albright warned on Jan. 8 that ‘Given short warning times and few prospects of a nuclear deal, the United States and its allies have little choice other than focusing on a strategy to deter Iran from deciding to build nuclear weapons in the first place.’

Albright’s report recommended that ‘Iran needs to be made fully aware via concrete demonstrations that building nuclear weapons will trigger quick, drastic actions by the international community, including military strikes. U.S. military cooperation with Israel aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities should be bolstered, ensuring Israel can decisively strike Iran’s nuclear sites on short notice if there are signs that Iran is moving to build nuclear weapons, including the ability of delivering a second strike if Iran reconstitutes those activities.’

When asked about the Iranian threat, a State Department spokesperson referred Fox News Digital to a comment made by spokesperson Matt Miller on Nov. 14: ‘When it comes to holding Iran accountable for its destabilizing activities, I would remind you that we have imposed more than 400 sanctions on Iran since the outset of this administration. In the past few weeks, we have taken a number of actions to ensure deterrence and … the Pentagon has conducted strikes against Iranian-backed militias. And we will continue to hold … Iran accountable for its destabilizing behavior in a number of manners.’

MANCHESTER, N.H. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign peaked before it even started.

A year ago, DeSantis was still basking in the glow of his convincing gubernatorial re-election victory in Florida and was the clear alternative to former President Trump in the burgeoning Republican White House race. 

The former president was still facing plenty of criticism by fellow Republicans for contributing to the GOP’s lackluster performance in the 2022 midterms.

Additionally, Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign launch at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, a couple of weeks after the midterms was panned by many pundits.

DeSantis was neck and neck with Trump in a slew of national and early state polls, but as winter turned to spring, the Florida governor came under repeated verbal assault by the former president and his allies.

DeSantis was already bruised by the time he formally launched his campaign, an announcement on social media that was mired with technical difficulties – marking the first of many bad omens for the popular governor.

The governor faced an onslaught of negative ads from the Trump world during late spring into summer.

Veteran New Hampshire-based Republican strategist Michael Dennehy, who served on multiple presidential campaigns, argued that ‘Trump’s barrage of attacks was the beginning of the end of DeSantis.’

DeSantis made headlines over the summer, with a series of campaign staff purges and resets. There were more staff shakeups in the fall, this time at the DeSantis-aligned super PAC Never Back Down, which had taken over many of the traditional duties of a presidential campaign, including grassroots outreach.

Longtime Republican consultant Alex Castellanos, a veteran of half-a-dozen presidential campaigns, noted that DeSantis ‘ran a mechanical campaign and failed on two mechanical fronts.’

‘He wasted bazillions on door knocking when you don’t build a brand going door to door. And two – he’s a mechanical candidate who you don’t want at your door. You need to be a people person to run for public office,’ he argued.

Dennehy agreed, charging that DeSantis ‘just didn’t have the charisma to connect with voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.’

Jim Merrilll, another longtime New Hampshire-based Republican strategist and presidential campaign veteran, said that the DeSantis ‘withdrawal is also a reminder of a simple rule – voters need to first like and connect with candidates before they can support them.’

Merrill added that ‘DeSantis is an excellent governor whose national campaign time and again failed to put him in a position to succeed.’

Castellanos stressed that ‘the biggest thing that hurt him is that Republican voters aren’t looking for an alternative to Donald Trump. Donald Trump is their incumbent president.’

Dan Eberhart, a top DeSantis donor, bundler and surrogate, told Fox News Digital that ‘Ron DeSantis ran into a bump and the bump was named Trump.’

‘This wasn’t about money. The campaign insists they had enough money to get to Super Tuesday. I think this was about data and polling and Gov. DeSantis being realistic about whether or not Trump was beatable,’ Eberhart said.

He added: ‘more importantly, I think this was about 2028, and DeSantis doesn’t want a 5% to 8% showing in New Hampshire on his record. Let’s face it, he’s the Republican voters’ de facto second choice, and he’s Trump voters’ second choice, and so he’s decided to get out and govern Florida.’

The latest public opinion polls in New Hampshire indicate Trump holding on to a double-digit lead over Haley with hours to go until Primary Day.

Merrill said that DeSantis’ departure from the race ‘narrows Haley’s margin for error here. Many, if not most, of DeSantis voters are going to migrate over to Trump. And so it’s critical for her to do well in New Hampshire to give her some momentum heading into South Carolina.’

But he added that ‘clearly the consolidation of the field over the last week indicates that there’s increasing pressure to bring the primary process to a close.’

Dennehy was more blunt.

‘I think it puts a nail in her coffin,’ he said of Haley. ‘I don’t think she’ll be able to keep under 50%. And I think there’s a very good chance that Trump hits 60% on Tuesday, which will signal the end of the Haley campaign and virtually seal the deal for the Trump nomination.’

Eight percent of U.S. adults – or 21 million Americans – were scammed in the past year, according to a recent survey by Gallup. To put this number in context, 21 million is roughly equivalent to the entire population of the state of Florida. Each year!

A recent Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report estimated that fraud losses are between $21 billion to $137 billion annually, and the report says the lower figure is ‘very conservative.’ 

If fraud does account for $137 billion annually, that would exceed the annual revenue of such corporations as Verizon, Comcast, Met or Target. It would also exceed the total annual budget of the Department of Homeland Security, which was $134 billion in 2023.

A recent AARP poll found that two-thirds of Americans believe that scams have reached a ‘crisis level.’ 

Clearly, scams are a problem of immense proportion. They affect Americans throughout the socio-economic chain, often disproportionally impacting those without college degrees and whose annual household incomes are below $50,000, according to Gallup. 

The Gallup poll also found that 57% of Americans worry about being scammed, which makes it the second-highest crime concern in America, trailing only identity theft. 

And keep in mind that scams are a public health problem in addition to a financial crime – victims often experience significant emotional and health issues in the aftermath of a scam. 

Scammers are using more sophisticated technology and the targets are becoming more diverse. Four types of scams stand out above the rest, according to FBI data: investment, tech support/call center, business email compromise, and confidence/romance fraud. Scams in each of these areas are on the rise and have different targets. 

The rise of cryptocurrency has led to a significant increase in investment scams, which are now the costliest scams reported to the FBI. 

Tech support and ‘call center’ scams are among the most effective at targeting the elderly and are principally perpetrated by organized crime gangs in India, according to the FBI. 

Business email compromise is rampant in small and medium-size businesses.

Confidence/romance scams are also rising, like the ‘grandparent scam’ in which a scammer impersonates a loved one in trouble. 

The FBI reports a growing wave of ‘sextortion,’ where scammers posing as teen girls ask boys for nude photos, and then demand money and threaten to share the boy’s photos with his social-media followers if he doesn’t pay. U.S. officials say the criminals behind these scams are based in Nigeria. Indeed, most scams against U.S. citizens are perpetrated by foreign organized crime gangs. 

Even as foreign scam attacks on Americans skyrocket, state and federal authorities have not yet created a plan to address this significant policy issue. 

Meanwhile, the British government announced a major fraud initiative in May 2023. And the U.K. recently signed the world’s first ‘Online Fraud Charter’ with 12 of the world’s largest technology companies, who agreed to voluntarily undertake 39 actions to combat fraud, including blocking, reporting, increased enforcement, and other measures to combat internet-based fraud.

The British approach involves public-private cooperation, and also an all-of-government coordinated effort to address the issue. The United States should adopt a similar model and establish an interagency working group – directed by the White House – that focuses on combating fraud. The government should establish clear authorities and metrics. 

Additionally, Congress should authorize a federal advisory commission to work with industry partners to build a U.S. version of the British strategy. 

The U.S. government’s response to scams needs to be a top issue in 2024. If scams continue to go unaddressed, it is likely that the wave of fraud – turbocharged by artificial intelligence – will continue to grow out of control. If we don’t act soon, more and more lives will be ruined.

David Mansdoerfer is the former deputy assistant secretary for health, and board member at Stop Scams Alliance. 

Ken Westbrook is the former director for information sharing at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and co-CEO at Stop Scams Alliance.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is gearing up for her one-on-one primary battle against former President Donald Trump in New Hampshire after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race on Sunday afternoon. 

‘We just heard that Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race. And I want to say to Ron, he ran a great race. He’s been a good governor. And we wish him well,’ Haley said at a campaign stop in New Hampshire. 

‘Having said that, it’s now one fella and one lady left,’ Haley continued, referring to herself and Trump. ‘There were 14 people in this race, a lot fellas, all the fellas are out, except for this one. And this comes down to what do you want? Do you want more of the same or do you want something new?’

DeSantis dropped out of the presidential race via a video posted to his X account, and threw his support behind Trump and called Haley a ‘repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism.’

‘If there was anything I could do to produce a favorable outcome, more campaign stops, more interviews, I would do it. 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,’ DeSantis said.

‘It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,’ he said, adding: ‘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.’

The announcement comes after Trump handily won the Iowa caucuses last week, winning 98 of the 99 counties, and is leading polls ahead of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. 

RON DESANTIS ARGUES TIM SCOTT ENDORSEMENT OF DONALD TRUMP ‘IS A BLOW TO NIKKI HALEY’ 

Trump has 55% support among those likely to vote in the primary, compared to Haley’s 36% support and DeSantis’ 6% support, a Suffolk University, the Boston Globe and NBC10 poll found. Other polls have found a tighter margin between Trump and Haley, including a CNN poll that found Trump has 50% support to Haley’s 39%.

‘We’re gonna get our kids reading again and go back to the basics in education. We’re gonna secure our border once and for all,’ Haley continued in her remarks to voters after DeSantis dropped out. ‘And we are going to have a strong America that we can all be proud of. That’s our goal. That’s what we’re doing. We’ve got two days until New Hampshire goes to the polls. And we’re going to make sure that we fight all the way until the last second.’

‘May the best woman win,’ she continued. 

Trump told Fox News Digital on Sunday that he’s ‘very honored’ DeSantis endorsed his run for the White House, adding he looks forward ‘to working together with him to beat Joe Biden.’ 

‘Very honored to have his endorsement,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘I look forward to working together with him to beat Joe Biden, who is the worst and most corrupt president in the history of our country.’

Fox News’ Bret Baier caught up with former President Donald Trump in Bedford, New Hampshire on Saturday to discuss the 2024 presidential race ahead of Tuesday’s highly anticipated primary in the state.  

The 2024 frontrunner discussed beating GOP rivals Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who came in second, and former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who came in third in the Iowa primary. 

Trump hit back at Haley after she questioned the former commander-in-chief’s mental capacity after he appeared to mix her up with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a rally this week. 

‘She’s just trying to get a little nasty because she came in third place. She wanted to come in second. And she wasn’t even that close, actually, to second. You know, I have to give that to Ron De-sanctimonious,’ Trump said, referring to his penchant for coming up with nicknames for his opponents. Most recently, Trump referred to Haley – the daughter of Indian immigrants – as ‘Nimbra,’ referring to her birth name of ‘Nimrata.’ 

Haley earned 21,085 caucus votes, or just under 20% in Iowa, putting her behind second-place finisher Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had 23,420 votes, or 21.2%. Trump trounced all of his challengers, winning an outright majority at 51%, with 56,260 votes in a historic caucus victory that resoundingly confirmed his frontrunner status. 

That frontrunner status was further cemented later Sunday when DeSantis dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Trump. 

Responding to Haley’s assertion that Trump’s political indictments have become a liability on the campaign trail, Trump dismissed them as ‘Biden indictments.’ 

‘He is bad for democracy … He is very dangerous,’ Trump said of his Democratic rival in the White House. ‘He can’t win fair and square. The guy can’t put two sentences together.’ 

Trump also took shots at Fani Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney who was accused of having an improper romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she appointed to prosecute the election interference case against the former president. 

‘They did this. This is all political stuff, and it’s a very bad thing for our country,’ Trump said. ‘And remember, that goes the other way too. If a Republican gets in … they can do the same thing to a Democrat.’ 

On the question of a potential pick for vice president, Trump said: ‘There’s no rush to that.’ 

New Hampshire’s first-in-the nation primary comes Tuesday, January 23 – just two days after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he was suspending his campaign. 

President Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager, when pressed about the commander in chief’s mental sharpness, argued the 2024 election ‘is not going to be about age.’ 

‘When it comes to the president’s age, we have a simple formula for that, and that’s results,’ Quentin Fulks told ABC’s ‘This Week’ host Martha Raddatz. ‘And you know, age equals wisdom, equals results and experience. And President Biden, because of his age, has come to the table and brought people together from both sides of the aisle to deliver results for the American people, whether it be a historic bipartisan infrastructure bill, whether it has been bringing people to the table for job creation, making sure that inflation is down – the president has been delivering results, and our best answer to this is to continue to communicate about the things that people care about, Americans care about.’

‘This election is not going to be about age,’ Fulks added. ‘This election is about freedom and democracy, and the fact that Democrats under President Biden’s leadership believe that people deserve more freedom, not less. And Republicans want to roll that back and rip it away.’ 

According to a new ABC News/Ipso poll conducted Jan. 4-8, 69% of respondents do not think Biden has the mental sharpness to be president – up from just 43% in May 2020.  

Fulks’ remarks come after former President Trump during a New Hampshire campaign rally on Friday used Nikki Haley’s name when describing allegations about Nancy Pelosi on Jan. 6. The apparent mix-up called attention to how Trump has long alleged Pelosi, as House speaker at the time, turned down 10,000 National Guard troops the day before the Capitol riot. 

Haley branded the mix-up as a gaffe, calling into question Trump’s mental fitness ahead of the New Hampshire primaries, but some conservative voices on X championed how the on-stage remark prompted national news headlines on how Pelosi was allegedly in charge of security while Congress was certifying the 2020 election results. 

Trump, who will turn 78 in June, is just about four years younger than Biden, who will turn 82 in November. 

‘I don’t mind being 80, but I’m 77. That’s a big difference,’ Trump said at a campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Saturday.

‘It’s not age. Different people, different strokes,’ Trump added. ‘I feel my mind is stronger now than it was 25 years ago. Is that possible? I really do. Now, Biden can’t say that. Look, you know he can’t say that. You know, he can’t say that, you know, there’s something going on.’ 

Trump said Biden’s public comments last for a very short period of time, recalling how he mocked Biden last week that ‘he can never find the stairs’ when leaving speaking engagements. 

Some Democrats have also called Biden’s mental sharpness into question.  

Last week, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., gained the endorsement of former 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang on Thursday, who, while addressing voters in New Hampshire, said it will be hard for Biden at his age to ‘reinvent grandpa’ and added it was time to upgrade from the predicted Biden vs. Trump rematch that ‘no one wants.’

Phillips, who is considered to be a moderate Minnesotan, is a long shot to lead the Democratic presidential ticket, but he and Yang were campaigning in the Granite State ahead of the primary on Jan. 23.

Fox News’ Greg Wehner contributed to this report. 

World and business leaders speaking at last week’s Davos World Economic Forum hit attendees with some hard truths about the global and political tumult they face, led by Argentina’s firebrand President Javier Milei claiming that ‘the Western world is in danger.’

Milei said the West ‘is in danger because those who are supposed to have defended the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that inevitably leads to socialism and thereby to poverty.’

‘Unfortunately, in recent decades, motivated by some well-meaning individuals willing to help others, and others motivated by the wish to belong to a privileged caste, the main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism,’ he continued. 

‘We’re here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world, rather they are the root cause,’ Milei insisted. ‘Do believe me, no one [is] in a better place than us Argentines to testify to these two points.’ 

‘Do not be intimidated by parasites who live off the state, do not surrender to the political class that only wants to stay in power and retain its privileges,’ Milei concluded. ‘You are social benefactors, you are heroes, you are the creators of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we’ve ever seen.’

The conference, held in Davos, Switzerland, from Jan. 15 to 19, included leaders from various industries and nations, celebrities and billionaires. Davos famously draws criticism for promoting a green agenda, as reports claimed up to 1,000 private jets carried conference goers to the meeting.

In addition to the annually highlighted hypocrisy of the attendees, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts spoke on the sidelines after his panel at the forum about his shock at receiving an invitation, but said he cherished the opportunity to give voice to ‘forgotten people.’ 

‘There’s a lot of these forgotten people, as I’ve come to learn over the last few years [who are] small business owners, people who scraped and saved,’ he said, adding that many aren’t often inherently political. ‘They all believe the same thing, which is that the American Dream is slipping away from them.’

‘It’s laughable that you or anyone would describe Davos as ‘protecting liberal democracy,” Roberts added. ‘It’s equally laughable to use the word ‘dictatorship’ at Davos and aim that at President Trump. In fact, I think that’s absurd.’

During his panel, Roberts stressed that ‘the very reason that I’m here at Davos, is to explain to many people in this room and who are watching, with all due respect, nothing personal, but that you’re part of the problem.’

‘I’ll be candid here, because I think I’ve been invited here to be candid: The kind of person who will come into the next conservative administration is going to be governed by one principle, and that is destroying the grasp that political elites and unelected technocrats have over the average person,’ he said. 

Former President Trump found some surprising support from unlikely sources, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who praised Trump’s handling of some issues, including the economy and China. 

‘I think we should stop insulting the other side, including ‘MAGA,” Dimon told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired on ‘Mornings with Maria’ ahead of the Davos conference. 

‘I’ve mentioned publicly many times that a lot of people have voted for President Trump, not because they believe in his family values, but they look at some of the things he did,’ Dimon continued. ‘He grew the economy. He was right about NATO, they spend more money. He was right… about China. He was right that… some regulations do not cause positive output.’

‘So, that’s why they’re voting for him, and I think the Democrats should be a little more thoughtful when they talk about ‘MAGA,” he added. ‘I don’t like how he said things about Mexico […] but he wasn’t wrong about some of these critical issues, and that’s why they’re voting for him.’

Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman argued that the Biden administration’s approach to a range of issues, including the border and economy, has proven too much for the U.S. and he doubts it can handle a second Biden term. 

‘We’ve now got $2 trillion deficits with no end in sight, we’ve got our debt to GDP going up, we’ve got open borders with 8 million people coming over,’ Schwarzman said during an interview with Bloomberg. ‘I don’t know that the country, frankly, is prepared for four more years of that, because those things all poll very negatively, so I can’t really project what would happen.’ 

He also lamented the significant drop in commercial real estate value – of which Blackstone stands as the largest holder – and that ‘no one wants to buy,’ which in turn is creating a lot of ‘interesting’ investments. He would not be drawn on speculation about the U.S. election more broadly, saying only that he wants to see ‘how the game plays.’ 

Greece’s conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned that ‘one needs to be very careful in this environment where everyone is pointing the finger at populists, not to alienate the people who actually vote for them, because some of these grievances are actually very real. People feel that they are left behind by globalization. The fact that wages have not really increased, inflation is really hitting lower-income households – these are real grievances.’

Open Society Foundations Chairman Alex Soros, son of the controversial Democrat mega-donor George Soros, surprised some with his comments that ‘the Davos consensus is always wrong.’ Soros was discussing whether Donald Trump would once again be president. 

Fox News Digital’s Gabriel Hays, Timothy H.J. Nerozzi and Sarah Rumpf-Whitten and FOX Business’ Charles Creitz contributed to this report.