Congressional leaders left a meeting at the White House on Wednesday signaling cautious but fresh hope that a bipartisan deal could be reached to fund Ukraine and overhaul policies at the southern border.

Both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters after the meeting that a deal on supplemental security funding could come for a vote soon.

‘I am more optimistic now that we can come to an agreement on border and Ukraine in one package, along with aid to Israel, along with humanitarian aid for the Palestinians in Gaza, and along with helping Indochina,’ Schumer said. ‘I put the chances a little bit greater than half now. And that’s the first time I can say that.’

McConnell called it a ‘constructive discussion’ and added a deal could ‘be on the floor next week.’

‘We’ve been talking about this for a very long time. It’s time to try to act,’ he said upon returning to the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.

President Biden expressed similar optimism on Thursday.

Asked by Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich whether there were any ‘sticking points’ left in coming to an agreement, Biden said, ‘I don’t think we have any sticking points left.’

Wednesday’s meeting was intended to be focused on Democrats’ $110 billion supplemental aid request for Ukraine, Israel and others. But Republicans have insisted on border and immigration policy reforms for their support, as the border crisis becomes an increasingly bipartisan issue.

But while the Senate has been discussing a bipartisan path forward on border policy, the House GOP majority has been steadfast in calling for nothing short of the provisions in H.R.2, which passed the House last year and includes Trump administration-era border policies like Remain in Mexico and construction of a border wall.

Democrats who control the Senate and White House have called the bill a nonstarter.

A top House Republican who emerged from the meeting, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, was cautiously encouraged that President Biden was receptive to border policy changes – and suggested his conference could be flexible as well.

‘He said that I am ready to make significant changes to the border. He said it’s broken, he knows that, and it needs to be fixed,’ McCaul said of Biden. 

He said he and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., specifically pushed for the Remain In Mexico provision.

‘I think that would be a significant policy change, that would get to the heart of the problem. That is what drives the cartels,’ McCaul said. ‘You stop that, you stop the flow and you solve the problem.’

McCaul said of the current status of talks, ‘Of course, we’re making the pitch for all of H.R.2. I also live in a realistic world.’

Johnson called the meeting ‘productive’ upon leaving the White House.

Later on the ‘Ingraham Angle,’ he signaled Republicans were still pushing for H.R.2 provisions but said of Biden at the meeting, ‘He said we’re ready to do big things on the border.’

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters that Johnson never specifically said it was H.R.2 or nothing during the meeting.

He did say Johnson insisted ‘the most important issue for the American people is the border’ and that he defended specific measures of the bill. 

The White House said of the meeting, ‘The President also made clear that we must act now to address the challenges at the border. He said he is encouraged by the progress being made in the bipartisan negotiations happening in the Senate. He expressed his commitment to reaching a bipartisan agreement on border policy and the need for additional resources at the border. The President called on Congress to swiftly pass his full national security supplemental.’

Fox News’ Brianna O’Neil contributed to this report

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke extensively about racism and United States history this week during a television appearance. 

Harris appeared on ABC’s ‘The View,’ where she was asked to react to GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s assertion that the U.S. has ‘never been a racist country.’

‘It’s unfortunate that there are some who would deny fact, or overlook it, when in fact, moving toward progress requires that we speak truth,’ the vice president told the panel of ‘The View.’

Harris’s comments are a response to comments made by Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

‘We’re not a racist country, Brian. We’ve never been a racist country,’ Haley, who is of Indian descent, said in an interview with CNN’s Brian Stelter. ‘Our goal is to make sure that today is better than yesterday. Are we perfect? No. But our goal is to always make sure we try and be more perfect every day that we can.’

She later clarified her comments in a statement to CNN, stating that the U.S. ‘has always had racism,’ but that America ‘has never been a racist country.’

The former ambassador’s comments sparked a national discussion regarding how Americans should conceptualize the country’s past.

‘I think we all would agree that while it is part of our past, and that and we see vestiges of it today, we should also be committed collectively to not letting it define the future of our country,’ Harris said on ‘The View.’

She added, ‘But we cannot get to a place of progress on the issue of race by denying the existence of racism, by denying the history of racism.’

Democrats’ top opposition research group is setting its sights on suppressing third-party presidential challenges they fear could hamper President Biden’s re-election effort.

The group, American Bridge, recently hired Mark Elias, a veteran Democratic operative and lawyer, in part to prevent such a challenger from succeeding, Reuters reported. The move comes as the group No Labels is pushing an independent candidacy for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

So far, American Bridge’s efforts have taken the form of legal challenges over technical issues in the immense network of red tape required to run for office nationally.

‘We’re keeping an eye out to make sure they’re dotting all their i’s and crossing their t’s, and we are not ruling out legal action with our attorneys if we identify a problem – and that applies for all third-party threats to President Biden,’ American Bridge President Pat Denis told Reuters.

Top Democrats widely fear that a third-party candidate would harm Biden far more than former President Trump, who is currently dominating the Republican primary race.

Jim Messina, a former top aide to former President Obama, argued last month that a ‘third-party candidate can’t win in 2024’ and would likely guarantee a Trump victory.

‘With a rematch between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump almost set in stone, it’s time to put a farce to rest: The notion that a third-party candidate could actually win the presidency in 2024,’ Messina wrote in an op-ed for Politico.

‘No Labels is pushing a dangerous lie that would simply serve to put Donald Trump back in the White House,’ he continued.

A Reuters poll in December found that Trump’s lead over Biden expanded by 5 points when respondents were given the option to vote for Kennedy.

The founder of No Labels, former Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, has repeatedly pushed back on claims that his group is working as a spoiler. The same Reuters poll from December found that 6 in 10 Americans want a third option beyond Republicans and Democrats.

‘That’s not our goal here,’ Lieberman told Fox News Digital last year. ‘We’re not about electing either President Trump or President Biden.’

Fox News’ Jeffrey Clark contributed to this report.

Israel’s top government officials are in disagreement about whether to scale back the war against Hamas in Gaza and focus on a more substantial hostage release deal.

War cabinet member Gadi Eisenkot, whose son was recently killed while fighting in Gaza, issued a public call for Israel to engage in serious hostage negotiations. He was joined by fellow cabinet member Benny Gantz, but other members insist that the war against Hamas must continue.

Israel’s leaders must ‘show courage and to lead to a large deal which will bring home the hostages,’ Eisenkot said this week, according to Israeli media. ‘Your time is running out, and each day that passes endangers their lives.’

Meanwhile, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has criticized even the partial withdrawal of troops Israel conducted earlier this month. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant likewise warned that ‘political indecision’ could derail the IDF’s efforts in Gaza, according to NBC News.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that the war against Hamas is expected to continue in some form for ‘many more months.’

President Biden’s administration has urged Israel to scale back its Gaza offensive, but a recent poll shows that Israeli citizens largely oppose listening to that advice. A huge majority of Israeli citizens, 66%, supported continued heavy bombing in Gaza, according to a January 2 poll from the Israel Democracy Institute.

According to the poll, 56% of Israelis believe that continuing intensive fighting in Gaza remains the most effective means of getting their hostages home.

The IDF announced plans to partially scale back its offensive in southern Gaza earlier this week.

Gallant said at a news conference Monday that Israel recently ended its intensive ground operation in northern Gaza after taking military control of the area and that he expected similar action would happen in the south as well.

‘It will end soon. In both places we will reach the moment for the next stage,’ he said, referencing both northern and southern Gaza.

Gallant did not provide specifics as to when troops, tanks and other equipment would be removed from the territory. He also ruled out a cease-fire, saying military pressure on Hamas is the best way to secure the release of the more than 100 hostages still in Hamas captivity.

Fox News’ Lawrence Richard contributed to this report

The greatest victory of the pro-life movement has been followed by some of its greatest defeats.

Two years ago, abortion was legal in every state, but a majority of Americans identified as pro-life. Today, the Roe regime has been overturned, and 21 states have passed protections for the unborn, but support for abortion has returned to record highs. 

Meanwhile, the pro-life side has lost seven out of seven state ballot initiatives – a perfect record of failure.

Some have responded to these setbacks with silence. Others have concluded that being truly pro-life is a losing position, urging Republicans to become pro-choice lite instead. Still others have punted everything to the states, claiming that Congress should stay out of the fight.

But if there is any reason to be pro-life at all, it is that an unborn child is a human being, with as much a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as any other American. And if that is true, then none of these positions is tenable – because each amounts to an abandonment of our Declaration, Constitution and basic human dignity.

The aforementioned positions are also untenable because they ignore one of the chief reasons for our present predicament. Americans have not shifted away from life on their own. They have done so under pressure from a sustained and calculated left-wing media campaign.

Since the day someone leaked the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, Democrats have cast an apocalyptic vision of what a supposedly pro-life future would look like. They have painted Republicans as the allies of rapists and child abusers. And they have peddled disinformation that restricting abortion means restricting treatments for miscarriage, stillbirth and ectopic pregnancy. 

This is shameless slander and fear-mongering. But tragically, it has resonated with voters – and even some poorly informed health care workers. 

The pro-life movement has been handed a serious image problem with potentially devastating policy impacts for the unborn, and time is running out for us to respond.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that we have a winning strategy at hand. As pro-life citizens, civil society leaders and policymakers, we should consider three distinct, but related steps to reverse course.

The first step is to develop and loudly promote a compassionate, pro-family agenda.

Some Americans are reluctant to support pro-life policies because they are worried that they or women they know won’t receive adequate support if they get pregnant. They don’t see the tens of thousands of volunteers and pregnancy centers that are the beating heart of the pro-life movement.

Instead, they see politicians who are willing to limit abortion, but far less willing to help mothers and babies in need. Clumsy rhetoric and austere ideology reinforce this perception – a perception Democrats and their friends in the media gleefully exploit.

We can alter this by embracing an agenda that provides generous aid to pregnant women and their born and unborn children. In doing so, we should be adamant that this is not a divergence from pro-life principles, but a fulfillment of them.

Achieving our end goal of a ‘culture of life’ requires more than abortion restrictions – it requires adequate support so mothers can reject abortion and choose life without heroic self-sacrifice.

My Providing for Life Act offers an example of how to support pregnant women and their children. It includes a host of pro-family, pro-life reforms, from an expansion of the child tax credit to guaranteed paid parental leave to enhanced child-support enforcement. The details can be debated, but this package serves as a handy template of what our party should pursue.

The second step toward changing the tide is to hold Democrats to the fire for their extremism.

Democrats support taxpayer-funded abortion, for any reason, up until the moment of birth – and in some cases, after birth. This is not an exaggeration. To quote Abhi Rahman, national communications director for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee: ‘A ban is a ban, period…. No matter what week they try to put on it….’

The Democrat Party platform is explicit about this position, and virtually every Democrat in Congress has voted for the so-called Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill that would eliminate virtually all abortion restrictions nationwide. 

Democrats also resist even the most basic protections for babies, such as legislation requiring abortionists to render medical aid to infants who survive surgical late-term abortions. 

These are the institutional positions of the pro-abortion left. They are wildly unjust. They are also widely unpopular. Yet most Americans have no idea that their politicians believe these things, because major media outlets literally refuse to cover them.

If the Democrats are going to be held to account for their extremism, we’ll have to do it ourselves. We should use every tool at our disposal so Democrats are forced to answer the question, ‘What restrictions do you support on abortion?’ in the Capitol and back home in districts and states. If Democrats are forced to talk honestly, they will lose.

Finally, as people who call ourselves pro-life, we must recall that protecting human beings is the center and purpose of our movement – and we cannot be shy about saying so.

It’s no secret that Americans have different views on whether and how to limit abortion. Pro-lifers must engage with the public pragmatically, recognizing that this debate puts two rights in conflict with one another – the right of women to control their bodies and the right of every person to be free from unjust violence. We have to navigate tough terrain with sympathy. But we should never abandon our moral mission. 

Other developed countries have far stronger abortion restrictions than the average blue state. Switzerland, for example, prohibits abortions after 12 weeks, with few exceptions, and requires physicians to counsel women seeking abortion about the risks of the procedure and alternatives to it. 

If Republicans cannot go at least as far as Europe in seeking to limit abortion, then we will have failed those who elected us – and more importantly, we will have failed the unborn Americans whom we claim to defend.

This is not to say that the choices before us are easy – they are anything but. But they present a powerful opportunity to refocus and remember who we are. 

Our party believes in the dignity of the human person, the importance of family and the unalienable right to life. There is no cause that unites those beliefs more perfectly and motivates our party’s supporters more earnestly than the pro-life cause. We have a sacred duty to advocate for it effectively.

Former President Trump is dominating the polls in all early voting states, putting him more than 30 points ahead of his closest competitor, according to new polling.

Trump, who solidified his standing as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination after winning the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses Monday night, now has his sights set on New Hampshire.

Trump traveled to the Granite State this week after his Iowa victory in which he dominated his GOP opponents by winning 98 of 99 counties. He ultimately collected 20 delegates in the state. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in second place in Iowa, and Haley came in third. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy came in fourth place and dropped out later in the night, announcing his full endorsement and support for Trump.

As caucus day approached, it was anticipated that Trump, who has a commanding lead over his opponents in all primary polling across the nation, would dominate in Iowa.

While Trump is ahead by double-digits in New Hampshire, some recent polling shows Trump and Haley neck and neck. Independents can vote in the Republican primary in the state, which could be beneficial to Haley, who some have cast as a more moderate Republican option. 

Moderate voters in the Granite State are highly influential, and the state’s independents – who can vote in either major party primary – have long played a crucial role in New Hampshire’s storied presidential contest.

The poll from American Research Group Inc. released Tuesday shows Trump and Haley tied at 40% among the state’s likely Republican primary voters.

But another New Hampshire poll released Wednesday by Suffolk University, the Boston Globe and NBC10 in Boston shows Trump with 50% support among those likely to vote in the primary. Haley in that poll stands at 34% support with DeSantis at just 5%. Six percent said they are undecided and 3% are backing another candidate.

The new poll shows Trump with a massive 61%-34% lead over Haley among registered Republicans, with Haley topping Trump 44%-38% among independents.

While the former president holds a commanding 67%-18% lead over his former U.N. ambassador among self-described conservatives, Haley leads 56%-27% among those who consider themselves moderate or liberal.

According to the RealClearPolitics Average between Jan. 3 and Jan. 10, Trump stood at 43.5% and Haley at 29.4%. Next was former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has since dropped out of the race, with 11.3%. That poll puts DeSantis at 6.5%.

But beyond New Hampshire, Trump holds an even stronger lead.

In Nevada, which holds its primary contests in early February, Trump sits at 69%, which is 58.5 points ahead of DeSantis, who has 10.5% of the vote, according to the RealClearPolitics Average from Sept. 29 through Jan. 8.

And in Haley’s home state of South Carolina, which votes on Feb. 24, Trump is up 30.2 points at 52%, with Haley in second place at 21.8% and DeSantis polling at 11%, according to that RealClearPolitics Average from Oct. 18 through Jan. 3.

But as Trump holds his massive lead and likely begins collecting the majority of delegates in the early voting states, which brings him closer to the number needed to secure the GOP nomination, he will also need to divert his attention from the campaign trail and into courtrooms in several jurisdictions.

This week, Trump is in court in New York City for the civil defamation damages trial stemming from E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit that alleges he sexually attacked her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and told Fox News Digital he has ‘absolutely no idea who this woman is.’ Trump is expected to testify in his own defense.

That appearance in court came a day after he won the Iowa caucuses and just days after closing arguments were delivered in the non-jury civil trial that stems from New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against him, his family and his businesses. 

James sued Trump, his family and his business empire, claiming he inflated his financial statements and deceived banks. Trump has denied any wrongdoing. 

The former president has repeatedly said his assets were actually undervalued and his financial statements had disclaimers that requested the numbers be evaluated by the banks.

A decision is expected in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference trial is set to begin on March 4, the day before the March 5 Super Tuesday primary contests in which Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Vermont vote to select a GOP nominee.

That has been put on pause due to a review by an appeals court, and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court, on Trump’s argument of presidential immunity. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Next on the calendar is the trial prompted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s yearslong investigation related to hush-money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.

That trial is set to begin in New York City on March 25. However, Bragg said he would be flexible on that date, pending the decision on trial timing in Smith’s Jan. 6 case.

If it does begin on March 25, court proceedings are to take place just after the Louisiana primary and ahead of April 2, which is when Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island and Wisconsin voters hit the polls to select a GOP nominee.

Then, Smith’s classified documents trial is set to begin on May 20, ahead of the Kentucky primary on May 21, the Oregon primary on May 25 and New Jersey’s primary on June 4.

Should Trump solidify his lead in the GOP nomination, he would spend July 15-18 at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. But Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has proposed that Trump’s trial in his election interference case begin just weeks later.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges in all cases.

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

Republican hardliners are reluctantly accepting defeat in the current fight over short-term government funding.

House and Senate leaders are working to pass a stopgap funding extension – known as a continuing resolution (CR) – aimed at keeping the government from a partial shutdown. Current federal funding expires in two tranches, on Jan. 19 and Feb. 2.

The issue of federal spending has driven a wedge between different House GOP factions, with conservatives staging several protest votes and even booting former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., from leadership for passing a CR to avoid a shutdown late last year. 

But several of those same GOP rebels are backing away from the idea of repeating the move with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. 

‘The only people I hear talking about that are you guys,’ House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va., told reporters on Wednesday morning when asked about filing a motion to vacate against Johnson.

Good was one of the eight House Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy in October.

Now, however, he and other Freedom Caucus members signaled there’s little they could do to stop the bill from passing if House leaders put it forward under suspension of the rules, meaning it will skip a procedural step in exchange for needing two-thirds of the House’s support instead of just a simple majority.

‘I don’t have anything to announce at this point,’ Good said when asked about repercussions against House GOP leaders.

Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., told Fox News Digital he was ‘an optimist’ but conceded that there was likely little that conservatives could do to stop the CR from passing.

‘I guess if he puts it on suspension, a lot of Democrats vote for it, maybe that’s a correct statement. But it’s certainly not something I’m going to vote for,’ he said.

Rep. Dan Bishop, R-S.C., also dismissed talk of ousting Johnson from the speakership. He suggested it was more difficult to ‘leverage’ Johnson than it was McCarthy.

‘He’s an honest broker. He is a genuine conservative. He is in the circumstances everybody understands. And the problem is the Republican conference as a whole, and whether or not the members will stand up and demand some substantive, lasting, significant change, conservative change,’ Bishop said.

But lawmakers outside their circle took a blunter tone when discussing a potential rebellion against this CR.

‘Those individuals have now overplayed their hand,’ Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., said. ‘I think they’re effectively sidelined because they’ve done it to themselves. They just don’t know when to stop, and it’s more about the fight rather than the result. And that’s just, I think it’s pretty pathetic.’

If passed, the new CR would extend the two government funding deadlines until March 1 and March 8, respectively.

It comes after conservatives spent the better part of last week trying to force Johnson to back out of a bipartisan deal on government funding for the remainder of fiscal year 2024.

But Johnson held firm to the deal and similarly defied his hardliners on Wednesday when reaffirming his intent to pass the CR.

‘We need just a little bit more time on the calendar to allow that process to play out. This is what the American people expect and deserve,’ Johnson said during his weekly press conference. ‘This is the way the law is supposed to work, where individual appropriations bills and not one big massive omnibus spending bill are duly negotiated and amended and priorities fought for. And that’s what we’re doing.’

Last year saw new artificial intelligence products released at the most rapid pace yet, though predictions of an AI boom on the scale of last decade’s tech explosion have yet to come to fruition.

‘I think 2023 was the year that AI astonished people and 2024 will be the year of retrenchment as people learn the limitations of AI and where various AI systems have the greatest utility,’ Christopher Alexander, chief analytics officer for Pioneer Development Group, told Fox News Digital. ‘I think that the race for AI utility has just begun and AI will become a permanent fixture in people’s lives. I think that the grand predictions for AI in this past year confused the current state of AI and the future state, which has led to some confusion in the market.’

Alexander’s comments come after what was in many ways a landmark year for AI technology in 2023, with new platforms and developments making headlines throughout the year. Yet expectations of a boom that dominated headlines in the five years before it have so far failed to come to fruition, making many wonder where the new tech goes from here.

Phil Siegel, founder of the Center for Advanced Preparedness and Threat Response Simulation, told Fox News Digital that it is still ‘very early’ in the development phase of AI tools but noted there are signs that a takeoff is still on the way.

‘What is blowing up now is the infrastructure pieces like chips and supplies to make sure the true application of the technology can blow up,’ Siegel said.

But Siegel also cautioned that a true boom of AI will continue to take time, noting that newer products hitting the market are often priced too high to see widespread use.

‘It takes a reasonable amount of time for real products to hit the market in a big way,’ Siegel said. ‘Those are just starting to emerge but are probably being priced way too high for broad adoption, even in business. What will be a big step forward is when the data management companies figure out their product set so companies can use their own data for custom AI applications to merge with the generic applications.’

Other experts argue that the AI boom has already arrived in some ways, something that an average consumer may be missing.

‘AI has far exceeded expectations in that it’s widespread utility has become abundantly apparent. AI’s capabilities have also continued moving at a breakneck pace as developers continue to inch closer and closer towards artificial general intelligence,’ Samuel Mangold-Lenett, a staff editor at The Federalist, told Fox News Digital. ‘We probably aren’t seeing a bigger boom because the average person still doesn’t consciously interact with AI on a daily basis.’

Mangold-Lenett pointed to language learning models (LLM) such as ChatGPT, noting that the technology for such platforms is still very new but increased significantly in popularity in 2023.

‘Whether or not we’re aware of it, the AI moment is here,’ Mangold-Lenett said. ‘Development will continue at a rapid pace, and we will continue to see AI play an increasing role in our daily lives.’ 

Jake Denton, a research associate at the Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center, also pointed to the rise in chatbots in 2023, but he noted the average consumer is still unlikely to interact with such platforms thanks to their unclear utility.

‘Their capabilities are often still unclear and their user interfaces remain rather clunky,’ Denton told Fox News Digital. ‘This reflects the chasm between vision and reality in AI. The long-term potential is staggering, but short-term applications remain narrow.’

Nevertheless, Denton noted that developers are well on their way to improving the tech, arguing that slow adaptation of new technology is normal at first.

‘Truly revolutionary technologies often appear useless at first. Their capabilities seem toy-like, with no clear purpose. However, with improved functionality and enhanced product design, these systems have the potential to fit seamlessly into our lives, enabling feats previously unimaginable,’ Denton said. ‘While we are still in the early stages of this Al revolution, much of the hard infrastructure and foundations have been built; it’s now up to developers to construct products of lasting value upon it.’

Siegel believes that 2024 will be a telling year for the new tech, crystallizing whether a full-fledged boom is on the horizon.

‘On the consumer side, the products are still at the ‘toy’ or simple productivity uses like drawings or stories or just fun conversations. That, however, is not a sustainable base for a business model to make money. Companies with real uses are starting to emerge in personal finance, health care and so forth, but they either aren’t fully functional, aren’t totally safe or have no way to make money,’ Siegel said. ‘2024 will tell us if this is a full-fledged revolution or the next good productivity tool for the white-collar and consumer worlds.’

Top legal and ethical experts weighed in on art gallerist Georges Bergès’ revelation of Hunter Biden’s knowledge of his art buyers, saying the American people were ‘misled.’

Fox News Digital reached out to several legal and ethical experts on Bergès’ revelation during his closed-door, transcribed interview with the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees earlier this month.

Bergès told the committees that an agreement to shield the knowledge of Hunter Biden’s buyers from him was not put in place for months after the White House’s statement that a ‘system’ had been ‘established’ to do so.

Hunter Biden’s gallerist said that the first son knew the identities of approximately 70% of those buyers.

‘The White House effort was the ultimate example of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted,’ George Washington University law professor and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital.

‘The clear message given repeatedly to Congress and the public was that an ethical plan was in place to prevent such knowledge,’ he continued.

‘The ethical claims of the White House proved as abstract as Hunter’s art pieces,’ Turley said. ‘In reality, the breach had occurred long before the ethical plan was implemented.’

‘The testimony that Bergès did not have interactions with the White House on the plan further undermines these claims. Indeed, Bergès admitted that he was reading these statements from the White House with no knowledge of what they were referencing. Yet, Bergès and the Bidens proceeded knowing that the public was being misled.’

Former Bush administration ethics chief Richard Painter told Fox News Digital that the White House’s ‘whole arrangement of keeping the buyers secret was completely the wrong way to go.’

Painter said the White House ‘should have had nothing to do’ with Bergès, and that the ‘best approach’ for Hunter Biden would have been to ‘not sell the art at all during his father’s presidency and certainly not sell it at those prices.’

‘The worst option is what they chose, which is to keep it all, to say it’s all going to be confidential, and Hunter Biden won’t know and nobody will know,’ Painter said. ‘And this is exactly what I said happens, is that the word gets around.’

‘Of course you find out who bought the art,’ Painter continued. ‘People hang the art on the wall.’

‘They don’t stick it in closet,’ he added.

Attorney Sol Weisenberg said that we ‘don’t know right now the full ethical implications, if any, of this latest White House falsehood regarding Hunter Biden’s special privileges and ethical/legal lapses.’

‘It is simply another example of the Biden family’s leisurely approach to influence peddling,’ Weisenberg said. ‘As a citizen, I would rather know who is buying the paintings and how much they are paying than operating under the false illusion that Hunter and the family are being kept in the dark about the source of this latest largesse.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Bergès and the White House for comment.

Bergès’ interview with the committees came as part of the House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

House investigators, during his interview, showed Bergès a statement made by then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki on July 9, 2021.

‘After careful consideration, a system has been established that allows for Hunter Biden to work in his profession within reasonable safeguards,’ she said. ‘All interactions regarding the selling of art and the setting of prices will be handled by professional galleries, adhering to the highest industry standards. Any offer out of the normal court would be rejected out of hand.’

Psaki added, ‘The galleries will not share information about buyers or prospective buyers, including their identities, with Hunter Biden or the administration, which provides quite a level of protection.’

When pressed further, Psaki stressed that ‘it would be challenging for an anonymous person who we don’t know and Hunter Biden doesn’t know to have influence — so that’s a protection.’ 

However, Bergès testified that at the time of the White House’s July 2021 statement, he had an agreement with Hunter Biden which called for him, instead, ‘to disclose to Hunter Biden who the purchasers of his art were.’ Bergès said that contract was agreed to in December 2020. 

Bergès said that it was not until September 2021 that a new agreement with Hunter Biden was created. That agreement stated that ‘the gallery will not disclose the name of any buyers of artist’s artwork to artist or any agent of artist.’

Bergès stressed, though, that there was not a ‘White House-involved agreement,’ and that Hunter Biden did know the identities of approximately 70% of the buyers of his art. Meanwhile, Bergès testified that he had spoken to President Biden both on the phone and in person.

The art gallerist previously told Fox News Digital he ‘never violated the agreement we had with Hunter Biden.’

‘If he knew the identities of some of the buyers — it’s because they were his friends or by happenstance,’ Bergès said. ‘My obligation to Hunter is to not disclose the buyers — which I haven’t.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed reporting.