WASHINGTON, D.C. – Former President Trump fired up a major gathering of conservative and faith voters on Saturday, just days ahead of what’s expected to be an epic head-to-head battle with President Biden in the first presidential debate of 2024.

A diverse crowd of more than a thousand attendees of the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual Road to Majority conference piled into the Washington Hilton’s ballroom to hear Trump, who spared no time in mentioning the pending clash.

‘Nobody’s going to be watching the debate on Thursday night, right?’ Trump quipped, prompting laughs from the crowd.

He spent part of his opening remarks calling for Christians to get out and vote in November. 

‘Christians don’t vote that much. You don’t have to vote in four years, but you have to vote this time,’ he joked.

Trump spoke on a number of issues important to voters of faith, including late-term abortion and his administration’s movement of the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. 

‘Never again will the federal government be used to target Americans of faith,’ Trump said, referencing crackdowns on gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He also lamented religion ‘becoming less and less important’ across the country, citing its decline as a reason the country is facing crime and other problems.

Trump railed against the ‘radical left,’ who he said ‘rigged’ the 2020 election, and vowed they wouldn’t do the same this year.

‘They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom,’ Trump said, referencing the various prosecutions being carried out against him.

Trump got what appeared to be the loudest applause when speaking on illegal immigration, when he vowed to begin the ‘largest deportation operation in American history’ on his first day in office.

The Road to Majority Conference is hosted annually by the Faith & Freedom Coalition, a major Christian grassroots organization with more than 3 million members across the U.S. 

The conference is known as the largest public policy gathering of conservative Christian activists in the U.S., and will focus on policy issues that matter most to voters of faith ahead of the 2024 election.

Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin spoke just ahead of Trump, issuing a call to action to get the former president back into the White House, as well as strengthened Republican majorities in Congress.

The two appeared together for the first time earlier this month — not long after a poll showed Trump and Biden tied in the blue-leaning state — fanning the rumors already circulating that Youngkin is being considered as a potential vice presidential running mate.

Other prominent speakers at the conference were South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson, former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who left the Democratic Party in 2022, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, and Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty.

Noem, Carson and Gabbard have also all been mentioned as potential running mates for Trump. The event marks the latest instance where a number of those reportedly in the running for the role could be competing on stage for Trump’s approval ahead of the Republican National Convention this summer.

Trump will meet Biden on an Atlanta stage this Thursday in a debate hosted by CNN, the first meeting between the two rivals since their final debate ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

The two are only expected to meet on the debate stage one other time ahead of the November general election, when ABC News hosts its debate in September.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has raised another round of speculation about his health following publication of photos from his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

‘I don’t know what the severity of his health is like, but, just by looking at it on the TV screens, [he] doesn’t look like a healthy man,’ Professor Sung-Yoon Lee, fellow at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and author of ‘The Sister: North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, the Most Dangerous Woman in the World,’ told Fox News Digital. ‘But it’s been like that for, you know, almost 10 years now.’

Former CIA North Korea analyst Sue Mi Terry aroused speculation when she said, based on footage of his meeting with Putin in Pyongyang, that Kim ‘doesn’t look too good to me.’ 

‘There was a time when he lost a little weight, and he looked better, so my initial reaction was that he didn’t look, in terms of being healthy, because his health is something that we always track anyway,’ Terry said, according to The Hill. 

Lee agreed with Terry’s assessment, describing part of the meeting when Kim first arrived at the meeting in his limousine and walked ‘no more than 30 yards’ before getting on an escalator. With that minor exertion, ‘you could see Kim Jong Un huffing and puffing, and you could audibly hear it: [He was] breathing hard like that after walking 25, 30 yards, and even when the two sat down, he was still out of breath,’ Lee said. 

However, Lee cautioned that Kim has long appeared unhealthy, looking ‘morbidly obese’ for much of his tenure as the supreme leader of the hermit kingdom and that even if he appears incredibly unhealthy again following his weight loss in 2021, he could still live well thanks to the health care at his disposal. 

‘Kim is filthy rich: He owns an entire state — it’s his domain in a medieval style, absolute monarch… he has the finest medical team, first-rate, although the health care system throughout the nation is dilapidated,’ Lee explained. ‘It’s a joke, but he has good doctors working for him, and their raison d’etre is to make sure that Kim doesn’t collapse the next day.’ 

Lee noted that both Kim’s father and grandfather, Kim Jong Il and Kim Sung Il, respectively, died from heart attacks, and he talked at length about Kim’s many vices, such as heavy drinking and smoking. 

A 2016 report from The Guardian noted that Kim had gained 90 pounds in the four years since he took over following his father’s death due to ‘binges’ of food and alcohol to cope with ‘constant fear of being assassinated.’ The report cited South Korea’s intelligence service, which claimed that Kim weighed 286 pounds at the time. 

‘Kim also apparently suffered gout in October 2014,’ Lee revealed. ‘He was not seen in public from mid-September to about mid-October and then showed up with a cane.’

Kim’s health will also remain vitally important to Putin, who increasingly relies on weapons from his allies as the war in Ukraine depletes both sides. Reports indicate that North Korea could have sent as many as 5 million artillery shells to Russia, based on the size of containers shipped last week. 

‘Kim knows that he has some leverage now with Putin and for Putin to make this on this pilgrimage, this unusual visit to North Korea,’ Lee argued. ‘[It] says a lot about how the two sides are joined together in rewriting international law, international norms, violating sanctions — brazenly denying any military collusion.’

‘The two men signal to Washington and other allies that, hey, you do your best to derail our partnership: We’re standing tall together,’ Lee concluded.

The judge presiding over former President Trump’s classified records case is holding a hearing Friday to consider whether the appointment of U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith and the funding of his investigations is ‘unlawful.’

Judge Aileen Cannon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida had postponed the trial stemming from Smith’s investigation into Trump’s alleged improper retention of classified records indefinitely. 

Upon postponing the trial, Cannon scheduled deadlines for reports on June 10 and 17 and a nonevidentiary hearing on a motion to dismiss on Friday, ‘based on unlawful appointment and funding of special counsel.’ 

Cannon expanded Friday’s hearing to allow amici to argue before the court, as well as Trump defense attorneys and federal prosecutors. 

Former Attorney General Ed Meese, who served under former President Reagan, filed an amicus brief in the case, in which he argues that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Smith as special counsel – a private citizen at the time – is in violation of the appointments clause of the Constitution. 

Garland appointed Smith as special counsel on Nov. 18, 2022 – just days after Trump announced he would run for president in 2024. 

‘Not clothed in the authority of the federal government, Smith is a modern example of the naked emperor,’ the brief states. 

‘Improperly appointed, he has no more authority to represent the United States in this Court than Bryce Harper, Taylor Swift, or Jeff Bezos,’ they argued. 

Meese argues that the ‘illegality’ of Smith’s appointment is ‘sufficient to sink Smith’s petition, and the Court should deny review.’ 

Meese and company noted in the brief that Smith was appointed ‘to conduct the ongoing investigation into whether any person or entity [including former President Trump] violated the law in connection with efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021.’

Garland defended his move earlier this month during a hearing on Capitol Hill, arguing that ‘there are regulations under which the attorney general appoint special counsel. They have been in effect for 30 years, maybe longer, under both parties.’ 

‘The matter that you’re talking about, about whether somebody can have an employee of the Justice Department serve as special counsel has been adjudicated,’ Garland argued, adding that other special counsel appointments he and other attorneys general have made cite a regulation that points to a statute. 

Meese, however, in his briefs filed in several points in the Trump cases, argued that ‘none of those statutes, nor any other statutory or constitutional provisions, remotely authorized the appointment by the Attorney General of a private citizen to receive extraordinary criminal law enforcement power under the title of Special Counsel.’

Meese’s brief was even mentioned in a question by Justice Clarence Thomas in the Supreme Court oral arguments over Trump’s presidential immunity in Smith’s other case regarding 2020 election interference, which the high court is expected to decide this month.

Presenting arguments on June 21 in Florida on behalf of Meese will be Gene Schaerr; Josh Blackman on behalf of Professor Seth Barrett Tillman; and Matthew Seligman on behalf of constitutional lawyers, former government officials, and ‘State Democracy Defenders Action.’

Meanwhile, Cannon scheduled an additional hearing from June 24 to 26 and set deadlines for disclosures from the special counsel for early July and the defendants’ speedy trial report for July 19 – the final day of the Republican National Convention.

Trump is set to be sentenced in Manhattan after being found guilty on all counts in New York v. Trump, stemming from District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation on July 11. 

Cannon scheduled a status conference for July 22 and another hearing for later that day.

Cannon did not schedule a new trial date.

Trump faced charges stemming from Smith’s investigation into his possession of classified materials. He pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony counts from Smith’s probe, including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements.

Trump was also charged with an additional three counts as part of a superseding indictment from the investigation – an additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts.

Trump pleaded not guilty.

Cannon’s move last month to indefinitely postpone the trial comes after the judge unsealed a slew of documents related to the FBI’s investigation into the former president and the FBI’s raid on his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, estate in 2022.

The documents provided a detailed look into the personnel involved in the raid on Mar-a-Lago and a play-by-play timeline of it. One of the documents is an FBI file that suggests the agency’s investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents was dubbed ‘Plasmic Echo.’

Another unsealed FBI memo memorialized the role of Garland in the investigation.

In a document dated March 30, 2022, Garland provided his approval to allow the investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents to upgrade to a ‘full investigation.’

‘This email conveys Department of Justice (DOJ) Attorney General (AG) [Merrick Garland] approval for conversion to a full investigation,’ a synopsis of the restricted document reads.

Also, last month, Smith and federal prosecutors admitted in a court filing that documents seized during the raid on Mar-a-Lago are no longer in their original order and sequence.

‘There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,’ Smith’s filing states.  

The prosecutors had previously told the court that the documents were ‘in their original, intact form as seized.’ 

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is investigating whether that evidence was ‘altered or manipulated.’

Smith also charged Trump in a separate jurisdiction, in Washington, D.C., out of his investigation into election interference and Jan. 6. Trump pleaded not guilty to those charges, as well.

That trial was postponed indefinitely. The Supreme Court is considering arguments on presidential immunity and whether Trump is immune from prosecution in Smith’s case.

The high court is expected to rule on the matter by the end of the term next week.

Gay Trump voters are shattering the Democratic Party’s ‘lie’ that the LGBT community only votes blue, the president of the Log Cabin Republicans told Fox News Digital. 

‘Donald Trump is providing an opportunity for everybody to have an equal shot on a fair playing field. And that’s what it comes down to at the end of the day. LGBT voters don’t need to be pandered to. We don’t need to be marginalized. We just need to be given the same opportunity for success, and for freedom, and for liberty as everybody else,’ Log Cabin Republicans President Charles Moran told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview earlier this week. 

‘Donald Trump is the only candidate who’s making that happen,’ he continued. ‘There’s no assumption … of us being in a discounted or a diminished state.’

The Log Cabin Republicans is the nation’s oldest and largest organization of LGBT Republicans, with over 10,000 members across the country, including 80 chapters in 40 states, Moran said. Though the group’s base focuses on centrist and center-right gay voters, Log Cabin Republicans also has strong support from suburban women and youths. 

Throughout Moran’s interview, he stressed that Trump, in conjunction with former first lady Melania Trump, is spreading a message of unity while vowing to implement policies that benefit all Americans, regardless of skin color, gender or sexual orientation. 

Trump has made massive strides in courting the gay community in his previous campaigns, with Moran anticipating again increasing the number of gay voters supporting the GOP this year. In 2016, Trump only received 14% of the gay vote, but he doubled that statistic to 28% in 2020.

‘This is a year where we can absolutely drive those LGBT numbers up, and I’m going to shoot for as close to 50% as possible. And the really important thing here is that shatters the stereotype that if you’re gay you have to be a Democrat. We know that not to be true as much, as the left wing and mainstream media want to keep pushing that lie. It’s just not true. Nearly a third of the LGBT voters in the last election voted for Republicans, both for either President Trump or for congressional Republicans,’ he said. 

The Trump campaign told Fox News Digital that Trump’s commitment to curbing inflation and addressing spiraling crime rates if re-elected will benefit all Americans. 

‘By bringing down inflation and the skyrocketing cost of living, cutting taxes, and restoring law and order in our communities, President Trump’s second term agenda will create a safer and more prosperous America for ALL Americans, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or creed!’ Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said. 

Moran noted that amid efforts to earn a greater share of gay votes, members of the LGBTQ community have become disenchanted with the Democratic Party’s ‘virtue signaling’ and ‘pandering.’

‘I think one of the biggest things that we’ve seen in 2024 is that the era of virtue signaling and pandering is coming to a very quick halt. You saw corporations during Pride Month really cut back and curtail on some of the over-the-top virtue signaling that had been going on because they got called out on it, mocked and shamed for that inauthenticity back in 2023. I don’t think any of those corporate CEOs wanted to go back into that in 2024. So I’m really in a strong position at this point to let Republicans know: Just be authentic with it, because the Biden administration has been taking an ever-increasing role of the pandering and virtue signaling,’ Moran said. 

He pointed to the White House’s pride month event last year, when a trans activist went topless on the South Lawn, as well as the White House flying a progress flag, which he called the ‘bastardized version of the traditional rainbow flag,’ while flanked by American flags last year. The White House quickly condemned the trans activist for the nudity stunt, as footage of the scene from the South Lawn went viral. 

‘It’s turned into a mockery,’ he said of recent ‘pandering’ at the White House. 

‘It is worse now under Joe Biden internationally to be gay. The lives of our brothers and sisters in the Middle East and in other parts of the world, in Africa and the Caribbean and some places in Southeast Asia, it is now worse and more dangerous than it was under Donald J. Trump.’

When asked if Biden or Trump has better policies that benefit the gay community, Moran did not hesitate when answering, ‘Trump.’ He cited that Trump is the ‘first president ever elected in history that supported LGBT marriage, marriage equality on day one,’ that the 45th president has made it easier to be a gay voter in the Republican Party, that gay people across the world were at less risk of harm and discrimination under the Trump administration due to his foreign policies, and that the 45th president leaves pandering at the door in favor of authentic messaging.

‘LGBT voters have gotten to the point now, where they are mature enough and they’re sophisticated enough to say, like, ‘hey, it’s not so much: do you support marriage equality, or some of these other LGBT rights issues?’ It’s a ‘are you … creating a condition as an elected official for me to be able to survive, to thrive, to raise my family, to run my business?’ And every one of the answers that keeps coming back is ‘no’ from these Democrats,’ he said. 

‘At some point, you can’t just keep slapping the rainbow lipstick on a pig here. And that’s exactly what the Democrats are trying to do with the pandering and the virtue signaling.’ 

Moran conveyed that Biden has even worsened gay rights for people on the world stage with weak foreign policies. 

‘Under the Biden administration, it’s actually gotten worse because of that lack of strong foreign policy presence, and because of the lack of America being willing to stand up for our morals and values on an international stage. It’s actually gotten worse. What they’ve done to empower Iran, the releasing of the $10 billion and the consideration of doing it again, absolutely has an impact in our world. Where they’re executing gays and lesbians regularly for being who they are,’ he said. 

‘It is worse now under Joe Biden internationally to be gay. The lives of our brothers and sisters in the Middle East and in other parts of the world, in Africa and the Caribbean and some places in Southeast Asia, it is now worse and more dangerous than it was under Donald J. Trump,’ he continued. 

Biden-Harris 2024 spokesperson Kevin Munoz told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that ‘LGBTQ+ Americans couldn’t have more at stake this election: Donald Trump and his extremist allies are running to gut LGBTQ+ rights and erase history as their top priorities.’

‘LGBTQ+ Americans deserve leaders who will fight for every American’s freedom and dignity. That’s what President Biden and Vice President Harris have done throughout their time in office, and what they will do if reelected, including pressing Congress to pass the Equality Act. There has never been a more critical time to protect the rights of all Americans, no matter who you love or how you identify, and [President Biden is running] to not just safeguard, but strengthen the rights and voice of every single American,’ Munoz continued. 

News broke this week that former first lady Melania Trump will join the Log Cabin Republicans for her second campaign fundraiser with the group this summer and her fourth fundraiser with them overall. Moran said that Melania Trump is ‘an amazing ally’ and communicator who spreads the message of ‘unity.’ 

‘She really knows that inclusion does win and that unity is one of the most important things that we have going for us in this country. And that’s kind of the tone that she’s set with a lot of the coalitions this year, in terms of bringing Americans together. And we know that under Joe Biden, it doesn’t matter if you’re gay or you’re straight, if you’re black or you’re white, or you’re Asian, if you’re Christian, if you’re Jewish or you’re Muslim, life is worse for you now under Joe Biden and his failed leadership than it was under Donald Trump. And that’s something that we can all rally around,’ he argued. 

Melania Trump will join the Log Cabin Republicans in Manhattan on July 8, with donations benefiting the group’s ‘Road to Victory’ program to boost voter turnout for the GOP. 

Moran reflected on President Reagan’s mantra that ‘80% my friend is not 20% my enemy,’ which he said is embraced by the Log Cabin Republicans as they look to broaden the GOP vote. 

‘You don’t have to agree with us on all of our public policy points, but if you agree that we have a place in the party, or that America is a place where LGBT people can and should have the same rights and responsibilities as every other person, we can work with you on that. And that’s what we’re going to do to have a lasting, durable majority in the Republican Party.’