President Donald Trump threatened ‘very severe consequences’ for Russia if President Vladimir Putin doesn’t agree to end the war in Ukraine after their meeting in Alaska on Friday. 

Trump issued the warning Wednesday as he is preparing for a sit-down with Putin in Anchorage. 

‘Yes, they will. There will be consequences,’ Trump said in response to a reporter’s question on the topic. The president then refused to elaborate on what the punishment would be. 

‘I don’t have to say. There will be very severe consequences,’ he added. 

Trump later appeared to cast doubt on whether he could convince Putin to stop bombing Ukrainian civilians. 

‘I’ll tell you what. I’ve had that conversation with him. I’ve had a lot of good conversations with him then I go home and I see that a rocket hit a nursing home or a rocket hit an apartment building, and people are laying dead in the streets,’ Trump said. 

‘So, I guess the answer to that is no, because I’ve had this conversation. I want to end the war. It’s Biden’s war, but I want to end it. I’ll be very proud to end this war, along with the five other wars I ended. But, I guess the answer to that is probably no,’ Trump continued. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said Wednesday that there is ‘no sign’ that Russia is preparing to end the war in Ukraine. 

‘At present, there is no sign that the Russians are preparing to end the war. Our coordinated efforts and joint actions – of Ukraine, the United States, Europe, and all countries that seek peace – can definitely compel Russia to make peace,’ Zelenskyy said on X. 

President Donald Trump indicated Wednesday that he would meet with the top congressional Democrats ahead of the looming government funding deadline, but said he didn’t believe it would go well.

Lawmakers in the House and Senate are currently away from Washington, D.C., in their respective districts and states, but the Sept. 30 deadline to prevent a partial government shutdown will be just a handful of weeks away when they return after Labor Day.

And there is a brewing tension between Republicans and Democrats over just how the looming government funding fight will shake out.

Trump, during a press conference where he announced a slate of Kennedy Center honorees, said he would meet with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., before the deadline.  

‘But it’s almost a waste of time to meet, because they never approve anything,’ Trump added.

‘I don’t believe anybody is capable of making a deal with these people,’ he continued. ‘They have gone crazy.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer and Jeffries for comment but did not immediately hear back.

Lawmakers must pass the dozen spending bills needed to fund the government to avert a partial shutdown, but that process, known as regular order, has not happened in decades.

While Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has made clear he wants to pass spending bills, and the Senate did indeed pass a trio of funding measures before leaving town, Congress will likely again turn to a short-term government funding extension, known as a continuing resolution (CR).

However, any CR must pass muster with Senate Democrats, given that the legislation has to pass through the upper chamber’s 60-vote threshold.

And congressional Democrats have a bitter taste left in their mouths after Republicans rammed through Trump’s $9 billion clawback package, which included deep cuts to NPR, PBS and foreign aid. They warned that any more attempts to claw back congressionally approved funding on a partisan basis could doom government funding negotiations.

Ahead of the vote to pass three spending bills in the Senate, which included funding for military construction and Veterans Affairs, agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the legislative branch, congressional Democrats vowed that they would play ball – as long as the appropriations process was bipartisan.

‘We all want to pursue a bipartisan, bicameral appropriations process,’ Schumer said at the time. ‘That’s how it’s always been done, successfully, and we believe that, however, the Republicans are making it extremely difficult to do that.’

Earlier this year, Schumer briefly flirted with a government shutdown. However, he eventually relented and voted with Republicans to keep the lights on in Washington, and in the process ignited a firestorm within his own party over his ability as leader of the Senate Democratic caucus.

Adversaries’ fear of the U.S. military is what makes tough negotiations like the one President Donald Trump is scheduled to have with Russian President Vladimir Putin possible, Vice President JD Vance told U.S. troops stationed in England on Wednesday. 

Vance’s comments come as he’s spent the past several days meeting with multiple European leaders in preparation for Trump’s meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, with Putin in an attempt to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

‘You guys make that possible,’ Vance, a former Marine, told U.S. troops stationed at Royal Air Force Base Fairford. ‘You guys are the reason why we can go into a negotiation with strength. You guys are the reason why we have leverage in these conversations with world leaders. Because they know that if we cut a deal, it is backed up by the finest fighting force anywhere in the world. And that is what makes your job so important.’

‘The fact that people are impressed by you, the fact that so many people are frankly afraid of you is why we’re able to do what we do as an administration,’ Vance said. 

Royal Air Force Base Fairford is home to the U.S. Air Force’s 501st Combat Support Wing and the 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron. It is also paramount for U.S. Air Force operations and serves as Air Force Global Strike Command’s preferred bomber forward operating base in Europe. 

The Air Force routinely sends bomber aircraft to the military base as part of Bomber Task Force Europe 25-2 to train with NATO allies. For example, multiple Air Force B-52H Stratofortress bombers from Fairford participated in an exercise with Germany and Romania over NATO’s eastern flank in March 2022 — just after Putin launched his invasion into Ukraine.

Roughly 10,000 U.S. troops are based in the U.K., according to foreign policy think-tank Council on Foreign Relations.

Vance told troops that he had just wrapped up a call with approximately 30 European leaders, coming on the heels of various meetings with other European allies about Ukraine talks in recent days. 

A Saturday meeting with representatives of Ukraine and other European allies led to ‘significant progress’ on ending the conflict in Ukraine, a U.S. official told Fox News Digital. More details on the discussions were not available. 

But Vance said in a Sunday interview that he informed European leaders the U.S. is ‘done with the funding of the Ukraine war business,’ and that they must take on more of the burden in resolving the war. 

‘What we said to Europeans is simply, ‘First of all, this is in your neck of the woods. This is in your back door. You guys have got to step up and take a bigger role in this thing, and if you care so much about this conflict, you should be willing to play a more direct and a more substantial way in funding this war yourself,’’ Vance told Fox News Sunday.

Trump told reporters Monday that he’d be able to tell almost instantly if Putin is serious about negotiating a deal or not, and that he’d keep European leaders like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the loop after the meeting.

‘If it’s a fair deal, I will reveal it to the European Union leaders and the NATO leaders and also to President Zelenskyy,’ Trump said. ‘I may say, ‘Lots of luck, keep fighting,’ or I may say we can make a deal.’

Vice President JD Vance is poised to meet with U.S. troops at a military installation in England Wednesday – capping off a high-stakes trip to the U.K. meeting with European leaders to discuss the war in Ukraine ahead of President Donald Trump’s Friday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Vance’s visit to the U.K. comes as he’s sought to lay some groundwork with European allies leading up to Trump’s talk with Putin in Anchorage, Alaska – and as he’s turned up the heat on them to take greater ownership in the discussions since the conflict is in their backyard. 

The vice president is slated to visit Royal Air Force Base Fairford, where the U.S. Air Force’s 501st Combat Support Wing and the 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron are based. Vance, a former Marine, is expected to voice appreciation for their service, according to a source familiar with Vance’s prepared remarks. 

The military installation serves as a key location for U.S. Air Force operations and is Air Force Global Strike Command’s preferred bomber forward operating base in Europe. U.S. Air Force bombers are regularly deployed to the military base as part of Bomber Task Force Europe 25-2 to integrate with NATO allies and sharpen the service’s global strike capabilities. 

Days after Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, several Air Force B-52H Stratofortress bombers from Fairford conducted joint operations with Germany and Romania over NATO’s eastern flank.

There are approximately 10,000 U.S. troops stationed in the U.K., according to foreign policy think tank Council on Foreign Relations. 

Prior to addressing U.S. troops, Vance is poised to participate in calls with European leaders to discuss the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Fox News Digital has learned. 

The calls come on the heels of multiple other discussions with European allies on a series of topics – including the war – during Vance’s U.K. visit. Vance has met with multiple U.K. leaders, including U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy. 

A U.S. official told Fox News Digital that Vance and Lammy discussed the relationship between the U.S. and the U.K. and the two allies’ shared economic and technology goals during a meeting on Friday at Lammy’s official residence, Chevening House, in Kent, England. 

Meanwhile, the two leaders also discussed the state of affairs in the Middle East, as well as negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, the U.S. official said. 

The two also met with representatives of Ukraine and other European allies at Chevening House on Saturday. The meeting led to ‘significant progress’ on ending the conflict in Ukraine, according to a U.S. official. 

No other details were provided regarding the Ukraine talks. It’s unclear if Vance will accompany Trump to Alaska for talks with Putin. 

However, Vance said in an interview with Fox News that he communicated to European leaders that the U.S. is ‘done with the funding of the Ukraine war business,’ and that European allies must assume more responsibility in ending the conflict. 

‘What we said to Europeans is simply, first of all, this is in your neck of the woods, this is in your back door, you guys have got to step up and take a bigger role in this thing, and if you care so much about this conflict you should be willing to play a more direct and a more substantial way in funding this war yourself,’ Vance told Fox News on Sunday. 

Congress has passed multiple measures to support Ukraine, totaling at least $175 billion in spending to aid Ukraine since February 2022, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Meanwhile, Trump told reporters Monday that he’d know within minutes is Putin actually interested in a deal or not. Still, he said Moscow and Kyiv must come to terms with some ‘land swapping’ issues to sign off on a deal. 

‘If it’s a fair deal, I will reveal it to the European Union leaders and the NATO leaders and also to President Zelenskyy,’ Trump said. ‘I may say, ‘lots of luck, keep fighting,’ or I may say we can make a deal.’

Trump’s meeting with Putin also comes as his relationship with the Russian leader has soured as peace negotiations have lagged. While the two seemed to remain cordial with each other publicly during Trump’s first administration, that’s changed in recent weeks as Trump has grown fed up with Putin’s tactics. 

‘We get a lot of bulls— thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth,’ Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on July 8. ‘He’s very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.’

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison faced a barrage of tough questions from Republicans during a Wednesday House hearing on the massive fraud scandal in the state, with most of the questions focused on one key theme: What did they know, and when did they know it?

Walz and Ellison were asked multiple times for specifics regarding when they were first made aware of the fraud problems and faced sharp rebukes from Republican members, including Rep. Virginia Foxx.

‘You did not do your job, you did not do your job,’ Foxx told Walz. ‘You did not protect taxpayer dollars. You allowed massive fraud. You and Mr. Ellison allowed massive fraud to go on in the state of Minnesota. It is unfortunate, as somebody said, that you can’t be held personally responsible at this stage in the game.’

An exchange between GOP Rep. Jim Jordan and Walz sparked immediate pushback from conservatives on social media. 

‘Why didn’t you tell the truth about why you restarted the payments?’ Jordan asked during a House Oversight Committee hearing on Minnesota fraud on Wednesday.

The exchange centered on Walz’s past public statements that a judge ordered the Minnesota Department of Education to continue reimbursements in April 2021 after the agency had halted payments over fraud concerns.

Jordan pointed to a 2022 court-authorized news release from then-Ramsey County District Court Judge John H. Guthmann that disputed the governor’s characterization of the events.

‘So either you’re lying or the court’s lying. And I’m just asking you which one is it?’ Jordan said.

One of the most contentious exchanges came during questioning from GOP Rep. Nancy Mace when she pressed Walz for specific numbers on how many children are in his state, the massive increase in autism care spending and why that occurred without getting specific numbers back from Walz.

‘Ok, so your excuse before — that you didn’t know what the 2017 autism numbers were — because you were not governor, and today you can’t answer the numbers about 2024 as governor, and you still said you prepared for this hearing today. It’s unbelievable.’

Walz shot back that he wouldn’t be a ‘prop’ for Mace, and she eventually said, ‘I expect you to know this information. Thank God you’re not vice president of the United States.’

GOP Rep. Clay Higgins confronted Ellison in another heated moment asking him to say he was ‘leading’ the fight against rooting out corruption without getting the specific answer he was looking for, prompting him to call for Ellison’s resignation. 

‘I’m not talking about Medicaid fraud, don’t hide behind that,’ Higgins said, interrupting Ellison. ‘You have the authority to prosecute anything criminally that the governor asks you to, and this thing is big. I’m giving you an opportunity sir, are you leading the criminal investigative effort into this massive fraud across the board…or not?’ Higgins pressed.

‘We are following the law,’ Ellison said before Higgins cut him off again.

‘You are not leading, I’m going to say, Mr. Chairman, that the attorney general of the state of Minnesota should resign,’ Higgins said.

At the close of the hearing, things became tense again when GOP Rep. Nick Langworthy suggested that Walz, who is still serving as governor despite dropping out of his re-election bid due to the fraud scandal, should be impeached for ‘malfeasance,’ citing Minnesota’s own state Constitution. 

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan contributed to this report.

The Democratic National Committee slammed Vice President JD Vance for fishing on a private lake with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy during Vance’s official trip to the United Kingdom. 

Republicans were quick to respond to what appears to be the latest in a series of attacks by Democrats against the vice president over outdoor activities and family outings Vance mixes in during his rigorous official travel schedule. 

The DNC War Room issued a press release Wednesday titled ‘VACATION VANCE AT IT AGAIN: Vance Fished ‘Illegally’ With UK Foreign Secretary While Americans Drown in Sky-High Costs.’ 

Vance and Lammy met at the foreign secretary’s official country residence, known as Chevening House, located south of London, on Friday for talks centered on the Israel-Hamas conflict and Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

They went fishing on the estate grounds before their scheduled meeting. Vance briefly joked to reporters that the ‘one strain on the special relationship’ he has with Lammy ‘is that all of my kids caught a fish, but the foreign secretary did not.’ The vice president soon delved into more serious topics, including telling reporters that, unlike the U.K., the United States has ‘no plans to recognize a Palestinian state’ given the ‘lack of a functional government’ in Gaza. 

Their meeting came a week before President Donald Trump’s upcoming high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. 

In its release on Wednesday, the DNC charged, ‘Vance is living it up on his summer holiday — on the taxpayers’ dime — all while working families face sky-high inflation and the largest cuts to health care and food assistance in American history.’ 

Kiersten Pels, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said in a statement to Fox News Digital, ‘The DNC’s donors are OK with funding press releases on a fishing rod license? They might want to pull their money out now before the last of it vanishes down the drain.’ 

U.K. outlets reported that Lammy did not buy a valid fishing license before the outing with Vance. In a statement to Sky News, the British Foreign Office said the secretary ‘has written to the Environment Agency over an administrative oversight that meant the appropriate licences had not been acquired for fishing on a private lake as part of a diplomatic engagement at Chevening House last week.’ 

The agency reportedly requires rod licenses for fishing of freshwater species in England and Wales for people 13 or above. 

During his visit to the U.K. last week, Vance also gave a brief address to U.S. troops stationed at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. 

The DNC claimed Vance spoke to troops ‘for only six minutes before returning to his $10,000 per week luxury Cotswolds manor.’

The release also took issue with Vance allegedly ‘using public resources’ earlier this month ‘so he could do boating on his birthday.’ 

‘Vance fished ‘illegally’ in the United Kingdom, potentially costing the foreign secretary a £2,000 fine. Vance even had former Chancellor George Osborne plan his vacation’s social agenda, including relaxing in the ‘Hamptons of the UK,’’ the release said.

The DNC further charged that Trump and Vance ‘ripped away health care from 17 million Americans, slashed food assistance for over 22 million families, and unleashed economic chaos on the American people —  all to give their billionaire friends and donors another round of massive tax handouts.’ 

‘While working families struggle to get by, it’s clear where Vance’s loyalties lie — and it’s not with them,’ the DNC wrote. 

The latest attack comes after Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential contender, bemoaned Vance’s recent visit to Disneyland with his children. 

‘Hope you enjoy your family time,’ Newsom wrote on social media. ‘The families you’re tearing apart certainly won’t.’

In response, Vance wrote, ‘Had a great time, thanks.’ 

Critics also attempted to paint Vance as entitled after the vice president’s security detail had an Ohio river’s water levels raised to accommodate a kayaking trip he and his family took to celebrate his 41st birthday. The U.S. Secret Service made the request to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers so that motorized watercraft and emergency personnel could operate safely.

Before his political career, Vance notably penned an autobiography, ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ which describes how he was raised by an opioid-addicted mother in Appalachia, joined the Marines and found success at Yale Law School. 

In a recent interview on ‘The Katie Miller Podcast,’ Vance revealed that reserving ‘sacred time’ with family allows him to balance his official duties with the duties of being a husband and father.  

‘It’s possible to do it even in my job,’ he said. ‘Yes, if like a war breaks out, then sometimes you have to cancel even the sacred time. But we’ve been pretty good about making sure that I have at least a couple of hours with my family every single day.’ 

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., is being sued by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for tens of billions of dollars in damages for a lawsuit he filed against the country during his time as Missouri’s attorney general.

Schmitt is being sued by the People’s Government of Wuhan Municipality, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for roughly $50 billion, several years after the lawmaker sued the country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lawsuit, first obtained by Fox News Digital, accused Schmitt, FBI co-deputy director Andrew Bailey, and the state of Missouri of damaging the reputations of China, Wuhan and the associated research facilities through ‘malicious vexatious litigation, fabricating enormous disinformation, and spreading stigmatizing and discriminating slanders.’

Schmitt said in a statement to Fox News Digital that he’d been ‘banned from Communist China, and now I am being sued and targeted by Communist China in a $50 billion lawfare campaign, and I’ll wear it like a badge of honor.’ 

‘China’s sinister malfeasance during the COVID-19 pandemic led to over a million Americans losing their lives, economic turmoil that rocked our country for years, and an enormous amount of human suffering, and as Missouri Attorney General I filed suit to hold them accountable,’ Schmitt said. ‘Instead of trying to defend its indefensible behavior, Communist China responded with frivolous lawfare, attempting to absolve themselves of all wrongdoing in the early days of the pandemic.’ 

‘This novel lawsuit is factually baseless, legally meritless, and any fake judgment a Chinese court issues in this lawsuit we will easily beat back and keep from being enforced against the people of Missouri or me,’ he continued. ‘This is their way of distracting from what the world already knows, China has blood on its hands.’

Schmitt, who served as attorney general for the Show-Me state from 2019 to 2023, sued the PRC, several Chinese government ministries, the Communist Party of China, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in early 2020, shortly after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the time, Schmitt accused the Chinese government of withholding information on the COVID-19 virus, failing to contain the outbreak of the virus, and actively hoarding high-quality personal protective equipment (PPE) while producing and selling lower-quality PPE for the rest of the world.

That case resulted in an eventual $24 billion judgment earlier this year.

The lawsuit against Schmitt, Bailey, who resigned as Missouri’s attorney general after he was tapped by President Donald Trump to serve as co-deputy FBI director in September, and Missouri contended that the preceding lawsuit, and statements published across a variety of media outlets, led to severe reputational and economic harm.

They’re demanding that apologies be published in several outlets, including The New York Times, CNN, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Chinese media outlets. The apologies come with a price tag, too.

Wuhan and the Chinese government demanded compensation of over 356 billion Chinese Yuan, which converts to just over $50 billion dollars.

Real America’s Voice chief White House correspondent Brian Glenn and outgoing Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia revealed that they are engaged.

‘She said ‘yes’’ Glenn wrote in a post on X, adding the ring emoji while sharing a photo of himself with the congresswoman.

Greene shared Glenn’s post and wrote, ‘Happily ever after!!!’ along with a red heart emoji. ‘I love you @brianglenntv!!!’ she added.

‘Congratulations!’ Republican Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio replied to both of the posts.

GOP Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee shared Glenn’s post and wrote, ‘Congratulations! I can perform the ceremony in Tennessee for free.’

After President Donald Trump trashed Greene on Truth Social last month and suggested he would back a primary challenger, the lawmaker announced that she would resign from office, noting that her last day will be January 5.

Greene, who has served in the House of Representatives since 2021, will be leaving office in the middle of her third term.

President Donald Trump’s former Secretary of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, is sounding the alarm about China infiltrating America’s healthcare systems. 

Concern about China’s ability to infiltrate United States technology was underscored by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed last week between four state attorneys general and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, aimed at ramping up protections against Chinese infiltration of communications equipment and services utilized by the United States. 

On Monday, the Protecting America Initiative (PAI), a conservative nonprofit aimed at fighting the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts ‘to sabotage America,’ launched a campaign to highlight the nation’s vulnerability to China as it relates to medical technology. 

Earlier this year, both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) both warned of a ‘backdoor’ in a popular brand of patient monitoring devices. CISA found the so-called backdoor allowed the device to download remote files and send them to an IP address associated with a Chinese university. All schools in China operate under a law requiring them to support national intelligence work when called upon.

‘Americans rely on their doctors who take an oath to keep us safe, and first, do no harm. But when critical medical devices are made by Chinese companies, that puts our safety at risk. Chinese medical devices open the door for the CCP to access sensitive health data. President Trump and his administration always put America First and will safeguard our patients and our privacy from Beijing’s infiltration,’ PAI Senior Advisor Chad Wolf told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s time to remove Chinese medical devices from U.S. hospitals and close the data backdoor, because patient privacy and national security are non‑negotiable.’

In June, Florida’s Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier took legal action against the Chinese medical device manufacturers probed by the FDA and CISA, accusing the company of selling ‘compromised’ medical devices that allegedly include a ‘backdoor’ that bad actors can manipulate. 

In addition to patient data and privacy concerns, Uthmeier was also concerned about the medical device manufacturer, and those distributing its products, selling patient health monitors as approved by the FDA and other international standards, even though they were not.

China’s expanding presence in American medical supply chains has also been a concern among experts.

‘China’s growing role within the U.S. medical device supply chains is largely due to the combination of Beijing’s industrial policy and the shifting landscape of American healthcare,’ the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C. focusing on foreign affairs and national security, wrote in an October report.

‘The National Institute of Health (NIH) estimated that in 2019, 9.2 percent of U.S.-imported pharmaceuticals and medical equipment came from China — a percentage that ‘likely understates’ American reliance on China for medical products, NIH warned,’ the report continues. ‘This understatement is in part due to the complex nature of medical supply chains — China is both a supplier of raw materials used in medical products and the final point of assembly for goods bound for the United States, obscuring its reach into the American medical system. This percentage also does not account for the value-add or criticality of these goods, particularly those related to biodefense and managing long-term acute health issues.’

FDD claims that China has ‘exploited’ the United State’s ‘reliance’ on it by selling and exporting deliberately compromised technology, leading to doctors ‘unwittingly and unwillingly’ playing ‘Russian roulette with patient treatment plans.’

Erika Kirk announced Monday that she had a productive conversation with Candace Owens, signaling a possible thaw in their rift following weeks of public tension in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. 

Kirk shared the brief update in a statement on X and hinted that more details would come.