President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago on Monday afternoon, with talks expected to focus on renewed tensions with Iran and the possibility of advancing to additional stages of the Gaza peace plan.

Before meeting with the president, Netanyahu is slated to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday morning.

Dr. Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told Fox News Digital that President Trump has likely been pressuring Netanyahu since the peace plan’s implementation, noting that the American leader has little patience for Middle Eastern timelines, which he said are far longer than those in the U.S. and the real estate sector.

‘The problem is that Hamas knows all it has to do is survive and continue controlling the western part of Gaza while attacking Israel, as it has been doing from Gaza’s tunnel network, in order to ratchet up tensions between Israel and the U.S.,’ Diker said.

Netanyahu’s mission during the visit, he continued, will be first to lay out Israel’s threat assessment regarding Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas as extremely serious, and to impress upon the president that Tehran is rebuilding its military capabilities. He is also likely to seek to persuade Trump to allow Israel to take the steps it deems necessary to defeat Hamas.

Israeli opposition leader and former prime minister Yair Lapid told Fox News Digital that ‘We [Israel] should be coordinating with President Trump on all the major fronts, but the top priority has to be the management of stage two in Gaza.’

Lapid added, ‘Israel needs to achieve the disarmament of Hamas and the removal of the threat from Gaza, and that requires the implementation of President Trump’s plan.’

During the meeting, Netanyahu will reportedly present Trump with plans for a potential strike on Iran. Israel has warned Washington that a recent Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps missile drill could be masking preparations for an attack, a concern that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir conveyed to U.S. Central Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper during recent meetings in Tel Aviv.

In a Saturday interview reported by the country’s media, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his country is engaged in what he described as a ‘total war‘ with the U.S., Israel and Europe. The Times of Israel reported him saying, ‘In my opinion, we are at total war with the United States, Israel and Europe,’ Pezeshkian said. ‘They want to bring our country to its knees.’

Axios reported that U.S. intelligence assesses there is no immediate threat, while Israeli defense officials say forces remain on heightened alert.

According to Dr. Meir Javedanfar, a lecturer on Iran and the Middle East at Reichman University, Netanyahu’s plan is expected to call for strikes on Iran’s missile program.

‘Israel will probably hope that such a wide-scale attack would further undermine the legitimacy of Iran’s supreme leader, thereby creating greater political instability within the country. This is especially true given that after the recent war with Israel, Iran’s economy has deteriorated significantly, and the regime is not taking the necessary steps to address these problems,’ he said.

Israeli Minister for Settlement and National Missions Orit Strook stressed the importance of completing full Gaza demilitarization before moving forward with further stages of the plan.

She referenced Trump’s address to the Israeli Knesset in October, noting that he highlighted his role in building international support for Gaza’s demilitarization and securing a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for the full dismantling of weapons, tunnels and terror infrastructure.

‘Hamas wakes up every day with a mission to hurt us,’ Strook told Fox News Digital. ‘The IDF will not withdraw even one meter, and no rehabilitation framework will be established until full demilitarization is completed.

‘If, God forbid, the opposite happens in the meeting, it will be a failure of the peace plan, a failure for Trump himself — who would be settling for fake demilitarization— and a failure for us. We will not be able to say that we won this war if Hamas remains armed,’ she added.

Trump is nevertheless expected to soon unveil the second stage of his Gaza framework, despite Hamas’s failure to return the remains of Israel Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, who was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, and whose body was taken to Gaza by Hamas terrorists.

Fox News Digital’s Sophia Compton contributed to this report.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., on Sunday called for President Trump to only focus on America’s needs as the president meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The president has been heavily involved in the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts since returning to the White House.

Trump met with Zelenskyy on Sunday at Mar-a-Lago to discuss a peace plan aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine war that began with an invasion by Moscow in February 2022.

Netanyahu arrived in Florida on Sunday ahead of their scheduled meeting on Monday at Trump’s estate to address Israel’s conflicts in the Middle East. It will be the sixth meeting of the year between the two leaders.

Greene, responding to Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy and Netanyahu, said that the Trump administration should address the needs of Americans rather than becoming further involved in global conflicts.

‘Zelensky today. Netanyahu tomorrow,’ she wrote on X.

‘Can we just do America?’ the congresswoman continued.

The congresswoman has been a vocal critic of supplying U.S. military aid to foreign countries amid the conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.

She has also referred to Zelenskyy as ‘a dictator who canceled elections’ and labeled Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide and humanitarian crisis.

This comes after Taylor Greene, who is set to resign from the House in January, had a public spat with Trump over the past few months as Trump took issue with the Georgia Republican’s push to release documents related to the investigations into deceased sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump had withdrawn his endorsement of Greene and called her a ‘traitor’ over the public feud.

President Donald Trump said Sunday that peace talks to end the war in Ukraine are close to completion after a meeting in Florida with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with both leaders citing major progress on a 20-point plan while acknowledging unresolved disputes over territory, ceasefire terms and Ukrainian approval.

Trump and Zelenskyy spoke to reporters following their meeting at Mar-a-Lago, describing weeks of negotiations involving U.S., Ukrainian, European Union and NATO officials that have moved a potential peace framework close to the finish line, though several high-stakes issues remain unresolved.

Trump said negotiations have intensified over the past month and suggested discussions are far more advanced than at any previous point in the war, while cautioning that final agreements depend on resolving a small number of difficult questions.

‘We could be very close,’ Trump said. ‘There are one or two very thorny issues, very tough issues. But I think we’re doing very well. We made a lot of progress today, but really, we’ve made it over the last month. This is not a one-day process. It’s very complicated stuff.’

Zelenskyy echoed that assessment, confirming that negotiators have largely agreed on the framework of a deal and crediting sustained diplomacy across multiple international meetings leading up to the Florida talks.

He said negotiations have taken place over several weeks in cities including Geneva, Miami, Berlin and at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, with American and Ukrainian teams working toward a shared peace framework.

‘We discussed all the aspects of the peace framework, which includes – and we have great achievements – a 20-point peace plan, 90% agreed,’ Zelenskyy said.

Both leaders said European and NATO officials were closely involved in the process, with a joint call held following the meeting that included senior leaders from across the continent and international institutions.

Zelenskyy said teams are expected to meet again in the coming weeks to finalize remaining issues and that Trump has agreed to potentially host further talks in Washington with European leaders and a Ukrainian delegation.

Despite the progress, territory – particularly the status of Donbas – remains one of the most difficult unresolved issues, with Trump and Zelenskyy acknowledging differing positions between Ukraine and Russia.

Trump suggested that time could be a critical factor in negotiations, warning that delays could result in further territorial losses as fighting continues.

‘Some of that land has been taken,’ Trump said. ‘Some of that land is maybe up for grabs, but it may be taken over the next period of a number of months. Are you better off making a deal now?’

Zelenskyy stressed that any final agreement would need to comply with Ukrainian law and reflect the will of the Ukrainian people, potentially requiring parliamentary approval or a national referendum.

‘Our society, too, has to choose and decide who has to vote, because it’s their land – the land not of one person,’ Zelenskyy said. ‘It’s the land of our nation for a lot of generations.’

Trump said polling shows strong public support for ending the war and reiterated his desire to bring the conflict to a close, citing the scale of casualties on both sides.

‘We want to see it ended,’ Trump said. ‘I want it ended because I don’t want to see so many people dying. We’re losing massive numbers of people – the biggest by far since World War II.’

FBI Director Kash Patel said the agency has surged additional personnel and investigative resources to Minnesota as part of an ongoing effort to ‘dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs.’

Patel said Sunday that the bureau moved resources into the state before recent online attention intensified, pointing to the Feeding Our Future investigation, which uncovered a $250 million scheme that siphoned federal food aid intended for children during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The case has already resulted in 78 indictments and 57 convictions, with prosecutors also charging defendants in a separate plot to bribe a juror with $120,000 in cash, Patel said, adding that the investigation remains ongoing.

‘The FBI believes this is just the tip of a very large iceberg. We will continue to follow the money and protect children, and this investigation very much remains ongoing,’ he wrote on X. ‘Furthermore, many are also being referred to immigrations officials for possible further denaturalization and deportation proceedings where eligible.’

Patel’s announcement comes in the wake of a viral video posted on social media Friday by independent journalist Nick Shirley that highlighted alleged fraud involving Minnesota childcare and learning centers. 

In the video, many of the facilities appeared non-operational despite allegedly receiving millions of dollars in government aid.

Republican lawmakers, including House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., as well as Vice President JD Vance, have responded to the viral video, with Emmer accusing Gov. Tim Walz of sitting ‘idly by while billions were stolen from hardworking Minnesotans.’

Shirley’s video also follows a group of Minnesota state staff members who accused Walz in November of failing to act on widespread fraud warnings and retaliating against whistleblowers.

An X account calling itself Minnesota Staff Fraud Reporting Commentary, which says it consists of more than 480 Minnesota state staff members, wrote that Walz is ‘100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota.’

‘We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports,’ the group claimed. ‘In addition to retaliating against whistleblower[s], Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance.’

Walz addressed the fraud at a press conference in late November, saying it ‘undermines trust in government,’ and ‘undermines programs that are absolutely critical in improving quality of life.’

‘If you’re committing fraud, no matter where you come from, what you look like, what you believe, you are going to go to jail,’ he added.

The New York Times reported that what initially appeared to many Minnesotans as an isolated case of pandemic-era fraud has broadened into a much wider concern for state and federal officials.

The Times reported that over the past five years, according to law enforcement authorities, several fraud schemes proliferated in parts of Minnesota’s Somali community. A number of individuals allegedly created companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never delivered.

Generally speaking, nobody outside of Washington, D.C., brunch spots cares very much what happens at think tanks. But recent upheavals at the Heritage Foundation are not only making news, they are potentially framing what the Republican Party will look like after President Trump leaves office.

The current kerfuffle at Heritage, the nation’s leading conservative think tank, began on Oct. 30, when its president, Kevin Roberts, gave a speech defending Tucker Carlson for interviewing a snarky young Holocaust denier.

‘The Heritage Foundation didn’t become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians, and we won’t start doing that now,’ Roberts said.

A pitter-patter of outraged resignations came almost immediately, even after Roberts apologized for his remarks, but last week, almost two months later, nearly an entire division of Heritage’s legal and economic experts jumped ship to former Vice President Mike Pence’s Advancing American Freedom (AAF).

The significant question in all of this is whether Roberts playing footsie with antisemites is the real or only reason why so many top experts joined the exodus to Pence’s outfit, and there is some reason to be dubious.

Take for example Trump’s zealous use of tariffs in international trade. This kind of protectionism is constitutionally anathema to exactly the type of conservative economist who prowled the halls of Heritage, but the think tank itself was standing by the president’s policies.

Add to this that Heritage seems to be leaning heavily into Vice President JD VanceJD Vance’s 2028 presidential ambitions, in fact Roberts’ original video may have been intended for the veep who is close with Carlson and has made fighting globalism and saving small industrial towns the centerpiece of his national message.

The problem is that most of the longtime Heritage economists really like globalism and think saving ‘Nowhere, Ohio’ from oblivion is a pipe dream. Now, they truly have no seat at the table, either at Heritage or in the Trump administration.

Such tensions also exist in foreign policy and immigration, and a cynic might suggest that the Heritage bleedout is just another example of conservatives with strong ideological differences from Trump deciding it’s no longer working to cozy up to him, and taking whatever current moral outrage is available as an offramp.

This is exactly what Pence did after the Capitol riots of Jan. 6, 2021, leading him to found AAF, which, by the way, is as anti-tariffs as the day is long.

In this fight for the soul of the Republican Party and conservative movement, both Heritage and AAF are redefining what a think tank is and what it does, in important ways.

Traditionally, wealthy donors would give money to guys with good hair to get elected and also fund bald guys at think tanks, who were rarely seen or heard from, to produce the actual policy. But voters have seen through this, leading the think tanks to more direct outreach to the public.

In the 2024 election, Heritage’s ‘Project 2025’ was a headline story for months, something completely unprecedented in the history of presidential politics for a think tank. Today, through moves such as hiring Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice, Heritage is committing to more populism and activism and less back-room algebra.

AAF is starting to play this game too. The think tank put out a satirical X post comparing the flood of Heritage staffers coming their way to a college football team dominating in the transfer portal, another hint that more than moral outrage was at play here.

The headwind that AAF is likely to run into with conservative voters in their anti-populism efforts is that populism is popular, and globalism, along with many other core tenets of the pre-Trump GOP, isn’t.

The best chance for AAF, and it’s not a bad one, is to focus on lowering prices by lowering tariff. But a conservative think tank yelling that prices are too high while the GOP holds the White House and Congress is a nightmare for Republican midterm hopes.

The more vital question is what American voters want more, deeper discounts on foreign goods from China or functional communities where they can raise their families? For AAF to succeed it must address the latter, not just the former.

In Vance’s, and increasingly Heritage’s, vision of America, our small industrial towns see a revival through tariffs and foreign investment. In AAF’s vision, those towns may continue to wither, but Americans are free to move to where the jobs and abundance are.

Neither proponents of these visions can guarantee the success of their proposed programs, but the ‘save our towns’ side is currently in power and ascending. If AAF wants to change that, it needs more than moral outrage. It needs to convince Americans that globalism really wasn’t so bad, and that it is time to return to it.

 Millions of Christians in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), spending Christmas under the reported threat of persecution, kidnapping, sexual violence and in some cases, death from Islamist militants, have seen Friday’s U.S. strikes on Islamic State militants in Nigeria as a real sign that President Trump is serious in his efforts to stop the killing of Africa’s Christians.

Over 16 million Christians are estimated to have been displaced and ripped from their homes across the region. The alleged release of 130 kidnapped schoolchildren in Nigeria this week has done little to reduce fears, as many on the continent try to worship at Christmas.

But this year, Fox News Digital has highlighted the catastrophe from Africa on multiple occasions. The situation led to senior members of Congress, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas., Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., and ultimately, President Donald Trump who threatened to send U.S. troops into the worst-affected country, Nigeria, ‘guns-a-blazing’, to stop the killing of Christians, has shone a light on the violence.

In Africa this Christmas, so far there’s reportedly little sign of improvement. ‘The militant Islamist onslaught across SSA is a catastrophe of global proportions unfolding before us,’ Henrietta Blyth, CEO of Open Doors UK & Ireland, told Fox News Digital this week.

Open Doors is a global Christian charity supporting Christians persecuted for their faith.

Blyth continued, ‘the last year has seen a non-stop stream of reports from sub-Saharan Africa. (including) reports of militant Islamist groups brutally attacking, among others, defenseless Christian communities.’

‘At Open Doors, we have been sounding the alarm through our Arise Africa campaign. We’ve prayed repeatedly that the campaign of terror will reach public awareness.’

Referring to Nigeria and the thousands of Christians reported to have been killed there each year and the speeches, articles and posts against the violence, Open Doors’ Blyth states, ‘There is no sign that this has abated in 2025’.

‘The lack of global outrage and action on this issue is a moral disgrace,’ South Africa’s Chief Rabbi, Dr. Warren Goldstein, told Fox News Digital. He added, ‘It seems as if black lives do not matter if they are murdered by Islamists in Africa. The persecution of Christians in Africa needs to be seen in its global context. It is part of a multi-continental jihadi war on the ‘infidels’ — Jews and Christians — and on Western values.’

He continued ‘it is a world war, with Israel at the epicenter of the fire of the jihadi forces of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and others. The Islamist war on Christians in Africa is another front of this world war that stretches from Sudan in the north to Mozambique in the South.’

Fox News Digital has highlighted where persecution has hit hardest in Africa in 2025:

NIGERIA

According to Open Doors, the continent’s most populous nation saw the worst persecution in Africa in 2025, with ‘non-stop stories of deadly attacks and kidnappings’ across Nigeria’s north and Middle Belt — a litany of villages torched, citizens raped, abducted, shot and beheaded.

Pope Leo XIV spoke out this year against killings attributed to Muslim Fulani tribesmen in Nigeria’s Benue State in June, saying ‘Some 200 people were murdered, with extraordinary cruelty’. 

Bishop Wilfred Anagbe’s Makurdi Diocese in north-central Nigeria is almost exclusively Christian. But the constant and escalating attacks by Islamist Fulani militants led him to testify at a congressional hearing  in Washington in March. Back in Nigeria, he was threatened, and some 20 of his parishioners killed.

THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (DRC)

The war-torn country is Christian, yet the faithful are being targeted by jihadists. In February, terrorists linked to Islamic State from the so-called ADF group, who want the eastern part of the country to become a Muslim caliphate, rounded up 70 Christians and reportedly beheaded them — in a church. In September, at least Christians were reportedly slaughtered by jihadists at a funeral and in surrounding fields.

SUDAN

Sudan’s estimated 2 million Christians make up an estimated 4% of the country’s population,

Like the rest of Sudan’s people, they face chronic food shortages and the horror of a yearslong war. But Christians are also allegedly singled out for discrimination and persecution by both sides in the conflict.

A senior Sudanese church leader  told Fox News Digital that in the Darfur city of El Fasher, that ‘now Christians are eating animal feed and grass. No wheat, no rice, nothing can get in.’

CAMEROON

A civil conflict and weak governance have allowed armed militants to step into the vacuum of law and order, Open Doors reported. In the far north, Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province regularly swoop into villages in overnight raids, killing, abducting and destroying. Thousands of people have fled their homes for displacement camps.

Ali, a villager, said ‘It never ends. I want it to end, but it doesn’t. We must sleep in the mountains for safety.’ 

MOZAMBIQUE

Situated in the southwest of the continent, Mozambique has a Christian population of . Islamic State Mozambique is causing havoc in the far north, targeting Christian communities, burning their churches and destroying homes. The killings have multiplied this year, and thousands more are fleeing their homes, joining more than who have already been displaced.

In one mass attack on the village of Napala in October, Open Doors reported militants killed 20 Christians and displaced some 2,000. A local pastor described how four elderly sisters were tied up and burned to death inside a house.

On the airstrikes in Nigeria, Open Doors’ Henrietta Blyth told Fox News Digital, ‘a military operation like this is not going to provide any sort of quick fix for decades of violence. The Nigerian government must pursue lasting solutions that ensure peace, protection of civilians and religious freedom for everyone.’

Chief Rabbi Goldstein concluded, ‘The West can only win this war if it can find the moral clarity to call it by its name and see all the theaters of war as part of the same fight.’