Michael Waltz was confirmed as the U.S. Representative to the United Nations General Assembly in a vote on Monday, the Washington Examiner reported. Waltz was previously confirmed as the ambassador to the U.N. on Sept. 19, but a second vote was required to designate him as the representative for the U.S. for the yearly gathering in New York City last week.
Waltz, a former Florida congressman, was nominated for the ambassadorship in May. He previously served as President Donald Trump's national security adviser, but was removed from the position after a journalist from The Atlantic was accidentally included in a Signal group chat about potential military action.
CSPAN producer Craig Caplan recounted Monday's vote on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday. "54-45: Senate confirmed Michael Waltz to be U.S. Representative to the U.N. General Assembly. Democrats Fetterman, Kelly and Shaheen voted Yes; Paul was the only Republican to vote No. Senators confirmed him earlier this month to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. & U.S. Rep. to the U.N. Security Council," the post explained.
54-45: Senate confirmed Michael Waltz to be U.S. Representative to the U.N. General Assembly. Democrats Fetterman, Kelly and Shaheen voted Yes; Paul was the only Republican to vote No. Senators confirmed him earlier this month to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. & U.S. Rep.… pic.twitter.com/vSTc0BJUq8
— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) September 30, 2025
The Signal controversy had leftists champing at the bit for another Trump-era scandal, but Waltz made quick work of their attacks by revealing that it was he who should take the blame, according to the BBC. "I take full responsibility," Waltz said in March.
"I built the group," he said, adding that the whole debacle was "embarrassing." The journalist who was added to the chat was The Atlantic's Editor-in-Chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, who said in an article about the incident that the messages pertained to forthcoming strikes in Yemen and included details such as timing, targets, and weapons.
The messages were sent two hours before the strike took place, and the leftist news outlets and others like it made it seem like this mistake was a breach of national security like none other. For Waltz's part, he explained that he was not aware of exactly how it happened, as he didn't have Goldberg's phone number programmed into the app, which enables users to send encrypted messages.
"We've got the best technical minds looking at how this happened. I can tell you for 100% I don't know this guy," Waltz said. He went on to say that he would enlist Tesla founder Elon Musk, who was the head of the Department of Government Efficiency at the time, for help with the technology aspect.
Waltz later concluded that contacts from his phone were potentially caught up by Signal, which might explain how it carried over to the app. "Well, if you have somebody else's contact, then somehow it … gets sucked in. It gets sucked in," he explained. This seemed to take the momentum away from what Democrats were gearing up to make into a scandal.
With Waltz confirmed for the U.N. General Assembly, it was time for him to come to Trump's defense once again, this time because of some coincidental "glitches" that happened as world leaders gathered at the UN Headquarters. As Fox News reported, an escalator carrying the president and First Lady Melania Trump abruptly stopped once they got on, and a teleprompter stopped working just as Donald Trump was about to speak.
The president recovered gracefully from both incidents, but he believed they were intentional, and Waltz added that there was yet a third mixup when an audio broadcast of his speech switched from English to Portuguese without explanation. "The whole thing is unacceptable. The whole thing stinks," Waltz said.
"There’s 150 world leaders there, and this only happens to him, not once, not twice, but three times," Waltz added. The ambassador explained that the Secretary-General and the Secret Service were investigating the apparent acts of sabotage.
"As the ambassador, I said, you’ve got to open your doors, and some people were kind of shoulder-shrugging at this. This could have been incredibly serious. It’s insulting, and it’s right here on American soil," Waltz said.
Judging from the way Waltz handled the Signal controversy and the mishaps at the UN General Assembly, he was undoubtedly the right man for the job. People in government don't always get things right, but they seldom own up to it when they don't, which sets Waltz apart.
Former President Barack Obama, once a literal superstar among leftists, appears to be losing his momentum after major setbacks in preserving his legacy, including issues with his presidential library and museum, The Daily Caller reported. The project is over budget and has taken five years to commence due to lawsuits and concerns about its impact on the neighborhood.
Obama was the king of cool when he was in the White House, but times have certainly changed since the 2010s. This won't bode well for the notoriously haughty former president, as he watches his legacy project crash and burn on the South Side of Chicago.
The multimillion-dollar project has many problems, but the most fundamental is that it's an eyesore. Commentator Benny Johnson interviewed people on the street, who shared their thoughts about the ugly building, with some describing it as a "prison," a " block of marble," and a "mausoleum."
I asked Chicago residents what Obama’s new presidential library looks like.
Number one response: “A prison”
Other answers:
- Garbage can
- a Rock
- Block of Marble
- Tardis
- Mountain
- ATC Tower
- Mausoleum
- a JailTotally Humiliating.
What do you think it looks like? pic.twitter.com/mT5kZseX09— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 20, 2025
Not only is this building aesthetically unappealing, but it has also come with a myriad of problems from planning to construction. The sad, gray tower, which gobbled up 19 acres in the city, has displaced residents as it drives up rents and property values in the community, which is now undergoing gentrification.
There are also ballooning costs and underfunding in the project, which could be passed on to taxpayers. The president's libray and museum was first announced in 2015 with an original estimate at $300 million, but that figure increased to $500 million by the time the plans were finalized in 2017.
It took another four years before they finally broke ground, due to several lawsuits and continued pushback from residents worried about the impact on their neighborhood. By the time, the price tag had more than doubled from the original figures, coming in at $700 million.
These increased costs come as a funding shortfall appears to be developing, which could potentially put a strain on local taxpayers who will be expected to foot the bill despite promises that it would be fully funded. The 2021 budget revealed that operating costs are expected to exceed $40 million in the first year alone.
The original target for the Obama Foundation endowment to cover these costs was set at $470 million. Now it appears that the organization would need between $800 million and $1 billion to fully fund the library and museum. Unfortunately, the Obama Foundation has raised only a fraction of the amount originally estimated and has collected only $1 million of the pledged money for the endowment.
Kamala Harris's disappointing showing in the 2024 presidential election was more than a loss for the then-vice president; it was a significant setback for all those who got behind her. Obama joined the chorus of Democrats claiming that Joe Biden was fit to run for reelection. In the final push for the White House, Obama inserted himself into the race in the hopes of bolstering her chances of winning. It did not.
According to Fox News, this triggered the Democratic Party to take an honest look at Obama and his true legacy, which included the election of President Donald Trump as his successor. Heavy hitters, including the former president, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, didn't move the needle for Harris despite their combined gravitas.
"I think there are going to be big demands for a greater reckoning," Julian Epstein, Democratic strategist, told the news outlet. "The Democratic politburo – Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, and others – all participated in the obvious lie that Biden was capable of a second term, in the anti-Democratic move to install a wholly untested Vice President Harris," Epstein said.
"And in lacking the courage for the past four years to stand up to a progressive left whose policies are far out of touch with most voters. They all failed the test of leadership in this respect," the political strategist added.
Obama was thought to be the pinnacle of success and was expected to usher in a new era of Democratic dominance in America. Instead, he gave us Trump and has continued to suffer several blows to his legacy as people, even in his own party, figure out that he was a terrible president.
Whistleblower and President of the Air Marshal Association John Casaretti has called on President Donald Trump and Congress to separate the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in order to better protect air travelers from terrorist attacks, according to Breitbart.
“Everything the air marshals did around 2007 onwards was all through the lens of the TSA bureaucracy. TSA only cares about screeners,” Casaretti said. “They don’t have any deep experience with law enforcement. Unfortunately, the air marshals were listening to them. All of the policies were made by them, and bad policy after bad policy ensued. When it came to intelligence, when it came to hiring, standards were lowered.”
He continued, “They made the Air Marshal Service a career path for TSA screeners, so incredibly, where we started out as these high-speed anti-terrorism agents … to be a career path for TSA airport screeners. It actually blows my mind to this day, and it really needs to be changed.”
Casaretti spoke to Matthew Boyle about his recent Breitbart News op-ed titled “It’s Time to Reset the Federal Air Marshal Service,” which addressed his part in the shutdown of the Quiet Skies program in June
His whistleblowing about the program was a key reason for its shutdown, going all the way back to 2018.
The program had undercover air marshals “following ordinary U.S. citizens not suspected of a crime or on any terrorist watch list and collecting extensive information about their movements and behavior.”
One of the targets of surveillance was then-presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who is now DNI director handling national intelligence.
According to DHS, Quiet Skies "since its existence has failed to stop a single terrorist attack while costing US taxpayers $200 million a year.”
“The program, under the guise of ‘national security,’ was used to target political opponents and benefit political allies,” DHS stated in a press release.
“The American public would be better served if these [air marshals] were instead assigned to airport screening and check-in areas so that active shooter events can be swiftly ended, and violations of federal crimes can be properly and consistently addressed,” Casaretti argued.
He went on to say that the risk of terrorism “is greater right now than it ever has been before, certainly greater than pre-9/11. Every intel analyst with eyes on this is saying, ‘Hey, we’re in trouble. Something’s going to happen.’ And I’m trying to sound the alarm here because we’ve been saying this, as far as something’s going to happen, and why the air marshals need to improve for years."
Legislation to separate FAMS and TSA is in the beginning stages in both the House and Senate, with language having been drawn up, but it is still in legislative review before it can be introduced to the floor.
That means it's probably going to be a while before anything can happen.
Meanwhile, the risk of an incident is great, and everyone knows it.
In a stunning turn of events, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has withdrawn from his reelection campaign, shaking up the race just weeks before the November 4 election, the Daily Caller reported.
Adams announced the suspension of his campaign on Saturday, citing poor polling numbers and intense pressure from within his own party, despite recently being cleared of federal corruption charges.
Adams, who has served as mayor since 2022, made the announcement via a video statement released on Saturday.
The decision comes after weeks of mounting concerns from party insiders who feared a fragmented field could lead to a victory for socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Polls showed Adams lagging in fourth place, trailing behind Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
“It’s been an honor to be your mayor,” Adams said in the announcement, reflecting on his tenure. “Although our successes… I know I cannot continue my campaign.”
The backdrop to Adams’ campaign struggles includes a federal investigation that had cast a shadow over his leadership.
Last September, he faced a five-count indictment on charges of bribery and fraud, with prosecutors alleging he received over $100,000 in illegal contributions and travel benefits from foreign nationals, including Turkish officials.
Although the Department of Justice under President Trump dismissed these charges earlier this year, public trust appeared to wane.
“Many are skeptical of me after my historical indictment,” Adams admitted in his video message, acknowledging the lingering doubts among voters.
This skepticism, combined with his slipping poll numbers, likely contributed to the internal party pressure that ultimately led to his withdrawal.
Despite stepping back from the race, Adams, along with fellow dropout Jim Walden, will still appear on the November 4 ballot, as neither can legally remove their names.
In his statement, Adams notably refused to throw his support behind any of the remaining candidates in the crowded field.
He also took the opportunity to caution voters about what he described as “radical ideologies” in local politics and candidates who frequently shift their stances on key issues.
“I want to be clear, although this is the end of my campaign, this will not be the end of my public service,” Adams said. “I will keep fighting for our city no matter what because I am a New Yorker.”
Barack Obama's presidential center has ignored its obligation to set up an endowment to protect taxpayers from financial liability, according to its records.
Just $1 million has been deposited into a reserve fund meant to bail out taxpayers in case the Obama Presidential Center fails, Fox News reported. This comes despite the center making a $470 million pledge in 2020.
With projected operating costs of up to $40 million in the first year alone, the center is resting on financial quicksand, says Richard Epstein, a University of Chicago law professor emeritus and a New York University law professor.
Epstein has spent years advising Protect Our Parks, which has fought in vain to block the Obama Presidential Center from being built on a 20 acre-section of Jackson Park.
While a deal between the center and Chicago did not specify a dollar amount, the $1 million endowment is nowhere close to covering the center's operating budget.
"They put a million dollars into a $400 million endowment, so it’s endowed. That gets you in jail as a securities matter," Epstein told Fox News Digital.
"An endowment means that you have the money in hand. But they have nothing. They just have the same $1 million that they put in in 2021 as far as I can tell. So, I regard this as something of a public calamity."
Epstein says the paltry endowment - which the city has accepted as sufficient - is proof that Chicago was never serious about protecting the public when it made its deal with Obama.
The financial recklessness of the project is sure to upset locals who are already frustrated by the use of public land to build a massive gray monument to the former president. Critics have slammed the drab aesthetics of the towering structure, and many fear it will drive out poor tenants.
The project has gotten progressively more expensive over the years, with costs exploding from $330 million to at least $850 million. Meanwhile, members of Obama's inner circle have received huge payouts for serving on the board.
"It should come as no surprise that the Obama Center is potentially leaving Illinois taxpayers high and dry — it’s an Illinois Democrat tradition," Illinois GOP Chair Kathy Salvi Fox News Digital in a statement. "Democrats in this state, when not going to prison for corruption, treat taxpayers like a personal piggy bank giving sweetheart deals to their political benefactors."
Despite opposition from the community, the center is opening in the spring of 2026.
The Obama Presidential Center told Fox News Digital that it anticipates "significant investments in the endowment in the coming years."
"The Obama Presidential Center is fully funded, and it will open in the spring of 2026," a spokesperson for the foundation said.
Missouri's Republican governor has approved a new legislative map giving the GOP an additional seat in the House of Representatives, escalating a redistricting arms' race ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The new map could be a gamechanger, with Democrats needing just three seats to take power back in the House, Fox News reports.
Currently, Missouri Republicans have six out of eight House districts, but the new map signed by Governor Mike Kehoe (R) chops up the district currently represented by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and adds rural Republican voters.
"I was proud to officially sign the Missouri First Map into law today ahead of the 2026 midterm election," Kehoe said in a statement.
"We believe this map best represents Missourians, and I appreciate the support and efforts of state legislators, our congressional delegation, and President Trump in getting this map to my desk."
Cleaver, who was the first black mayor of Kansas City before becoming a congressman, has condemned the redistricting push as a return to Missouri's segregationist past. The map uses a historical racial boundary in the city, Troost Avenue.
"I want to warn all of us that if you fight fire with fire long enough, all you’re going to have left is ashes," Cleaver said earlier this month as he testified in front of a Missouri Senate committee.
Left-wing groups like the NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have already filed lawsuits, arguing the state constitution does not permit mid-decade redistricting.
“It was not prompted by the law or a court order; it was the result of Republican lawmakers in Missouri following partisan directives from politicians in Washington, D.C.,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, a nonprofit affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
Liberals are also working on a voter referendum to block the measure from taking effect.
If the petition gets 110,000 valid signatures before December 11, the map would be frozen until a public vote.
President Trump has touted Missouri's effort as "FANTASTIC," adding it "will help send an additional MAGA Republican to Congress in the 2026 Midterm Elections."
It is the latest salvo in a mid-decade redistricting battle that kicked off in July when Texas Republicans moved to add up to five GOP seats at President Trump's urging.
Democrats in California have forwarded their own plan to wipe out the state's Republican minority. The proposal asks voters to temporarily put the state's Democrats directly in charge of redistricting.
An upcoming Supreme Court battle has massive implications for the structure of the federal government.
As reported by Fox News, President Donald Trump has been building a case to overturn a 90-year-old precedent, Humphrey's Executor, which places limits on the president's power to fire independent agency officials. Humphrey's Executor is widely seen as critical to the power of the so-called administrative state, sometimes known as the fourth branch of government to detractors.
In recent months, Trump has been challenging Humphrey's by firing various independent agency heads without cause. The Supreme Court has sided with Trump in these controversies, overruling lower courts that have tried to block him.
The latest development came last week when the court permitted Trump to fire a Biden-appointed Federal Trade Commission (FTC) official, Rebecca Slaughter.
Not only did the court let Trump fire Slaughter, for now, but the justices also agreed to examine Humphrey's, which Slaughter has cited in her defense. The ruling split the court's conservative majority and its vocal liberal wing, which accused the court of "raring to" overturn the New Deal-era ruling.
"The majority may be raring to take that action," Justice Elena Kagan wrote. "But until the deed is done, Humphrey's controls, and prevents the majority from giving the President the unlimited removal power Congress denied him."
The Humphrey's ruling stems from the time of President FDR, who tried to fire a Republican member of the FTC over a policy dispute.
In its brief to the court, the Trump administration argued that FTC has absorbed "considerable executive power in the intervening 90 years" since Humphrey's, placing the president's authority at risk.
A Supreme Court ruling tossing Humphrey's would be a massive victory for conservatives who hold to the so-called "unitary executive theory," which views the sprawling administrative state as an unconstitutional growth on the legitimate structure of the government. To many on the left, Humphrey's is seen as critical to checking Trump's so-called autocratic ambitions, but the Supreme Court has, broadly speaking, shown sympathy for Trump's view of executive power.
Hans von Spakovsky, a legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told Fox News that Humphrey's is on "life support." Van Spakovsky noted that the Supreme Court's conservatives have long been skeptical of independent agencies wielding executive power on the president's behalf.
"The Constitution says the president is the head of the executive branch," von Spakovsky told Fox News Digital.
"That means, just like the CEO of a big corporation, they get to supervise and run the entire corporation, or in this case, the entire executive branch, and you can't have Congress taking parts of that away from him and saying, ‘Well, they’re going to keep doing executive branch things, including law enforcement, but you won’t have any control over them.’"
Meanwhile, Trump has asked the Supreme Court to uphold his firing of Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook over mortgage fraud allegations. The Supreme Court gave a cryptic hint of how it may treat the controversy in a separate dispute, noting the Fed is a "uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States."
President Donald Trump plans to build 10 miles of border wall near San Diego points of entry after waiving environmental regulations, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Noem declared the area near San Diego a place of high illegal entry, with almost a million illegal immigrants attempting to cross over those areas between 2021 and January of 2025.
The area is also a major zone where drugs come into the United States.
More than 2,465 pounds of marijuana, 9,873 pounds of cocaine, 565 pounds of heroin, 29,675 pounds of methamphetamine and 4,016 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the port of entry during the same time period.
The sector ranges from the Pacific Ocean east to Border Monument 231. Noem had to waive 30 laws to enable the construction.
Near the Tecate and Otay Mesa ports of entry, the 30-foot wall will have anti-climb features.
Part of the $46.5 billion appropriated by Congress for border wall construction through 2029 as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will be used for the wall.
“President Trump is delivering on the mandate given by the American people to secure our southern border,” CBP Assistant Commissioner Hilton Beckham said.
Pro-immigration forces can't understand why Trump wants to build more of the border wall when immigration is at an all-time low due to Trump's strict policies.
“Border crossings are at historic lows, yet the Trump administration is declaring a bogus emergency,” The Center for Biological Diversity advocate Laiken Jordahl said.
But Trump is smart enough to know that he won't always be the one in charge.
If a Democrat gets elected as president or if Republicans lose a majority in Congress, the messaging could change and border encounters and crossings are likely to rise substantially.
Investing now for future prevention is the smart thing to do.
Democrats know it, and Trump does, too.
Pundit Dan Abrams said Sunday on "ABC News This Week" that he thinks there's a 95% chance that former FBI Director James Comey will be acquitted on both of the felony charges he was indicted on last week.
Abrams hearkened back to when the DOJ almost indicted Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe for lying about the same conversation in 2019, but they didn't do so.
Furthermore, the DOJ inspector general interviewed both McCable and Comey at that time, and thought Comey's version of events was more credible than McCabe's.
Abrams said, “When you talk about Andrew McCabe, for example, the Department of Justice inspector general looked into that, listened to what McCabe said, listened to what Comey said, and said we find Comey’s account more credible than McCabe’s. And what makes that particularly interesting is that they almost indicted McCabe back in 2019 for lying about the same conversation. They couldn’t get a grand jury to indict, and now they’re going to indict James Comey for that? So I don’t think that’s what this is about. I think, in the end, this is about another conversation.”
Abrams went on to say that he didn't think most in the Trump administration even thought Comey would be convicted.
To that, he added his own belief that a conviction was extremely unlikely.
He said, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, I don’t even think that many in the Trump administration believe they’re going to get a conviction. I think that there’s a 95%-plus chance that there won’t be a conviction. That it’ll either get dismissed by a judge, there’ll be a hung jury, there’ll be an acquittal."
He seemed to suspect that there was another motive at work behind the indictment, but he didn't know what it was.
"I’m not certain that that’s the end goal here," he said, speaking of a conviction. "And that’s what makes this so unusual. Because typically, a prosecutor’s office will not bring a case unless they think they can win it.”
It's clear that Trump would want to go after Comey in any way he can.
After all, Comey was behind a lot of the actions that targeted Trump and tried to get him discredited, investigated and eventually, pursued criminally.
Is Trump doing the same thing he has accused his opponents of doing--engaging in a political prosecution of Comey?
Maybe he figures he might as well do it if the other side is doing it.
Or is he trying to get justice for the way Comey obviously wronged him?
Vice President J.D. Vance said Sunday on Fox News that Russia needs to "wake up and accept reality" that it can't win the war on Ukraine.
“We want peace here,” Vance said Sunday on Fox News. “We have been actively pursuing peace from the very beginning of the administration, but the Russians have got to wake up and accept reality here.”
Vance may have been alluding to comments made last week by President Donald Trump in which he said he thought Ukraine could actually win the war and regain all of its territory, even Crimea which has been under Russian control since 2014.
“After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform Tuesday.
This messaging is different from what Trump and Vance have said in the past, as far as whether Ukraine could win back Crimea.
He had previously said that territorial concessions by Ukraine would have to be part of any peace agreement.
More than 250,000 Russian soldiers have died since the war began two-and-a-half years ago in February 2022. Ukraine's military losses are estimated at 60,000 to 100,000, with civilian losses numbering more than 14,000.
These estimates date back to June, so they are undoubtedly higher now.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to meet with the U.S. about the war in recent months.
“A lot of people are dying,” Vance said. “They don’t have a lot to show for it. How many more people are they willing to lose? How many more people are they willing to kill for very little, if any, gain in the military advantage on the ground there?”
No doubt, Putin's pride is preventing him from throwing in the towel and making a peace deal.
Even a deal that resets things back to how they were before the war would be seen as a defeat for him.
Still, Vance's question has got to be eating at Putin. As bad as things are, they could get a lot worse for Russia if Europe and the U.S. continue to back Ukraine as they have been doing all along.