Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hammering Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro on Sunday as the South American country holds municipal elections to fill hundreds of mayoral positions and thousands of council seats.

The municipal contests are happening one day before the one-year anniversary of Venezuela’s presidential election, which was widely condemned by the United States and other international observers as illegitimate. The Trump administration, meanwhile, has been escalating pressure against Maduro in recent days, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday accused the foreign head of state of being the leader of an entity aiding terrorism against the U.S. 

‘One year since dictator Nicolás Maduro defied the will of the Venezuelan people by baselessly declaring himself the winner, the United States remains firm in its unwavering support to Venezuela’s restoration of democratic order and justice,’ Rubio said in a statement on Sunday. ‘Maduro is not the President of Venezuela and his regime is not the legitimate government.’

‘Maduro is the leader of the designated narco-terrorist organization Cartel de Los Soles, and he is responsible for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe,’ Rubio continued. ‘Maduro, currently indicted by our nation, has corrupted Venezuela’s institutions to assist the cartel’s criminal narco-trafficking scheme into the United States.’

The Justice Department charged Maduro and 14 other former and current Venezuelan officials with narco-terrorism, corruption, drug trafficking and other criminal charges in March 2020. At the start of this year, 10 days before President Donald Trump returned to office, the State Department increased its reward for information leading to Maduro’s capture from $15 million to up to $25 million. 

‘For years, Maduro and his cronies have manipulated Venezuela’s electoral system to maintain their illegitimate grip on power,’ Rubio added on Sunday. ‘By scheduling the municipal elections on the eve of the anniversary of the stolen July 28 presidential election, the regime once again aims to deploy the military and police to suppress the will of the Venezuelan people.’

‘The United States will continue working with our partners to hold accountable the corrupt, criminal and illegitimate Maduro regime. Those who steal elections and use force to grasp power undermine America’s national security interests,’ Rubio said. 

Maduro became the Venezuelan president in 2013, but the U.S. has not recognized his presidency since 2019. The U.S. and other countries have refused to recognize Maduro as the winner of the July 2024 Venezuelan election, citing widespread fraud. 

The Treasury Department on Friday sanctioned the Cartel de los Soles, also known as Cartel of the Suns, as a ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorist.’ The U.S. alleges that Cartel de los Soles is headed by Maduro and other Venezuelan high-ranking individuals in his regime ‘who corrupted the institutions of government in Venezuela, including parts of the military, intelligence apparatus, legislature, and the judiciary, to assist the cartel’s endeavors of trafficking narcotics into the United States.’ 

The U.S. claims the Venezuela-based group provides material support to Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel. The Trump administration classified Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel as foreign terrorist organizations in February. 

According to the Treasury Department, the name Cartel de los Soles is derived from the sun insignias often portrayed on the uniforms of Venezuelan military officials. 

The cartel ‘supports Tren de Aragua in carrying out its objective of using the flood of illegal narcotics as a weapon against the United States,’ according to the Treasury Department. 

Bessent said on Friday that the new action ‘exposes the illegitimate Maduro regime’s facilitation of narco-terrorism through terrorist groups like Cartel de los Soles.’

‘The Treasury Department will continue to execute on President Trump’s pledge to put America First by cracking down on violent organizations including Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel, and their facilitators, like Cartel de los Soles,’ he added. 

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., believes it’s ‘weird’ that the Trump administration has not released documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, but at one point, it was the last thing on her mind.

Democrats have searched for an opening to sharpen their messaging against Republicans, and have pounced on the administration and their colleagues across the aisle to release the documents. But Republicans have questioned why their counterparts didn’t have the same energy when former President Joe Biden was in office.

In a recent interview on PBS’ ‘Firing Line,’ Slotkin, who has emerged as a leading voice in the Democratic Party, said that while she did not know what was in the documents, it was odd that President Donald Trump and his administration had not released them.

‘The president and his allies have created so much anticipation about these files at this point, it’s just weird that they’re not releasing them, right? The president fomented this,’ she said.

But nearly five years ago, ahead of Biden’s eventual victory and a Democratic trifecta in Washington, the issue of Epstein was not a priority for the lawmaker, who at the time was in her first term in the House.

In a video from 2020 obtained by Fox News Digital, Slotkin said that diving into the connections between former President Bill Clinton and Epstein were not ‘front of mind.’

The sentiment came in response to a question about why there had been little mention of allegations that Clinton was in the trove of documents related to Epstein. She argued that there were more pressing issues at the time, like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the economic fallout spurred by it.

‘In the face of those problems, I will be honest, I don’t spend a ton of time looking into connections between Bill Clinton and other people, because that doesn’t help my constituents every single day, right? And my job is to focus on those issues,’ she said.

‘I have no special knowledge of those issues, but my job is to focus on the things that affect people’s pocketbooks and their kids, and if I’m not making positive progress towards that, I’m not doing my job,’ she continued. ‘And so, I can’t answer your question, because that’s not where I live and where I focus.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Slotkin for comment for this report but did not hear back.

Congressional Democrats, and some Republicans, have pushed for more transparency from the Trump administration on the release of a trove of documents, known as the so-called Epstein files, in a saga that has engulfed Capitol Hill for much of July.

The furor in Congress stemmed from a Justice Department memo released earlier this month that declared the Epstein case closed, and has not lost steam in the time since.

Epstein intrigue paralyzed the House, causing House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to send lawmakers home early as a bipartisan swell grew to uncover the documents. 

The Senate has been less chaotic. Still, Senate Democrats have ramped up their messaging against the administration, while many Senate Republicans would prefer to focus their attention elsewhere. 

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., exuded confidence as she declared to Gen Z activists at the Voters of Tomorrow summit that the Democrats would take back the House in 2026.

‘We have no doubt that we will win the election with the House of Representatives,’ Pelosi said, eliciting applause from the crowd. She then responded to the cheers by once again saying ‘No doubt.’

The longtime California lawmaker also said she was confident that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., would be speaker of the House after the 2026 midterms.

While Pelosi was confident about the Democrats’ chances, she also emphasized the need for preparation. The former House speaker credited early preparation for the Democrats’ victories in 2006 and 2018 to early preparation, saying that 2026 could be the same. 

‘It’s important to be strong in the year in advance, because that’s when the troops line up. We have our messaging, we have our mobilization, we need the money to do it, but they go only next to a school to hold up the most important part: the candidate,’ she said.

However, Pelosi sees another element as being key to Democrats’ victory: bringing down President Donald Trump’s approval rating. The former House speaker called Trump’s current numbers ‘terrible.’

‘By October — certainly by November, but by October, we will have — with the help of so many people working — we’ll have taken what’s his name’s numbers down,’ Pelosi said.

A recent Fox News Poll found that 46% of voters approve of Trump’s performance, while 54% disapprove. That’s exactly where things stood last month, and better than at this point 8 years ago when 41% approved.

The Voters of Tomorrow summit boasts a lineup of high-profile speakers alongside Pelosi, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and David Hogg. Both Harris and Raskin are set to address the group virtually.

Fox News’ Dana Blanton and Victoria Balara contributed to this report.

A House GOP lawmaker is entering the race to become South Carolina governor on Friday, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital.

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is expected to kick off his campaign with an event in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Friday.

As of Friday morning, his non-congressional X account had been changed to say, ‘Ralph Norman for Governor.’

He’s a fiscal hawk on the House GOP’s rightmost flank, where he’s joined other like-minded colleagues in upending leaders’ legislative agenda at times in the name of pushing for more conservative policy wins.

Norman is joining a crowded Republican primary field with his new gubernatorial bid. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and state Sen. Josh Kimbrell are also in the race.

Meanwhile, Norman’s House colleague, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., is also said to be considering a campaign for governor.

‘We wish Congressman Ralph Norman the best of luck today as he announces his run for Governor,’ Mace said in a statement on X.

Norman previously ran the Warren Norman Company, a commercial real estate development business started by his father.

Before being elected to Congress via special election in 2017, Norman served in the South Carolina state House from 2009 to 2017.

A longtime ally of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Norman was the only House Republican to formally endorse her before Haley dropped out of the race, after which Norman emphatically backed President Donald Trump.

He told Fox News Digital of his endorsement in January 2024, ‘When I supported Nikki Haley, I had the respect of Donald Trump to call him, and I told him what I was gonna do, and I decided I was going to do it.’

Norman has been a vocal supporter of Trump since Haley’s exit. He was most recently at the White House earlier this week with other House Republicans for a reception celebrating their legislative successes.

Earlier this year, he was part of a group of conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus forcing last-minute changes to the president’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ that they said fell more in line with what Trump actually wanted.

Current South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, also a close Trump ally, is term-limited at the end of 2026.

The president’s endorsement will likely play a decisive role in the Palmetto State’s GOP primary.

Artist Amy Sherald canceled her upcoming exhibit featuring a portrait of a transgender Statue of Liberty at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery after Vice President JD Vance raised concerns the show included woke and divisive content, Fox News Digital has learned. 

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March that placed Vance in charge of overseeing the removal of programs or exhibits at Smithsonian museums that ‘degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.’ 

Vance said Sherald’s ‘American Sublime’ exhibit violated Trump’s executive order and was an example of woke and divisive content during a meeting June 9 with the Board of Regents, a source familiar with the meeting told Fox News Digital. 

‘Vice President Vance has been leading the effort to eliminate woke indoctrination from our beloved Smithsonian museums,’ an administration official said in an email to Fox News Digital. ‘On top of shepherding the One Big Beautiful Bill through the Senate and helping President Trump navigate international crises, the vice president has demonstrated his ability to get President Trump’s priorities across the finish line.’

Sherald, best known for painting former first lady Michelle Obama’s official portrait in 2018, announced Thursday she was pulling her show, ‘American Sublime,’ from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery slated for September, The New York Times first reported. 

Sherald said she was rescinding her work from the exhibition after being told that the National Portrait Gallery had some concerns about featuring the portrait of the transgender Statue of Liberty during the show. The painting, ‘Trans Forming Liberty,’ depicts a trans woman with pink hair wearing a blue gown. 

‘These concerns led to discussions about removing the work from the exhibition,’ Sherald said in a statement, The New York Times first reported Thursday. ‘While no single person is to blame, it’s clear that institutional fear shaped by a broader climate of political hostility toward trans lives played a role. 

‘This painting exists to hold space for someone whose humanity has been politicized and disregarded. I cannot in good conscience comply with a culture of censorship, especially when it targets vulnerable communities.

‘At a time when transgender people are being legislated against, silenced and endangered across our nation, silence is not an option,’ Sherald added. ‘I stand by my work. I stand by my sitters. I stand by the truth that all people deserve to be seen — not only in life, but in art.’

The Smithsonian did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Vance’s involvement in the matter. 

The White House said the removal of Sherald’s exhibit is a ‘principled and necessary step’ toward cultivating unity at institutions like the Smithsonian. 

‘The ‘Trans Forming Liberty’ painting, which sought to reinterpret one of our nation’s most sacred symbols through a divisive and ideological lens, fundamentally strayed from the mission and spirit of our national museums,’ Trump special assistant Lindsey Halligan said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

‘The Statue of Liberty is not an abstract canvas for political expression. It is a revered and solemn symbol of freedom, inspiration and national unity that defines the American spirit.’

Other members of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents include the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, along with senators John Boozman, R-Ark.; Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.; and Gary Peters, D-Mich., along with several other House members. 

Fox News’ Gabriel Hays contributed to this report. 

A federal appeals judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship for the children of people in the country illegally or temporarily. 

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin ruled that a nationwide injunction on the Trump administration’s effort to end birthright citizenship that he issued earlier this year and that was granted to more than a dozen states can stand. 

Sorokin said the ruling was an exception to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited lower courts’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions. The issue is expected to return to the Supreme Court.  

Trump and the administration ‘are entitled to pursue their interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and no doubt the Supreme Court will ultimately settle the question,’ Sorokin wrote in his ruling. ‘But in the meantime, for purposes of this lawsuit at this juncture, the Executive Order is unconstitutional.’

The Trump administration has argued that children born in the U.S. to parents in the country illegally and temporarily are not ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship. 

Trump signed the birthright citizenship executive order, along with a slew of other orders, on his first day in office in January. 

On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also affirmed the lower court’s nationwide injunction, and, earlier this month, a New Hampshire federal judge issued a ruling prohibiting Trump’s executive order from taking effect nationwide in a new class-action lawsuit.

Sorokin disagreed with the Trump administration’s argument that the Supreme Court’s ruling warranted a narrower ruling. 

The plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit argued that Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional because the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship, and it also threatens millions of dollars in state funding for ‘essential’ health insurance services contingent on citizenship status. 

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

European diplomats met with Iranians on Friday face-to-face for the first time since Israel and the U.S. bombed the country last month. 

The ‘serious, frank and detailed’ meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, lasted for around four hours and the officials all agreed to meet again for continued negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. 

Sanctions that were lifted on Iran in 2015 after it agreed to restrictions and monitoring of its nuclear program could be reimposed if Iran doesn’t comply with requirements. 

One of Europe’s E3 nations – Britain, France and Germany, who held the talks with Iran – could bring back sanctions under the ‘snapback’ mechanism, which allows one of the European countries to bring back U.N. sanctions if Iran violates the conditions. 

European leaders have also said that sanctions will start being reinstated by the end of August if there is no progress on reining in Iran’s nuclear program. 

‘A possible delay in triggering snapback has been floated to the Iranians on the condition that there is credible diplomatic engagement by Iran, that they resume full cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), and that they address concerns about their highly-enriched uranium stockpile,’ a European diplomat said on condition of anonymity before the talks on Friday. 

The diplomat added that the snapback mechanism ‘remains on the table.’ 

Iran said that the U.S. needs to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal – after President Trump pulled America out of it in 2018 – saying Iran has ‘absolutely no trust in the United States.’

The U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear sites on June 22, a little over a week after Israel had bombed the country over national security concerns about its nuclear program. 

Iran responded by attacking Israel and a U.S. Army base in Qatar. 

Isreal and Iran agreed to a ceasefire on June 24. 

The IAEA issued a concerning report in May that said that Iran’s stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium had grown by nearly 50% in three months. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Donald Trump did better with American young people last fall than any Republican candidate in decades. He won men under 30, won men of college age, and even won the youth vote in the swing state of Michigan. American young people were widely assumed to be uniformly liberal, and expected to remain so forever and ever. But the reality was anything but. I saw this trend playing out in real time as I toured the country speaking on college campuses to crowds of three, four, and even five thousand strong.  Young Americans were not happy with Joe Biden’s America or Kamala Harris’ vows to continue it, and they were ready to return to the president they associated with a more prosperous pre-COVID time.

It was a big win. But it was also impermanent. It could be a one-off. It could easily be explained by the aftermath of COVID or the incredible political charisma of Donald Trump himself. The youth vote of 2024 wasn’t so much a win as it was an opportunity: A clear demonstration that conservatives actually can compete to win the votes of American young people, rather than writing them off. 

The challenge for Republicans now is seizing this Gen Z opportunity. Because Gen Z won’t become lifelong conservatives thanks to a good campaign or slick online memes. They’ll only become lifelong supporters if we’re able to deliver for them on the big issues that matter.

Experts expend a lot of effort and ink explaining what Gen Z ‘wants.’ But between my campus visits and my work running Turning Point USA, I talk to as many Gen Z’ers as anyone in the country. They want basic economic success and security like the generations before them. They want a home, they want a family, they want to feel like they are building something and that they are a part of something. 

And right now, on that front, Gen Z has a lot of problems. Economically, things are dire. In 1984, the median American home cost about three and a half times the median income in America. Today, the median house costs almost six times the median income. Rent isn’t much better, and has risen more than 50% in real terms since the 1970s. 

In 1980, tuition at the average public college was about $2,800 in today’s dollars. Today it’s around $10,000, and, unsurprisingly, that means the average college student leaves school with a debt burden that previously could have bought them a car, provided the down payment on a house, or helped them start a family. 

Financially, young people aren’t just facing more expensive necessities, but also a more predatory economic reality. Millions of Gen Zers are buying everything from concert tickets to groceries to Chipotle burritos through buy now, pay later (BNPL) setups from companies like Klarna and Affirm. Some polls indicate Gen Z prefers BNPL to traditional credit cards. Taking on debt for purchases may make sense when buying a house or a car, but once a person is paying for their groceries with 4 monthly payments at 10% interest, something has gone awry. 

Of course, America hasn’t become a poor nation. In fact, we’re as spectacularly wealthy as ever. Yet this wealth doesn’t reach young Americans (unless it’s by way of inheritance). Instead, over and over, policy decisions have ensured that elderly Americans grow wealthier and wealthier. Never in American history has so much wealth been concentrated in those who are already retired from the labor force. This reality became even more pronounced during COVID and the rampant inflation that followed. Older Americans with equities and assets in their portfolio saw their net worth skyrocket, while younger Americans just saw those assets become even more unaffordable.

It wasn’t always like this. When the baby boomers of today were growing up, government policy routinely favored young people. Jobs were easier to get, with far fewer credentialing hurdles. Houses were built far faster. Wages were higher instead of being suppressed through sky-high legal and illegal immigration. Today, though, America is a country built for those who are already owners, and those too young to buy are finding themselves stuck becoming borrowers and renters. The median age of first-time home buyers is now pushing 40, about a decade higher than the 1980s when the average age was just 29!

This isn’t because Gen Z is lazy — a common retort I hear — it’s because they are contending with structural disadvantages older Americans didn’t experience. If this continues, something will break, and young people will lead the way in breaking it. 

Zohran Mamdani has become a celebrity for Gen Z with his slick promises of a New York City rent freeze, state-owned grocery stores, and free daycare as stepping stones to eventually seizing the means of production. Mamdani’s political surge is not a passing fad or pure TV news fodder. 

It should be a giant flashing red alarm. There are millions of Americans who feel cut off from any meaningful economic progress or stability. Eventually, if they can’t obtain prosperity the old-fashioned way, they will simply try to vote themselves prosperity, and there will be plenty of demagogues promising this can be done easily by simply expropriating those with more than them.

Most of Gen Z is ideologically fluid. They’re happy to give Republicans a shot, then turn around and elect a Marxist two years later.

America will have a reordering of its economy. The only question is what that reordering will look like. There are two paths before us. We will either have stabilizing reforms like those of Theodore Roosevelt a century ago and those espoused by nationalist, populist conservatives, or we will have revolutionary, destructive ‘reforms’ like those that have already ruined once-prosperous countries like Cuba or Venezuela. If we succeed in the next three years, or if we fail, will determine which.