Politics
Trump picks Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, 'Hillbilly Elegy' author, as running mate
J.D. Vance, the Ohio senator and author of the acclaimed memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” will be the Republican vice presidential nominee, former President Trump announced Monday.
“As Vice President, J.D. will continue to fight for our Constitution, stand with our Troops, and will do everything he can to help me MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Though he had once positioned himself to Republicans as an alternative to Trump — once famously likening Trump to “cultural heroin” — in time Vance became one of the former president’s most fervent supporters and defenders.
Trump’s decision defied speculation early in the campaign that the former president would choose a person of color or a woman to broaden his political base. Instead, Trump-Vance creates the kind of team found throughout American history: two men, both white, though Trump, at 78, is twice the age of the 39-year-old Vance.
Vance, whose full name is James David Vance, will turn 40 in August. Like his wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, he has a law degree from Yale, where the two met. They have three children.
For weeks, Trump had reportedly been courting Vance, along with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, as potential vice presidential picks — drawing out the suspenseful announcement and creating comparisons to a casting call, from his time as head honcho of the reality TV show “The Apprentice.”
“Donald Trump was a success,” Vance said in a promotional video released by the campaign moments after Trump’s announcement. “The results were good, and we could have a growing economy and a peaceful world if we just bring back Donald Trump for round two.”
In a remarkable departure from historic norms, Trump picked a running mate different from his first term, former Vice President Mike Pence. Pence lost favor with Trump when he refused his former boss’ calls to reject the 2020 election results.
Pence’s choice to certify the 2020 election results, amid the chaos of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, prompted protesters to chant, “Hang Mike Pence!” Pence said earlier this year that he would not endorse Trump for president.
“Donald Trump picked J.D. Vance as his running mate because Vance will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on Jan. 6: bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden-Harris 2024 chair, in a statement.
Vance attained international renown for his 2016 bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” which details Vance’s childhood in Middletown, Ohio, a steel mill town in America’s heartland.
Vance described his mother, who became pregnant as a teenager, as someone struggling with addiction, mental health issues and unstable relationships. Vance went to live with his grandmother — a hard-working woman he affectionately calls Mamaw, from Kentucky.
“Hillbilly Elegy” reads as a love letter to Vance’s family — their struggles with addiction, disruptive relationships and tight-knit love. But perhaps more so, it is an epistle on the state of working-class white people — the same demographic that Trump counts as the bedrock of his base.
Vance was not always in Trump’s camp.
In an interview in 2016, the year Trump first ran for president, he said, “I’m not a Trump supporter, but I even feel a certain attachment, and I get a little bit cheery when he says certain things on the campaign trail, when he criticizes the elites in such strong language — it’s a little refreshing, even if you disagree with the substance of the remarks.”
That same year, in a piece for the Atlantic, he wrote, “Trump is cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it.”
That view changed. “I actually think Trump is a much better model of statesman, which is he’s tough, he’s funny, he sometimes says things unfiltered,” Vance said in an interview last month. “But when it comes to actual decision making, he’s much more careful and cautious than any person currently representing the country.”
Vance, already an outspoken critic of Democrats and President Biden, became even more so recently. This week he even blamed Democrats for the attempted assassination of Trump, even as the shooter’s motives remain unknown.
“Today is not just some isolated incident,” he posted on the social media platform X. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Vance served in the Marine Corps in Iraq before attending Ohio State University and Yale Law School. He then moved to San Francisco and worked as an investor for the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Mithril Capital, becoming a protege of Peter Thiel, once a Republican megadonor who gave $10 million to Vance’s Senate campaign. Thiel previously donated to Trump, but told the Atlantic that he would not give to any politicians in the 2024 election.
“When the Twin Towers came down, J.D. Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps, gung-ho to exact justice on America’s enemies. Subsequently he came to believe the Forever Wars were a mistake,” David Sacks, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who recently hosted a fundraiser for Trump, wrote on X. “This is who I want by Trump’s side: an American patriot, with the courage to fight America’s wars but the wisdom to know when to avoid them.”
“Hillbilly Elegy,” which was later made into a Netflix film, launched Vance into international stardom. He penned think pieces and reportedly harbored presidential aspirations with close advisors.
In a 2017 essay in the New York Times, Vance wrote about identifying parts of himself in former Presidents Clinton and Obama, who also grew up in underprivileged environments, largely raised by their grandparents. Of Obama, he wrote, “It is one of the great failures of recent political history that the Republican Party was too often unable to disconnect legitimate political disagreements from the fact that the president himself is an admirable man.”
Vance perhaps would repeat the same sentiment toward his new boss, whom he spilled copious amounts of ink warning America about during the 2016 election.
“During this election season, it appears that many Americans have reached for a new pain reliever. It too, promises a quick escape from life’s cares, an easy solution to the mounting social problems of U.S. communities and culture,” Vance wrote in the piece for the Atlantic. “It enters minds, not through lungs or veins, but through eyes and ears, and its name is Donald Trump.”
Yet six years later, Trump singled Vance out of a competitive race for Ohio Senate, endorsing him in the 2022 midterm elections. Vance soared to the front of the pack and won against seasoned Democrat Tim Ryan.
A few months into his first Senate term, Vance dealt with a crisis in his district — a train derailed in East Palestine. But as his term wore on, Vance turned his attention to more election-worthy national issues: immigration, China and Trump’s criminal trials.
Soon, Vance rose to the top of Trump’s vice presidential short list.
Politics
Israel shares intelligence warning Iran plotted new assassination attempt against Trump: report
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Israel recently shared intelligence with the United States indicating Iran had developed a fresh plan to assassinate President Donald Trump, according to a Wall Street Journal report Thursday citing people familiar with the matter.
The reported intelligence would mark an escalation in the longstanding threats against Trump, who Iran has repeatedly vowed to retaliate against over the 2020 U.S. strike that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
The White House referred Fox News Digital to Trump’s remarks Wednesday when asked about the report.
TRUMP FACES UNPRECEDENTED THIRD ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey, July 8, 2026. Trump addressed threats against his life after a report said Israel shared intelligence with the United States about an alleged new Iranian assassination plot. (Kerem Uzel/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“They want to take out the U.S. leader — me. I’m on whatever list. I saw this morning I’m on every single one of their lists,” Trump said. “And, so far, I guess I’ve been a bit lucky, but maybe that doesn’t last very long. These are evil, sick people. And we have to root out that cancer. That cancer. You know what you do? You’ve got to cut out cancer early. And that’s the way I feel.”
Fox News Digital has also reached out to Israel’s Embassy in Washington and Iran’s Mission to the United Nations for comment.
The Journal reported the intelligence surfaced as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have diverged in recent weeks over how to proceed after last month’s conflict with Iran. Netanyahu has advocated for continuing military pressure on Tehran, while Trump has sought to preserve a fragile ceasefire after U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
NETANYAHU REJECTS REPORTS OF A RIFT WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP, SAYS THE TWO REMAIN ALIGNED ON IRAN
President Donald Trump, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House March 25, 2019. The leaders spoke Thursday after The Wall Street Journal reported Israel had shared intelligence with the United States about an alleged new Iranian plot targeting Trump. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Trump and Netanyahu spoke Thursday and agreed to continue coordination between the two countries, according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office, which said Trump also updated the Israeli leader on recent U.S. activity in the Gulf.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)
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Iranian mourners at the funeral for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei chanted for Trump’s death and displayed a banner that said, “We Will Kill Trump,” according to the Journal.
Iran has publicly vowed for years to retaliate against Trump over the U.S. operation that killed Soleimani, the former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, in Baghdad in January 2020.
Politics
Iran ceasefire is ‘over,’ Trump says, and orders additional strikes
WASHINGTON — A tentative armistice between the United States and Iran reached less than a month ago appeared all but dead Wednesday after the two sides traded fresh military strikes, and as President Trump directed further attacks on the Islamic Republic.
The escalation marked a dramatic turn after the Trump administration spent weeks selling a diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran that proved controversial across the political aisle, lifting oil sanctions and a naval blockade on Iran in exchange for the promise of talks over the status of the Strait of Hormuz and its decades-old nuclear program.
Now, speaking to reporters at the NATO summit in Turkey, Trump said he believed the truce — which diplomats describe as a memorandum of understanding — was “over” and that it was a “waste of time” dealing with Iranian leadership.
“They’re scum. They’re sick people,” Trump said of Iranian leaders, whom he had characterized last month as “very rational people” and “very nice to deal with.”
The president’s dim views of the ceasefire agreement’s fate were shared by Iran’s foreign ministry, which issued a statement on Wednesday saying the American attacks, the reinstatement of a U.S. naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, and Israel’s continuing attacks in Lebanon rendered “important and fundamental” parts of the deal “ineffective.”
The truce’s unraveling was underscored by Trump ordering the U.S. military to launch a series of strikes against Iran on Wednesday afternoon to “further degrade their ability to threaten” the commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
“The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement on social media.
Earlier in the day, Trump signaled that the United States planned to “hit them hard” and floated the possibility of taking over Kharg Island, which is vital to Iran’s economy. His remarks quickly prompted oil prices to rise and global stock markets to fall, a worry that Trump acknowledged but which did not seem to sway his decision-making in relation to Iran.
“If we hit Iran, oil goes up a little bit, it is all right,” Trump said. He later added that the United States may “do some other thing that could lift it a little bit, but I don’t think it’s gonna lift it a lot at all.”
As Trump signals the continuation of fighting, his administration has been seeking more than $67 billion in funding to cover expenses related to the Iran war, a request that Congress has not yet approved as lawmakers have been split over the president’s handling of the conflict.
“The American people are paying the price for Trump’s total failure in Iran,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Wednesday. “Our troops are back in harm’s way and high gas costs are continuing to punish working families.”
The president’s stance on the war marked the latest setback to a fragile truce that has barely held since the 14-page agreement was signed June 17, as the U.S. and Iran engaged over the last few weeks in cycles of attacks and counterattacks.
Trump was noticeably angrier at Iran on Wednesday as he cast doubt over the deal. Last month, Trump had complimented Iranian leadership for trying to reach a peace deal and celebrated the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route for the world’s oil and gas. But based on his remarks, it was clear he was out of patience.
“I am not happy with them,” Trump said. “They’re cuckoo. There’s something wrong with these people. For 47 years, they’ve been the bully of the Middle East and they are not the bully anymore. They are not the bully anymore.”
Trump expressed frustration with Iran’s negotiators and their resistance to abiding by U.S. demands to reopen the strait. When asked if he intended to send troops to Iran, the president dismissed the idea.
“Why would I go in now?” Trump said. “I’d go in when they’re completely eliminated or an agreement is made.”
Still, the president kept the door open for negotiations, saying that his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner “want to negotiate.”
“They’re good people, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, but they have to come back to me,” Trump said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with [the Iranians]. They’re liars.”
The latest breakdown to the ceasefire followed a now-familiar chain reaction of tit-for-tat attacks, starting with a series of strikes on three oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, including a Qatari vessel carrying natural gas, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center.
The Qatari tanker was off the coast of Oman when it was hit and caught fire, the maritime monitor said, in what experts say was a move to thwart ships attempting to use an alternate transit route to the one Iran specified. Iran did not claim responsibility, but a report on Iranian state television said the Qatari tanker came under attack after ignoring warnings to turn back.
The two other vessels were damaged but were able to continue to their destination, according to the U.K. group.
Qatar, which has played a vital role in facilitating negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, condemned the attack on its tanker as “unacceptable.”
The U.S. responded with a wave of strikes against more than 80 Iranian targets aimed at “impos[ing] heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway,” according to a statement from U.S. Central Command. That tally included roughly 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats in the strait.
Iranian state media said U.S. strikes targeted Sirik, Qeshm Island and Bushehr and Bandar Abbas, while a U.S. drone strike on the port city of Mahshahr killed one Revolutionary Guard member.
Ahead of the strikes, the White House revoked the 60-day temporary license given to Tehran to sell and deliver oil during the truce.
Iran’s military countered with its own strikes on 85 U.S. military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait; it also shot down an MQ-9 drone, according to a statement on Wednesday.
Kuwait said its military intercepted two ballistic missiles and 13 drones, but that none had resulted in material damage or casualties.
Global oil prices surged 6% on news of Trump’s reversal on the deal, rising to more than $78 a barrel, down from the peak during the war but still above prewar levels.
The renewed violence appeared to have little effect on the funeral for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Feb. 28, in the war’s opening hours.
The funeral, a days-long period of mourning, is set to end on Thursday, when Khamenei’s body will return from Iraq to be buried in the city of Mashhad, his birthplace. Negotiations were to begin once more.
In his remarks Wednesday, Trump said Iranian leaders had asked for a “timeout” to attend the funeral, and that he had promised not to kill them.
“And I said give it to them, and they start shooting missiles,” Trump said.
Whether those talks — which were meant to deal with the thorniest issues between the two countries, including the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program — will go ahead remains unclear. Iran, for its part, maintained a defiant attitude.
“The era of bullying and extortion is over,” wrote Mohammad Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker. “It leads nowhere. We don’t fold.”
Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to the supreme leader, posted on X that Trump’s policy had “driven the region towards fire.”
“We had previously warned that the region is not a place for the political gambling of small countries, and we have repeatedly proven that adventures are met with an immediate response,” he wrote.
He added that the Axis of Resistance — a reference to Iran’s network of allied groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen — would not be “silent against humiliation and adventurism” and has “its finger on the trigger.”
Bulos reported from Beirut and Ceballos from Washington.
Politics
Omar’s disclosures erased millions, leaving her with potential negative net worth. She won’t explain why.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., refused to address her revised financial disclosures that could imply she has a negative net worth after the progressive lawmaker dramatically reducing the reported value of assets tied to her husband’s business ventures.
“Can you tell us if your husband still has the consulting business and the wine business?” Fox News Digital asked Omar.
The congresswoman stayed silent as she was repeatedly questioned, after previously telling Fox News Digital that the original filing — showing Omar’s reported assets reducing by as much as $29.9 million — was inaccurate and “incomplete” information.
ILHAN OMAR’S OFFICE SAYS SHE’S ‘NOT A MILLIONAIRE’ AFTER $30M FILING REVISED DOWN TO UNDER $100K: REPORT
US Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, speaks during a press conference with family members of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as members of Congress call for US investigations into Israel’s actions and reintroduce the Justice for Shireen Act, outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, May 18, 2023. The Al Jazeera journalist, who was a dual US citizen, was killed on May 11, 2022. The Israeli army later admitted one of its soldiers likely shot the reporter. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
The controversy surrounding Omar’s finances began when a 2024 financial report estimated that Omar and her husband possessed between $6 million and $30 million in assets, all while the Minnesota fraud scandal within the Somali community was beginning to come to fruition.
A more recent 2025 financial disclosure report shows Omar’s revised value of shared assets between her and husband to sit at a maximum of $125,000 — a multi-million-dollar drop from the year prior. The lower estimate of their assets, $20,000, compared to the low and high debt estimates, $30,000 and $100,000, would imply the Minnesota Democrat could have a negative net worth.
Both her and her husband have separate debts, each ranging somewhere between $15,000 and $50,000 — from her own student loans and her husband’s credit card debt, according to the disclosures.
WATCH: OMAR SILENT WHEN CONFRONTED ON ALLEGED TIES TO MASSIVE MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL
RICHFIELD, MN – AUGUST 08: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (C) campaigns with her husband Tim Mynett (R) at the Richfield Farmers Market on August 8, 2020 in Richfield, Minnesota. Omar is hoping to retain her seat as the representative for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in next week’s primary election. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
The biggest change in the documents involved Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett. His reported ownership interests in both his winery and venture capital advisory firm, which were previously valued in the millions of dollars, are listed with no value now.
In Omar’s 2024 financial disclosure records, Mynett’s share in his winery was valued between $1 million and $5 million, and his share at the venture capital advisory firm was valued between $5 million and $25 million. Now, his equity interests are both listed at $0.
Omar’s office previously told Fox News Digital that Mynett has partners in both businesses and said the earlier disclosure mistakenly reflected the businesses’ total equity rather than his ownership interest. The office also said the original filing listed assets without accounting for liabilities.
VANCE REFERS TIM WALZ, MINNESOTA ATTORNEY GENERAL TO DOJ FOR CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION OVER STATE’S ALLEGED FRAUD
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has publicly voiced his interest in the Ethics Committee opening an investigation into Omar’s personal finances after the 2025 financial reports came out showing the possibility of a $29 million drop in her net worth.
Vice President JD Vance also has previously said the U.S. Department of Justice will be opening a probe into her alleged fraud as part of the administration’s anti-fraud taskforce that he spearheads, though no formal investigations have been shared with the public at this time.
Omar has been reluctant to answer Fox News Digital’s questions about her financial fallout and potential probes to be opened against her.
The Minnesota lawmaker similarly dodged answering any of Fox News Digital’s questions just last month about the revised disclosures.
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“There’s also the possibility that it might rain on this sunny day,” Omar replied without responding directly to the content of the question.
Fox News Digital’s Robert Schmad contributed to this report.
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