During the final leg of his Asia trip en route to South Korea, President Donald Trump spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One, expressing confidence in his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping ahead of their meeting at an economic summit. 

When asked about U.S. efforts to curb fentanyl trafficking, Trump said the issue would be central to his discussions with Xi.

Ahead of his meeting with the Chinese leader, Trump said he hoped for progress on “a lot of problems,” including fentanyl trafficking, trade and tariffs.

“China is going to be working with me, okay,” Trump told reporters. “They’re going to be working with me, and we’re going to do something, I believe.”

TRUMP PREDICTS ‘VERY HAPPY’ OUTCOME AHEAD OF FACE-TO-FACE WITH CHINA’S XI AFTER TARIFF THREATS

Trump said the issue would be a major topic of discussion in his upcoming meeting. 

“We have to have the meeting — a meeting tomorrow. That’s a big meeting,” he said. “And fentanyl will be one of the things that we’re discussing. The farmers will be discussing a lot of things, but fentanyl will be one of the things we discuss.”

Trump stated that the fentanyl crisis and drug trafficking across the southern border are directly related, calling them “tremendous amounts of death.”

“We took in tremendous amounts of death. I call them the boats of death,” he said. “Under Biden and open borders, stuff was flowing. I think they killed 300,000 people last year — fentanyl drugs coming through the southern border. And now nobody gets through this. We’re very tough on the border.”

Border patrol agents and a special operations group member from the Texas Ranger Division seize 297 pounds of marijuana following a drug bust by the Mexico-U.S. border in the Rio Grande Valley sector, near McAllen, Texas, (Loren Elliott/Reuters)

TRUMP AND KIM JONG UN SHOULD MAKE ‘BOLD DECISION’ TO MEET DURING HIS ASIA TRIP, SOUTH KOREAN OFFICIAL SAYS

Trump credited his policies with a sharp reduction in illegal drug trafficking by sea, saying it was “down about 80% by water.”

He also praised U.S. law enforcement and border officials for their efforts, saying, “Our border agents, our Border Patrol agents, they’ve been amazing. ICE — these people do such a great job with what they’re doing.”

Attendees applaud as U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during the APEC CEOs Luncheon at the Gyeongju Arts Center on October 29, 2025 in Gyeongju, South Korea.  (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

During his visit, Trump also commented on international security issues, including the Israel-Hamas conflict and North Korea’s recent missile launches. He said he expects his meeting with Xi to be productive, adding, “I think we’ll get a great meeting with President Xi of China. And a lot of problems are going to be solved.”

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Trump’s comments underscored his push to link border security and international cooperation as key priorities ahead of his meeting with Xi.

FIRST ON FOX: Following several high-profile, deadly auto accidents involving illegal alien truck drivers, a commercial trucking industry leader is blowing the whistle on the devastating “shockwave” illegal drivers carrying sanctuary state licenses have had on the industry.

Mike Kucharski, co-owner and vice president of JKC Trucking, which is based in Illinois, told Fox News Digital that in addition to endangering American roads, illegal alien commercial drivers have been “killing the trucking business.”

He said that though the problem has only recently been brought to the forefront of the public consciousness in recent months, drivers and trucking businesses have been feeling the impacts for years.

“We knew there was an issue right after COVID because the rates dropped down, and we just thought, ‘Okay, look, it’s just inflation … the wars, etcetera, all these aspects causing the volumes to be down. We’re thinking, ‘Okay. In the long run, these volumes will go back up to what they were pre-COVID conditions or just go back to regular volumes, and we’ll be back in business.’ But what happened? The complete opposite happened,” he said. “They went down and stayed down, and we never knew, as truckers, what was the problem.”

WHITE HOUSE SAYS CALIFORNIA GRANTED LICENSE TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TRUCKER CHARGED IN FATAL DUI CRASH

Now, with recent revelations from the Trump Department of Transportation and Secretary Sean Duffy about rampant illegal alien truckers on American roads, Kucharski said the truth is finally out.

Duffy issued a bombshell report on Thursday accusing California of violating federal law by issuing a commercial driver’s license to a foreign asylum seeker whose semi-truck crash killed three people last week.

The report alleges that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration ignored a federal order to halt noncompliant licenses and revoke improperly issued credentials, a failure that, according to Duffy, cost “three innocent souls.”

Federal regulators uncovered flaws in how California licenses were obtained by certain commercial truck drivers. The 2025 Annual Program Review and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) concluded that the state’s commercial driver’s license (CDL) system suffered from “systemic policy, procedural, and programming errors” when it came to handling non-domiciled licenses.

In an audit letter dated Sept. 26, 2025, investigators also discovered that California had issued CDLs to non-domiciled drivers that were valid even after their federal work authorization expired.

BLUE STATE INVESTIGATES HOW ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TRUCKER GOT LICENSE BEFORE DEADLY FLORIDA CRASH

A split image showing a fiery truck crash and the suspected driver, Jashanpreet Singh, 21. Singh is accused of being high on drugs at the time of the crash. (Obtained by Fox News, ICE)

Kucharski explained further that, though a heavily regulated industry, illegal alien truck drivers can exploit a “loophole” in the system by obtaining non-domiciled commercial drivers’ licenses from states such as California and New York. They are then able to outcompete legitimate trucking businesses by charging lower prices, leading to the demise of many American small businesses in the industry.

“As a business owner, I was thinking, ‘Well, who is taking all these loads?’ Now I could figure it out that this is another shockwave that’s hitting the truck industry after COVID and violent volatility, these [non-domiciled] drivers are coming in and doing it for cheaper because they don’t care, and … they don’t have social security numbers, and I assume they’re probably not filing for taxes. So, if you’re not going to pay all your bills, of course, you can do it cheaper and keep on trucking.”

“All our truckers are fighting for the same load, and it goes to the lowest bidder,” he went on. “If you have these drivers coming in that are non-domiciled, they have no family here, they have no home, they live in their truck … They’re saying, ‘Okay, look, all the market’s doing for $2,000, we’ll do it for $1,700.’ So, it’s putting small trucking businesses out of business every day.”

“We’re over-regulated, honestly, in the trucking industry. And if you’re overregulated, you think, ‘Well, there’s no way that this could happen, and it is happening, right now as we speak,” he said. “It’s eye-opening, disturbing and jaw-dropping.”

Kucharski called on Duffy as well as other industry leaders to take action.

Along with the report last week, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency interim final rule that tightened standards for non-domiciled CDLs nationwide. In the rule, stipulations changed and limited eligibility to applicants holding certain employment-based visas. It requires every state to verify their legal status through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database.

Under the new rule, any non-domiciled commercial learner’s permit or CDL must expire no later than the end date on the driver’s federal immigration record or after one year, whichever comes first. It also maintains that states must keep proof of their lawful presence on file for at least two years.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TRUCK DRIVER IN FATAL CALIFORNIA CRASH SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAD LICENSE: DOT REPORT

Sean Duffy, US secretary of transportation, speaks during a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025.  (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In response to Kucharski’s criticisms, a spokesperson for Newsom told Fox News Digital that “California continues to follow federal rules regarding CDLs.”

“Lost in the immigrant-bashing is the fact that drivers holding a California-issued CDL are involved in fatal crashes at a rate far lower than the national average.  If the focus were on safety, California should be a poster child, not a scapegoat,” the spokesperson said.

“Consistent with federal law, California issued commercial driver’s licenses only to drivers if the federal government confirmed their legal presence,” the spokesperson went on, adding, “The Trump administration didn’t like these federal rules and just recently changed them to restrict refugees, DACA holders, and others from being able to apply for a CDL.”

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“This is a very serious crisis issue,” Kucharski said. “The trucking industry depends on trust. That means ensuring every driver on the road is properly licensed, well-trained, and mentally and physically fit to operate heavy equipment.”

“All I can say is strategies like this remind us that reform isn’t just about policies, [its] about human lives. And it’s on all of us, from the regulators to the fleet owners, to the driver trainers, to ensure the system works the way it should.”

Fox News Digital also reached out to Hochul’s office for comment but did not immediately receive a response. 

Fox News Digital’s Jasmine Baehr and Christina Shaw contributed to this report.

Today we’re taking a tour through the mythical Land of Election Fraud, where President Trump has built a palace of lies, imprisoning both truth and democracy.

I put it in fairy tale terms because the idea that American elections are corrupt should hold about as much credence as a magical beanstalk growing into the sky. Countless lawsuits and investigations have found no proof of these false claims.

But here we are — not only do many Americans erroneously believe that Trump won the 2020 election, but the chief water-carriers of that lie are now in powerful government positions.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it will send monitors to Los Angeles and other locations in California and New Jersey for next week’s balloting. Those who study voting and democracies warn that this could be a test run for how far Trump could go in attempting to impose his will on the 2026 midterms and perhaps the 2028 presidential election.

If you think that it is harmless coincidence that he’s stacked election deniers in key posts, or that once again California is the center of his attack on democratic norms, I have beans you may be interested in buying.

“The sending of the observers to the special election could very well be, and probably likely is, a precursor or practice run for 2026,” Mindy Romero told me. She’s an assistant professor and the founder of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy.

Like others I spoke with, Romero sees a larger context to the poll monitors that has the potential to end with voter suppression.

“The Trump administration is laying a foundation, and they’re being very open about it, very clear about it,” Romero said. “They are saying that they are anticipating there to be fraud and for the election to be rigged.”

Trump put it even more clearly in a social media post on Sunday.

“I hope the DOJ pursues this with as much ‘gusto’ as befitting the biggest SCANDAL in American history!,” he wrote. “If not, it will happen again, including the upcoming Midterms. … Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is!”

To understand where all this may be headed involves digging back into Golden State history. The conspiracy underpinning election fraud claims has deep roots in California’s Proposition 187 — the anti-immigrant measure that was passed by voters in 1994 but squashed by the courts.

The far right never got over the defeat. Anti-immigrant sentiment morphed into conspiracy theory, specifically that undocumented folks were voting in huge numbers, at the behest of Democrats.

This absolutely loony bit of racist paranoia spawned an “election integrity” movement that cloaked itself as patriotism and fairness, but at heart remained doused in fear-of-brown.

Calfornia Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Monday he sees that Proposition 187 “playbook” at work today with “a targeting, unfortunately, of immigrants … because it creates fear in the eyes of some, in the minds of some, and it helps the Republican Party, MAGA and the Trump administration achieve their goals.”

Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are just the flip side of the coin to his election fraud claims — both at heart a part of the white Christian nationalism that his administration is now openly embracing.

Let me just say here that all Americans want fair elections and many average folks involved in election integrity efforts simply want to ensure our one-person, one-vote system stays honest — regardless of race or anything else. No hate on them at all. It’s the funders and organizers of many voter witch-hunt efforts that draw my ire, because they exploit that reasonable wish for fairness for their own dark agenda.

And that agenda increasingly appears to be the end of free and fair elections, while maintaining the appearance of them — the classic authoritarian way of ruling with the seeming consent of the people. Remember, Russia still holds elections.

“To have real control, you want to rule with a velvet glove,” Romero said. “That velvet glove can come off, and the people know it can come off,” but mostly, you want them to comply because it feels like “just what has to be.”

So how exactly would we get from poll monitors, a reasonable and established norm, to something as dire as an election that is rigged, or that is so chaotic the average person doesn’t know the truth?

It starts with introducing doubt into the system, which Trump has done. To be fair, with Proposition 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, Democrats now fear rigged elections, too.

But Gowri Ramachandran, the director of elections and security in the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections and Government Program, told me her “biggest fear” is that those election deniers whom Trump elevated to official roles “now have the platform of the federal government.”

For that reason, “information about elections [that] comes out of the federal government right now, I think everyone’s going to have to take it with a really big grain of salt,” she said.

So we come out of the California 2025 special election unable to trust the federal government’s take on it, with one year until the midterm elections that will determine whether or not Trump’s power remains unfettered.

Maybe everything turns out fine, but there’s a string of other maybes where it doesn’t.

Let’s say Trump tries to declare an end to mail-in ballots and early voting, both of which increase turnout for lower-income folks who don’t have time to line up. Trump tried that earlier this year, though courts blocked it.

What does the 2026 election look like if you have to line up in person to vote if you want to be sure it counts, with ICE potentially around the block rounding up citizens and noncitizens alike? And the government requiring that you have multiple forms of identification, all with matching names (take that, married women), and even military “guarding” the polls?

Kind of intimidating, huh?

But let’s say the election happens anyway. And let’s say Republicans lose enough congressional seats to put Democrats in control of the House. But let’s say the federal government claims there is so much fraud, it has to be investigated before any results can be considered official.

Private groups sue on both sides. Half the country believes Trump, half the country believes the secretaries of state, like California’s Shirley Weber, charged with managing the results.

In that chaos, the newly elected Democratic representatives head to Washington, D.C., to get to work, only to have House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) refuse to swear them in — no differently than he is currently doing with elected Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva, who has promised to vote to release the Epstein files if Johnson ever does his job.

Romero calls that scenario “not even … that big of a stretch.”

Congress comes to a halt, not enough members sworn in to function, which is just fine by Trump.

And voila! The vote is suppressed by confusion, chaos and the velvet glove, because of course it’s reasonable to want to know the truth before we move forward.

So monitor away. Watch the polls and watch the watchers, and protect the vote.

But don’t buy the beans.