Politics
Most shocking examples of Chinese espionage uncovered by the US this year: ‘Just the tip of the iceberg’
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This year has had no shortage of alarming Chinese espionage efforts targeting the United States that were uncovered by government officials.
2025 saw the conviction of a former active-duty military member accused of selling Navy secrets to Chinese intelligence, the arrests of Chinese nationals accused of trying to recruit active-duty service members as intelligence assets and smuggle dangerous toxins into the United States, the disruption of a Chinese “Hacker-for-Hire” ecosystem, and more.
“President Trump is not afraid of the Chinese,” Gatestone Institute senior Fellow Gordon Chang said on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria” following a new arms sale to Taiwan. However, Chang lamented that Trump was ambivalent to the “information war” with China, noting that “the Chinese are able to tar him and tell the rest of the world that Trump is afraid of the Chinese … but when you look at the reality, President Trump is going after China across the board,” Chang argued.
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One of the alarming Chinese espionage headlines to hit the news this year was an effort by several Chinese nationals to smuggle a pathogen described by the government as a “potential agroterrorism weapon” into the United States in 2024. A complaint against the suspects was unsealed by federal officials this year, leading the case to make headlines nationwide.
Flag flies in front of the embassy of China in Berlin, Germany, Monday, April 22, 2024. (Hannes P. Albert/dpa via AP, File)
One of those individuals complicit in the case, Yunqing Jian, 33, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China and a researcher employed at the University of Michigan, was allegedly receiving money from the Chinese government for her work on the pathogen the suspects were trying to smuggle. Meanwhile, her boyfriend, who worked at a Chinese university conducting research on that same pathogen, initially lied but then admitted to smuggling it through the Detroit airport so it could be taken to the University of Michigan laboratory where his girlfriend worked.
Jian eventually pleaded guilty. She was later sentenced to time served and then deported back to China. Her boyfriend was immediately deported to China when he was caught at the Detroit airport trying to bring the toxin into the United States.
Just this month, a separate Chinese researcher from Indiana University was also accused by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of trying to smuggle a dangerous toxin into the country, this time Escherichia coli (E. coli). The FBI identified the smuggling suspect as post-doctoral researcher Youhuang Xiang, who also allegedly made false statements to law enforcement.
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Federal officials have disrupted Chinese intelligence efforts to recruit assets in the United States this year as well, according to Justice Department communications.
In July, federal officials disrupted a “Clandestine PRC Ministry of State Security Intelligence Network” that was operating in the United States and was attempting to bribe active-duty soldiers with thousands in cash to work for them as assets.
The following month, in a separate case, a federal jury convicted former Navy sailor, Jinchao Wei, also known as Patrick Wei, who was caught trying to sell military secrets to a Chinese intelligence officer for $12,000.
The national flags of the United States and China flutter at the Fairmont Peace Hotel on April 25, 2024 in Shanghai, China. (Wang Gang/VCG via Getty Images)
Hacking was a big part of Chinese espionage efforts in 2025 too.
A major Chinese-linked hacking threat referred to as “Salt Typhoon” was reported this year to have launched an attack compromising at least 200 American companies as part of its broader efforts that have included gaining access to law enforcement wiretapping mechanisms and information on members of Congress, according to the top cyber chief at the FBI. Critical infrastructure manufacturers like AT&T, Verizon, Charter Communications, and others have reportedly been exposed by the group, which was first uncovered publicly in 2024 but whose efforts have dated back several years.
Earlier this year, in March, the Department of Justice also announced that federal officials had disrupted a “Hacker-for-Hire Ecosystem” operating out of China at the direction of Chinese intelligence officers as well. These malicious actors worked for private companies and as contractors in China, which was intended to hack and steal information in a way that would obscure the Chinese government’s involvement, the DOJ said.
China’s increasing acquisition of farmland in the United States has been of growing concern during 2025 as well, with Chinese-linked entities buying up land near military bases, including a trailer park near Missouri’s Whiteman Air Force Base.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
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“From smuggling crop-killing pathogens and E. Coli into the United States, to conspicuously purchasing a trailer park that shares a fence with America’s entire B-2 bomber fleet and selling ‘green’ tech devices that spread kill switches across our electrical grid, Communist China seeks to harm the American homeland,” Michael Lucci, a China-hawk and the founder of State Armor Action, a conservative group with a mission to develop and enact state-level solutions to global security threats such as those emanating from China.
“Furthermore, these events are just the tip of the iceberg,” Lucci continued. “Lawmakers across the country must accelerate action to shield Americans from CCP influence, espionage, and sabotage. Communist China treats the United States as an enemy, and it is past time we recognize the CCP party-state always and everywhere chooses conflict with the United States.”
Fox News Digital’s Rachel Wolf contributed to this report.
Politics
Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf
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President Donald Trump is taking his feud with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to the libertarian lawmaker’s home turf on Wednesday.
Trump is expected to hold an event in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday, the Republican Party of Kentucky announced on social media Monday. It’s located in the northern part of the state’s 4th Congressional District, which Massie represents.
Massie’s primary rival, Ed Gallrein, will attend the Hebron event, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, while deferring all other questions on the matter to the White House.
Massie himself will miss the event due to a previously scheduled official engagement, his spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
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President Donald Trump will be visiting Rep. Thomas Massie’s congressional district on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
When asked about the visit, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital, “President Trump will visit the great states of Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to tout his economic victories and detail his Administration’s aggressive, ongoing efforts to lower prices and make America more affordable.”
The president has thrown his considerable influence behind Gallrein to unseat Massie after the GOP lawmaker publicly defied Trump on multiple occasions.
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Massie most recently was one of two House Republicans to vote to stop Trump’s joint operation in Iran with Israel, though the legislation was successfully blocked by the majority of GOP lawmakers and a handful of Democrats.
Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. (Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)
He was also one of two Republicans to vote against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year.
Trump in turn has hurled a slew of personal attacks against Massie, including calling him “weak and pathetic” in a statement endorsing Gallrein in October.
“He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time, one of numerous criticisms targeting the Kentucky Republican through the years.
He called Massie the “worst Republican congressman” in July amid Massie’s bipartisan push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.
Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But Massie has so far appeared to defy political gravity despite making political enemies out of both Trump and House GOP leaders.
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He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.
Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who launched his campaign days after Trump made his endorsement. Their primary election day is May 19.
Politics
California Democrats launch pricey polling effort to winnow crowded gubernatorial field
As anxiety mounts among California Democrats about the potential of a Republican being elected governor, the state party will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on polling to assess the viability of the sprawling field of candidates hoping to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to plans released Tuesday.
The move comes after nearly every Democratic candidate refused party leaders’ call last week to withdraw from the race to avoid splitting the vote in the June primary — an outcome that could lead to a Republican being elected to statewide office for the first time in two decades.
“Candidates have filed, and now they’ve got the opportunity to showcase their viability, their path to win. I want to simply ensure that everybody has information to fully understand the current state of the race,” said Rusty Hicks, the leader of the California Democratic Party.
As campaign season ramps up, the series of six polls will allow “candidates, supporters, the media, voters, anyone and everyone to have a clear understanding of what is or is not happening in this particular race,” he said.
The filing deadline to appear on the June 2 ballot was Friday. Three days earlier, Hicks released an open letter urging candidates who did not have a path to victory to withdraw from the race. Of the nine prominent Democrats who had announced runs for governor, only one heeded his call: former state Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon.
That means the eight other candidates’ names will appear on the ballot, regardless of whether they decide to later drop out. And that creates the possibility of a Republican winning the race because of how California elections are decided.
The state has a voter-approved top-two primary system, under which the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June primary advance to the November general election, regardless of party.
Two prominent Republicans will appear on the ballot: former conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. Even though Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1, and the state’s electorate last elevated Republicans to statewide office in 2006, it is mathematically possible for Democrats to splinter the vote, allowing the two GOP candidates to advance.
Under such a scenario, not only would Republicans be guaranteed the leadership of the nation’s most-populous state, but Democratic voter turnout also would probably be depressed in November, potentially affecting down-ballot races such as those that could determine control of Congress.
Hicks’ call last week prompted concerns among candidates of color, including former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, that the effort was aimed at every nonwhite candidate in the race.
The state party chairman responded that his letter was not aimed at any specific candidate.
“It’s not something I lose sleep over,” Hicks said when asked about the racial claims. But he added that the voter surveys will be conducted by Los Angeles-based Evitarus, the state’s only Black- and Latino-led full-service polling firm, and will oversample historically underrepresented communities: Latino, Black and Asian American voters.
Hicks said the polling will cost “multiple six figures” but did not specify the exact amount.
The first poll will be released on March 24, and then five additional surveys will come out every seven to 10 days until voters start receiving mail ballots in early May.
“We’re putting this forward to ensure everyone is armed with the information they need to clearly have an eyes-wide-open assessment of where the state of the race currently is between now and when ballots land in the mailboxes of voters,” Hicks said.
Politics
Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’
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President Donald Trump outlined five key items he believes will tip the upcoming midterm elections in the GOP’s favor — if Republicans can muscle them through Congress.
“No transgender mutilation surgery for our children,” Trump told an audience at the Republican Members’ Issues Conference. “Voter ID, citizenship [verification], mail-in ballots, we don’t want men playing in women’s sports.”
“It’s the best of Trump. Those are the best of Trump. This is the number one priority, it should be, for the House,” Trump said.
Trump’s exhortations to Republican lawmakers come as the GOP wages an uphill campaign to hang on to a controlling majority in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He framed his legislative priorities as a way for Republicans to capitalize on popular demands within the GOP base that would increase their chances of preserving a Republican governing trifecta.
President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Air Force One before departing Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, on March 1, 2026. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)
HOUSE REPUBLICANS PUSH ELECTION OVERHAUL WITH VOTER ID, MAIL-IN BALLOT CHANGES AHEAD OF MIDTERMS
Currently, Republicans hold just four more seats than Democrats in the House of Representatives.
The GOP holds six more than Democrats in the Senate.
To keep the numbers in their favor, Republicans will need to beat historical trends. In the vast majority of past cases, parties that capture the White House in presidential elections face blowback in the midterms. Notably, the last time a majority party gained seats in both chambers of Congress in the midterms came under the Bush administration in 2002, following devastating attacks on the World Trade Center.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, left, and President Donald Trump shake hands during an Invest America roundtable in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, on June 9, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
REPUBLICANS, TRUMP RUN INTO SENATE ROADBLOCK ON VOTER ID BILL
Trump said he believes Republicans have a shot at bucking the trend come November if they focus on his list.
“It’ll guarantee the midterms,” Trump said of his legislative priorities.
Republicans have already taken strikes towards two of them through the SAVE America Act, a piece of legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and cast a ballot. That bill cleared the House last month for a second time in the 119th Congress.
Its future is uncertain in the Senate, where Republicans would need the assistance of seven Democrats to overcome the 60-vote threshold to defeat a filibuster. Democrats, for their part, believe the legislation would disenfranchise voters who cannot readily provide documented proof of citizenship through a passport, REAL ID, or birth certificate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. has promised a vote on the package despite its long odds.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, talks with a guest during a “Only Citizens Vote Bus Tour” rally in Upper Senate Park to urge Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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Several members have introduced bills on transgender issues, although none of them have cleared either chamber.
“I’ve never been more confident that if we keep these promises and deliver on this popular agenda, the American people will stand with us in overwhelming numbers, just as they did in 2024,” Trump said.
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