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Rubio carries anti-immigration message to Latin America in first trip overseas as Trump's top diplomat

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Rubio carries anti-immigration message to Latin America in first trip overseas as Trump's top diplomat

President Trump’s top diplomat makes his first trip overseas this weekend, heading to Central America to drive home the message that the U.S. expects cooperation in its mass deportation of immigrants.

But newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio will need to be careful to avoid alienating long-standing U.S. allies who say they are already taking a robust role in curbing illegal immigration and accepting deportees.

Panama, Rubio’s first stop late Saturday, is an especially delicate case.

Trump further complicated the immigration question by declaring he wants to seize the Panama Canal, the 50-mile waterway that connects the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and is a key instrument in international shipping that Panama has controlled for a quarter-century.

“This matter is closed,” Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said at a news conference this week. “The canal is Panama’s.”

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Mulino refused to contemplate any “process of negotiation” on the canal, which the U.S. ceded to Panama in 1999, ending a long-standing sore spot of U.S. colonization in Latin America.

For many Panamanians, the canal represents income, employment and identity. Last year, operation of the canal by an independent Panamanian commission contributed $2.4 billion to state coffers.

The canal “is an existential asset” for Panama, said John Feeley, former U.S. ambassador to Panama.

The waterway was cleaved across the most narrow section of the Panamanian isthmus in the late 1800s and early 1900s, by French and then U.S. engineers. Thousands of mostly Caribbean workers died from disease and accidents. Then-President Carter in 1977 signed a treaty giving control of the canal to take full effect two decades later.

In terms of seeking Panama’s cooperation on immigration, the Trump administration would be “knocking on an open door,” Feeley said, given Mulino’s eagerness to assist on the issue. But the canal is a different matter.

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“On America taking back the canal, that is not going to happen,” he said. “The only way … the United States will take back control of the canal is if there is another military invasion and occupation. And you show me, even among Trump voters, where the appetite for that is. I don’t think you can find it.”

But Trump claims Chinese influence over the canal now poses a threat to U.S. national security. Trump exaggerates that influence, experts say, but it is true that Chinese-controlled firms own part of a port and other assets. China throughout Latin America has made significant inroads in infrastructure and diplomacy, often taking advantage of U.S. inattention.

The canal is “no longer autonomous — they have to do whatever the [Chinese] government tells them,” Rubio said of the Panamanian administration of the canal during an interview with podcast host Megyn Kelly. “And if the government in China, in a conflict, tells them to shut down the Panama Canal, they will have to.”

He added: “So it’s a technicality, but in reality if China wanted to obstruct traffic in the Panama Canal, they could. … And I think the president’s been pretty clear he wants to administer the canal again.”

Rubio has to balance his boss’ demands with attempting to maintain good relations with countries that for the most part are loyal allies to the U.S., starting with Panama.

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“Panama has been very helpful in dealing with its border,” Trump’s special envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, said Friday in previewing Rubio’s trip.

Relations with Colombia have been more strained.

President Gustavo Petro for more than two years received hundreds of deportation flights from the U.S.

But Sunday he turned back two military flights in which migrants had been shackled. He said would continue to accept flights, but wanted “dignified conditions” for Colombian nationals.

Trump immediately threatened a 25% tariff on Colombian exports — mostly roses, coffee and oil — and prevented thousands of Colombians from obtaining visas to the United States.

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The two leaders quickly overcame the row and flights resumed. The Trump administration defended its aggressive approach.

“It sends a message that … there will be consequences,” Claver-Carone said.

Rubio will also travel to El Salvador and Guatemala. In El Salvador, Trump administration officials have praised President Nayib Bukele’s mass incarceration of suspected gang members. It is a system Bukele enacted by suspending his country’s constitution, prompting criticism from human rights groups. Trump administration officials cited it as a potential model for dealing with criminal migrants in the United States.

For the first time in modern history, the State Department is top-heavy with Latin America experts, starting with Rubio.

But Trump has singled a more transactional approach. A policy that for decades focused on the fortifying of democratic institutions and human rights will be replaced with rewards for cooperation on immigration, experts say.

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The traditional approach of demanding democracy in some ways gave an opening to China, which never made such demands. The U.S., in contrast to China, came with “a bunch of lessons and no goodie bags,” Ryan Berg, who heads the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, said in an interview.

Writing in Foreign Policy, Berg said: “Taking the region for granted as a sphere of U.S. influence has come at a high cost, creating a strategic vacuum in which China and lesser great power rivals have advanced their geopolitical aims with minimal pushback.”

Panama’s role in the immigration puzzle has been primarily to repatriate citizens from other countries who end up stranded in the country as they attempt to move northward. These include people from China, Sudan and other far-flung locations.

The Trump administration’s recent temporary freeze of some foreign aid also hurt Latin America, advocates say, crippling lifesaving food and heath programs.

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Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf

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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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KHANNA AND MASSIE THREATEN TO FORCE A VOTE ON IRAN AS PROSPECT OF US ATTACK LOOMS

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.

MASSIE, KHANNA TO VISIT DOJ TO REVIEW UNREDACTED EPSTEIN FILES

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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.

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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.

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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.

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California Democrats launch pricey polling effort to winnow crowded gubernatorial field

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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