After his whirlwind two-day visit to Ukraine, President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Russia and Ukraine retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg is within striking distance of sealing a rare-minerals agreement with the country under attack by Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. 

‘Minerals deal nearly done,’ a well-placed source told Fox News.  

The Ukrainian side made suggestions to the agreement text and sent it back to the American side, another source involved in the talks told Fox News.

Trump is seeking the rights to access Ukraine’s natural resources in exchange for the United States having provided billions of dollars in support for the Eastern European country against Russia’s invasion. Trump said on Friday that the mineral deal is ‘pretty close.’

The White House stresses that the deal would not be a guarantee of future aid for the war with Russia.

Ukraine has been engulfed in an existential war. Ukraine’s efforts to counter Russia’s occupation are viewed as a test case for free democratic nations to preserve the rule-based global order.

Kellogg visited wounded Ukrainian troops and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom he termed a ‘courageous leader.’ Trump, on the other hand, lashed out earlier this week at Zelenskyy, blasting him as ‘A Dictator without Elections.’

Trump walked back his comment on Friday that Russia did not invade Ukraine. He told Fox News Radio that Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

Rebekah Koffler, a former Defence Intelligence Agency officer, told Fox News Digital ‘The outcome of Trump’s play for the rare earth minerals is uncertain now, as the situation on the battlefield is by all means favouring Russia and on the diplomatic front, there are too many moving parts. It is the battle of the wills between the master of manipulation Putin and the master of the Art of the Deal, President Trump. And Zelenskyy is caught in the middle, just trying to survive, figuratively and literally.’

Koffler, who is the author of Putin’s Playbook and the host of the Trump’s Playbook podcast, warned about flaws in the minerals deal. ‘The problem is that a large share of these deposits is in Donbas, Eastern Ukraine, controlled by Russia. And Putin is acutely aware of Trump’s unconventional approaches to business deals. So, the Russian armed forces are now rushing to take over the Shevchenko region, containing Europe’s largest lithium deposits.’

Russia sent military forces into Ukraine nearly three years ago on February 24, 2022, to illegally absorb the independent nation into Russian territory. Russian forces have committed war crimes against Ukrainian citizens, according to UN experts.

Kellogg visited wounded Ukrainian troops at the Irpin Military Hospital. The New York Post’s Caitlin Doornbas accompanied Kellogg on his tour. She reported that Kellogg and Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A. Brink had visited the hospital on Friday ‘where Ukrainian troops with leg and arm amputations were receiving treatments and getting outfitted with prosthetics.’

The New York Post reported that Kellogg said ‘The biggest reason I wanted to come here was President Trump has said he wants to stop the killing, and you’ve got to go to the place where you see what killing looks like — what death looks like — and see young men and women who have been wounded and combat. As a soldier, you owe them that respect. As a leader, you owe that respect. And that’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here to do that, and this gives me an opportunity to see them.’

According to the Post, ‘Kellogg visited roughly 20 troops, sitting with each one and having individual discussions. One, named Andrii, had lost both legs, an eye, his hearing and suffered a traumatic brain injury.’ 

A Ukrainian soldier named Denis, according to the Post, asked Kellogg, ‘In your opinion, can we trust Russia? That they will negotiate?’ 

Kellogg responded ‘You almost have to look back in history, and you have to have an ability to negotiate. All wars end through negotiation, the ultimate victory on the battlefield ends with diplomacy, and today’s world is no different.’

The retired General continued, ‘I think a better question would be: Can you trust the people that you are with to make sure that they’re with you? It’s sort of like you ask a deeper question: Are you with us? And the answer is, yes, we are.’

Kellogg said, ‘I think the nations of the world recognize aggression. Sometimes diplomacy for a soldier is messy, but what the soldier does is he gives time for the politicians and the diplomats to come to a conclusion, and that’s the reason why I make that comment that Ukraine owes you — the world owes you — because you basically sacrifice to allow diplomats to find . . . a good conclusion — a conclusion you fought for. We, in that position, we owe you that. We need to make sure that we end this right.’

The death toll of the Ukraine-Russia war is stomach-turning. According to the Wall Street Journal, the number of dead and wounded—based on estimates in September — is nearly one million.

The wounded Ukrainian soldier, Denis, told Kellogg that Ukraine must have ‘a strong army,’ because he worried that after negotiations, it could be ‘five, maximum 10 years of peace, and then it could get back to the next phase of war,’ reported the Post.

Kellogg answered, ‘Well, I think the intent is there’ll be no next war.’

Kellogg also the visited the Irpin Bridge on Friday, the scene of a powerful setback for Russian jingoism. ‘Ukrainian soldiers blew up the bridge during Russia’s initial 2022 invasion, playing a key role in stopping Moscow’s advance toward Kyiv,’ wrote the Post.

Kellogg told the Post at the bridge, ‘I know how soldiers fight for freedom and the people fight for people. I know what I mean. Anybody who fought for freedom understands what they did. [Coming here] was just a chance to see one of the places that they fought and give them the respect that they deserve — their soldiers — and that’s why I wanted to come out to do it. That seems one of the things I can do, is just pass on my respects.

Kellogg added, ‘I know how soldiers fight for freedom, I know what that means. Anybody who fought for freedom understands what they did. [Coming here] was just a chance to see one of the places that they fought and give them the respect that they deserve — their soldiers.

The retired General paid tribute at the historic site to the soldiers who fought against Russian imperialism. 

He noted that ‘One thing that you can never really understand until you see it is the intangible heart [of soldiers] and what they showed here was heart. And that’s something you can’t measure. And that’s what really saved Ukraine. It wasn’t necessarily the weapons, it wasn’t necessarily the fact that the world was against Russia’s invasion — it was the fact that soldiers decided to fight for their country.’

Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin, NaNa Sajaia and Brie Stimson contributed to this report.

Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Liz Truss is ready to bring the ‘conservative revolution’ home from the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference, telling Fox News Digital her plan to ‘Make the West Great Again.’

World leaders took center stage at CPAC this week, telling the crowd of American conservatives they’re ready to see President Donald Trump’s agenda on the world stage. Truss, the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, said world leaders are envious of Trump’s second term and his Department of Government Efficiency. 

‘There’s a lot of momentum, and people are very envious of what’s happening in the U.S. We’d love to be able to get the truth from government departments about what’s actually being spent,’ Truss told Fox News Digital. 

Truss praised Elon Musk’s DOGE as a ‘playbook for what needs to happen’ in the United Kingdom, but she said that a DOGE UK would be unrealistic under Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s leadership. 

‘What Musk is doing, going straight to the payment system, is a fantastic idea that we need to adopt in Britain, but the reality is that is not going to happen under the current government, because the current government are part of the problem. They are defenders of the deep state. They’re not going to be investigating themselves. I think this is something that has to happen when there’s a change of government. We are watching very closely what Elon Musk is doing. It’s a fantastic playbook for what needs to happen in the U.K.’

DOGE’s revelations about America’s federal funding and the mass layoffs of government employees have shaken up Washington this past month. Truss said that Musk is even holding the British government accountable. 

‘Sometimes I say that Elon Musk is the leader of the opposition in Britain, because he’s the one actually on X, challenging Keir Starmer’s policies, talking about issues like the grooming gangs, the appalling gangs who have been raping girls as young as 12. It’s Elon Musk that’s been taking the fight to Keir Starmer,’ she said. 

Musk and Trump’s ability to seize the social media narrative and America’s growing independent media space inspired Truss to establish a ‘new free speech media network’ in the United Kingdom. 

‘We have a massive problem with free speech in Britain,’ Truss said. ‘People are being locked up for posts on Facebook and on X, which is extraordinary. We’re the country that invented freedom of the press back in 1695. It was almost 100 years before the First Amendment. And now we are, as a country, locking people up for saying things online.’ 

‘This needs to change. So, what I’m establishing is a new free speech media network, which will enable people in Britain to hear what is actually going on, and people across Europe to hear what’s going on.’ she continued. ‘I think that’s really important. If you look at the Trump revolution, independent media was a major part of that.’

Trump leaned on new media during his 2024 presidential campaign, posting TikTok videos from the campaign trail, spending nearly three hours with the widely popular podcaster Joe Rogan and using Truth Social as a direct line to his core base. 

Truss said that Trump is leading a ‘conservative revolution’ and attended CPAC this year to learn how she can model his American success back in the United Kingdom. 

‘What we’re seeing happening in America is a revolution. It’s a conservative revolution. All of the problems we have in our societies in the West, the leftist ideology that’s taken over, whether it’s wokeism or extreme environmentalism or anti-capitalism, all of those are being taken on by President Trump. And I want to see a similar revolution in Britain, which is why I’m here to learn about how they’re doing it, to talk about how we build that kind of movement in Britain,’ Truss said. 

The former prime minister said she agrees with Trump on ‘everything from deporting illegal migrants; to cutting taxes; to drill, baby, drill; to being clear that men can’t be in women’s bathrooms.’ She said Britain needs to implement these policies and fire the ‘permanent bureaucrats who are part of the problem.’

‘The big difference with Britain is our bureaucracy is more powerful than the American bureaucracy. Most people working in government are career bureaucrats, and that’s what I think we need to learn from America. We need to change,’ Truss added. 

Truss said she has had productive conversations with European and world leaders this week, strategizing about how to broaden their conservative coalition and create policies to bring energy prices down and boost the economy. Truss even said she had plans for a British CPAC. 

Truss resigned as British prime minister after 49 days in office in 2022 after her large tax cut plan destabilized the economy. She was one of three prime ministers in the United Kingdom within a four-month period in 2022. 

‘I recognize that, given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,’ Truss said in her resignation.

The United Kingdom’s current prime minister and leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, ended 14 consecutive years of Conservative party rule when he was elected in 2024. 

There is a UK DOGE movement gaining traction on social media for revealing wasteful British spending. The Procurement Files is an X account that combs through more than 300,000 contracts on the United Kingdom’s public government database to reveal mismanagement of British taxpayer money, much like the official US DOGE account does.

Nigel Farage, the Reform UK party leader who initiated Britain’s departure from the European Union, has explicitly called for a UK DOGE. Despite the discontent from conservative leaders on British government efficiency, the prime minister’s office said that it has created initiatives to cut government waste.

‘The Chancellor has asked all departments to deliver savings and efficiencies of 5% of their current budget as part of the first zero-based Spending Review in seventeen years,’ an HM Treasury spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

‘Every pound of government spending is being interrogated, to root out waste and get the best value for taxpayers as we deliver on their priorities set out in the Plan for Change. We have also created an Office for Value for Money that is underpinning our work driving out waste and inefficiency, alongside cutting out hundreds of millions of pounds worth of consultancy spending in government over the next few years,’ the spokesperson added. 

Sacked United States Agency for International Development (USAID) staffers left their Washington, D.C., offices for the last time on Friday, with some carrying boxes scrawled with messages that seemed to be directed at President Donald Trump, who is slashing the agency’s workforce.

Thousands of staffers were notified weeks ago of their pending dismissals, while a federal judge on Friday cleared the way for the Trump administration to follow through with the mass layoffs as it aims to eliminate waste throughout the federal bureaucracy.

‘We are abandoning the world,’ read one message on a box being hauled out by a grinning staffer as she walked out of USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs office.

Another smiling staffer’s box had a more upbeat tone, with her message reading: ‘You can take the humanitarians out of USAID but you can’t take the humanity out of the humanitarians.’

The staffers were greeted outside the offices by a small group of well-wishing supporters and former USAID workers who carried signs reading, ‘We love USAID’ and ‘Thank you for your service, USAID.’

Other workers were seen leaving the offices in tears.

The Trump administration plans to gut the agency and intends to leave fewer than 300 staffers on the job out of the current 8,000 direct hires and contractors. 

They, along with an unknown number of 5,000 locally hired international staffers abroad, would run the few life-saving programs that the administration says it intends to keep going for the time being.

USAID has come in for particular criticism under the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for alleged wasteful spending. 

For instance, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the Senate DOGE Caucus Chairwoman, recently published a list of projects and programs she says USAID has helped fund over the years, including $20 million to produce a Sesame Street show in Iraq. 

Several more examples of questionable spending have been uncovered at USAID, including more than $900,000 to a ‘Gaza-based terror charity’ called Bayader Association for Environment and Development and a $1.5 million program slated to ‘advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.’

Trump has moved to gut the agency after imposing a 90-day pause on foreign aid. He also has appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the acting director of USAID.

Government employee unions had sued to stop the mass layoffs, but U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols on Friday lifted a temporary restraining order he had issued at the outset of the case and declined to issue a longer-term order keeping the employees in their posts.

Nichols, who was appointed by President Trump during his first term, also wrote that because the affected employees had not gone through an administrative dispute process, he likely did not have jurisdiction to hear the unions’ case or consider their broader arguments that the administration is violating the U.S. Constitution by shutting down an agency created and funded by Congress.

The judge said the issue was jurisdictional, that federal district courts should not be involved at this stage, and that the matter should be handled administratively under federal employment laws.

‘In sum, because the Court likely lacks jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ claims, they have not established a likelihood of success on the merits,’ the judges ruling stated, in part.

‘The court concludes that plaintiffs have not demonstrated that they or their members will suffer irreparable injury absent an injunction; that their claims are likely to succeed on the merits; or that the balance of the hardships or the public interest strongly favors an injunction.’

The unions can now go to the Washington, D.C., federal appeals court for emergency relief to have the TRO put back into place, or possibly a preliminary injunction.

Fox News’ Bill Mears, Andrew Mark Miller, Aubrie Spady, Deirdre Heavey, Morgan Phillips and Emma Colton as well as Reuters contributed to this report.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) spent another week slashing hundreds of millions in spending by the federal government, while dodging various legal attempts to block its cost-cutting efforts.

Here are some of DOGE’s big wins this week:

1. Judge shoots down request to stop federal worker firings 

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, shot down a request from several federal labor unions, including the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), to pause the mass firings of federal workers by the Trump administration.

NTEU and four other labor unions representing federal employees filed a complaint Feb. 12 challenging the firing of probationary employees and the deferred resignation program, which gives workers the option to agree to work from an office or resign. 

Cooper denied the request to stop the firings, saying the court lacked jurisdiction over the unions’ claims.

Instead, Cooper ruled the unions must pursue their challenges through the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute, which provides for administrative review by the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

2. Judge says DOGE can keep digging

DOGE was handed another victory by U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who denied a request to issue a temporary restraining order preventing Musk and DOGE from accessing data systems at the Department of Education, Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Department of Labor, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Energy, Department of Transportation and Department of Commerce. 

The agencies were asking Chutkan to forbid both Musk and DOGE from terminating, furloughing or putting on leave any of their employees. 

Chutkin ruled that DOGE can continue to operate as it is now.

The judge also issued a court briefing schedule for plaintiffs and defendants to file motions for discovery, preliminary injunctions and dismissals, which stretches through April 22.

3. Judge allows DOGE access to data on 3 federal agencies

DOGE scored a win in court after a federal judge declined a request to temporarily block Elon Musk’s government efficiency team from accessing sensitive data from at least three federal agencies.

Unions and nonprofits attempted to stop Musk’s DOGE from accessing records at the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The efforts were blocked by District Judge John Bates, who wrote in an opinion that the government was likely correct in categorizing DOGE as an agency, thereby allowing it to detail its staff to other government departments. 

Musk praised the decision on X with the caption: ‘LFG,’ an abbreviation for ‘Let’s [expletive] go.’ 

4. DOGE finds a nearly untraceable budget line item responsible for $4.7T in payments

Earlier this week, DOGE announced it had discovered an identification code linking U.S. Treasury payments to a budget line item, which accounts for nearly $4.7 trillion in payments, that was oftentimes left blank.

‘The Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) is an identification code linking a Treasury payment to a budget line item (standard financial process),’ DOGE wrote in a post on X. 

‘In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible. As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going.’

The agency thanked the U.S. Treasury for its work in identifying the optional field.

According to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which is under the Treasury, TAS codes are used to describe any one of the account identification codes assigned by the Treasury and are also referred to as the ‘account.’

5. Caesars Palace, MLB stadium, an ice cream truck: DOGE reveals how schools spent billions in COVID relief funds

Schools spent hundreds of billions of COVID relief funds on expenses that had ‘little’ impact on students, such as Las Vegas hotel rooms and the purchase of an ice cream truck, according to the Trump administration’s cost-cutting department.

DOGE revealed Thursday that schools have spent nearly $200 billion in COVID relief funds ‘with little oversight or impact on students.’

Granite Public Schools in Utah spent COVID relief funds on $86,000 in hotel rooms at Caesars Palace, a ritzy Las Vegas Casino, while Santa Ana Unified spent $393,000 to rent a Major League Baseball stadium, according to a report by Parents Defending Education and shared by DOGE.

The cost-cutting department also revealed that schools spent $60,000 in COVID relief funds on swimming pool passes, while a California district used its funds to purchase an ice cream truck.

6. Hegseth working with DOGE to cut the ‘BS’

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is working with DOGE to make cuts within his department, saying he believes it will find waste ‘not core to our mission.’

‘They’re here, and we’re welcoming them,’ Hegseth said in a recent video released Thursday. ‘They’re going to have broad access, obviously, with all the safeguards on classification.

‘They care just like we do, to find the redundancies and identify the last vestiges of Biden priorities — the DEI, the woke, the climate change B.S., that’s not core to our mission, and we’re going to get rid of it all.’

Hegseth, who said many DOGE workers are veterans, met with Musk’s team and said they have already started their review of the Department of Defense.

7. DOGE uncovers over 4M government credit cards responsible for 90M transactions

DOGE revealed on Tuesday that the U.S. government has more than 4 million active credit cards on its books.

‘The US government currently has ~4.6M active credit cards/accounts, which processed ~90M unique transactions for ~$40B of spend[ing] in FY24,’ DOGE said in a post on X.

The cost-cutting department broke down multiple federal agencies and their credit card use, with the DOD leading the way in both the number of transactions, about 27.2 million, and the number of individual accounts, roughly 2.4 million.

Musk delivered a speech to conservatives Thursday in which he touted the accomplishments of DOGE and, at one point, stood on the stage holding a golden chainsaw given to him by Argentina’s President Javier Milei, symbolizing the cuts being made to government spending, to the delight of the crowd of conservatives at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland. 

‘We’re fighting Matrix big time here,’ Musk said. ‘It has got to be done.’

Fox News’ Alex Nitzberg, Emma Woodhead, Michael Lee, Greg Wehner, and Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.

Elon Musk’s remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday drew praise from those who were pleased with the cuts being made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

‘I wasn’t really that interested in being political. It’s just like there was at a certain point no choice,’ Musk said at the event in Maryland while wearing a black MAGA hat and sunglasses. ‘The actions that we’re taking, with the support of the president and the support of the agencies, is what will save Medicare, what will save Social Security.’

‘That’s the reason I’m doing this,’ he added. ‘Because I was looking at the big picture here, and it’s like, man, it’s getting out of control.’ 

‘A country is no different from a person,’ he continued. ‘[A] country overspends, a country goes bankrupt in the same way as a person who overspends usually goes bankrupt. So, it’s not optional to solve these things, it’s essential.’

Matthew Kochman, a New York Real Estate broker, said that DOGE cuts ‘probably saved the country from financial collapse.’ 

‘I thought it was all just common sense,’ Kochman said of Musk’s comments.

When attendees were asked about the proposal to use 20% of the money from the cuts across the board to go toward a stimulus check for American taxpayers, some raised questions about whether the funds should help pay down over $36 trillion in national debt. 

‘I’m not sure I agree with the sending money back. I would just assume money going to pay down our debt, because it is an existential threat,’ Angie Carrai, of Vienna, Virginia, said, adding that Musk’s comments have ‘tapped into what a lot of people feel’ about taxes being wasted on ‘ridiculous’ programs.

However, Kochman said he believes that taxpayers should get some of their money back but thinks it should also help pay off the debt.

Speaker Mike Johnson has also raised concerns about the pitch from Musk and Trump, saying that the United States needs to ‘pay down the credit card’ with the $2 trillion objective amount to be slashed through DOGE. 

Pat Dennis, President of the left-wing American Bridge 21st Century opposition research firm, told Fox News Digital after watching Musk’s remarks that he’s concerned about cuts to programs that benefit Americans.

‘He was talking about cutting programs that everyday Americans rely on, things like Medicaid,’ Dennis said. ‘The implication that massive percentages of these programs just can be unilaterally cut because they’re fraud is not real.’

‘People rely on these, voters rely on these, families rely on these, people in Republican districts rely on these,’ he added.

DOGE made headlines in recent weeks for taking aim at spending through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as well as grants doled out through various cabinet agencies. 

Fox News’ Peter Pinedo and Liz Elkind contributed to this report.